Are presidents above the law?

[Miggs]

Oh, so I should call you names when I don't agree with you?

It’s not opinions at question here. There are facts and there is that of which you speak.

 

[Zombie]

It's already socialized but under a free market system. Not changing that was possibly my biggest beef with Obama. I still have the same people ask me over and over how I'm not worried about Obamacare. It's basically the same damn system but was designed as a huge giveaway to health insurers. Minor tweaks that were good but that's it.

My boss attended a speech by Senator Hatch to our legislature on the hill years ago and he said socialized medicine will come. Hatch isn't known as a leftist by any stretch (he is but cant publicly act so).

I'd agree with that, although my beef with how Obamacare ended up is pointed more towards Joe Lieberman and the other Blue Dogs who killed the public option. I do think Obama was pretty naive about the possibility of Republicans working with him on health care. Considering it ended up getting passed on a party line vote and painted by the right as socialized health care anyway I wish he (and congress) would have just went whole hog so to speak.

 

[idestroyedthetoilet]

I'd agree with that, although my beef with how Obamacare ended up is pointed more towards Joe Lieberman and the other Blue Dogs who killed the public option. I do think Obama was pretty naive about the possibility of Republicans working with him on health care. Considering it ended up getting passed on a party line vote and painted by the right as socialized health care anyway I wish he (and congress) would have just went whole hog so to speak.

It wasn't getting passed bipartisan with the rise of the Tea Party. I was much younger then and naive and I was against it. Everyone else I knew was. Utah kicked out Bob Bennett for voting the necessary bailout prior to that. Democrats led by Obama needed to use their hammer and tell us this is how it's going to be, voting results be damned. Do you know how many baby boomers would be supporting centrist democratic candidates if they could retire if it weren't for healthcare?

I'm not a political scientist so I'm probably spouting off ********, but I know plenty of people who need to retire or want to but can't because of HC costs. Money is everything in politics and the voting base says "give something into my palm".

I'd also like to point out why @babe posts his conspiracy suspicions on here. Why did Obama and Pelosi and all the rest go along to get along? I differ with babe but elected isn't any longer what it was intended to be.

 

[One Brow]

Many Democrats clearly support single payer healthcare. Five seconds more of reading proves that I was correct, not you.

I didn't say anything about "many Democrats". I said, "So far, that has not been a plank in any major political party platform, nor a major piece of attempted legislation." Putting forth a bill you know will not pass is not attempted legislation.

Outside of that, I completely acknowledge the correctness that there are many (aka more than several) Democrats who support single-payer. You may now bask in your correctness on this point.

 

[Zombie]

It wasn't getting passed bipartisan with the rise of the Tea Party. I was much younger then and naive and I was against it. Everyone else I knew was. Utah kicked out Bob Bennett for voting the necessary bailout prior to that. Democrats led by Obama needed to use their hammer and tell us this is how it's going to be, voting results be damned. Do you know how many baby boomers would be supporting centrist democratic candidates if they could retire if it weren't for healthcare?

I'm not a political scientist so I'm probably spouting off ********, but I know plenty of people who need to retire or want to but can't because of HC costs. Money is everything in politics and the voting base says "give something into my palm".

I'd also like to point out why @babe posts his conspiracy suspicions on here. Why did Obama and Pelosi and all the rest go along to get along? I differ with babe but elected isn't any longer what it was intended to be.

My personal interpretation of what happenned is that there simply weren't enough Democrats in the Senate who would have supported an honest to God universal Healthcare bill. That combined with Obama's overly optimistic view of congressional republicans willingness to work with him is what led to the result we got, which is better than what we had before, but far from enough.

 

[JazzGal]

I'm the same as you, except that I'm on the right. There is no place for centrists anymore.

But my point was that it's nice to see that someone whose political leanings are to the left is able to acknowledge that the left is doing itself no favors with the unhinged Trump hate. It would be far more effective to attack him for what he has actually said and done instead of for what they purport his ulterior motives to be.

