Folks, I don't like what Trump said about Chelsea Manning, but let's be honest with ourselves, it was kinda obvious he felt this way. He once called Snowden, who is and always was more popular than Manning ever was, a "Total Traitor", I don't think it was realistic to expect him to see Manning any more positively.
I also am not convinced that what Manning released was seen in context. It might have been, or what looked like civilians being shot by Apache may have been "blend in with civilian" style terrorists. Not saying they were, just saying I'm not 100% convinced that they weren't, One of them was a journalist, sure, but it's not as if journalists can't ever sympathize with or join terrorists. They're human beings like everyone else.
What I AM convinced of, is that, guilty or not, Manning's horrid treatment in jail was overkill. I am also convinced that Manning meant well, and believed what s/he saw was wrong. I believe that Manning wasn't given a fair trial, and that Manning has suffered enough and deserves to be let out, even if s/he WAS wrong. I MAY feel different on that last one if Manning had been given privileges and wasn't tortured, but that's not what happened.
Lastly, I believe Obama released Manning for the wrong reasons. That is, Manning was released for being trans, and so that Obama could leave office on a high note. Those are NOT the right reasons.
All that said, I'm glad Manning is getting out soon, and hope s/he can live a good life now.
Friday, January 27, 2017
Monday, January 23, 2017
"Democrats" cry foul as Trump brings end to outsourcing, sweatshops, child/slave labor exploitation in US
10 years ago, if someone told me, you, or anyone else that republicans would oppose "free trade" deals that outsource jobs, even where it exploits horrid sweatshops that enslave children, and democrats would support them? We'd all have a good laugh.
But yet, that's exactly what is going on right now. TPP is officially over on both the international and domestic fronts, and NAFTA doesn't have much longer. The democrats, who claimed to abhor these things apparently now hate that it is ending.
Truth, is stranger than fiction.
But yet, that's exactly what is going on right now. TPP is officially over on both the international and domestic fronts, and NAFTA doesn't have much longer. The democrats, who claimed to abhor these things apparently now hate that it is ending.
Truth, is stranger than fiction.
Friday, January 20, 2017
List of Obama's "accomplishments" as POTUS
1. Sold out Hard Working Americans to Big Insurance.
1a. When the Supreme Court made it worse by cancelling the medicaid expansion, he called this "A victory for Americans"
2. More than Doubled George W. Bush's Deficit
3. Expanded the Patriot Act.
4. Continued to get us into trouble in the middle east by going to war in Lybia and Syria
4a. Gave the Lockerbie Bomber back to Qaddafi, where he received a hero's welcome for his act of terrorism.
4b. Attacked Assad instead of ISIS in Syria, resulting in the Rapefugee crisis.
5. Expanded W's "Bailout" program, making the rich richer, while doing nothing for the poor.
6. Changed "Unemployment" from "Percentage of workforce looking for work" to "Percentage of workforce on unemployment benefits"
6a. Made it MUCH more difficult to receive unemployment benefits, while this screwed over poor Americans, it DID "conveniently" make the "unemployment rate" go down (see above).
7. Endangered innocent people all over the world in the name of "closing Guantanamo" (for the record, I support closing it, but not by dumping the inmates on other countries).
7a. Ghana for instance, ousted its leader over this. It's Islamic North is being slowly radicalized by the "Gitmo 2".
8. Aggressively persecuted whistleblowers.
8a. Allowed Chelsea Manning to be:
-Denied all human contact
-Denied all forms of entertainment
-Denied her/his glasses
-Denied clothing, including, sometimes, even underwear
-Forced to sleep during daylight hours, and forced to face towards her/his cell's light bulb while doing so.
-Beaten for singing, dancing, and sometimes just making faces in the mirror.
-Denied food from time to time.
-On 23, sometimes 24 hour lockdown (s/he was sometimes denied the daily "exercise time")
-Would have been denied commutation if s/he wasn't trans.
9. Appointed dovish Fed Chairs, destroying people's savings and retirement plans due to a lack of reliable investment options.
9a. Many late Gen Xers will retire later than the Baby Boom generation because of this.
