ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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The campaign finance violations are felonies.

Every major presidential campaign, victorious or not, has had campaign finance violations.

There's this thing going on in this thread on both sides that I've been feeling off about and just put my finger on, and that thing is Trump exceptionalism. The anti-Trump side seems to think he's exceptionally bad, which doesn't make sense in context of long-standing traditions of presidential misbehavior — while the pro-Trump side seems to think he's amazingly good, exaggerating his accomplishments and prophecying the unrealistic — e.g. the dismantling of the Deep State — while ignoring his faults. I don't really subscribe to either of these; I think for the most part Trump is just another President, and the greater Media — by which I mean both left and right, both establishment and alternative — tend to overdramatize it for ratings.

I still stand by my previous statement that I consider Trump to be the best President of the past twenty years. However, there are two important points to note regarding that:
1. I think that both Bush 43 and Obama, 8 years each, were terrible Presidents. I think Bill Clinton wasn't as bad, but still not great — and I'm not even confident saying Trump's lead over Slick Willy isn't narrow. In other words, the bar is kinda low, at least in presidential terms.
2. I have to wonder if ANY president would be performing better if they faced constant and critical pressure from the corporate media. For instance, if CNN hated on Obama as much as they currently hate on Trump, maybe Obama's incentives would have been different, he wouldn't try to get away with certain things, and he would have accomplished more good for the American people. I don't view the media's incessant criticism of Trump, incoherent as it often is, to be a bad thing; indeed, if our press was continuously wary of every single President, we'd probably be better off for it.

What I'm trying to get at is that I kinda like Trump, but he's not an unironic object of worship. He is absolutely an ironic object of worship; the God Emperor Trump meme is popular for good reason, namely that it's funny and triggers the right people, but it is nevertheless, at its core, a joke. And it's kinda hard for me to tell myself how much of my posting in this thread has been for ironic effect rather than for unironic accuracy. Yes, saying Trump is doing good is funny, in part because it's true, but being hard on our Presidents is also good, and even if he is doing slightly better than previous presidents he's still basically just another president, not so much different from what came before.

Trump isn't that special, people. He's just a President of the United States. The world isn't really that different than three years ago — other than how we've spent over two years convincing ourselves that it is.

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Raycheetah wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

Kudos for a very good response!

It wasn't really intended as an insult since it was attached to what I assumed was a huge "IF" that I couldn't imagine that you'd accept. This assumption has been validated by your response saying you thought that improprieties would be found against the President by at least some of those bodies I listed. All goading aside, perhaps we really can agree on something here?

To me, it appears likely that the Mueller investigation will bring charges against members of his family and Trump will be an unindicted co-conspirator in charges. The NY attorney general will also likely bring charges against the Trump organization (really 500 sleazy companies run by the Trumps) and the Trump charity organization (Donald J. Trump Foundation).

The Republican party has been damaged by this President, particularly the support by minorities and women. While I can imagine an unlikely scenario where he wins re-election, I think it more likely that he resigns before serving out his full term. If he does run he will be so damaged, I would guess it highly unlikely that he could win. With the 2020 outcome most likely a clean sweep by Democrats controlling all three, presidency, House, and Senate. Of the three, most likely being holding the House, with winning Presidency and Senate close to equal. Unless pardoned somehow, he will also face charges when leaving office.

You'll notice that I don't pay much attention to a majority of those posting here; in your case, I made a deliberate exception in hopes of a productive dialog.

Let me address your second point, first: Donald Trump is no more a Republican than Bernie Sanders is a Democrat. What the GOP has become in recent years is the Right Wing of the Left Wing. President Trump is seen by those who support him as a wrecking ball, not the figurehead of a crumbling institution. The prospect of his resignation is a pipe dream. He lives for this stuff. Not only does he believe in American greatness, he also enjoys getting down in the mud and duking it out. He'll stick for as long as he's able, and his support isn't fading, no matter what some folks may tell you.

