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Donald Trump 2018

TheFlyingBoat

By TheFlyingBoat
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M12BH
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Dolemite

Dolemite 143

Posted
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He is doing this tariff shit because his goal is to get rid of them. How can you get rid of the trade barriers other countries have on us unless you threaten them with the same treatment?

Anyway, tariffs would push more production here and away from Germany. 

 

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Brian Fantana

Brian Fantana 6685

Posted
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3 minutes ago, Dolemite said:

He is doing this tariff shit because his goal is to get rid of them. How can you get rid of the trade barriers other countries have on us unless you threaten them with the same treatment?

Anyway, tariffs would push more production here and away from Germany. 

 

Lol you're actually fucking retarded.

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18854

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6 minutes ago, Dolemite said:

He is doing this tariff shit because his goal is to get rid of them. How can you get rid of the trade barriers other countries have on us unless you threaten them with the same treatment?

Anyway, tariffs would push more production here and away from Germany. 

 

Or they'll close shop and move production to a country where the tariffs are offset by lower labor costs.

 

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89649

Posted
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10 minutes ago, Dolemite said:

He is doing this tariff shit because his goal is to get rid of them. How can you get rid of the trade barriers other countries have on us unless you threaten them with the same treatment?

Anyway, tariffs would push more production here and away from Germany. 

Ain’t no Amerkans going to assemble phones for $2 an hour. 

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Mojo Hand

Mojo Hand 4580

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3 minutes ago, 4th&Five said:

That’s what all the brown people in the tent cities will do. 

I have zero doubt that if you were to poll this, you would get significant support from Trump cultists on slave labor from captured illegals while they await bullshit "due process" in order to recoup the costs they inflict on hardworking Americans. 

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18854

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7 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

I have zero doubt that if you were to poll this, you would get significant support from Trump cultists on slave labor from captured illegals while they await bullshit "due process" in order to recoup the costs they inflict on hardworking Americans. 

The only positive about this whole thing is that it is shining a light on the unabashed racism that permeates the ranks of Republican voters.  

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Anastasis

Anastasis 23469

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Posted
I have zero doubt that if you were to poll this, you would get significant support from Trump cultists on slave labor from captured illegals while they await bullshit "due process" in order to recoup the costs they inflict on hardworking Americans. 

I bet you could get broad based support if you publicized that it would shave a couple hundred off the price of an iPhone. Millennial would probably man the cattle prods themselves.
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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4378

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3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:


I bet you could get broad based support if you publicized that it would shave a couple hundred off the price of an iPhone. Millennial would probably man the cattle prods themselves.

That's cute. Apple has a $600 profit margin on the iPhone X already.  That price ain't coming down. All slave labor would do is make that a $750 profit margin.  Shit, they might even raise the price to make it an even 800. 

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wildcat09

wildcat09 29349

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You guys thinking the Dems are gonna take total control and ram through a whole bunch of controversial changes are a trip. Remember when the Dems took control after the Republicans gave us the Iraq war and the worst economy since the great depression, and lost the House and like 2/3rds of the state legislatures and governorships in a massive wave two goddamn years later? The fucking leadership has barely even changed, and they're allergic to their own damned shadows. They might win Congress and the White House in 2020 if Trump truly fucks things up, but they'll still have pretty much the same leadership, and they'll still have a massively gerrymandered House and the natural Republican advantage in the Senate to deal with.

The Democratic party doesn't know how to play anything but a prevent defense. Most of the electoral momentum they've shown recently is largely unconnected to the party itself. That might work so long as they're a minority opposition party with Trump to race against, but if they take control they'll be even more fractured than the current Republican House caucus. 

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18854

Posted
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2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

You guys thinking the Dems are gonna take total control and ram through a whole bunch of controversial changes are a trip. Remember when the Dems took control after the Republicans gave us the Iraq war and the worst economy since the great depression, and lost the House and like 2/3rds of the state legislatures and governorships in a massive wave two goddamn years later? The fucking leadership has barely even changed, and they're allergic to their own damned shadows. They might win Congress and the White House in 2020 if Trump truly fucks things up, but they'll still have pretty much the same leadership, and they'll still have a massively gerrymandered House and the natural Republican advantage in the Senate to deal with.

