The Trump Presidency

Most dementia patients can function normally in the early stages of the disease without much alarm. The question is how fast will it progress and can we survive his descent before he is removed from office.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Yes, I don't name it a serious opposition if there was even a majority of Democrats voting for it in the Senate. No doubt, they there much more against the Iraq war in comparison with Republicans. And the enormous 63% favorable about Trump in NYT given by your source have not survived a simple check I have made here.

Given that they conflict only with your claims about reality, which are usually unsupported by any evidence, I have a lot more choices, beginning with simply ignoring such unsupported claims as irrelevant.

They share with delusions only that they do not really exist. I had fears about a Clinton presidency, which would, in my expectation, lead to a serious increase of the probability of a nuclear war. It would remain small even with Clinton, but given the horrible consequences, even a small probability would be horrible enough.

If you would really want to help me to correct what you think are my errors, you are welcome. But in this case, I would recommend you to change your style of discussion completely.

Read, for example, some original texts of serious scientific controversies of the past, say, from the last two centuries, and follow the basic rules of behavior in such controversies you can extract from them.

Alternatively: Stop any claims about what I think IYO. Instead, whenever you think some claim I make is wrong, simply quote this claim. Then, give your counterargument against this claim. There is no necessity at all to add comments about my stupidity or so believing such nonsense or other remarks about me. The quote contains already my name, that's enough. Then, stop all those methods of argumentation which I have criticized in the denial thread as totalitarian. This starts with the use of the word "denial", because it is a moral condemnation, which is inappropriate if we argue about different claims about facts. Then, don't try to identify the sources I have used to form my position - it does not matter. If you would really want to "recover blindsided", you would anyway have to handle those "blindsided" and trusting those evil sources. So, the source is simply irrelevant for the argument. Care only about the content.

If you follow this prescription, you will easily observe that confronting my quote with your counterargument is not that easy - that what your counterargument may be somehow relevant, but is not exactly a counterargument against my quote, but only close. Acutally, you simply write: "You claim X, which is horrible nonsense because of Y". This would not work, because what I say is X'. My answer is, naturally, that this is a lie. The reasonable way to reply, making the same argument, would be: You quote my X'. Then, write: "This sounds like you think X. But that would be wrong because of Y". I probably would not even object, beyond a "No, I do not think X, instead, X'' would be more accurate."

I read your questions, but don't understand why they are written in a response to me, and what they have to do with the quoted text. I'm neither anti-success nor anti-wealth, and do not think they lead to corruption. The word "unconscionable" I had to translate.

Corruption is a much greater problem in poor countries, where even policemen and bureaucrats cannot really live from their wages.

What creates corruption on the top level is big central power. Because the worth of the decision made by some state bureaucrat (and, therefore, what is worth to pay him as a bribe) is proportional to the population which is affected by the decision, but the wage is not proportional. But, roughly, if you accept a bribe or not depends on the relation between the bribe and the legal wage. I doubt there are many people who reject a bribe worth 100 years of the own wage. So, the power to make a decision relevant for 300 m US citizens, instead of only 3,000 of your village, increases the bribes you will be offered by a factor of 100 000. But not your wage. It may increase by some factor between 10 or 100 or so. So, decentralization essentially decreases the danger of top level corruption.

Instead, for the democratic vote other effects work. In your village, as one of the say 2000 voters it makes a lot of sense to make a good choice how to vote. Because your vote counts. And if you care, and discuss your arguments with others, you can influence the vote of many other people, sufficient to decide the elections. In the US, how you and your friends vote is essentially irrelevant. You may participate in discussions, and vote, but both forms of behavior are essentially irrational. They do not give you any personal advantage. You do it for other, possibly rational, reasons, like presenting yourself as a guy who knows a lot of things, or to impress a girl or so, or to get some position in a local party cell. As a homo oeconomicus you would simply never vote.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

They were, and much more than is reflected in the simple vote on the one bill
- which itself was something you had only partial information about, and got wrong.
So your contention that they were not really opposed, and would have launched war themselves under the influence of some "deep state" you will never be able to specify,
was wrong, false, and misinformed.
And so all your reasoning based on that and similar assessments is garbage, which you should discard and rethink. You have no idea what you are talking about when you talk about the American "deep state", for example, because you have acquired your view of its nature from mistaken assessments of things like the Democratic Party's opposition to the Iraq War.

