POTUS Donald Trump

[PseudoSABR]

 

Or just let the people vote on SCOTUS, logistically it can be difficult, but not if you set term limits and have safeguards in place if someone retires or dies "early"

Term limits, in this case, would make the office more political, not less (perhaps counter-intuitively).  Voting, would be a disaster, being wholly political.

[DaveW]

Term limits, in this case, would make the office more political, not less (perhaps counter-intuitively). Voting, would be a disaster, being wholly political.

Yeah good points

[kydoty]

Not surprising given the guy running the White House previously ran a rival media company. 

 

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-is-reportedly-being-iced-out-by-trump-administration/

 

The White House has refused to send its spokespeople or surrogates onto CNN shows, effectively icing out the network from on-air administration voices.

 

“We’re sending surrogates to places where we think it makes sense to promote our agenda,” said a White House official, acknowledging that CNN is not such a place, but adding that the ban is not permanent.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Not a fan much at all about recent appointees, frankly. But, there are degrees, not switches...I think Obama's were/are more liberal than Trump's. It's a degree thing, no?

 

If I was President, the litmus test would be the 10th amendment to the constitution... so there's my stance.  But that said, I'm not sure the difference between stripping your freedoms away in small chunks vs. larger ones. At one point, that just gets silly. If that's the compromise worth accepting, then we are in big trouble.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Eh, I don't buy that at all.

 

Trump didn't win the election because people liked him, he won because people hated his opponent equally... and Trump still lost the popular vote by over 2%.

 

We're talking about a president who barely scraped together 46% of the vote and, since entering the White House, has committed a multitude of moves that are questionable to everyone but his base.

 

Roughly 17-18% of all Americans voted for Donald Trump in November and even the Koch brothers are lining up squarely against him right now. Is it really surprising that a bunch of people disapprove of his actions as president thus far?

 

Fair I suppose. My point though is that the same system that does approval ratings missed the fact that Trump was doing a lot better than they thought.  Yeah, I don't expect him to have high ratings, but the people that put him in wanted him to fix a lot of broken things.  It's no secret that Trump delivering on those promises won't make him popular. 

 

My point is that I'm not sure how much I'd trust those approval ratings. It's not a secret that the media was clearly in HRCs camp, and all of those polls they released during the election said the nation was too... but it wasn't. I'm not sure why it is that these approval ratings are suddenly more accurate than the failed polls from only 3 months prior.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Including this company, which I believe is a little familiar to diehardtwinsfan.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-microsoft-idUSKBN15E2IY

 

They haven't said much internally to be honest, but I'm not surprised at all. I've made it clear where I stand on the issue (if I haven't, to be clear, I don't side with Trump here). 

 

Edit:  Ironically, some stuff came out today. I'm at a low bandwidth site, so I cannot see Nadella's statement.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

well, that's what my edit was supposed to mean......but ya, I don't get how constitution lovers are cool with, you know, ignoring the constitution...

 

Honestly, both parties have been doing this for a while. It's a big reason why I've been voting independent the last few elections. The constitution is valuable to each side when it's convenient.  It's toilet paper when it gets in the way of the agenda at hand.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

I don't think Devos has been approved by the full Senate yet, but it is inevitable. No biggie, she just hates public education....

 

I don't blame her. Public education has failed people in this country. I realize there's a lot more to it than that, but US student's place in comparison to the rest of the world has declined significantly since the Dept of Ed was formed. The question at hand is can she fix it?  I doubt that.

 

Personally though, I'd hand it back to the states. I've got to think they would do a better job than what has come out of the Dept of Education of late. That, to me, is a big problem with centralizing power. One state screws up, 49 others know what not to do. One state does something well, 49 others are curious what they did. 1 Federal government screws up... and we're screwed.  The converse is obvious as well, but thus far, the Dept of Ed. hasn't done much well. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Fair I suppose. My point though is that the same system that does approval ratings missed the fact that Trump was doing a lot better than they thought. Yeah, I don't expect him to have high ratings, but the people that put him in wanted him to fix a lot of broken things. It's no secret that Trump delivering on those promises won't make him popular.

 

My point is that I'm not sure how much I'd trust those approval ratings. It's not a secret that the media was clearly in HRCs camp, and all of those polls they released during the election said the nation was too... but it wasn't. I'm not sure why it is that these approval ratings are suddenly more accurate than the failed polls from only 3 months prior.

Thise same pollsters had a horse race betweeen Romney and Obama and it was a 4% gap on Election Day.