The Democratic party doesn't know how to play anything but a prevent defense. Most of the electoral momentum they've shown recently is largely unconnected to the party itself. That might work so long as they're a minority opposition party with Trump to race against, but if they take control they'll be even more fractured than the current Republican House caucus. 

They also passed the biggest piece of landmark legislation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

 

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wildcat09

wildcat09 29349

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5 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

They also passed the biggest piece of landmark legislation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

 

Which they indirectly sabotaged and needlessly watered down in an attempt to negotiate with republicans who were clearly dealing in bad faith. Even when they succeed they manage to shoot themselves in the dick.

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18854

Posted
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3 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Which they indirectly sabotaged and needlessly watered down in an attempt to negotiate with republicans who were clearly dealing in bad faith. Even when they succeed they manage to shoot themselves in the dick.

That's fine. A majority of Americans consider health care to be a right. That number will only grow. That's why the ACA is historically important. The next step will be single payer. 

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Mdhorn

Mdhorn 5948

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2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

I've said for a long time that I'm really worried about what happens after the Democrats take control.  And get ready, because they're taking control in 2020.

Because whether you agree or not, the Democrats are convinced of several things: (1) Trump supporters--which is now to say "Republicans"--are racists who use their purported ideology (whether on immigration or religion or whathaveyou) as a cover for their racism; (2) The Republican Party, which is therefore an inherently racist institution, is a minority party that can only achieve power through anti-democratic means; and (3) Trump used the pinnacle of anti-democratic means--i.e., collusion with Russia--to gain power.  And if you accept those three premises, then in the name of "democracy," that'll justify all manner of anti-democratic actions.

So yeah--you think the Republicans are good at gerrymandering?  Wait until you see Democrats do it.

And you think you like voter id?  Wait until there's not a DMV office in a town of fewer than 500,000 residents.

Oh, and Puerto Rico and DC--isn't it time y'all got statehood?

Oh, and all y'all immigrants--don't you think being separated from your kids deserves a make-good?  Maybe in the form of an accelerated path to citizenship?

And if you've been convicted of a felony and had your voting rights revoked?  You're probably going to get them back.

And anybody--and I mean anybody--who gives money to a Republican-leaning group is going to be identified and publicly shamed.

Mind you--I don't agree with any of these measures.  And I don't agree with most of the Democrats' policy positions.  And for that reason, I'm very very worried about what the post-Trump era is going to bring.

A pendulum swing in the opposite direction.  If we can get affordable healthcare, the ability for social security to not pay for a tax cut for the rich and an affordable college education, that would be a win.  What I don't like is that absolute power corrupts absolutely.  I think you always need a strong watch dog party, especially in a Democracy.  The Republicans really are bringing their brand above ground which I'm glad to see.  No longer are they hiding behind sheets.  It's great to get an assessment of what they finally stand for.  

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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28776

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, yoladu said:

did the President of the United States spend a good part of speech talking about The Apprentice and Arnold Schwarzenegger once again?

It's like when a band busts out a deep cut that hasn't been played live in a long time. "Dude! We got a Schwarzenegger and Bad Apprentice Ratings! Woohoo!"

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Tuco

Tuco 5076

Posted
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42 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

Not sure pissing off Harley Davidson and Harley riders is the way to play to your base. 

Harley riders aren't going to care.  They'll blame the company for being scared, or short sighted, or greedy , or something. 

But this will have an impact on Wisconsin, regardless if the specific jobs are being relocated from Wisconsin.  Trump was selling a vision of heavy manufacturing resurgence.  HOG is the symbol for American manufacturing in Wisconsin.  Walker just got a little more puckered. 

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BrickHorn

BrickHorn 18218

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I'm going to guess "yes".

You’d be right.  He talked Apprentice, Schwartzeneger, Jimmy Fallon, Hillary, Jimmy Kimmel, and, of course, himself and how great all his victories have been.

He also relayed a story about several women who told a reporter that there’s nothing Trump could do to make them question their support for him.  He used this to coin a new term for his supporters: the “super elites.”  According to Trump, they are smarter, better, and “more loyal.”  

