Precedent Trump. Gloating is short-sighted. Especially in politics. Politics has a nasty habit of making absolutists into hypocrites at the turn of a page. For all the gloating weve been subjected to on this site since Trumps victory, I offer you a longer view of whats surely to come so that you might find some humility in your victory; some perspective on what the new standards appear to be, and hopefully a little jaundice to sprinkle into your steps. My hope is that the people who have expressed such joy -not in the victory- but in the suffering of people who lost whatever it is that they lost in the election, will find some perspective. The worm will turn for you. Its a matter of time. Hillary Clinton and the Clinton machine are done. Her role as foil is over. Please, sweep her out of your calculations of Donald Trumps competence, his behavior, and his actions. He must be judged now on his own rather than by contrast. In his achievement are these new normals, which will be employed at-will by candidates from this day forward: No need to release tax returns. An exclusion from any concerns about conflicts of interest. No need for firewalls between a Presidents business interests and the interests of the country. His candidacy also normalized or at least justified activities by organizations like Wikileaks and alleged non-state actors in our election. I personally believe that Hillary got what she deserved, but I found it deeply unsettling that the information was ALL aimed at one side. That smells like motive, seems like meddling, and is something that we should all see as an invasion into free and fair elections. Even if you hate Hillary, be careful about supporting this sort of thing. It will inevitably happen again, and when it does, youll be reminded of your support for it and your hypocrisy when its aimed at your side instead. At some point, these same tough breaks will sting you too. Youll fall on the wrong side of the electoral college / popular vote as we have twice in recent history, and youll get no sympathy. Ask yourself what you might be saying if it were a democrat refusing to release tax returns, refusing to separate his businesses from the Oval Office, thinking about being a part-time President for tax purposes. This is Precedent Trump.
He will resurrect the economy and bring sensibility to our foreign policy. I, like most voters, am optimistic. http://www.politico.com/blogs/donal...t-of-voters-are-optimistic-about-trump-231744 But by all means, continue fear-mongering
You guys are willing to accept these decisions about conflicts of interest and transparency because it's Trump. I think you'll come to seriously regret them when the shoe is on the other foot. That's not fear mongering, that's politics. I think the office deserves better, and I want our candidates to feel obliged to insulate the office from these concerns -real or imagined. I want our Presidents to recognize the profound responsibilities of that office. I don't want Trump in there working on his real estate deals. I find that disgusting, and so should you.
We'll see how the figure head for those who "want to be left alone" does with his attorney general pick. The most anti marijuana politician while states in increasing numbers are legalizing it. I think we'll see some Republican sacred cows slaughtered with Sessions.
Meh, if anyone should have been upset it should have been after obama was elected. To be upset at Trump getting elected is silly and those who are upset deserve ridicule. Whether Trump is is a success is totally different from the over reaction by those who lost.
Have you read what Trump's said about potential conflicts of interest? He's already blending his job as president-elect with his business interests. Has he released his tax returns? All that talk of the rejection of the elite ruling class… LOOK at what he's up to already. There are 75 lawsuits pending against him that have the potential to mess with his ability to do his job as President. There are roughly 3500 more active lawsuits that involve him somehow. The man has 500 companies in 19 countries. There is discussion by tax experts that he's going to claim that his job as President of the United States is part-time so that he can maintain the tax benefits of claiming his primary profession as a realtor/developer… that requires 750 hours per year. You cannot make this stuff up. For some reason, this doesn't deserve your attention? Please, take a longer view. Demand more from him, not less.
It's just hard to take these objections seriously in light of Hillary and Bill openly selling the office of Secretary of State and her presumed Presidency. WE ONLY SEE ARTICLES LIKE THIS WHEN REPUBLICANS WIN: WaPo: The American Political System Is Broken. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ical-system-is-broken/?utm_term=.efdf7e75c5e1
The Clinton machine has been dismantled. You've got to let go of seeing Trump through the lens of Hillary. Judge him by his own behavior and character rather than against the people you despise the most. The reason articles like this are being written is simple. Trump has been elected president but lost the popular vote after spending months carping about a "rigged system." The second reason is that gerrymandering and vote caging are serious distortions of our democratic process. For your legitimate observation that we see articles about this stuff when republicans win, the flip side is that you guys are quiet as mice. The republicans are handily in control of everything, federal and state, courts and governorships. Look at the proportions. https://ballotpedia.org/Gubernatorial_and_legislative_party_control_of_state_government https://ballotpedia.org/Governor_(state_executive_office) 31/18 https://ballotpedia.org/State_senators 60/40 https://ballotpedia.org/State_representatives 55/45 It's worth asking yourself how the proportions end up where they do without some sort of active distortion occurring. The more salient point of the proportions is that the republicans are in solid control of everything in the larger picture, and they have been for quite some time.