10. Signed the Trans Atlantic Partnership, exacerbating the wage stagnation and job out-sourcing problems brought by NAFTA.
10a. Tried to further this with TPP, thankfully, that failed.
11. Exacerbated existing tensions with Russia, and abused the Ad Council to spread anti-Russia propaganda through the media.
12. Exacerbated existing tensions with North Korea, leading to several Nuclear threats (granted, it's dubious if they were serious, but still)
NOTE; I'm no fan of North Korea, but they are there, and aren't going away. They maybe shouldn't have nukes, but they do, and provoking them was idiotic. W did it too, yes, but how is THAT an excuse?
1a. When the Supreme Court made it worse by cancelling the medicaid expansion, he called this "A victory for Americans"
2. More than Doubled George W. Bush's Deficit
3. Expanded the Patriot Act.
4. Continued to get us into trouble in the middle east by going to war in Lybia and Syria
4a. Gave the Lockerbie Bomber back to Qaddafi, where he received a hero's welcome for his act of terrorism.
4b. Attacked Assad instead of ISIS in Syria, resulting in the Rapefugee crisis.
5. Expanded W's "Bailout" program, making the rich richer, while doing nothing for the poor.
6. Changed "Unemployment" from "Percentage of workforce looking for work" to "Percentage of workforce on unemployment benefits"
6a. Made it MUCH more difficult to receive unemployment benefits, while this screwed over poor Americans, it DID "conveniently" make the "unemployment rate" go down (see above).
7. Endangered innocent people all over the world in the name of "closing Guantanamo" (for the record, I support closing it, but not by dumping the inmates on other countries).
7a. Ghana for instance, ousted its leader over this. It's Islamic North is being slowly radicalized by the "Gitmo 2".
8. Aggressively persecuted whistleblowers.
8a. Allowed Chelsea Manning to be:
-Denied all human contact
-Denied all forms of entertainment
-Denied her/his glasses
-Denied clothing, including, sometimes, even underwear
-Forced to sleep during daylight hours, and forced to face towards her/his cell's light bulb while doing so.
-Beaten for singing, dancing, and sometimes just making faces in the mirror.
-Denied food from time to time.
-On 23, sometimes 24 hour lockdown (s/he was sometimes denied the daily "exercise time")
-Would have been denied commutation if s/he wasn't trans.
9. Appointed dovish Fed Chairs, destroying people's savings and retirement plans due to a lack of reliable investment options.
9a. Many late Gen Xers will retire later than the Baby Boom generation because of this.
10. Signed the Trans Atlantic Partnership, exacerbating the wage stagnation and job out-sourcing problems brought by NAFTA.
10a. Tried to further this with TPP, thankfully, that failed.
11. Exacerbated existing tensions with Russia, and abused the Ad Council to spread anti-Russia propaganda through the media.
12. Exacerbated existing tensions with North Korea, leading to several Nuclear threats (granted, it's dubious if they were serious, but still)
NOTE; I'm no fan of North Korea, but they are there, and aren't going away. They maybe shouldn't have nukes, but they do, and provoking them was idiotic. W did it too, yes, but how is THAT an excuse?
Saturday, January 7, 2017
My opinion on Trump's Job as President Elect
The PEOTUS era of Trump is coming to a close, and so far here are the results:
-Over 10,000 American jobs saved, some with deals, others with threats, others with encouragement.
-Some tweets were made, arguably more than necessary.
-Cabinet picks, some good, some bad.
The last point is pretty average, this happens with every president elect. Though, I would say that's not much of a defense, as he was elected to be better than a typical politician. We can give him that his choices may be limited, and a cabinet won't make decisions for him, but it's still at least slightly troubling,
The tweets, amazingly enough, are not causing nuclear war, despite fearmongering from Robert Cialdini to that effect. It is annoying people though, and he perhaps shouldn't do this. But that's more a problem for his re-election effort than for the American People. It's NOT dangerous, and if he wants to bypass the press to reach the American People directly, there's probably a better way.