The crowd ate it all up.  Because it’s a fucking cult that worships a narcissist.

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Pescado_Rojo

Pescado_Rojo 19416

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37 minutes ago, Tuco said:

Harley riders aren't going to care.  They'll blame the company for being scared, or short sighted, or greedy , or something. 

But this will have an impact on Wisconsin, regardless if the specific jobs are being relocated from Wisconsin.  Trump was selling a vision of heavy manufacturing resurgence.  HOG is the symbol for American manufacturing in Wisconsin.  Walker just got a little more puckered. 

It's those damn obstructionist democrats!!! 

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23367

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“The Russians Play Hard”: Inside Russia’s Attempt to Hack 2018—And 2020

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/inside-russias-attempt-to-hack-2018-and-2020

 

On the televisions hanging above the bar played a commercial for Uber—an apology from the company’s new C.E.O. for the actions of its previous C.E.O. As the news came back on, we made swamp small talk. Would the Democrats retake the house? Would Donald Trump win re-election in 2020? Or would his chaotic presidency all come crashing down far, far sooner? The former official simply shook his head side to side. “Russia is going to do everything it can to ensure that doesn’t happen,” he said. “They’ll hack the voting booths, if they haven’t already; they’ll quadruple their efforts on social media; they’ll do things we”—he pointed to me, then himself —“haven’t even thought of yet.” When I asked what we can do to stop them, he said, as if imitating the voice-over for a horror-movie trailer, “These are all things that have been in the works since the day Trump won two years ago.”

So what exactly is Russia planning for the upcoming election? The correct question, a half dozen security experts and former and current government officials have told me, is what are they not planning? These people all said that 2018 will likely be a testing ground for 2020. Many of the tactics that Russia experiments with could (and likely will) be enacted on a much larger scale two years from now. Some of these strategies and maneuvers appear grounded in reality, while others seem speculative, but all have the same sinister goal of breaking the system—by cleaving our polity, distracting us with feuds large and small—by sowing discord through technology platforms and services. “Having the U.S. at war with itself is giving Russia credit internationally,” explained Andrew Weiss, the vice president for research on Russia for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, noting that we as a country are more divided on almost every issue than at any other time in history. “[Russia is] not the creator of this problem, but they have exploited it. Just creating mistrust, and throwing a question mark over the legitimacy of our government, is a pretty big prize for Russia.”

In the coming months, these experts told me, Russian operatives will likely start creating fake Facebook groups (if they haven’t already)—some that slam to the left, others that lean as far right as humanly possible—that will argue with one another, and help us do the same; there will be accounts on social media that use Cambridge Analytica-style targeting to serve up ads, and a barrage of cleverly designed and perfectly disguised bots on Twitter. All stuff we’ve seen already, but with much more advanced algorithms and snakier and more aggressive tactics. (This time, for example, fake video and audio will start circulating through the social stratosphere, all with the intended purpose of trying to make real news seem fake, and fake news seem real.) As we’ve seen with the various e-mails posted on WikiLeaks—ranging from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the D.C.C.C. to the countless hacking attempts around the world that preceded the French national election—any modern candidate should expect that their e-mails, text messages, and personal social-media data are hacked and published. At least any candidate that Russia wants to harm.

More in spoilers 

Robby Mook, Clinton’s former campaign manager, told me in an interview on my podcast last week that even the slightest action by Russia can have outsized consequences. Recalling the repercussions of the John Podesta e-mail saga, Mook warned that simply hacking someone’s e-mails, text messages, or other private content—even if they are not salacious—can spread like a plague on social media; before long, the truth and fake content blurs together, and you have a coagulated version of fake truth. Social media allows Russia and other adversarial governments the ability to take something so small, and make it tantamount to any scandal on Earth. “Little, tiny embers become infernos in a way that no technology has ever enabled in history,” a tech entrepreneur lamented recently.

