US US Politics General 2 - Discussion of President Trump and other politicians

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Should be a wild four years.

Helpful links for those who need them:

Current members of the House of Representatives
https://www.house.gov/representatives

Current members of the Senate
https://www.senate.gov/senators/

Current members of the US Supreme Court
https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx

Members of the Trump Administration
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/
 
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Good God almighty this thread is ridiculously fast. Skimming highlights when I can and I'm still 100 pages behind.

All I want to say right now is it is extremely amusing seeing leftists/"communists" seethe about stock prices and free trade. If Hitler rose from his grave tomorrow and said "Trump bad" they'd use that as flak too. Clown people.
 
So let me get this straight. Democrats, people who spend millions on think tanks and media experts, think the following will work for them:
Seems Democrats have learned absolutely nothing from all those craptacular fails that led to Trump getting elected in the first place. And it looks more like doubling down.
 
Nope. Not at all. Let’s say you have a Chinese company that makes cheap Chinese toys. Each toy costs about $1 to make but is priced $5 for retail. If a 25% tariff is added, the Chinese company would still want their cheap Chinese toys to be cheaper than American toys, so they would just let the tariff eat into their profit margin.
yes and no. some chinese manus are likely to move production or ship to a sea country for final export with fake papers to avoid tarriffs, others will keep their prices and the importer will pass the cost to customers. importers may source productions from non chinese countries to avoid tarriffs. But somethings arent made in china like beer/spirit distilleries which are made in the eu. ofc there are solutions such as buying used equipment or cooperative purchases to get discounts on large orders.
 
The GNP of the US tripled under the McKinley tariffs as we created numerous new industries. Also, that increase was real, unlike a lot of today’s “growth”, because the Federal Reserve didn’t exist back then.
Trump made the argument in his speech that the tariffs he has introduced are juxtaposed against international trade that already involves huge tariffs against us or nations that outright block our sales of important goods. It's a good piece in the larger argument for or against tariffs that doesn't get enough air time. Usually tariff criticism amounts to something like:
-tariffs historically always bad, therefore tariffs bad (limited evidence given if any)
-Trump is starting trade wars

Essentially his argument that he reiterated in his speech is that the global trade economy has a lot of people with a lot of fingers on the scale, and it's our turn to stop bending over and accepting that and to start putting an equal number of fingers on the scale to bolster domestic goods and manufacturing.

He even admitted there would probably be hardship, although Democrats are fair to criticize that he downplayed it (probably one of their only good criticisms of the night), but I prefer he keeps that real, whereas a Democrat president would just change definitions and how data is gathered to tell you that the economy is great and thanksgiving dinner is getting cheaper.
 
Considering one of the big takes from democrats online I've seen since last night is that the dems in the chamber should have stood and been removed/walked out, one at a time, after Al Green was removed, making the speech unwatchable for the American viewer, somehow I think their messaging and optics was a little off last night.
It's why i been seeing them get called cowards on reddit and even twitter. They're so delusional that they think al greene's gonna get murdered for embarrassing himself. They keep bringing up MTG for doing something similar to biden years ago. They complained that she didn't get escorted out for it. she was retarded for that, but who's fault was it for not stopping her for making ass of herself then and how is it relevant to what happened now when al kept trying to stop trump from finishing his speech????
 
The Democrats, any Democrat, had a golden opportunity to stand up last night and cheer while Trump announced "no tax on overtime and tips", or the even the cop cancer kid, or anything else that was a no-brainer to cheer for.

If like Fetterman, or any other Dem, had done that, they would've shown themselves to be the lone sane Democrat that all the hordes of disenchanted and disgusted Dem voters could rally behind come the midterms, and finally vote to get some sanity back in their party.

It was a perfect opportunity for a Dem politician to stand above the swamp of lunacy that was the Democrats at that address, and declare "Fuck the rest of these lunatics! Vote for me and end this crazy shit!"

But, of course, it didn't happen.

Because the DNC is solid, 24-carat lunatics, and nobody is crawling out of that swamp.
 