 

The pollsters weren't that far off on Clinton. Most had her around 4% before the election and she actually won at 2.1%. Some pollsters were closer in 2016 than they were in 2012.

 

That's well within the margin of error, the distribution is what gave Trump the presidency.

[USAFChief]

 

My point is that I'm not sure how much I'd trust those approval ratings. It's not a secret that the media was clearly in HRCs camp...

There is no "the media."

 

Legitimate media sources were in neither camp. Those with an agenda were primarily in Trump's camp.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

There is no "the media."

Legitimate media sources were in neither camp. Those with an agenda were primarily in Trump's camp.

 

You can tell yourself that all day long. It doesn't make it true. Sans Fox News, there was a pretty clear media bias in Clinton's favor. I say this as someone who hated both candidates and voted for neither. It's really hard to say with a straight face that a bias didn't exist. It clearly existed. That, I might add, is a big reason why she lost. Everyone was reporting that she had it in the bag.  She didn't.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Thise same pollsters had a horse race betweeen Romney and Obama and it was a 4% gap on Election Day.

The pollsters weren't that far off on Clinton. Most had her around 4% before the election and she actually won at 2.1%. Some pollsters were closer in 2016 than they were in 2012.

That's well within the margin of error, the distribution is what gave Trump the presidency.

 

It was never a horse race between Obama and Romney. Sorry, won't grant you that one. I was laughing at my Rep friends that thought Romney had a chance. He was/is an empty bag of wind, much like John Kerry when he ran against GWB.  A decent candidate wanting to affect some real change would have likely defeated Obama.

 

I'll agree to an extent on the distribution, except that those polls got that distribution wrong in all the key swing states. They correctly had Ohio leaning Rep, but beyond the toss up calls in FL, they missed them all.

[Craig Arko]

Heard on the BBC this morning that the Russians have arrested 2 of their top cybersecurity officials, charging them with treason for collaborating with the CIA.

 

Curious timing, that.

[DaveW]

You can tell yourself that all day long. It doesn't make it true. Sans Fox News, there was a pretty clear media bias in Clinton's favor. I say this as someone who hated both candidates and voted for neither. It's really hard to say with a straight face that a bias didn't exist. It clearly existed. That, I might add, is a big reason why she lost. Everyone was reporting that she had it in the bag. She didn't.

But it is true....

[D. Hocking]

 

Heard on the BBC this morning that the Russians have arrested 2 of their top cybersecurity officials, charging them with treason for collaborating with the CIA.

 

Curious timing, that.

 

There have been a few arrests and disappearances over there recently that have been tied to the Trump dossier that was leaked last month.  It is curious timing.  

 

The Russian issue has seemed to disappear from the headlines, but it seems like follow-up is something that is not done much anymore.  Something makes the headlines for a few days, and then the move on to the next distraction and the old story disappears.  

 

Ex-KGB Chief Thought Dead As Source Of Trump Blackmail Dossier Leak:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ex-kgb-spy-cited-in-the-trump-blackmail-dossier-just_us_588e3f0de4b0cd25e4904a24

 

[nicksaviking]

 

 

Personally though, I'd hand it back to the states. I've got to think they would do a better job than what has come out of the Dept of Education of late. That, to me, is a big problem with centralizing power. One state screws up, 49 others know what not to do. One state does something well, 49 others are curious what they did. 1 Federal government screws up... and we're screwed.  The converse is obvious as well, but thus far, the Dept of Ed. hasn't done much well. 

 

I don't know, if you let the state of Alabama have 100% oversight over their education, their just going to funnel all of the funds to the Crimson Tide football program.

 

And you can be pretty sure they'll make even more of an effort to ensure the predominantly white schools get all the funding at the expense of the predominantly black schools.

[Craig Arko]

 

There have been a few arrests and disappearances over there recently that have been tied to the Trump dossier that was leaked last month.  It is curious timing.  

 

The Russian issue has seemed to disappear from the headlines, but it seems like follow-up is something that is not done much anymore.  Something makes the headlines for a few days, and then the move on to the next distraction and the old story disappears.  

 

Ex-KGB Chief Thought Dead As Source Of Trump Blackmail Dossier Leak:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ex-kgb-spy-cited-in-the-trump-blackmail-dossier-just_us_588e3f0de4b0cd25e4904a24

I also find it curious that these men are outed just after Bannon gets access to classified U.S. intelligence briefings. But that's a little too '3 Days of the Condor-ish' even for my suspicious mind. Or is it?