I dislike Trump. Always have, long before the election. At first, I freaked out about everything because I do believe he has the potential to harm our country in ways that may take a long time to overcome. But I am tired of the constant outrage over what he might do.

Sent from my HTC6535LVW using JazzFanz mobile app

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

I didn't say anything about "many Democrats". I said, "So far, that has not been a plank in any major political party platform, nor a major piece of attempted legislation." Putting forth a bill you know will not pass is not attempted legislation.

Outside of that, I completely acknowledge the correctness that there are many (aka more than several) Democrats who support single-payer. You may now bask in your correctness on this point.

Thank you. Ahh. Basking is so cathartic.

 

[Red]

This is one of the best posts of the entire thread.

Have you ever read the book by Erich Fromm, "Escape from Freedom"?

Basically, he writes about what you just posted. Every era features new freedoms, new economic opportunities, and a displaced group of people either socially or economically. He goes back to the end of the middle ages and how capitalism sprouted throughout western Europe. Breaking from the catholic dogma and feudal system found new freedom and opportunities either socially or economically. Many swam some sank. Those who sank, often found became scared and cynical at the new freedoms presented and desired "an escape." The escape was found in authoritarian religions and/or governments. This cycle repeated during the industrial revolution too.

Where Erich really digs deep is in the Weimar Republic and how it met its demise with the rise of Nazism. Hitler and the Nazi ideology gave security and identity to those displaced in Germany and weary of the roller coaster of the Weimar Republic. Instead of "dealing with" democracy, enough displaced people in German society threw it away in favor of one man who could "fix everything." Enough people placed security as a higher priority than freedom and it led to dictatorship. The book was published in 1942 so it has an interesting perspective since the Nazi regime was still in power at its publishing.

I see the very same thing playing out right now in America. Most Trumpers aren't benefiting from his presidency. His tax cut was a complete joke. As shown last year, Trumpers would be the biggest losers if Obamacare had been repealed and Trumpcare passed. But they don't give a ****. All Trumpers care about is the feeling of "safety" and being able to troll liberals. "Who cares if the tax cut doesn't help me as long as I can stick it to the liberals, women, and brown people!"

I'm really not sure how we recover from this if we aren't permitted to get rid of Trump. He needs to be impeached, indicted, and thrown into prison. Along with his criminal cartel. They all need to go.

Thank you. Yes, I'm familiar with Fromm's study "Escape from Freedom". It's going on 5 decades now, but in grad school in history, my focus, and degree, was Europe since 1789, or since the French Revolution. I was really interested in the intellectual currents that Hitler fed off of. Everything I studied seemed to come crashing down upon me when Trump arrived on the scene, and then won the GOP nomination. It's safe to say I've spent much of my spare time since trying to understand how such a demagogue came to power in my country at just this time.

And that focus of mine has been part of what I perceive as me falling short here. My too long comments, like this latest, I guess, lol. In the early Trump threads I think I waxed too ad nauseum to many here because I went on and on about what constituted a demagogue and why we should be alarmed that one such had attained the presidency of the United States. In classic style, he started out identifying scapegoats that the disaffected elements of American society could conveniently take out anger upon. Hispanics. Muslims. Immigrants in general. (And anti-immigrant hysteria has been a recurring theme in our nation's history. It's the reason I've said Trump, had he lived in the 1850's, would have been a logical candidate for the Nativist Party, or Know Nothing Party, which in that era focused anger on Roman Catholic and Irish immigrants.)

