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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#159277: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:40:47 AM

[up][up] Haley was alright-ish, but also got a fairly irrelevant position. Trump has typically been giving fairly minor positions out to establishment Republicans while the rest go to some combination of elite economic (directly rather than via allied lawmakers) interests and senior military personnel. Thinking like a dictator indeed.

edited 29th Nov '16 9:40:52 AM by CaptainCapsase

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#159278: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:40:56 AM

The one thing that struck out to me was Chao is Mc Connell's wife, but she also cut the number of coal mining inspectors sometime before a couple of collapses while under GWB, and is a contributor for Fox News.

One thing I can give her is she organized an orientation for spouses of Republican senators.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
TrashJack Confirmed Doomer from beyond the Despair Event Horizon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Confirmed Doomer
#159279: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:41:16 AM

[up][up][up] Figures. Republicans don't give a shit about non-rich people once they're actually born.

edited 29th Nov '16 9:42:00 AM by TrashJack

"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#159280: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:43:17 AM

[up][up][up] From what I can tell, under her leadership as Sec. of Labor, a lot of Coal Mining Regulations were cut, up to 14% of Mines weren't following the bare minimum of Safety Regulations, and 2 major Mine Collapses happened, resulting in at least 15 deaths.

Also, she's the wife of Mitch McConnell (yes, that McConnell). A nice thing I'm seeing though, is that a lot of Trumpicans are starting to wake up and realize that "Draining the Swamp" isn't happening. So that's something.tongue

edited 29th Nov '16 9:43:54 AM by DingoWalley1

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#159281: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:43:44 AM

Huh - if memory serves Trump's list of Supreme Court nominees was also filled with people that have relationships (either genetic or professional) with Republican congresscritters. I wonder if this is a more general thing.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#159282: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:46:14 AM

[up] Giving appointments to political allies isn't especially unusual, nor is giving appointments to allies of powerful interests. Appointing those interests directly to cabinet positions in such large numbers is what's alarming about the pattern of his picks. If nothing else, the fact that virtually every foreign policy position besides maybe Secretary of State appears to be going to senior military personnel kind of undermines civilian control of the military.

edited 29th Nov '16 9:46:58 AM by CaptainCapsase

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#159283: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:54:18 AM

Not only that, but senior military personnel with numerous black marks in their records, up to and including Michael Flynn who appears to get his foreign policy data from Infowars.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#159284: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:55:18 AM

"Infowars" sounds like a shitty edutainment PC game from the 90s.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#159285: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:58:59 AM

If only...

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#159286: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:59:32 AM

One of the biggest problems with Breitbart and to a lesser extent Infowars is that there's a fair amount of perfectly legitimate reporting strewn in among the absolute horseshit, which gives them a veneer of legitimacy.

edited 29th Nov '16 10:02:36 AM by CaptainCapsase

LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#159287: Nov 29th 2016 at 9:59:54 AM

Micheal Flynn who also spends a great deal of his spare time being a special guest on Russian state media.

Oh really when?
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159288: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:02:04 AM

I'm going to suggest that we stay a way from the Roman comparisons.

Rome and its Republic have been, historically speaking, common reference points for US politics, not only by commentators but, as Mad Skillz pointed out, the Founding Fathers themselves, concerned citizens such as John Wilkes Booth and others invoked the Roman references. And they do that, because of a major historiographical error and it is interesting to consider the implications of that glorification of the Roman Republic. When the Confederacy invoked Lucan's Pharsalia, "The victors cause favored the gods/the losers' cause favored Cato" and put that line (in original Latin) on cemeteries, you can't say its not relevant. And let's remember that the historiographical error of the Lost Cause resulted in a propaganda campaign more successful than anything in the USSR, it lasted more than a hundred years and was reified by many useful idiots like D. W. Griffith and David O. Selznick. And of course it resulted as Ida B. Wells and W. E. B. Dubois and many others have documented...in the loss of actual lives, in the hundreds and thousands.

As for whether dictatorships are bad...they absolutely are. Yes, we, as nations, have a bad habit of supporting one dictator against another, but that hypocrisy doesn't change the reality that dictatorship as a general rule is a bad thing.

If you take that attitude you are condemning a good portion of the global population at present and for most of the 20th Century as being victims, which is not a healthy, useful and accurate attitude. These days, a lot of people are nostalgic for Saddam Hussein, since he didn't wreck up the Middle East the way Bush the Second did.

