Invasion of US Capitol building

[Trainee neophyte]

Hilliary Clinton. One of the most delightful, caring people in the world.



http://www.arkancide.com/

 

[gregmcateer]

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump aren't really that much different in terms of personal qualities. I've listened to people talking about Trump (who knew him before he became president). Apparently, he was a combination of (or one or the other) an affable fellow who was a little off, or someone who had a crooked sense of humor where he only laughed at stuff that wasn't particularly funny (like someone else's misfortune). I recall Adam Carolla talking about his mother saying how dangerous Trump was and Carolla knew him personally and more or said "no, he's not evil". And Adam's mother said "you don't know him" (which is apparently what she normally says to him), to which he replied "you can't actually say that about people who I know".

Adam's not stupid, and has since more or less said "I think whatever has happened to Trump during running for President and being President, I don't think he's the same guy I knew any longer", and his comments about riling people up weren't favorable to Trump.

I actually have talked to people who have worked with or for Hillary and every one of them has said that they're working for her cause, but that she's an angry rotten awful person to the core.

She and Trump are both pure ambition -at least that's how I see them. It's not a coincidence that those types of people get to the Presidency. Obama is one of the more arrogant people I've ever heard talk, and without any real accomplishments that I'm aware of other than being groomed to be President and following advisors. His response to people in the US when they didn't like his selling of globalist policy to china (increasing the income divide, increasing barriers to entry, etc) was that "he didn't do enough to explain the policies to Americans and that's the only reason the majority didn't like some of his policies".

Translate that "they're just too dumb to understand what I'm doing" (the reason that people hated what he was doing is because they understood precisely what it was). G.W. Bush had shades of competence, intermittently, and Bill Clinton was entirely competent, but flippant about some idealistic things. I really could take or leave the last four Presidents in general.

Some of the core things that Trump has done, I'm a big fan of:
* after obama couldn't get the bump stock moved to Class III NFA devices, Trump just did an end around re: the legal discussion of what constitutes automatic fire and what doesn't and demanded it be moved to class III
* no significant wars (or spending or disabilities related to them)
* easing of a lot of regulatory overhead that squashes small business

It's not hard to list the things that I'm not a big fan of (ignorance about covid, rubbish stirring, sitting on twitter all night, ignoring reasonable advisors, refusing to admit he was wrong about something to move forward). The condition of the country as of his term was tailor made for a two-term President. Reasonable handling of covid and getting off of twitter and presenting a throwback ideal about freedom and room to achieve would've had him winning in a landslide. I can't stand to listen to him talk, but I couldn't stand listening to Obama talk, either. There aren't many politicians I can stand to hear. I loved listening to Reagan talk - but he was really good at it - and could make you forget you were listening to a politician.

Whilst our experience of all your presidents is from afar, other than visits, of course, we do get to read and hear from commentators, analysts and real journalists who research, rather than just posting carp they've read on QA or fb. (Not suggesting you fall into that at all).

As I was interested to see why Obama didn't achieve some or all of things he said he wanted to achieve in office, I thought reading a bit might help. Part of this has been his new book. Clearly it is written by the protaganist himself, so he is inevitably 'biased', however I would recommend an open minded read.

He certainly doesn't come across as arrogant and unless he has just made up a load of pre- and during office stuff, (unlikely due to the likelihhod of litigation), he most certainly is not arrogant. He clearly wasn't just primed for office and plopped into place, (I seem to remember some fairly robust efforts by a certain Mrs H Clinton).

Once in office, (just as the banking crisis of 2008 was beginning to really bite), the intensification of partisanship in Congress made passage of policy into law incredibly difficult, if not impossible. (Not a new matter - indeed he discusses some of the history of earlier bipartisanship).

His face to face visits with injured service personnel is telling regarding his compassion and lack of arrogance, IMHO.

I'm not advocating his policies, or presidency, I'm just saying I genuinely think the arogance accusation is off the mark. I won't comment on his successor regarding this characteristic

 

[D_W]

Wait, there's lots of journalistic info, but all is quoted from his book? All presidents visit injured service members. It's part of the job. Gw bush before Obama was head and shoulders above on this, though, inviting them with him to participate with him in daily routines, like biking and jogging without media coverage, not just the short typical press covered meetings.