And then there will be new tactics. More than one expert told me that Russia will try to go after actual voting booths in smaller, more contentious districts across the country. The world we live in so intertwined with technology that you could imagine Russian hackers disrupting how we even get to the polls on Election Day. Ride-sharing services could be hacked. We’ve already seen instances of hackers faking transit problems on mapping apps, like Waze, to send people in the wrong direction, or away from a certain street. Perhaps most terrifying of all, one former official told me, are the possibilities arising from Russia’s alleged 2015 cyber-attack on Kiev’s power grid, which plunged the city into darkness. The moment I heard this, I ordered another drink.

On some level, the dystopian horror that technology poses to our democracy is effectively limitless. At the Def Con hacker conference in Las Vegas last year, white-hat hackers (the good kind) demonstrated that it takes about 90 minutes to hack into a voting booth. Some voting booths still operate using an old version of Windows XP, and people can easily get in using Wi-Fi systems. Over the years, there have been countless instances of hackers easily penetrating voting booths. Earlier this year, election officials admitted that Russians actually did infiltrate some of the U.S. election systems in 2016. Jeanette Manfra, the head of cyber-security at the Department of Homeland Security, told NBC News, “We saw a targeting of 21 states, and an exceptionally small number of them were actually successfully penetrated.” Another official admitted that, “2016 was a wake-up call, and now it’s incumbent upon states and the feds to do something about it before our democracy is attacked again.” Of course, the one person who possesses the most power to prevent this from recurring—our president—may be the one who stands to benefit the most in the first place.

With their man already in the Oval Office, Mook suggested that Russia’s goal in 2018 will similarly be to “sow discord.” It’s an elegant way of saying that they just want to start trouble and see what happens. And there are no consequences for them doing it. (If anything, Vladimir Putin is praised more by Trump.) Since Trump’s election, Mook explained, there have been several congressional hearings that have detailed how Russian operatives have fanned both sides of the flames during almost every major event in the last few years: Charlottesville, the Las Vegas shooting, Parkland, even infiltrating Bernie Sanderssupporters’ Facebook groups. Just this past week, as America boiled over the White House’s abominable policy to separate children and parents at the border, the Russians were hard at work stoking the flames with a flamethrower. Weiss echoed this, noting that the discord existed in America before the Russians stepped in—they just helped exacerbate it with tech. “There’s the old saying by Napoleon [along the lines of], ‘When your enemy is making a big mistake, don’t interrupt them,’” Weiss said. “This has been the most successful covert operation in reported history.”

In some ways, there are almost too many holes to plug to stop the Russians from causing massive harm in the coming elections. Mook suggested that concerns about voting-booth safety were just one tiny part of the problem. “Our election system goes far beyond machines. We have voter-registration databases,” he said. “We have e-poll books—the actual devices used to look you up when you come in to vote. We have the results reporting system. We have the Web sites that host those results.” Imagine, for a brief, terrifying moment, that the Web sites and reporting systems (the methodologies that are the backbone of how news organizations report election results in real time) are hacked, and Trump is briefly marked as the winner before the election is accurately called for his opponent? Trump and his surrogates would seize on such a moment like piranhas to blood. “I think [Russia] will do anything they can to help Donald Trump win re-election,” Mook concluded, “but there greater interest is to sow doubt in the election process in general—and doubt in democracy.” (As Mike Allen and Jonathan Swan note, Moscow’s continued covert efforts to interfere in our elections should be the most urgent issue before Trump when he meets with Vladimir Putin next month—a confrontation that is hard to imagine for a president who has deliberately ignored the issue when he wasn’t outright encouraging it.)

Russia and Putin want to drive a wedge deeper and deeper into the United States, pitting Americans against Americans, breaking the system from within, and helping us destroy ourselves. As one researcher said to me recently, if there’s one thing that Russia and the Democrats agree on, it’s that Trump is an idiot, and he’s so self-obsessed that he’ll always put himself before American democracy, and, in turn, weaken it. Trump is also playing to the same drum as the Russians, only louder. Over the past two years, Trump has been trying to make the public believe that everything about our democracy is corrupt—but not for the reasons you might think. First, it was Washington in general. (“Drain the swamp!”) Then, when the polls predicted his loss, it was the entire electoral system, which was “rigged.” (After he won the electoral vote, but lost the popular vote, there were magically between 3 million and 5 million people who, he lied, voted illegally.) Now, in anticipation of the Mueller Report, Trump has gone after the F.B.I. with the goal of discrediting them when the report finally does come out. Trump’s attacks on these institutions, and his unrelenting blitz on the media, are an attempt to make Americans distrust what journalists and cable outlets say, especially when it’s the truth. What more could the Russians ask for?