[drjim]

Of course the media is biased. People who work in (and especially run) large media organizations are well educated, urban, international and usually socially progressive. Everything they do is interpreted through those lens, which is why they were caught off guard by populism.

 

Even the media that tries to pretend they aren't these things actually are.

[nicksaviking]

 

There is no "the media."

Legitimate media sources were in neither camp. Those with an agenda were primarily in Trump's camp.

 

I'm a bit confused as to what the bias is, I hear about it all the time, but I'm missing something. In the run up to the election Trump got WAY more press and I don't think anyone can dispute that, so I have to assume the bias is that much of Trump's coverage was of the negative variety. However I also haven't heard anything disputing the negative news regarding Trump, were some of the awful things he did and/or said untrue? Or was it just unfair to report on them?

 

Or is this bias stemming from the op-edish type stuff? Because opinion stuff has started to make up more of the news in the past decade. I don't like journalistic opinions because I'm just fine making my own, but are we supposed to be upset that more journalists who offer up opinions were against Trump? What are newspapers and broadcasters supposed to do, re-hire their entire staffs every four years to make sure they have equal numbers of people in favor of each candidate?

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

It was never a horse race between Obama and Romney. Sorry, won't grant you that one. I was laughing at my Rep friends that thought Romney had a chance. He was/is an empty bag of wind, much like John Kerry when he ran against GWB.  A decent candidate wanting to affect some real change would have likely defeated Obama.

 

I'll agree to an extent on the distribution, except that those polls got that distribution wrong in all the key swing states. They correctly had Ohio leaning Rep, but beyond the toss up calls in FL, they missed them all.

Not saying it was a horse race, I'm saying many pollsters thought it was a horse race going into the last week of the campaign.

 

My point was that pollsters are often off by 2-3% based on inaccuracies and late shifts in the population. Just last election, they underestimated the Democrat, not the Republican. It goes both ways.

 

Here's the poll tracker for the 2012 election:

 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

[PseudoSABR]

 

I don't blame her. Public education has failed people in this country. I realize there's a lot more to it than that, but US student's place in comparison to the rest of the world has declined significantly since the Dept of Ed was formed. The question at hand is can she fix it?  I doubt that.

 

Personally though, I'd hand it back to the states. I've got to think they would do a better job than what has come out of the Dept of Education of late. That, to me, is a big problem with centralizing power. One state screws up, 49 others know what not to do. One state does something well, 49 others are curious what they did. 1 Federal government screws up... and we're screwed.  The converse is obvious as well, but thus far, the Dept of Ed. hasn't done much well. 

Hand it back to the States? Public education is largely entirely left to the States, and the Dept. of Ed. is already largely a farce in instituting policy at the primary education level.  The problem with public education is not that we have national solution (we don't) its that public education is woefully underfunded because its stupidly tied to property taxes.  

 

The whole states-as-laboratories is great in theory but often horrible in practice for public works projects like education; what ends up happening is that states seem to compete on cheapness not on quality.   The States have had their chance at education and largely they've absconded that responsibility.  I know national solutions are scary, but the alternative is well nothing.

[Mike Sixel]

 

If I was President, the litmus test would be the 10th amendment to the constitution... so there's my stance.  But that said, I'm not sure the difference between stripping your freedoms away in small chunks vs. larger ones. At one point, that just gets silly. If that's the compromise worth accepting, then we are in big trouble.

 

Fair, and I'm pretty much with you on this. Just if I have to choose, I'll take the lesser strippage, as it were. 

 

I remain hopeful, that in a generation or so, people will just wonder, wtf about LGBT issues, for example.....religion is more of a problem, since many believers refuse to question their beliefs (another reason I like the Dalai Lama, even with his warts....).

[Mike Sixel]

 

I don't blame her. Public education has failed people in this country. I realize there's a lot more to it than that, but US student's place in comparison to the rest of the world has declined significantly since the Dept of Ed was formed. The question at hand is can she fix it?  I doubt that.

 

Personally though, I'd hand it back to the states. I've got to think they would do a better job than what has come out of the Dept of Education of late. That, to me, is a big problem with centralizing power. One state screws up, 49 others know what not to do. One state does something well, 49 others are curious what they did. 1 Federal government screws up... and we're screwed.  The converse is obvious as well, but thus far, the Dept of Ed. hasn't done much well. 

 

The states? The ones doing even more unfunding?