Obama used "i" in presidential speeches constantly and spoke in platitudes almost entirely, which is something you'd do if you felt above actually dealing with any details. His comment about not understanding his legislative efforts was directed to people who didn't like his globalist legislative efforts, citizens, not Congress. The reason there was an oppositional legislature in the first place was due to a distaste for legislation easing transfer of business from here to China and comments to people who lost their jobs that they should get a better one, anyway, because they'd just magically appear. As if they're too unqualified to know whether or not they liked the job they lost.

He's polished and careful about his image, but like Hillary, felt entitled and focused on talking about himself.

 

[Jameshow]

I watched the interview last night and he didn't seem arrogant tbh.

Makes you wonder at the sense of the 2 term rule!

Then trump makes you sure of the sense two term rule!!!

I'm republican leaning btw!

Cheers James

 

[Jameshow]

Wait, there's lots of journalistic info, but all is quoted from his book? All presidents visit injured service members. It's part of the job. Gw bush before Obama was head and shoulders above on this, though, inviting them with him to participate with him in daily routines, like biking and jogging without media coverage, not just the short typical press covered meetings.

Obama used "i" in presidential speeches constantly and spoke in platitudes almost entirely, which is something you'd do if you felt above actually dealing with any details. His comment about not understanding his legislative efforts was directed to people who didn't like his globalist legislative efforts, citizens, not Congress. The reason there was an oppositional legislature in the first place was due to a distaste for legislation easing transfer of business from here to China and comments to people who lost their jobs that they should get a better one, anyway, because they'd just magically appear. As if they're too unqualified to know whether or not they liked the job they lost.

He's polished and careful about his image, but like Hillary, felt entitled and focused on talking about himself.

Good points he didn't have an answer to the rust belt issues which as he alluded t, which are the real issues in the USA the disparity between the interior and the coastal cities....

Cheers James

 

[billw]

Well good to watch Trump lie for one last time before he vanishes into his own moronic little world.

 

[D_W]

Good points he didn't have an answer to the rust belt issues which as he alluded t, which are the real issues in the USA the disparity between the interior and the coastal cities....

Cheers James

There was just a lack of practical action other than creating a regulatory structure that only really large businesses could navigate. Unfortunately, the new appointees for the incoming administration share a lot in common - animosity toward business, which leads to a whole lot of compliance cost (overhead that doesn't benefit consumers or shareholders) and barriers to entry.

The solution offered here was to throw a bunch of federal money at "green jobs" that were dead in the water, even with assistance. Like solar panel manufacturing, etc. We're behind China in that with no hope of having any kind of economic sustainability without making the federal government the purchaser of the product (which mostly didn't happen) - and that's just cronyism.

The health care bill that we got did nothing to control costs here ,which is a real problem, but it did take options away from people who just wanted catastrophic coverage (usually small business owners) and then fined people who dumped their coverage instead of buying much more expensive coverage they were never stuck with before.

I think trump has a simplistic view of everything, but one thing he pushed for was publishing of costs of various procedures so that someone who had more than one option could choose where they would get medical procedures done. This is fought against heavily because insurers and health plans generally want to have gobs of arrangements that are disadvantageous to other players, and the last thing they want to do is publish a price that can be seen by anyone. The situation as it is leads to things like $150 out of pocket for a private covid test or insured arrangements where a patient has a large deductible and their insurer agrees to 5-10 times as high of a fee for a covid test. The sentiment is "well, the insurer will just pay it". Not if a participant hasn't met their deductible - they will. If a facility has your insurance information on file, it is almost impossible to get the cash price. Unwinding a lot of this kind of thing makes it difficult to publish prices, but rather than making an academic argument about it, trump just demanded it (I doubt he cares or would spend the time to navigate the academic reason). I would imagine that requirement will be unwound fairly quickly and quietly by the incoming administration.

 

[D_W]

I watched the interview last night and he didn't seem arrogant tbh.
Makes you wonder at the sense of the 2 term rule!
Then trump makes you sure of the sense two term rule!!!
I'm republican leaning btw!
Cheers James

He's a good interview - just nothing of substance and not real deep on solving problems. He always had his interviews tailored and the questions curated so that he would look good (hillary probably did the same thing). I don't think trump is wise enough to do something like that and it ended up at least in one case where he left an interview and then tweeted, which is unusual behavior for a president.