Last year, shortly after Trump started to settle into his new job, mysterious things began to happen to some of Putin’s critics. The Russian ambassador to Sudan suddenly had a heart attack in his swimming pool; another Russian politician, who had fled the country after publicly denouncing the country’s actions in Ukraine, was gunned down in front of a hotel; soon, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, India, and Greece died of a heart attack, too. And then there were the string of officials, and Putin critics, who mysteriously “fell” from their balcony or roof. One politician was killed in a Dupont Circle hotel room, not far from the bar where I met the former federal official who warned of what was to come.

Over the years, approximately a half dozen Russian journalists have been murdered and abducted while doing their jobs. Each time “accidents” happen, Russia denies any involvement, calling allegations that these were Putin-backed “absurd.” And so while none of this is new, I had to ask Weiss—who formally covered Russia for the Secretary of Defense under Bill Clintonand George H. W. Bush, advising both presidents about Russia—if we should worry that Putin could cross a line from digital to physical. Weiss didn’t say yes, but he also didn’t say no. “I don’t know what is possible,” he told me. “I think what we’ve seen so far is that all powers of imagination are possible when it comes to dealing with Russia. The Russians play hard. They play this game really ruthlessly.”

The day after my terrifying discussions in that dark bar, I had time to kill before heading to a meeting at the United States Senate building, so I decided to walk to try to clear my head. No matter how many times you do it, it’s an incredibly sobering experience to go past those massive buildings that house our government. The Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Department of Justice all stand momentous and stoic. They present themselves as edifices capable of withstanding anything—anything at all. Yet I found myself sitting across from the most impressive building of them all, the United States Capitol, and wondering if these institutions can withstand Trump, and, in turn, Russia. The answer, it seems, is right there in front of us. Russia and Trump want us to hate each other. They want us fighting on Twitter. Spewing vitriol. Telling our neighbors to go fuck themselves. Fighting on Facebook. If that continues to happen, they win, and we all—all!—lose. The only way to beat Russia is the only way that America can survive itself.

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Horn Under a Bad Sign

Horn Under a Bad Sign 20395

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Good Lord, I go overseas for a few months, Shaggy implodes,  Anthony Bourdain dies, and Trump is still President.  

I have spent approximately half of my working life in places other than the United States and I've never seen our fortunes at a lower ebb in terms of respect and influence.  Everywhere I get asked "Where are the Americans?  How can they allow this to happen to their great country?"  I still feel a lot of affection for individual Americans but it feels like the world is waiting and wanting us to lead them based on our proclaimed national virtues/values. They don't think we're asleep at the wheel, they think we've jumped out of the car. 

If you want to find a group of Americans who hate Trump, look no further than people who have to do business abroad. 

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Nivek

Nivek 16923

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I thought Tahoe told us we are now respected and not when Obama was apologizing?  Sorry HUBS, but you might need to brush up on your foreign.  Next time you run into those cucks, point to your Chinese made, ill fitting red hat and slap a tariff on them.   

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crash_davis

crash_davis 23107

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1 hour ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Good Lord, I go overseas for a few months, Shaggy implodes,  Anthony Bourdain dies, and Trump is still President.  

I have spent approximately half of my working life in places other than the United States and I've never seen our fortunes at a lower ebb in terms of respect and influence.  Everywhere I get asked "Where are the Americans?  How can they allow this to happen to their great country?"  I still feel a lot of affection for individual Americans but it feels like the world is waiting and wanting us to lead them based on our proclaimed national virtues/values. They don't think we're asleep at the wheel, they think we've jumped out of the car. 

If you want to find a group of Americans who hate Trump, look no further than people who have to do business abroad. 

the majority of trump supporters have never left their local communities or states.  

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