From a point of view global international relations, Good Republic, Evil Empire is not a useful attitude to have:

->You can have the most brutal muderous society internally but it wouldn't be a threat outside. Through history, there has been no correlation between the internal freedom of a society and its violence and aggression abroad. For example, England was the freest country in the world in the 19th Century, yet in India they acted like the Nazis did. The United States is, politically...the most open and freest society in the world and it also has the record for the record for the most brutal violence and aggression in the world. Now these things are just uncorrelated.
Noam Chomsky, explaining why this trope is not necessarily true.

Human rights violations in democracies, conversely, are not a part of the system, but something imposed upon it.

The US Constitution had a 3/5ths clause, essentially defining slaves as...untermenschen. It accepted slavery and built many institutions including the Electoral College around that, as many have pointed out. Apartheid South Africa was a republic that accommodated similar distinctions and that was in the 20th Century and during the Cold War, and against that Republic and its expansionism, Castro started to look like a hero. The US Constitution from a modern perspective would be considered to have violated human rights from the beginning. Now of course you bring all the amendments and you can even say, that America became a true democracy from the American Civil War onward...a position I am sympathetic to.

At which point one's definition and defense of democracy becomes a question about the system's ability to change and accept reforms which to me is the best and most truthful position to take but to say that a republic is inherently morally superior or that the worst republic is better than a dictator, to me that is contrary to history and plainly not supported by actual empirical evidence.

NoName999 Since: May, 2011
#159289: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:02:58 AM

So at this rate, it seems more and more likely that losing the Cold War was in fact part of a Batman Gambit that rivals the term of convolution and luckiness like The Light

tricksterson Never Trust from Behind you with an icepick Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Never Trust
#159290: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:04:02 AM

Congratulations "Hillary is too corrupt to be President" voters! You've helped elect what's promising to be the most corrupt administrant since Grant. With the added cherry on top that at least Grant himself wasn't corrupt, nor did he have the temperament of a spoiled 10-year old.

edited 29th Nov '16 10:04:49 AM by tricksterson

Trump delenda est
JulianLapostat Since: Feb, 2014
#159291: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:06:34 AM

The corruption of President Grant's admiration was itself highly exaggerated and distorted by Lost Cause historians...to them Grant's enforcement of Reconstruction was part of "his corruption". I am not kidding when I call the Lost Cause a more successful propaganda campaign than anything in USSR, it has actively distorted and undermined facts and created many myths...some not related to slavery.

Ronald Reagan's administration was far more corrupt...

edited 29th Nov '16 10:07:27 AM by JulianLapostat

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#159292: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:13:23 AM

[up]+[up][up] I would argue Warren G. Harding's Administration was the most Corrupt Administration the USA had.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#159293: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:13:54 AM

As far as "what does the democratic party do now", I think there's been a fair amount of people talking past each other when it comes to the matter of whether the democrats need to make more universal appeals rather than micromanagement strategically important demographics. The double meaning that terms like "identity politics", "political correctness" and so on have across the political spectrum certainly hasn't helped matters, and I definitely feel at times like we're having two completely different conversations in parallel rather than having a proper debate.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#159294: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:15:32 AM

They need to focus in on swing states and actually sell their message to the public, for Presidential races. But most importantly, they need to start taking down ballot races seriously.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
TerminusEst from the Land of Winter and Stars Since: Feb, 2010
#159295: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:17:03 AM

@ No Name:

Funnily enough, there is a conspiracy theory (possibly by one of the Societ defectors?) that the KGB had a master plan. Basically, the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union would be used to reinstate it in another form.

edited 29th Nov '16 10:17:56 AM by TerminusEst

Si Vis Pacem, Para Perkele
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#159296: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:17:20 AM

[up][up] Well yeah, that's probably the most pivotal, but certain people take that to mean that we're proposing outright abandoning minorities or social justice issues, which isn't the case at all.

edited 29th Nov '16 10:17:25 AM by CaptainCapsase

Gilphon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#159297: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:18:45 AM

Surely 'taking the down ballot races seriously' goes without saying. Like, the alternative right now is 'completely ignore the 2018 midterms' which is not something anyone thought they'd do.

CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#159298: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:20:26 AM

[up] It's not just 2018, the democrats need to start looking more at sub-federal positions and governors, where they are extremely weak outside of a few states.

edited 29th Nov '16 10:20:35 AM by CaptainCapsase

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#159299: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:22:59 AM

[up]x4 All According to Plan.

edited 29th Nov '16 10:23:18 AM by kkhohoho

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#159300: Nov 29th 2016 at 10:23:15 AM

The message is mostly fine, they just need to work on getting it to people.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

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