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

​

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/

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

It's not just about American companies selling products within the states, but getting foreign companies to start manufacturing products in the US to avoid tariffs.

The challenge is if the incremental cost of producing in the US is higher than the tariff rate, they won't do it. Foreign governments may also subsidize their increased costs through retaliatory tariffs on US exports so that the impact of the tariff is neutralized. There are a lot of risks with this approach as it backfired badly when the US used to do this up until the 1970s.

You also have the problem that domestic automakers can now raise prices themselves and generate free profit. There's no incentive not to.

 

[Thomas Talus]

There is a homeless muppet thing now

Oscar has been there since the first episode in 1969.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

Oscar has been there since the first episode in 1969.

somewhere along the way people forgot that things representing things didn't have to literally them wearing a t-shirt saying I AM THIS THING and you were supposed to put shit together, like what the weird cranky asshole who talks to himself and lives in the garbage was supposed to be in the urban environment

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Mississippi Legislature Eliminates State Income Tax

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/7ZMnq

Saw the headline, thought it was pretty cool. Read the article, now I'm not sure if it is fake and gay.

The new law put Mississippi on a path to become the first state to eliminate an existing income tax, per the Associated Press. The measure reduces the tax over time, dropping .25 percent annually starting in 2027. Once the rate reaches 3 percent in 2031, further reductions must be offset by “growth triggers” to ensure the state has adequate resources to operate.

They do abut one state with no income tax (Tennessee) and are really close to another (Florida). We shall see.

 

[Betonhaus]

https://newrepublic.com/post/193301/trump-confederate-statues-anti-american-ideology-order

https://archive.is/ha4Y6

Trump Brings Back Confederate Statues in One of His Most Racist Orders​

Donald Trump has signed an executive order to get rid of “anti-American ideology.”​

Donald Trump is bringing Confederate statues back.
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity in America” that instructs Vice President JD Vance to terminate any activity he sees as “anti-American ideology” from the nation’s cultural institutions like the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo. The order will “prohibit funding for exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race, or promote ideologies inconsistent with Federal law; and celebrate women’s achievements in the American Women’s History Museum and do not recognize men as women.”
But hidden in the order—and missing from most headlines—is one other big change: The Secretary of Interior is to “determine whether, since January 1, 2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties within the Department of the Interior’s jurisdiction have been removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology.”
In other words, statues of treasonous Confederate generals like Robert E. Lee and Albert Pike will soon be returning. Their statues were removed nationwide after the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
The order goes on to target the African American history museum in particular for allegedly promoting the idea that “American and Western values are harmful.”
“The National Museum of African American History and Culture has proclaimed that ‘hard work,’ ‘individualism,’ and ‘the nuclear family’ are aspects of ‘White culture,’” the order reads, referring to an NMAAHC online graphic that was posted four years ago and quickly removed, not a literal exhibit in the museum.
But the truth doesn’t matter here. Trump is appealing to the most hardcore white nationalist wing of his base by turning lauded cultural centers that raise questions and critiques of our society into spaces that blindly “celebrate American greatness.”
“Attacking the idea that telling the whole story of the United States is an ideological plot to cast the United States in a negative light testifies to a stunningly brittle insecurity about our nation and its past,” Georgetown University history professor Chandra Manning told The Washington Post. “It seems to suggest that if we allow anyone to hear the whole story of challenges that Americans have overcome, our nation will shatter. The American people are not so fragile as all that.”

ignore the seething of the article

 

[Hunter Hearst Helmsley]

Returning to how it always was before our universally recognized as miserable current year = anti-American.

 

[Null]

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

 

[GamerGateSurvivor]

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

Because the shitflinging here is so retarded it needs to be recorded for all posterity.

 

[he who has thus come/gone]

I'm all for union reform. Something like the Histadrut in Israel would be great. A national union to make sure everyone is being treated well. Our unions are already crawling with CIA, might as well make it a nationalized program.

I don't think anyone has a problem with traditional unions. Groups of people engage in hard labor that can ruin their bodies, and they band together to ensure they're not being taken advantage of by their employer. That's understandable.

There are two problems with the landscape of modern unionization. One, unionization creates a tradeoff—prices for the end-product go up, efficiency of the workplace goes down, etc. in exchange for introducing safeguards and certain conditions for the employees. That impacts consumers negatively in private industries. But when it comes to public unions, the consumer is the public at large. The result is a depreciation in public services. It's no longer that your steel beams cost a bit more in exchange for a unionized workforce, it's that your kid's education is worse. Your roads are built slower. Your documents get processed more slowly and with more errors. Public unions directly hurt the public, and there's no way to avoid it. Everybody hates this and doesn't believe a schoolteacher should be able to wield their students' educational progress as a weapon to get more vacation time.

The second problem is the extension of unions into non-blue collar sectors. People understand unions in industries where a beam can fall on you, crush your legs, and your employer fires you and leaves your household destitute. That accords with most people's moral sensibilities and people are okay paying a bit more as a consumer so that doesn't happen. But when it comes to Starbucks baristas, graduate students at Ivy League universities, and paper pushers, it's pushing the bounds of believability to argue they need the protections of a union. Baristas aren't risking life and limb to support a household, nor are graduate students destroying their bodies while risking a freak accident leaving them unable to work for the rest of their lives. When these relatively pampered sectors start crying about unionization, it just turns poisons the entire concept.