I do agree with what you are saying here, with the exception of sending Trump to prison. When all is said and done, that may be his just fate, but I don't think I would do that, and here's why. Like the masterful demagogue that he is, he has finely crafted the Big Lie, and builds upon it daily, to convince his followers, and even beyond his followers, that it is he who is the victim in the Mueller investigation. He has convinced his followers that the news media, rather then being the watchdogs of our society, are the enemy of the people. You and I may see through this Big Orwellian Lie, but, at this stage, it's likely even impeachment may generate civil strife like this country has not seen since the 1960's, if not the 1860's. Because of the Big Orwellian Lie cemented by the "Fake News" meme. Putting him in jail somewhere down the line would only make it that much harder to bring the country together again. It's hard to see a scenario where our divided nation is whole again, jailing Trump won't achieve that. I want him out of power, though.

I want to take the opportunity to say something here in response to @Joe Bagadonuts suggestion that the left should spend less time in blind hatred of Trump the man, and more time on his policies. Well, I do in fact. I've signed every anti-Zinke(Interior Secretary) and anti-Pruitt(EPA) petition that has come my way. I am a long time member of the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC), and I am appalled by the anti-environmental and anti-science policies of the Trump administration. Those, and the policy toward refugees and undocumented immigrants(often they are one and the same) are the policies that engender anger and resistance in me more then anything else. I do not hate Trump. I do not know the man personally. I do indeed hate what I see he represents: bigotry, uber nationalism, denial and repression of science. These things I oppose in his administration.

I'll end this latest of my rants with a couple of articles some may enjoy reading. First, an opinion piece by Will Bunch, of The Inquirer of Philadelphia. It will be seen as more overreaction from the Left. Perhaps. But I recall conservative columnists were among the first to identify Trump as a dangerous demagogue:

http://www.philly.com/philly/column...ons-lies-obstruction-of-justice-20180603.html

"Hour by hour, lie by lie, dictate by dictate, Donald Trump is becoming an American dictator. And recent days have proved what many of us have long feared: That no one knows how to stop this. Not the Republicans or Democrats on Capitol Hill who, for different reasons, are too cowed politically to take substantive action. And not a news media that doesn’t have the mechanisms for informing the public when a president is a compulsive liar. Maybe things will change after the November midterm election — but there’s no guarantee, and that feels like a long time away."

Last, a hint of where our next great war may develop. If Trump is given any kind of shiny thing he can take home with him from the summit with North Korea, I believe his war cabinet of Pompeo and Bolton may turn their full attention to Iran. Michael Klare, writing for TomDispatch.com, describes "The Road to Hell in the Middle East" that we may live to see in our lifetime. The fact that Bolton seems to be on the outs with Trump at the moment helps, but this is still a foreseeable scenario:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176422/tomgram:_michael_klare,_the_road_to_hell_in_the_middle_east/

I don't "hate" Trump. I hate the forces he represents and stokes on a daily basis. The imperial presidency has been in ascendency for the last several administrations. But Trump is the climax of that authoritarian trend. He's brought a mean spiritedness to that office like no other. He has created "the other" for his followers to hate. He has alienated our closest allies. None of this can possibly be good for our country. Enough already.

 

[Game6Conley]

Only Steven Seagal is above the law.

 

[babe]

It's already socialized but under a free market system. Not changing that was possibly my biggest beef with Obama. I still have the same people ask me over and over how I'm not worried about Obamacare. It's basically the same damn system but was designed as a huge giveaway to health insurers. Minor tweaks that were good but that's it.

My boss attended a speech by Senator Hatch to our legislature on the hill years ago and he said socialized medicine will come. Hatch isn't known as a leftist by any stretch (he is but cant publicly act so).

It wasn't getting passed bipartisan with the rise of the Tea Party. I was much younger then and naive and I was against it. Everyone else I knew was. Utah kicked out Bob Bennett for voting the necessary bailout prior to that. Democrats led by Obama needed to use their hammer and tell us this is how it's going to be, voting results be damned. Do you know how many baby boomers would be supporting centrist democratic candidates if they could retire if it weren't for healthcare?

I'm not a political scientist so I'm probably spouting off ********, but I know plenty of people who need to retire or want to but can't because of HC costs. Money is everything in politics and the voting base says "give something into my palm".