You never checked anything. You can't - you have no way of identifying coverage favoring Trump, even if you had surveyed enough of the NYT to make such an assessment.

And this presents your audience with a choice: do we assume you in fact believe you have made a "simple check" of the NYT coverage of Trump v Clinton, or do we assume you know better and are simply trolling?

It's similar to the standard, basic question that comes up whenever an informed person is presented with American rightwing authoritarian agitprop coming from a public official or pundit or other such media fount of falsehood and bs: Are they lying, or are they stupid?
But in those cases, ignorance is dismissed as impossible - in your case, that's not a given.

They are supported by evidence - when you deny evidence, it does not vanish. The reality remains, side by side with your refusal to acknowledge it, permanently.

No. You contrasted those deluded fears of Clinton with silly assumptions and hopes about the Trump presidency in comparison - which were also, all of them, delusions.

This isn't a serious scientific matter. You are posting bs and propaganda from the crudest and goofiest and most thoroughly debunked of American rightwing authoritarian media feeds, on a science forum. You have no refuge in respectability any more - not after the AGW denial, the GMO risk denial, the Hillaryhate videos, the KKK-derived description of American race relations and the Civil War, the gloriously foolish descriptions of Trump as a rational businessman, etc.

Trump is not a rational, competent, legitimately successful businessman. He never has been. As a businessman, he's a type of con artist - a salesman of a particular kind, one who makes his living by lying, cheating, and bullying people (rather than by forging documents, embezzling, etc). As a politician, he is a fascistic demagogue (only with a really superior, no kidding effective, military, handed to him rather than built up by him over years as is common). Expecting behavior other than is typical of fascistic demagogues in this situation is foolish - only by chance would it occur.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Does anyone recall the Republican leadership's invention of the term "death-panels" when the ACA (Obamacare) was being debated?

What I gather from the news, the proposed Republican health-care plan would in fact establish "death-panels" for a few millions of American citizens, especially the poor or elderly, who would be the least beneficiaries of any subsequent tax cuts.

Insult upon injury!

 

Yeah, it's kind of funny how that works.


Who would have thought Republicans could make Bush Junior look good by comparison.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

I'm all for it - anyone over the age of, say, 65, gets offed.

Once all the old crotchety fuckers in Congress are gone, we can rescind it and start over

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

(I'm being mostly sarcastic, btw - I say mostly because I don't see any other way we are getting these bastards out of their seats... this isn't supposed to be a lifelong gig ffs)

 

After all the hoopla over tapes, Trump finally says he has no tapes of his conversations with Comey. Is Trump being truthful for once in his life or is he lying? I guess only his hairdresser knows for sure.




Trump clearly attempted to intimidate Comey whether he has tapes or not.

 

I can only insist, however, that the bastards having those seats, and so securely, and with such comfort toward who will eventually succeed them, is, technically, within the purview of voters, and thus some measure of responsibility falls to them. Minnesota Six? Washington Five? Tennessee Seven? Texas One? Hey, how about Texas Republicans in general, voting to aid and abet rapists as a matter of Christian conscience?

Voters. At some point we need to account for voters.

 

Well we now know what the Senate version of Trumpcare looks like and it's not much better than the House version of Trumpcare. Republicans can only lose 2 Republican votes. Already 4 Republican senators have voiced their opposition to the plan. The bad news, is they are being led by Cruz who things the Senate version is too generous. But he thinks they can come to an agreement. Republicans in the House came to an agreement. So we will see.

