Hmmm a pardon on the day General Flynn might be going to jail. Coincidence?


Edit: Sentencing delayed until the fall

My post was directed a general group that goes beyond these pages. If there are people here, who fit in that group, so be it, but I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular. I posted it here, because it's really the only place I vent. It wasn't directed at anyone specific here. I didn't call anyone out by name. I used some harsh language, but again, I wasn't responding to anyone, it was sort of a Tourette's outburst more than anything.

I never trust Trump or his motives. That said its never the wrong time to do the right thing and this was long over due.

Guess that doesn't apply to arson.

Can't figure out what might be different about these individuals with the "law and order" bunch. Hmmmmm.

Anyways, here's what those guys did.

Man, this "arson" is more nuanced than you are making it out.
They had grazing rights on the land. They were trying to protect livestock and feed stores by setting back fires to prevent the spread of a wildfire into their permit land. Their fire lines didnt hold. They were charged for burning 150 acres when the wild fire consumed a few thousand acres they were fighting. It was alleged that US Forest Service fire fighters even advised them how to set the back burn, which is an approved and often used fire fighting technique.


I'd love to know what Rainmaker is insinuating with the "what might be different" comment.

So, you are saying you want civility?

C'mon man. Not here.

Jury found them guilty. They also plead guilty. Their own family testified against them in court. They are career criminals who committed another bigger crime to cover it up.

The rest is garbage misinformation spread by "sovereign citizen" and "patriot" groups who magically don't think laws should apply to them. Whether it be Randy Weaver selling illegal weapons. David Koresh raping children. Or the Montana Freemen who felt they didn't have to pay taxes and could commit bank fraud at will.

The irony of this is the reason they got a harsh sentence is because of a Republican law that had mandatory minimum sentences. But per usual, the law and order crowd really only wants law and order for certain people.

Cross a border with your child: Laws are laws and don't complain about the consequences when we have to remove you from your child and lock you up. It's your fault.

Be a convicted serial arsonist with long criminal history who has threatened people for decades: It's nuanced.

Funny how that was the story for both arson charges even though others, including family members, testified that that wasn't true.

How was Pilotman's rant not a personal attack on people like me who cast protest vote?

Nuanced arson. Classic, my man!

Was your name mentioned or was it a specific reply to you?

That's the way it has always worked around here. I can say, all Steelers fans are goat fucking child molesters, and I'm fine. If I say, Pilotman is a goat fucking child molester, I'm in trouble. Personally, I have problems with the distinction, but it has always been enforced that way.

In hindsight, knowing what you know now, would you have voted differently?

e.g. wondering if the you-and-like have voter's remorse?

As a Brit, what is your take on the baby Trump float?

I googled but didn't find an UK opinion survey. Any insights to share?

I agree it could be construed as a personal attack and it doesn't need to mention you by name or in a direct reply. Substitute "protest vote(rs)" with religious/ethnicity/sexual preference/MF etc. reference and I can see this board get in an uproar.

A few thoughts...

-protest voters aren't a protected class, under US law (or any law), nor is there a history of discrimination against protest voters;
-I read it as a general display of frustration, not unlike people from time to time do in the college football thread or NFL thread;
-if it had been personally targeted, whether by name or not (sub-text, direct quote, whatever), it would have been treated differently;
-we do a pretty good job of following the general rule of not being an asshat, keep it that way; and
-in general people are given a pretty wide berth, don't abuse it.

You are blaming the protest voters for Trump being elected and I'm sure they contributed to that.

However, are you being fair? There were other factors that did/could have also swayed the vote, why not blame them also?

I'm not a protest voter but I can see why they would take it personally.

Counter point


Students Hate Trump's SCOTUS Pick... Don't Realize He Hasn't Made It Yet - YouTube

Kinda funny.

But I do agree there was a certain level of "white anxiety" (whatever the term is) as some others have said. I'm just not convinced to the degree or scale.

Certainly there was "some level"
Just like there was "some level" of black pride vote that supported BO just because of his race and "some level" that supportted Hillary just because she was a female.