 

Public education, public libraries, public roads.....that's what made the US great. We try to get everyone a chance, unlike other nations (until recently) that did not try to educate their population.

 

 

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

The states? The ones doing even more unfunding?

 

Public education, public libraries, public roads.....that's what made the US great. We try to get everyone a chance, unlike other nations (until recently) that did not try to educate their population.

 

Underfunding is an issue b/c governments as a whole take your tax dollars and spend them on crap they shouldn't be spending it on.  This is true whether it is federal, state, or local.  I can certainly see the issues with funding, but I've yet to step foot in any government run organization and not see countless examples of waste (and I've worked with plenty of them).  That includes schools I might add, but even if they are underfunded after cutting waste within the schools, there's still plenty of places that can be cut at the state level which would allow for more funds into education.  Governments as a whole love to cry poor about this kind of stuff as it is easier to say "raise taxes" than it is to cut waste and hold people accountable.

 

In the case of federal funding, we are spending billions of dollars on an org that is in charge of handing out billions of dollars.  Kind of counterintuitive, is it not?  Wouldn't the money spent on the Dept of Education be better spent on Education as opposed to funding a massive bureaucracy?

[Mike Sixel]

 

Underfunding is an issue b/c governments as a whole take your tax dollars and spend them on crap they shouldn't be spending it on.  This is true whether it is federal, state, or local.  I can certainly see the issues with funding, but I've yet to step foot in any government run organization and not see countless examples of waste (and I've worked with plenty of them).  That includes schools I might add, but even if they are underfunded after cutting waste within the schools, there's still plenty of places that can be cut at the state level which would allow for more funds into education.  Governments as a whole love to cry poor about this kind of stuff as it is easier to say "raise taxes" than it is to cut waste and hold people accountable.

 

In the case of federal funding, we are spending billions of dollars on an org that is in charge of handing out billions of dollars.  Kind of counterintuitive, is it not?  Wouldn't the money spent on the Dept of Education be better spent on Education as opposed to funding a massive bureaucracy?

 

I guess if you just want certain states that don't care about poor and minority children to have no funding for schools, cool. And we all know that would happen w/o the Feds.

[drjim]

Another issue with funding is Federal mandates for children with disabilities. Huge expense, very hard for smaller districts to meet, thus the need for more Federal block funding. Some states distribute in a competent manner, others not so much.

 

Among the many concerns I have about Trump and R control, I do worry about mandates/regulations like this. They are not the most economically efficient methods of providing services to people with disabilities, but it does provide the most dignity. I like and approve that our government does its best to provide the most people with the most dignity. It would be easy to cut and shift under the guise of saving money, but would have significant costs.

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

I guess if you just want certain states that don't care about poor and minority children to have no funding for schools, cool. And we all know that would happen w/o the Feds.

 

No, we really don't know that at all.

[Mike Sixel]

 

No, we really don't know that at all.

 

Other than years of history indicating that is true, not to mention current spending in places like Mississippi and Alabama?

[diehardtwinsfan]

 

Another issue with funding is Federal mandates for children with disabilities. Huge expense, very hard for smaller districts to meet, thus the need for more Federal block funding. Some states distribute in a competent manner, others not so much.

 

Among the many concerns I have about Trump and R control, I do worry about mandates/regulations like this. They are not the most economically efficient methods of providing services to people with disabilities, but it does provide the most dignity. I like and approve that our government does its best to provide the most people with the most dignity. It would be easy to cut and shift under the guise of saving money, but would have significant costs.

 

I think this criticism makes a bit more sense as disabilities tend to be a bit more difficult to fund, not just in education either.  The problem again as I see it though is that the money is there if someone wanted to make it a priority, but governments would much rather spend money on other things.  You can get this by re-prioritizing spending, but at some point, we need to take an honest look on everything we are spending money on. 

[Mike Sixel]

 

I think this criticism makes a bit more sense as disabilities tend to be a bit more difficult to fund, not just in education either.  The problem again as I see it though is that the money is there if someone wanted to make it a priority, but governments would much rather spend money on other things.  You can get this by re-prioritizing spending, but at some point, we need to take an honest look on everything we are spending money on. 

 

Well, defense and healthcare are most of the budget, and we know the GOP isn't cutting defense.....at the state level it is education, roads, and healthcare...as long as we spend so much more of our taxes on defense and healthcare than any other nation, we either have crappy education and roads, or we have to raise taxes. Pretty simple, really.