I commend you on your perspective. The current trend of radical politics has built walls between us and seems to be an omen of impending doom for our democracy, as foretold by the slogan: United we stand, divided we fall. Our country is presently facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Engulfed in a quagmire of self-interest, deceit, and hypocrisy, we no longer look to our government for solutions, and economic differences among us have caused such a division that government by the people seems to be an outdated philosophy that no longer works. What we seem to have forgotten is that common values are needed to transcend situational differences in order to achieve the unity necessary to make government by the people successful. If the government lacks direction and Congress cannot reach agreements on important issues, we should not be surprised. They are merely echoing the disagreement prevalent in our general populace. In order for government by the people to work, some sort of agreement needs to be reached by those people. The present condition of our government is ultimately a reflection of the lack of unity among the citizens of our country. After all, we are the government, the standard-bearers of the heritage of greatness bequeathed to us by our founding fathers; namely, the values necessary for our continuing survival as a nation. Our greatness has been a by-product of the unity of our people, from the realization that if the rights of each individual were not guaranteed, then none of us could expect that guarantee. WE, THE PEOPLE make up this nation. WE are the government. Congress, the President, and all government employees supervise and monitor the operation of our country, but in reality are our representatives. Whatever authority they have is given to them by us, and we, collectively, are at the top of the chain of command. Therefore, the effectiveness of our government is determined by the extent of our unity, which determines our ability to negotiate. If we collectively fulfill our civic responsibilities as citizens, we need not worry about Donald Trump.
- For starters, it is abundantly clear that the left has tried to make as much political "hay" as possible with the tax return issue, and it is equally obvious that it had little to no effect. One sort of gets the impression that the ONLY people that care about Trump not providing a tax return are those that were never going to vote for him to begin with. While I realize that in recent history it has been a custom for both candidates to release their tax returns, I highly doubt that this has ever really been the deciding factor for whom anyone votes. I have been following elections closely since the late 80's and I can HONESTLY say that any candidate's tax return has never even been a blip on the decision scale for whom I vote. Id be willing to bet that this is true for almost everyone else as well. In truth, I don't think tax returns have ever been an important issue. To whatever extent that you want to insist that it is, you would have to tie that in with the notion of the candidates degree of transparency. If you are going to make that argument however, you need to look at each election on its own. In order to do that, you need to assess the transparency issue of whichever two candidates are running in any particular election and then draw conclusions from there. In this particular election, when assessing transparency, you basically would need to look at Trumps lack of providing a tax return, versus Hillary erasing 30k emails AFTER a congressional subpoena had been issued. In my mind, one of those transgressions is FAR more egregious than the other in regards to raising concerns about transparency. - In regards to conflicts of interest, firewalls etc..... Trump is an international businessman. That does in fact create some unavoidable conflicts of interest or at minimum the appearance of a conflict of interest. With that being the case, I also believe that owning an international business should NOT preclude anyone from being president, so that is an issue that will simply have to be dealt with, and I am sure that it will. We can all rest assured that the left will be on top of this issue at EVERY turn.