It's why i been seeing them get called cowards on reddit and even twitter. They're so delusional that they think al greene's gonna get murdered for embarrassing himself. They keep bringing up MTG for doing something similar to biden years ago. They complained that she didn't get escorted out for it. she was retarded for that, but who's fault was it for not stopping her for making ass of herself then and how is it relevant to what happened now when al kept trying to stop trump from finishing his speech????
I don't think even Republicans at the time would have argued against the Speaker throwing out a cheeky threat to eject her after that charade. Or did that happen? It's been so long. Regardless, Mr. Green fucked around and then didn't comply for whatever #resist shit he wanted to embody, and the Speaker made it clear he needed to sit down and stop shaking his cane like he's about to pull a Preston Brooks on the president, so out he goes.
 
@Gehenna after tonight's speech, do you have any insight you could add pertaining to Republicans in Congress working on getting stuff done to accomplish Trump's plans or anything like that? I guess I don't really know what specific question I'm wanting to ask of you, but you always seem like the guy who knows what's going on behind the scenes.
You want an update? The update is "Fuck the 'Freedom Caucus'". They are trying to hold any bill hostage unless Johnson gives them all sorts of pie-in-the-sky shit that will never pass the Senate and will serve no purpose but to hand the Democrats easy wins.
 
The Democrats, any Democrat, had a golden opportunity to stand up last night and cheer while Trump announced "no tax on overtime and tips", or the even the cop cancer kid, or anything else that was a no-brainer to cheer for.

If like Fetterman, or any other Dem, had done that, they would've shown themselves to be the lone sane Democrat that all the hordes of disenchanted and disgusted Dem voters could rally behind come the midterms, and finally vote to get some sanity back in their party.

It was a perfect opportunity for a Dem politician to stand above the swamp of lunacy that was the Democrats at that address, and declare "Fuck the rest of these lunatics! Vote for me and end this crazy shit!"

But, of course, it didn't happen.

Because the DNC is solid, 24-carat lunatics, and nobody is crawling out of that swamp.
More like Dems have always been crabs in a bucket and if any of them stood up and cheered for ANYTHING not only would all the blackmail the party had on them immediately be 'discovered' but they would also be relentlessly attacked by every single Dem til they were out of a job or worse
 
The Democrats, any Democrat, had a golden opportunity to stand up last night and cheer while Trump announced "no tax on overtime and tips", or the even the cop cancer kid, or anything else that was a no-brainer to cheer for.

If like Fetterman, or any other Dem, had done that, they would've shown themselves to be the lone sane Democrat that all the hordes of disenchanted and disgusted Dem voters could rally behind come the midterms, and finally vote to get some sanity back in their party.

It was a perfect opportunity for a Dem politician to stand above the swamp of lunacy that was the Democrats at that address, and declare "Fuck the rest of these lunatics! Vote for me and end this crazy shit!"

But, of course, it didn't happen.

Because the DNC is solid, 24-carat lunatics, and nobody is crawling out of that swamp.
The DNC all but or outright picks the nom for Democrats. If you do something to piss them off it won’t matter what the voters think.
 
I don't think even Republicans at the time would have argued against the Speaker throwing out a cheeky threat to eject her after that charade. Or did that happen? It's been so long. Regardless, Mr. Green fucked around and then didn't comply for whatever #resist shit he wanted to embody, and the Speaker made it clear he needed to sit down and stop shaking his cane like he's about to pull a Preston Brooks on the president, so out he goes.
From what i learned, MTG didn't keep going like green did. He wouldn't shut up after he did his little interruption
 
More like Dems have always been crabs in a bucket and if any of them stood up and cheered for ANYTHING not only would all the blackmail the party had on them immediately be 'discovered' but they would also be relentlessly attacked by every single Dem til they were out of a job or worse
The DNC all but or outright picks the nom for Democrats. If you do something to piss them off it won’t matter what the voters think.

True.

Maybe the strategy would be to "pull a Gabbard" and use the Dem's tossing you out of the bucket to land a nice spot over on the other side of the aisle?
 