As for the charges against Trump, could you kindly outline them for me? Because all I hear are charges against people associated with Trump, and not even anything particularly serious in those cases. There are some rumblings about "campaign finance violations" which might be serious, if they weren't spurious on the face of things. Either evidence of actual, serious wrongdoing needs to be brought forth, or it's all just going to blow over as I predict it will.

Even NPR, not exactly a bastion of Right-Wing propaganda, admits as much:

The Russia Investigations: An Unfinished Case Looks Weaker Than Ever

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/15/676765398/the-russia-investigations-an-unfinished-case-looks-weaker-than-ever

Right out of the gate, the article begins with:

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Editor's Note: This story has been edited to make it clear that it is analysis and that the allegations of the Trump campaign conspiring with the Russians remain unproven.

As for any case of candidate Donald J. Trump instructing his lawyer to pay off some bimbos who wanted to rock the boat, can you please tell me wherein lies the felony? Again, even if it could be proven in court (assuming it ever made it that far), private citizen Trump's paying off a nuisance suit or two with his own money is far from "high crimes and misdemeanors."

The fact is, Trump's one, great crime was beating Hillary Clinton, for which the Left has not forgiven him. Thus, we come to a place in US history at which is has become a crime to win a presidential election. ='[.]'=

Your point about Trump representing or not representing the Republican party, I agree with much of what you say but the bottom line is that Trump is now head of the Republican party and setting the "Republican agenda". These kind of things can and do change when someone else becomes the head of the party but it can also set longer term impacts. For example, Nixon purposely alienated young people and it took a while for that to eventually bounce back significantly. Or the Republicans alienating Hispanics a while back here in California is another example where the damage has been more long lasting. It's unclear how long lasting Trump's impact to minorities and women might be. I'd guess for example that alienating minorities is more likely to last longer than alienating women.

Your article accurately points out that Russian conspiracy has not been publicly proven. We can't know what Mueller knows. There is so much smoke though, I will guess that Mueller will eventually find fire but, we have to wait to see.

Regarding campaign finance violations, it is not a felony to make an innocent error and then correct the error and pay a fine. This is what happened in the Obama campaign. Much different is Trump apparently entering into a conspiracy in 2015 with AMI to violate campaign finance laws. A deliberate violation is a felony rather than a civil matter, and conspiring with AMI to commit a felony is a felony in and of itself, all contrary to President Trump's assertions. Will that be sufficient? We'll probably never really know because much more will likely be coming out that will make it seem relatively minor.

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But that's just the tip of the legal iceberg Trump is facing. Wait until Jan 4th when the tax returns are brought to light.

I fondly remember this disaster. Great times.

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Raycheetah wrote:

Not sure when this became the Anthropogenic Climate (insert verb here) thread.

I will posit this: Earth's climate changes constantly over time, has done so since long before the advent of ANY life on the planet, and will continue to do so both in the presence of human life, and after, in a cycle of warming and cooling.

Does anyone disagree with that?

Climate will change over time, yes. It's not really a cycle of cooling and warming, Milankovitch cycles will occur absent of other radiative forcing or natural disasters. But it's not like a constant amplitude wave function or something, that's just silly.

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Furthermore, the climate tends to change toward only one of those two extremes at a time during a given cycle.

Does anyone disagree with that?

See previous point. In essence it's the solar radiative forcing cycles, the Milankovitch cycles. But there are a lot of other factors involved as well, which is why ice ages don't happen like clockwork throughout history.

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Finally, whatever effect humanity may or may not have on whichever is the current positive climatic trend (warming or cooling) can only be considered to be a modest one, and absolutely negligible on the reverse (that is, the effect on the current, natural tendency toward warming or cooling would be tiny, and unable to reverse it in any meaningful way).

Completely and utterly wrong.

If you think that man cannot affect nature, look at the ozone hole, or acid rain, or mass extinction of flora and fauna as proof that something 'small' can affect 'big' things.

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Does anyone propose that humanity's influence is so great that we can turn back the mighty engines of global climate from their natural inclination? Or is whatever effect we may have simply hastening nature's own course, to a minuscule degree?