The jobs, honestly, there's no reason to criticize this. Sure, he could have done better in many if not all cases, but even saving a single job is more than either Bush or Obama ever did for the American People. I appreciate this, I think he could have squeezed in some more jobs, but a series of B moves by far outranks the straight F's of the Obama and Bush Administrations. I do agree with Bernie Sanders that he could have done more, but I don't agree with downplaying what good he did do, There's also the fact that no president ELECT that I'm aware of has ever done anything like this, especially in my lifetime. Usually they just pick their cabinet and sit back, waiting for inauguration, Trump instead stepped up for the worker, and even if he could have done it better, we'd be wrong not to at least give credit where it is due,
So we can rank this:
-Jobs saved - great - Not Perfect, but it is unusual for someone to do this as PEOTUS anyway, so props.
-Tweets - Harmless - NOT creating actual problems, but can hurt his re-election chances, remains to be seen if reaching Americans directly really is his reason.
-Cabinet Picks - Bad - He fucked up here, no more than usual, but that's not an excuse because he was elected to be better than the status quo.
Overall - Good - But only because he continued saving jobs after some of his questionable cabinet picks. This hints that they will not influence him much, but rather work FOR him. That remains to be seen, but still.
All that said, there is a difference between being an actually good POTUS and a good PEOTUS. 10,000 jobs over a month and a half is great for someone who hasn't signed any laws, but for someone who has, well, it's ok, but he'll have the power to do more than this. There IS cause for cautious optimism, but I do mean CAUTIOUS, we will have to wait and see,
Addendum - I haven't addressed US/Russia relations because he can't officially better than until he is sworn in, officially they are damaged, but that's Obama's doing, not Trump's. Well, Obama and the media's. Obviously, they will improve when he is sworn in, but I would say right now, at best, we're READY to have better relations.
-Over 10,000 American jobs saved, some with deals, others with threats, others with encouragement.
-Some tweets were made, arguably more than necessary.
-Cabinet picks, some good, some bad.
The last point is pretty average, this happens with every president elect. Though, I would say that's not much of a defense, as he was elected to be better than a typical politician. We can give him that his choices may be limited, and a cabinet won't make decisions for him, but it's still at least slightly troubling,
The tweets, amazingly enough, are not causing nuclear war, despite fearmongering from Robert Cialdini to that effect. It is annoying people though, and he perhaps shouldn't do this. But that's more a problem for his re-election effort than for the American People. It's NOT dangerous, and if he wants to bypass the press to reach the American People directly, there's probably a better way.
The jobs, honestly, there's no reason to criticize this. Sure, he could have done better in many if not all cases, but even saving a single job is more than either Bush or Obama ever did for the American People. I appreciate this, I think he could have squeezed in some more jobs, but a series of B moves by far outranks the straight F's of the Obama and Bush Administrations. I do agree with Bernie Sanders that he could have done more, but I don't agree with downplaying what good he did do, There's also the fact that no president ELECT that I'm aware of has ever done anything like this, especially in my lifetime. Usually they just pick their cabinet and sit back, waiting for inauguration, Trump instead stepped up for the worker, and even if he could have done it better, we'd be wrong not to at least give credit where it is due,
So we can rank this:
-Jobs saved - great - Not Perfect, but it is unusual for someone to do this as PEOTUS anyway, so props.
-Tweets - Harmless - NOT creating actual problems, but can hurt his re-election chances, remains to be seen if reaching Americans directly really is his reason.
-Cabinet Picks - Bad - He fucked up here, no more than usual, but that's not an excuse because he was elected to be better than the status quo.
Overall - Good - But only because he continued saving jobs after some of his questionable cabinet picks. This hints that they will not influence him much, but rather work FOR him. That remains to be seen, but still.
All that said, there is a difference between being an actually good POTUS and a good PEOTUS. 10,000 jobs over a month and a half is great for someone who hasn't signed any laws, but for someone who has, well, it's ok, but he'll have the power to do more than this. There IS cause for cautious optimism, but I do mean CAUTIOUS, we will have to wait and see,
Addendum - I haven't addressed US/Russia relations because he can't officially better than until he is sworn in, officially they are damaged, but that's Obama's doing, not Trump's. Well, Obama and the media's. Obviously, they will improve when he is sworn in, but I would say right now, at best, we're READY to have better relations.
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