Combined, these problems mean that the face of modern unions are people who sit in a chair in an air conditioned building all day, directly endangering public goods which taxpayers are entitled to, in exchange for benefits that do not traditionally accord with the risks that blue collar workers suffer in the workplace. Teachers refusing to go to teach their classes at your local public school because they want an extra benefit is not the same as iron miners striking for health insurance coverage in the event that they become disabled from a mine accident. Graduate students at private universities waving picket signs in front of their marble building because they want more money while writing their dissertations is not the same as railroad workers preventing access to commercial terminals until they get assurance they won't be worked 16 hours a day.

Most people intuitively know this. Democrats and leftists don't get it at all.

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

A large and busy thread is a permanent monument to the retardation and/or glory that is America. A chat that goes away is ephemeral and fleeting, like the idea of Canada.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

View attachment 7154692

What's interesting is if you watch old Sesame Street videos, there actually is a clear difference in tone. Also not wrong about the agenda in it, tbqh.

Also as someone working in IT I understand the need to streamline things but it gives me PTSD flashbacks to bosses getting rid of backups because they cost money but when things are down they get upset at the backups being gone. I can do nothing but pray that they are keeping this in mind and only getting rid of the unneeded redundancy.

 

[Fuck Bankers]

There's already a decent amount of Japanese auto manufacturing in the US, and as far I know they're mostly non-union. They usually avoid unionization by building plants in rural areas where the cost of living is lower, so they can pay decent but not exorbitant wages, while just not treating employees like shit

I have first hand experience. Those Japanese auto manufacturers do in fact treat their workers like shit. Mandatory 70 hour work weeks at $17 an hour.

@he who has thus come/gone
White collar workers can be abused. When I talk about a nationalized union, I mean workers in private businesses and the public sector are apart of an organization that represents their interests.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

Because chat is only used by retards. And everyone in this thread is clearly a genius.

 

[Betonhaus]

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

I avoided that chat function because it killed my phone's battery life and I was so grateful when it was finally removed from being on and active on every single fucking page. I never noticed the politisperging chat got removed, but it wasn't really a good way to find useful information or relevant opinions. We still get bullshit here, but there's better discussion.

I have first hand experience. Those Japanese auto manufacturers do in fact treat their workers like shit. Mandatory 70 hour work weeks at $17.

is that better or worse then Japanese employees at any other company, considering that in rural environments the cost of living is cheaper and there's elderly neighbours to help with matchmaking and rasising children?

 

[DOUBLE_WHEEL]

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

All chatniggers are godless homosexual communists. Good Americans like those in this thread know that God intended posts to be etched forever upon digital marble so that we can be judged for their content upon death.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

Protesters now being exclusively boomers over 60

I've come to the realization that the boomers are just being the hippie menace again. Now that pot is legal in most states (after decades of boomers throwing people in prison for smoking it) they can relive their early 20s by smoking pot and annoying the fuck out of normal people. Normally I'm not one to torment and harass the elderly but we might have to make an exception.

 

[TenMilesWide]

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

in live chats if something was said more than a few seconds ago I feel like a retard for scrolling up and responding to it, harder to follow conversations.

 

[Back me up!]

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

You can actually spend time to read a thread instead of having chat zip by.

Its like asking while Kiwifarms users like having a forum compared to having a discord. Chat sucks, forum post at least have a bit of a level of thought (with the rules at least) and can be read at leisure.

 

[Fuck Bankers]

is that better or worse then Japanese employees at any other company

Why should Americans have to live like bugmen?

considering that in rural environments the cost of living is cheaper

Affordable housing in Middleton Ohio. Just $216,000.

and there's elderly neighbours to help with matchmaking and rasising children?

You think boomers are going to help you get pussy? Or help you watch your kids? For free? They're either: on drugs, working at walmart, or so rich they're on a cruse half the year. Not to mention how are you supposed to find a woman when you're working 70 hours a week.

 

[Wash away the rain]

this is the single busiest thread on the site, but the chat we had for politisperging was never used. why is that?

People prefer to have more permanent and long form discussion on these topics then a chat typically implies.

 

[Hey Johnny Bravo]

The challenge is if the incremental cost of producing in the US is higher than the tariff rate, they won't do it. Foreign governments may also subsidize their increased costs through retaliatory tariffs on US exports so that the impact of the tariff is neutralized. There are a lot of risks with this approach as it backfired badly when the US used to do this up until the 1970s.

You also have the problem that domestic automakers can now raise prices themselves and generate free profit. There's no incentive not to.

This is correct. I'm in favor of tariffs as a pressure tactic for getting countries like Mexico to do more about drug cartels (as an example), but it doesn't work out economically in the long-term or with a country that goes "yeah well fuck you, too."

EU countries are encouraged to comply because there's a huge market in the US for their advanced products. China won't buy AstraZeneca's new drugs when they can buy Aurobindo's version made in India. China won't buy the EU's lithium ion batteries because they have a giant domestic industry for it. However, if ze Germans are willing to dig in and wait for Trump to leave, tariffs are a problem.

Trump is fucked if the economy slumps.