We haven't heard from the few moderate Republicans. Are there enough "moderate" Republicans to stop Trumpcare in the Senate? That remains to be seen. But one thing is for certain, under Trumpcare healthcare will be much more expensive because Trumpcare does nothing to reduce the cost of healthcare. In fact, it probably increases the costs of healthcare by introducing political risk into the pricing equation. Furthermore it directly increases the costs of healthcare insurance for the 83% of Americans who receive premium and deductible subsidies by greatly reducing them, and it creates Swiss cheese health insurance policies, i.e. health insurance policies with huge coverage gaps. So yeah, those policies will be cheaper, but they don't cover shit.

Trumpcare is a giant tax cut for America's wealthiest masquerading as healthcare legislation. Both versions gut Obamacare funding. I don't think it's an accident that Trumpcare terminates Medicaid after the the next presidential election. Trumpcare is an abomination.

http://www.businessinsider.com/senate-healthcare-bill-trumpcare-ahca-details-2017-6

By the way, this is yet another campaign promise Trump will have broken. Trump promised not to cut Medicaid. Trump promised better and cheaper healthcare insurance. Trumcare is none of those things. It doesn't offer better or cheaper healthcare insurance.

 

MSNBC just gave Hugh Hewitt his own special show. He joins their lineup of headlining pundits.

 

I agree, but how is a voter able to become "informed" when presented with "alternative truths"?

I am disturbed by the unrestricted pre-election false and often slanderous statements by the candidates.

If we cannot yell "fire!!!!" in a crowded theatre, there should be restrictions placed on false and inflammatory statements by candidates, and they should be subject to libel laws, IMO.

Politics should not be a game where cheating (lying) is allowed without penalty.

 

Ok, fine, I have recognized this.

AFAIR, Obama has, at the start, proposed some reset, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_reset But the final result was an even stronger Cold War than under W. Trump has, in the campaign, made quite comparable proposals, but the result is, up to now, zero. Feel free to blame the evil Russians for these failures to improve the relations, but, sorry, you have to live with the fact that I see the blame on the other, the US side, and neither at Obama or Trump, but some forces which have not been elected, but are strongly opposed to good relations with Russia. And these non-elected but powerful force, which has acted as under Democrat as under Republican presidency, are what I name deep state.

And I see these forces being interested in regime change in all secular Arabic states, replacing them with islamist states, jihadi terror and chaos. And they have done this as under Republican, as under Democratic presidency. This is what I see as the final result. Why should I care about the rhetoric used in campaigns?

Look at the posting where I have made this simple check. Which was, btw, not a check of NYT Trump vs. Clinton, but Trump alone covered positively or negatively, because the original claim about the 63% which I have tested was not about Trump vs. Clinton but about Trump being presented in a positive or neutral way: "The majority of Trump coverage was positive or neutral in all outlets studied, ranging from 63 percent by The New York Times to 74 percent by USA Today".

The posting contains the choice of the date, a link to the NYT articles about Trump sorted by relevance provided by the NYT, and the results of what I have seen.

You have not questioned the particular evaluation I have made that article X is, given the quoted title, or the information about the content I have extracted from the article. All your objections were that this is not comparable to the original study, which covered all what NYT has written, which is valid but not problematic because I have not made such a claim - it was only a fast cheap test if the general 63% pro Trump result made sense or was obviously fake. And some unclear objection against my claim that the choice of the day was random. Note also that if I have no idea about details of American policy (as you claim), then I have simply no information which would allow me to cheat using an especially unfavorable for Trump day.

So, everything about my check is open, any reader can evaluate it.

Yes, but the scientific style of argumentation, which aims to be neutral, concentrated on the discussion of the facts instead of becoming personal, would be very helpful. At least if you would be really interested in "correcting" my "errors", instead of attacking me personally as an enemy of the Party line.

I have never tried to use such a "refuge in respectability". I have to admit that in scientific discussion I sometimes have to use it - given that I cannot present any own experiments, I have, if I mention experiments, to use a "refuse in respectability" by relying only on experiments published in peer-reviewed journals. But this is something I try to avoid as much as possible. And in non-scientific discussions I do not use it at all.