Obama's legislative efforts were a combination of nonsensical stupidity (like no support of some industries that were marginally profitable or close, and regionally important, but huge grants toward new groups with no chance of surviving - like trying to manufacture solar panels in NY and michigan), or other efforts that looked like they were written by goldman sachs and given to advisors to make it easier to make things in cheap markets and sell them in the US market paying as little as possible to anyone domestically and getting the highest amount out of them.

The pot stirring with russia for the last year wasn't a great idea. The last thing we want is to go back to the 50s-70s with proxy wars all over the place.

I hoped for the best from Obama, but we didn't get anything in return. I hoped that Trump would be cut and dried and behave like a president, but then he couldn't do that either. So who knows what's next. I would imagine there will be backlash in the mid term elections against biden's policies, but nobody has a clue what his policies would be because just like the last election, trump got elected rebelling against obama and hillary, and biden got elected due to trump backlash.

Being realistic, the only reason biden is even president is because obama needed a VP candidate who would collect northeast democratic votes, and hillary would've probably been first choice with name recognition in washington and as a NY senator, but being president with a clinton VP may increase mortality risk. for folks not in the US, if you're from chicago, you need to collect someone who will be able to get the northeast vote, and biden was a lifelong northeast senator with almost nothing notable in his wake (which means nothing to campaign against, but good regional name recognition). The only thing anyone really knows about him is a plagiarism scandal (he's part of our recent ongoing tradition of presidents who graduated low in their class and who didn't do much work), and his desire to make off color jokes (like rubbing elbows at a fund raiser and telling two indian american people that there are lots of indian constituents in his state because there are a lot of donut shops and they own them-that was actually recorded by cspan, etc).

 

[D_W]

Well good to watch Trump lie for one last time before he vanishes into his own moronic little world.

Won't be sad to stop hearing about him.

 

[Jameshow]

Disappointed he didn't pardon Joe Exotic thou.....!

Cheers James

 

[RobinBHM]

In an effort to lighten the mood, I thought I'd post this link to a very funny comedian call Jim Jefferies.
It is however, his sketch about gun control. It will almost certainly annoy some, but may also amuse some of the annoyed - as he observes.

But I do think it is worth a watch. In two parts, second suggested as first ends, IIRC. Apologies in advance to anyone offended by
a. Rude words
b. Comments about guns!

I've watched this loads of times, its both hilarious and really gets to the heart of the gun issue.

For me Jeffries makes 2 points that chime with me:
'I hate these Bulls hit arguments about reasons to own a gun.....there is only one reason: "I like guns, don't take off me".....it's not great argument, but it's all you've got.

The other point is:

'That's the thing about crazy people, they don't know their crazy.....that's what's makes them crazy'

 

[John Brown]

Are you still here, D_W?
What you say may well be true in regard to Hilary, but Trump must surely be in a class of his own. As someone said, not only the worst president ever, but a truly nasty person.
I'm sure you enjoy your soapbox position as an American. I have an American wife and 5 American brothers in law, and we talk every Sunday, so I have some insight.

 

[Jacob]

Are you still here, D_W?
What you say may well be true in regard to Hilary, but Trump must surely be in a class of his own. As someone said, not only the worst president ever, but a truly nasty person.
I'm sure you enjoy your soapbox position as an American. I have an American wife and 5 American brothers in law, and we talk every Sunday, so I have some insight.

Clintons, Obamas, Bushes, etc.etc. for better or worse, in spite of failings and weaknesses, do look and sound like normal human beings, unlike the weird Trump line-up of mobsters, lunatics and mutants!

 

[D_W]

Are you still here, D_W?
What you say may well be true in regard to Hilary, but Trump must surely be in a class of his own. As someone said, not only the worst president ever, but a truly nasty person.
I'm sure you enjoy your soapbox position as an American. I have an American wife and 5 American brothers in law, and we talk every Sunday, so I have some insight.

Trump was handed a pretty great situation - people upset about globalization policy, one energy or industry related project after another that got hung up, a strong market with low interest rates, and relatively little military conflict.

He dropped the ball at every step and chose to fight with everyone like an infant instead. There are a few things he did do that will be forgotten (the bump stock, the push for medical cost clarity, etc), but how could they even be noticed? You can't do one good out of ten, then act like a twit and expect any credit.

If he was even a mediocre president, he'd have been able to win in a landslide.