Well, once all the ballots are counted and the illegal vote is subtracted, he may lead the popular vote. Even the current lead is only because Hillary was +27 in CA and similarly in New York City, sans those two areas, Trump won the popular vote quite handily, which is why we have an electoral college to ensure the President is broadly supported by the many regions of the nation and not simply someone who runs up the score in CA and NYC. Democrats routinely underperform their generic congressional vote by about two points and have for 50 years or so. It's always a tradeoff between the security of the individual's seat and each individual taking slight more risk so that more in total numbers are elected. If you have a bunch of D +15 districts, you have larger firewalls against a wave taking everyone out but you will are far less likely to carry the majority that you could garner with a wide distribution of D+5 seats. When Dems easily carried the majority, this didn't matter so this pattern was deeply set for a long time, but since the mid-90's the Dems should have adjusted to putting incumbents more at risk so they colletively had a better shot a carrying the majority and they have simply refused to do so. The safest seats in Congress are held by Dems are are from States where a GOP hasn't had a State Legislative Majority in many many moons. For example: New York 15th D+43 Democratic New York 13th D+42 Democratic California 13th D+37 Democratic Illinois 7th D+36 Democratic New York 5th D+35 Democratic New York 8th D+35 Democratic California 12th D+34 Democratic California 37th D+34 Democratic New York 7th D+34 Democratic California 44th D+32 Democratic New York 9th D+32 Democratic Massachusetts 7th D+31 Democratic California 34th D+30 Democratic California 40th D+29 Democratic Illinois 2nd D+29 Democratic Illinois 4th D+29 Democratic Washington 7th D+29 Democratic Illinois 1st D+28 Democratic New York 12th D+27 Democratic California 43rd D+26 Democratic Maryland 4th D+26 Democratic New York 14th D+26 Democratic California 29th D+25 Democratic Maryland 7th D+24 Democratic California 14th D+23 Democratic New York 10th D+23 Democratic Minnesota 5th D+22 Democratic Oregon 3rd D+22 Democratic California 20th D+21 Democratic Hawaii 2nd D+21 Democratic New York 16th D+21 Democratic California 2nd D+20 Democratic California 17th D+20 Democratic California 28th D+20 Democratic California 5th D+19 Democratic California 19th D+19 Democratic California 6th D+18 Democratic California 18th D+18 Democratic Hawaii 1st D+18 Democratic California 11th D+17 Democratic California 15th D+16 Democratic California 51st D+16 Democratic Illinois 5th D+16 Democratic These are ridiculously safe seats, and a Republican hasn't been in charge of drawing these districts since your great grandad was a young whippersnapper. Democrats drew these seats. You have to start looking these things up and stop letting folks fill you up with horse (*)(*)(*)(*). That is why Providence has seen fit to provide you with a Google Search bar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_Partisan_Voting_Index Republicans have 12 seats that exceed R+25 and NONE that exceed R+32 Dems have 13 seats that exceed D+32 and 35 that exceed D+25 and the vast majority of these seats were drawn by Democrats. You really have to stop being so gullible, this is the Democrats own handiwork that they are griping about, and your own damn fault. Does Barbara Lee and Nancy Pelosi really need D+34 and D+35 seats? Seriously? And who the hell needs a D+43 seat? Clearly someone that wants to do whatever the hell they want with zero risk. We weren't able to stop Porkulus, Cash For Clunkers or Obamacare. But, we should have a few years at least to get some things dones, but these are likely to be some very tough years as an economic collapse is likely already baked into the cake. But, I would much rather have Trump dealing with it than that waddling drunken Kleptocrat that ripped off poor old Bernie!
Russia. The United States. Democracy inaction. President Elect Trump's response. We are barely a month in. His response is typical of the man we know he is. Petulant, egotistical, short-sighted. He is willing to elevate conspiracy theories from fringers but denigrate the actual professional intelligence community because it's what serves him in the short term. Bad omens.
Time capsule thread bomb! Let’s revisit Precedent Trump shall we? Never seen a smaller man cast a longer shadow.
The new precedent is: 1. Weaponize the DOJ against a political opponent based on dubious info, from a foreign agent, largely discredited and waste tax payer dollars on an investigation, politically motivated 2. Impeach for ambiguous rhetoric and language, on phone calls with world leaders and political speeches. Rush the process, support partisan impeachment. 3. Collude with MSM media to spread lies 4. Mccarthyism, in reverse. Make lists of political opponents and ensure they never get jobs and their lives destroyed 5. Support violence and unrest, in the name of social justice 6. Suppress speech of opposition 7. Less secure elections where new rules have been established whereby partisan state officials change election rules unconstitutionally, days before election. Support rules and laws that take a swipe at election integrity, like lower signature verification standards and voter ID requirement. Setting the stage for election fraud at a massive scale, whether it be in this past election or future ones
Wow, you are a bonafide Cassandra. You predicted the future and wrote it down too, but as the future unfolded, they never listened. Welcome to the Cassandra Club!