Yet more evidence that your are not at all interested in "correcting" my "errors", instead of attacking me personally as an enemy of the Party line. Because questioning the respectability of my sources makes sense if you want to discredit me, but much less if you want to "correct" my "errors", because this would require the presentation of arguments that these are really errors.

As usual, you cannot argue without lying. Even if we ignore the AGW "denial", were I have never even questioned even a single peer-reviewed paper, your fantasies about "GMO risk denial" are beyond my comprehension. Can you at least link one posting where I have made this "denial"? Simply for remembering me where I have talked about GMO at all, because the search function gives me only a "The search could not be completed because the search keywords were too short, too long, or too common" rejection.

 

No, you haven't, actually. You would have to revamp your entire approach to the Trump presidency to recognize where you went wrong there, and why.

Nowhere have I "blamed the Russians" for the nature of Trump's politics and behaviors, nowhere have I bothered with "improving the relations". Why are you trying to change the subject?

Meanwhile, there you are taking Trump's campaign proposals at face value again. Will you never learn? And why not?

Your convenient incomprehension, like your famously convenient bad eyesight (what you cannot see, presented as evidence on this forum), is nothing anyone needs to take seriously. (How many times are you going to throw chaff like "never questioned a single peer-reviewed paper", and still expect to be taken seriously?).

But your continual accusations of other people lying are becoming interesting, in part because iirc they started right about the time you started comparing me and my facts to "joepistole" and his assertions. You made kind of a thing about it.
1) Joe is the other poster most devoted to calling me a liar every other post or so, with similar quality of justification.
2) This pattern of pre-emptive accusation to wrongfoot observation of your own misdeeds (in this case, your posting of falsehoods that look more and more purposeful with each repetition) is characteristic of American authoritarian rightwing media efforts generally. ("Fake news", for example).
3) You get most of your viewpoints on US political issues from those same American authoritarian rightwing media operations.

So not only specific delusory viewpoints, specific falsehoods, and specific repetitive bs assertions, but specific tactics and rhetorical methods, have somehow diffused from the fascist marketing and media pros in the US into your posting.

And taking that as a relevant context for your posting about Trump is looking more and more explanatory. It puts a darker spin on the inability to see fascism, the blind spot for rightwing authoritarian governance that you share with American Trump voters.

No, it won't. How do I know? It wasn't, and hasn't been.

You have incorporated wingnut delusions and rhetorical tactics marketed by professional American propagandists into your posting, and that will continue to prevent you from discussing facts in a neutral manner.

Meanwhile, the Trump circus provided cover for progress in the Republican provision of tax cuts for rich people - in place of health care, this time; the Republican agenda is not failing, here.

 

I have recognized that this is your opinion. That's all. If, in the case that your opinion is correct, I would have to modify some of my opinions, is another question.

I do not try to change the subject. I have simply mentioned one alternative to my opinion, that's all.

No. Why do you think that comparing campaign proposals with the following reality, which shows that the campaign promises were not hold, as for Obama, as for Trump, means something like "taking campaign proposals at face value"? It means that campaign promises mean nothing (except food for sheeple), given that the deep state decides about such questions like Cold War with Russia and fighting secular Arab regimes.

As many times as you claim I'm an AGW denier. Note also that I do not care if forum participants like joepistole and so on take me seriously - they don't, and I couldn't care less. What I care about are neutral observers. Quite hypothetical personalities, with a probable number of zero among the actual readers.

It was, of course, necessary that your lies became a permanent pattern of your replies to me. And a too obvious one, so that the necessity to name lies lies became strong enough to outweigh my intention to avoid personal accusations. Once your lies have made it necessary to react, I started to name every lie a lie, even if before this I have answered or ignored most lies without naming them lies.

Don't forget, your pattern of argumentation has changed a lot too, your style has been much more reasonable and acceptable initially, when we have argued about child labor and civil war. At that time, you have given a lot of interesting links and arguments, we have discussed peer-reviewed papers, and it was worth to ignore the personal attacks and lies. But this was long ago.