And which would you prefer: A warm earth, or a cold one? Either way, you won't get much of a say in it. =^[.]^=

We are causing the something on the order of 120% of the warming currently. Man alone. Nothing else. The reason why it's in fact more than 100%, I'll leave for you to as homework.

Here is a nice graph as well to end this discussion.


What boggles my mind, if you have so little knowledge about the subject, why maintain really strongly the opposite position of experts, in light of the damage it can cause?

Seems like shooting yourself in the foot, to me. But what do I know?

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Xavderion wrote:

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rojimboo wrote:

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Xavderion wrote:

I would post an NPC meme but I'll be a compassionate Russian bot by not dehumanizing you. You should still critically examine your programming though. You should start with the obvious things, like believing the Paris agreement would stop climate change. That thought is so asinine that I really can't explain how people can actually believe something like that.

I think one has to be deluded to think that we can stop climate change.

That's hardly the point of the Paris agreement, which everyone agreed to, except for TRump's MAGA (My Attorney Got Arrested) Murica.

Any other strawmen you need defeated?

So what's the point of the agreement, other than to funnel money from certain countries to other countries? Hint: there is none. Let the market do its thing, renewables are already very profitable and will only become better in the future. No need for government handouts.

Yes, that's exactly the point of the agreement. Free money for poor countries, and rich countries are provided with an easy way to lose money. Burning money via conventional means was so....'wasteful'. Matches and gasoline and all that. Yep.

It boggles the mind yet again, that there is anyone rational thinking this.

But what do I know?

The Paris agreement is to reduce emissions to a level that will prevent truly catastrophic climate change. The 1.5C warming limit, has in all practicality, been passed already and proved too hard for mankind due to addiction to fossil fuels and petty political squabbling. The 2C limit is something that is at least still possible, if we try really fucking hard, all of us.

I see us missing that as well, hope is slowly but steadily being eroded.

Trump is doing great in polls with many minority groups, when compared to past Republican presidential candidates.

I guess he could be doing worse with specific groups, but all the minority polls I've seen show Trump doing much better then past Folks like Mitt Romney ect

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Turtledove wrote:

Your point about Trump representing or not representing the Republican party, I agree with much of what you say but the bottom line is that Trump is now head of the Republican party and setting the "Republican agenda". These kind of things can and do change when someone else becomes the head of the party but it can also set longer term impacts. For example, Nixon purposely alienated young people and it took a while for that to eventually bounce back significantly. Or the Republicans alienating Hispanics a while back here in California is another example where the damage has been more long lasting. It's unclear how long lasting Trump's impact to minorities and women might be. I'd guess for example that alienating minorities is more likely to last longer than alienating women.

Your article accurately points out that Russian conspiracy has not been publicly proven. We can't know what Mueller knows. There is so much smoke though, I will guess that Mueller will eventually find fire but, we have to wait to see.

Regarding campaign finance violations, it is not a felony to make an innocent error and then correct the error and pay a fine. This is what happened in the Obama campaign. Much different is Trump apparently entering into a conspiracy in 2015 with AMI to violate campaign finance laws. A deliberate violation is a felony rather than a civil matter, and conspiring with AMI to commit a felony is a felony in and of itself, all contrary to President Trump's assertions. Will that be sufficient? We'll probably never really know because much more will likely be coming out that will make it seem relatively minor.

If Mueller had anything on Trump, it'd already have been revealed. He's just fishing.

As for any "conspiracy" to commit campaign finance violations, it first requires that those actions actually violate campaign finance law. Aside from some talking heads, and some politically-motivated DOJ apparatchiki nattering and girmishing, I haven't seen anyone actually show how, by law, any actual violations took place. I've already stated my reasoning, but it obviously won't stop an attempt at political lawfare if the Dems and their allies think they have a chance to at least inconvenience a sitting President of whom they generally disapprove. ='[.]'=

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Raycheetah wrote:

If Mueller had anything on Trump, it'd already have been revealed. He's just fishing.

I don't know about america, but in my country you actually can't reveal information however you please if it's pertaining to an ongoing investigation.