There are definitely more liberal people than me here who will cheer things like the immediate stopping of the keystone pipeline (which I think is a shame for both the US and canada) and who want us to cede some of our rights to a larger global government (including perhaps paying some kind of personal tax toward such). I'm not in that group. More of the classic american but see through what often happens. Classic meaning I want low barriers to entry to the market for small business owners who can sometimes become innovative large business owners. I want care of the disabled and indigent (and incentives for personal responsibility for anyone not in that group), etc. We never actually get that, though. We get gigantic omnibus bills that may have one good thing in them and 10 add-ons slid in, and nobody has any sense of fiscal responsibility or problem solving.

There will be plenty who work at universities, etc, who never have to consider their contribution or production who just love the idea of Joe and things like canceling the keystone pipeline. When that type of person makes it to office, they're Obama. But what's the realistic other side of it? GW bush? the other side of pro-wrestling promotion hates GW, and I don't hate anyone, but I see the fiscal irresponsibility and overuse of the military and it provides nothing for us and leaves something in its wake that requires constant maintenance.

 

[D_W]

I've watched this loads of times, its both hilarious and really gets to the heart of the gun issue.

For me Jeffries makes 2 points that chime with me:
'I hate these Bulls hit arguments about reasons to own a gun.....there is only one reason: "I like guns, don't take off me".....it's not great argument, but it's all you've got.

The other point is:

'That's the thing about crazy people, they don't know their crazy.....that's what's makes them crazy'

There may not be truly rural remote areas left in England. In the US, those areas make sense owning a gun for more than just want. Both from two legged predators, and for dangerous nature. But the argument "nobody really needs one" is a false shift. The constitution provides the right. The supreme court has ruled on it. You can amend the amendment by legal process - it's not an "i want" argument.

Nobody needs vacations or large cars, either. Or to be 400 pounds.

 

[D_W]

Clintons, Obamas, Bushes, etc.etc. for better or worse, in spite of failings and weaknesses, do look and sound like normal human beings, unlike the weird Trump line-up of mobsters, lunatics and mutants!

Take the clintons out of there and I'm on board. I think obama and the bushes are decent human beings. The clintons are a political charade. There is no wake of people used or stepped on for gain behind obama and the bushes. Just my opinion. The clintons are perhaps better suited to the 1950s or1960s etc when you can curate an image of yourself and the media won't publish anything to the contrary.

 

[TRITON]

Well good to watch Trump lie for one last time before he vanishes into his own moronic little world.

His world now will be the web, and his reputation will be similar to that of David Ike. He'll attract the same level of individual as David Ike.

Maybe in the future like OJ, he'll eventually mess up big time and without support or power, he'll end up in pokey.

 

[RobinBHM]

Both from two legged predators, and for dangerous nature. But the argument "nobody really needs one" is a false shift

Guns are really much use for security in domestic situations.

Nobody really needs a gun, in 2019 15,000 deaths 30,000 injured....on balance elimating guns wouldn't lead to many deaths from animals or two legged predators.


The reality in America is that gun ownership is a hobby, people go to gun conventions.

Nobody needs high powered guns.

Nobody needs vacations or large cars, either. Or to be 400 pounds

None of those are high powered weapons capable of killing people, I think you understand there's no equivalence.

 

[Jonm]

Days before the invasion the press were reporting that Washington DC mayor, Muriel Bowser had called up the National Guard in preparation for the Trump rally which co-incided with Congress meeting on Wednesday 6th Jan to affirm Joe Biden’s victory.

here are some links to the reports
CBS News 4 Jan
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dc-nat...ndreds-of-troops-for-pro-trump-demonstration/
Independent 4 Jan
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-trump-washington-protest-march-b1782164.html
The risk was known and preparations were made. The question is, where we’re the National Guard. Did someone call them off? Did the police and National guard decide to support Trump? Were the numbers needed underestimated? Who knows but I suspect that Trump had a hand in it somewhere, hopefully we will find out in due course.

 

[mikej460]

As I was interested to see why Obama didn't achieve some or all of things he said he wanted to achieve in office, I thought reading a bit might help.

My understanding is that he couldn't get most of his objectives past the republican senate. I like him as a statesman even now, but I suspect he wasn't the shrewdest of politicians despite his ongoing popularity and serving two terms.