About "scientific style of argumentation, which aims to be neutral, concentrated on the discussion of the facts instead of becoming personal, would be very helpful":

Thanks for openly admitting that you are not interested in such a style of argumentation, and intentionally switch to personal attacks.
Your justification for this makes no sense, because even if the accusation would be correct, the optimal response would be to argue against the content of these "delusions" and "tactics".

Maybe "neutral" is an unfortunate choice of the word, given that every argument somehow takes sides in some controversy, so that some fundamental neutrality is simply not possible. What matters is the difference between argumentation about the content, with arguments restricted to the content, and, on the other hand, personal attacks in whatever form (attacks against sources being right-wing, speculations about my lack of knowledge and right-wing propaganda cheating me, and so on).

 

Exactly. Hence the impossibility of discussing facts with you in a neutral manner.

Yes, you do. It's a standard stunt of yours. It's obvious.
Like this:

You are an AGW denier - that's a fact, and I have quoted you denying AGW more than a dozen times: quoted and pointed to the quote and explained to you what was wrong with the quote and why it was a denial of AGW. Your response is to wave your hands and repeat that irrelevancy about individual papers - an irrelevancy which is false, btw (you deny the findings of Mann's hockey stick paper, among several others, explicitly) but the falseness of it doesn't matter in its irrelevancy, the central fact.

You don't want to face up to denying AGW, you want to niggle over the details of some paper. I don't blame you, but I'm not biting.

And that's a change of subject. You do that a lot.

How else could you conclude they did not hold?
You insist on comparing Trump's campaign proposals with things, and drawing conclusions - that's a mistake. They were noise in the first place, without content. You learn nothing about any "deep state" by comparing them with his actions past or present - you only fool yourself.

This happens to you because you refuse to recognize the nature of fascism and Trump's exemplification of it. It's a blind spot.

Your pattern of argument has not changed. You argued your ludicrously ignorant wingnut bs about child labor and the American Civil War exactly as you argue AGW and Trump's presidency - and from the same American fascist media sources, apparently. Various new tactical wrinkles do not indicate a change of strategy.

Done already. Many times. Didn't you notice? I did - and your responses, also. For one, you started calling my posts lies, and me a liar - just like joe was doing. And simultaneously, you started associating me with joe - neatly wrongfooting any such observation.

Also along about then, you started referring to my posts as defending a Party line - simultaneously, you were posting the US Republican Party line on several subjects. Again, pre-emptively wrongfooting the obvious response to such posting.

The question then becomes your level of self-awareness, and the source of these tactics in your posts.

Because as a Trump apologist you are automatically in line to being associated with American fascism - and so far, you have opened no daylight between you and that political faction. Nor have the many other Trump apologists and excusers and cooperators among American Republicans. The Trump presidency is taking shape.

 

After disposing the usual "you are stupid" nonsense and other primitive accusations supported by nothing, nothing remained. So, have a nice day.

 

You seem to have a concerning problem of confusing/conflating facts and opinions with one another... primarily that opinions you like become facts, and facts you dislike you disregard as opinions... I can only describe it in the manner used so often by Spock - "Fascinating."

 

The general purpose of Schmelzer's trolling is to distract and disrupt threads whose content frighten him. See, the only discussion anyone ought to have around here should be whatever Schmelzer wants. The idea of attending actual topics and subjects is just too much to ask for one of his divine intellectual arrogance.

In the end, there are only so many reasons one behaves so dishonestly, and none of them are any good. For Schmelzer the essential dualism seems to be what people are talking about versus what Schmelzer thinks they should be listening to him about; he's been at it for years↗. Human rights in Indiana, or criminal cabals in the White House, the answer is always the same: Don't worry, Schmelzer will tell you what to talk about so you don't have to suffer that pesky topic.

Schmelzer is a troll whose purpose is to wreck threads with irrelevant, uneducated, ethically dubious, vapid egocentrism.

Iceaura has put in a hell of an effort over that time. If there is any doubt at this point what Schmelzer is on about, I can only wonder how it works.

 

LOL, YMMD.