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No tax on tips, SSI and overtime and they just couldn't clap even if it's something their party would've loved back in the day.

Literally the most pro-worker shit I've ever heard of in a long time and they just had to keep up the act.
Watching the Democrats I realized Trump could literally have declared he was going to have the government pay for free full healthcare for all Americans and pay for it by raising taxes on the rich to 60% rates and they wouldn't have clapped.

2; repeal planned obsolescence, bring back cars that live for 20-30 years
Sligjt correction though...unlike most consumer products made 50-100 years ago, cars were only made to last a few years. Old cars were notorious for being junk after 50k miles up until the 90s or so. 100 years ago, you needed to be a minor mechanic to just operate a car, adjusting the engine, topping off the water and oil. Junkyards in the 20s were already full of broke cars. In the 50s and 60s, if your car had over 40k miles, it was time for a new one, which is why so many Boomers have fond memories of driving "junker" or jalopy classic cars that were from like 1963 when they were teens in 1968. 70s-80s cars would rust out after a couple years.

Contrast that to today where a car with 80,000 miles is just getting started if you change the oil every 10k (3k was probably not good enough in 1955). People are driving 8-10 year old cars like they're brand new.

This doesn't hold true for a toaster from 1940 or a fridge from 1970 which could work for decades. Hell, I have a clock radio with wood grain in my bedroom from 1984 which works perfectly fine.
 
So far I'll say this is the highlight lol. There's a lot of great moments just 30 minutes in, it might take awhile to get them collated. At timestamp right at 30min

It's fun re-living the moment Trump hits at all the roots that has kept the establishment wealthy. They, both Democrats and Republicans, have been literally nickle and diming the entirety of the USA to death. Lobbyists will hopefully drain their pools, malicious charities and non profits will no longer be able to produce propaganda shit at a break neck pace, but most importantly in my opinion, the money laundering operation ends.
 
yes and no. some chinese manus are likely to move production or ship to a sea country for final export with fake papers to avoid tarriffs, others will keep their prices and the importer will pass the cost to customers. importers may source productions from non chinese countries to avoid tarriffs. But somethings arent made in china like beer/spirit distilleries which are made in the eu. ofc there are solutions such as buying used equipment or cooperative purchases to get discounts on large orders.
Are you a bar wench?

STOP CLEANING THE LINES WITH VINEGAR, IDC IF THE IPA HIPSTERS SAY THEY CANT TASTE IT BECAUSE THEY CANT TASTE ANYTHING ANYWAYS
 
True.

Maybe the strategy would be to "pull a Gabbard" and use the Dem's tossing you out of the bucket to land a nice spot over on the other side of the aisle?
Keep running as a democrat forcing them to split their funding attacking you and the Republicans and MAGA. Steal as much local funding and support as you can from the other democrats and refuse to donate it to the party when you lose instead rolling it over into 2 years from now.
 
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Sligjt correction though...unlike most consumer products made 50-100 years ago, cars were only made to last a few years. Old cars were notorious for being junk after 50k miles up until the 90s or so
Idk where you’re from, but in 2005 I was driving an 85 Caprice Classic with a v8, rear wheel drive and steel body panels

Cars today use insane amounts of plastic, like even my favorite car design of all time, the BMW 3 series E46 chassis, uses a pressurized coolant system with a plastic reservoir. It’s guaranteed to fail because plastic becomes brittle over time.

In engineering, there’s a concept called “wear parts.” Wherever two parts come together in motion, one has to be of less hardness than the other. You choose one to wear out and be replaced occasionally, and ideally that’s the easier part to change.

In continually variable transmissions, you have two pulleys that look like a yo-yo squeezing a chain belt to change the effective “gear ratio” without gears. You’d think a belt would be easier to replace, right? But the belt isn’t the wear part. They tear apart the pulleys that hold them, making CVT’s guaranteed to fail

Also, FYI, the term “planned obsolescence” comes from 1930’s England, where it was proposed as a means to escape the Great Depression.
 
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