The rub is in what %. I mean every side has cooks and loons.

I agree devil is in the details, it could be 10%, 50%, 90% etc. and I do infer (right or wrong) that many on this board thinks is more like 90%.

I honestly don't know how to put a % on it but I'll settle on 50% plus or minus 20%.

Fair.

Couple counterpoints of my own:

1) The sitting President is a rhetorical blowhard for whom everything has to be the most whatever ever. In this case, the best, most conservative, etc etc. The likelihood of him selecting a moderate with strong bipartisan support is vanishingly slim. Yeah, it's knee-jerk on the part of those kids, but Trump was never, ever, going to nominate Garland or Srivanasan to the seat. They're reflexively against his pick, but it's not like he hasn't given them reason to be.

2) Everybody's got blind spots, and while these kids are no different, having a hate-on for a guy who, at minimum, hums the tune for misogyny and white supremacy doesn't really rise to that level. The middle- and late-aged white voters I referred to earlier mostly are either incapable of or unwilling to do the unpacking necessary to recognize that racial anxieties were at the heart of their vote for Trump. "But her emails" was a comfortable way to deflect from that.

Ain't saying there has never been, nor could ever be, a Democratic candidate who might cause a similar effect with the base, but while these kids make for a "ha ha stupid liberal kids" moment, they aren't really an apples-to-apples comparison.

What percentage of people won't ever be known, but multiple studies have shown that higher levels of racial resentment correlated with higher chances of voting for Trump. Racial resentment was a much better predictor than economic anxiety.

Blame Comey? Sure
Blame Russia? Sure
Blame 25 years of non-stop Republican fault finding and conspiracy attacks on Clinton? You bet
Blame Dems? Sure


But, you know damn well where things were, and when they were there coming down to the final days. Ultimately, none of those other things are going to change the outcome of the race. So the final blame goes to voters. Because, let's say trump was corrupt as they come, straight in Russia's back pocket and he ends up getting tossed. It'll all be after the fact, after the damage is done, the only thing that would have changed the outcome we have now are the voters. So yep, they are to blame.

Will be interesting to place trump into historical context. I mean, civil rights needed a Bull Connor. We needed to irradiate 100,000’s of Japanese to never use nukes again and avoid WW3.

Maybe with trump the youth will be engaged like they became during Vietnam. I don’t think me too, immigration, anti-white nationals, gun laws or corporate collusion would have been nearly addressed if Clinton were president. In fact, I think the country would have lost young voters for a generation.

Paul Manafort loses again:


https://www.buzzfeed.com/zoetillman/...Do#.ej2EpvL8Z6

You also have to include the non-voters in your equation.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-the-election/

Without question. Lump them in with the protest voters.


Here's a funny similarity that I see in local (as in HOA) politics and national. I'm not for anything that creates barriers for legit citizens to vote. However, in the event, that such barriers exist and you don't figure it out for yourself, before the day of, that's on you. Where it's similar to HOA politics, is that there is a large contingent of owners, who get mad, feel like they are left out, say nobody listens, or outright ask questions they shouldn't. None of these people actually come to meetings, read the bylaws or covenants, have any idea where their money goes, and they all, pretty much flat out refuse to learn or put any time toward it. They love to complain as it suits them and blame everyone else, because they are clueless. They complain if they have to spend ANY time doing anything for themselves, or if they feel like enough isn't being done FOR them. They are complaining to people who literally put hours a month to serve them, and over the years, have spent hundreds of hours to serve them, and are the very definition of doing it themselves.

So, on both sides of the political spectrum, you have people like this. They are all useless.

More tariffs!
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/10/polit...ump/index.html

Watching some farming forums has been interesting. The markets have been tanking but it's not necessarily hurting the row croppers yet as the new crop isn't made or sold yet. Most old crop is sold already. So there are a few different opinions. One side is that the tariffs are not affecting the markets, it's because good growing weather. Other side is still maintaining that Trump is such a great negotiator that the Chinese will blink before harvest and prices will skyrocket.

There is a growing contingent that is becoming more vocal in their disdain for these trade games.

I guess I shouldn't be shocked, but pardoning those morons is leap for even this administration.

I mean commutation, sure, whatever but pardoning is silly.

Nope. I'd do it again a thousand times. To my mind there's a bar you have to clear before I'll even consider voting for you. It's pretty low. Most major presidential candidates in my lifetime, both parties, clear it easily. This time neither came close. My personal approach is basically that I refuse to be a sheep in the sense of 'well, this is who everyone else picked, so those are our choices'. Nope. Others making bad decisions doesn't mean me doing so also is proper. Or to put it otherwhise, I believe in choosing what's good, not what's less evil.

I could've told you I would hate it before he made the pick, so without watching it I don't see what's so ridiculous about it. "Students hate guy who has a terrible track record at making decisions". Woo.

NEW: @POTUS issues full pardons for Oregon ranchers Dwight and Steven Hammond who were embroiled in the Bundy/compound takeover dispute of 2014 pic.twitter.com/hbP0R3QejU

— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) July 10, 2018

Totally normal. Very fine people.

Also nobody in WH seems to understand what "clemency" and "pardon" mean but, also normal. This is fine.

So Trump is trying to insult Gemany by saying they're captive to Russia while at the same time telling us Russia is the good guys.

So now the count is up to eight wrestlers at Ohio State who said Jim Jordan knew what was happening and did nothing:


Eighth Ex-OSU Wrestler Says Jordan Knew About Sexual Abuse

Makes about as much sense as saying we spend too much on defense and demanding increases in defense spending.

Under the radar with all the supreme court, NATO, and Russian summit news, is an executive order Trump issued calling for an end to the competitive exam process that administrative Law Judges go through as part of their hiring. Now they are political appointees that can be fired at will (i.e rule against Trump):


https://www.whitehouse.gov/president...itive-service/

Maybe this is obvious to people who follow politics more closely than I do, but I read recently that this a conscious, intentional, Republican tactic that is very effective - accuse the other side (or in this case, Germany), of doing what you know you're guilty of. That way, when the other side accuses you of the same thing, they're just repeating you and it takes out some of the sting.

I think this may also be part of of why Republicans are so much more effective politically than Democrats. In-power Republicans are always thinking and acting tactically, whereas Democrats tend to take moral positions and hope that everything falls into place somehow.

Which is also why, when the Democrats do try to think and act tactically, that the Republicans call them out as hypocrites. It's why my current tactic of buck up and burn it down, is the only one needed. Watching McConnell speak out of both sides of his mouth for 8 years, and do everything in his power to restrict everything, means that is the tactic that is needed. There is no other tactic, than that until he and the rest of the leadership responsible for it is gone.

Yup, that's also a tactic. Like with the Supreme Court thing. The Democrats seem primarily concerned with being in the moral right and proclaiming that to everyone, the Republicans are primarily concerned with getting their guy on the court and keeping Obama's out. It's just philosophically opposite ways to approach politics. One is more effective, one maybe helps you sleep better at night.

Best laid plans and all...

So Mueller responded to Manafort's request for better conditions in jail with this:


https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...o-Continue.pdf

I don't have a problem with saying you hate the pick.
I do have a problem with saying "he picked a known racist"...when the pick hasnt been made.

Trump told NATO that everyone should spend 4% of GDP on defense. To put that in its insane context, the U.S. in 2017 spent "only" 3.6% of GDP.

It will be a miracle if NATO survives Trump.

I wonder how strong NATO was to begin with considering that most countries weren't meeting the current military spending guidelines. Is it weakening or was it already weak and is now being exposed by the "Trump stress test".

NATO, WTO, and the EU are the keys to global peace. We're always going to be the big dog in NATO because that's what benefits us. Having peace and a stable economic system is the foundation of our power.

Or maybe arbitrary numbers are arbitrary.

I think this is how you negotiate high-end real estate in New York City. Aim high and then move low and convince your buyer they're getting a good deal.

Hasn't that been Russia's goal the entire time?