I'd also like to point out why @babe posts his conspiracy suspicions on here. Why did Obama and Pelosi and all the rest go along to get along? I differ with babe but elected isn't any longer what it was intended to be.

Post WWII we brought a lot of German scientists into this country to help out with technological expertise. The Russians got a lot of them too. I don't know what happened to Hitler, but my dad worked with some of these Germans, and later some were my supervisors at work. Just in case people started calling the gov out for protecting former executioners aka scientists building gas ovens, our CIA invented the term "conspiracy theory" and started labeling "kooks" who said the wrong things as such. You've got to have a way to discredit truth speakers when you do stuff the public won't accept.

The fact that Rockefeller interests were well represented in the industrial base of the Third Reich, in pharmaceutical and chemical and industrial production, and even the Fords invested in steel and auto plants before the war, and that Prescott Bush was the Brown Brothers Harriman bag man who took $20M to Adolf Hitler to finance his consolidation of power might not mean our industrialists and bankers really meant to have a world war at the outset, but it certainly meant that the story had to be quashed somehow.

Most of our politics today is out in the open. Not many rocks to hide under anymore. Trump taps McConnell's wife Elaine Chou as Transportation Stooge, leaving the Chinese a huge avenue of influence with our politics, and Xi smiles broadly.

The New World Order or the UN global governance schema is colossal collusion that just makes a joke of Trump's lack of Russian helpers while Hillary could take millions in help from the Russians while having all their help , with her computer wide open to the whole international elitist crowd.

I hardly think a crowd of hundreds of children with their hands in the world cookie jar, chocolate and strawberry and banana smudges all over their mugs, constitutes a "conspiracy theory". But hey, at a minimum we need some kind of public opinion makers out there telling us to trust the establishment.

As Mark Twain, said..... after making millions publishing fake news about mining stocks in Nevada.....

"Let sleeping dogs lie. But if there is much at stake, you'd better get the newspapers to do it."

"Obamacare" was legislations written by major interests and rubber stamped by our government. A lot of "interests" got preferred seats in the marketplace, and eventually, some hoped, they would win out with their lobbyists' help and be the health care monopoly. Single payer, single provider. Somebody ends up with all the marbles. You get to pay the bill via the IRS. By then we'd probably have a new dollar, something like an R with two lines horizontal across it. We might even have a new name for it, the "Rockefeller".

 

[babe]

@red. War centered on Iran. Obama did everything he could to pump up Iran. Russia and China are helping Iran. War games run within our military departments have focused on a Mideast war for decades. This is very old news. Very, very old news. Hitler cultivated relations in the Mideast, the West.... Russia and the US intelligence agencies have had a lot of irons in the fire, stirring things up. Fake Muslim groups.... pretending.... really western ideologues, are in the mix everywhere.

Gotta modernize that region, put population controls in place, reduce the populations...... just gotta do it if we're really gonna have any kind of stable global governance with Lord Cecil Rhodes' plan for orchestration of world power to be permanent..... or, well, we could just say "No" to the war. Probably what Trump is saying.

Just ask Mika what her daddy says...... The genius with the unintelligible name has been foaming at the mouth over his plans for war in the Mideast for four decades....

McCain was a war-monger, Obama just wants to level the US and make us conform to world standards of business and payola for politicians. Mitt woulda been just stupid about it all. Trump has got the whole show on hold. Even with his generals around him, he is not predictable, and will not just be weak.

Iranians scattered all around the world just want the Ayatollah to flee to some little ISIS camp in Iraq, and all the world to just go home. About a million Trump votes in that cultural niche.

 

[idestroyedthetoilet]

@babe leave it for a private discussion. Pretty much nobody here is interested in discussion on campaign finances or its effectiveness. Maybe they care about results, but then they made the Trumpster fire.

So now I'm gonna have a bonfire and roast another pig. I named it Melinda because I'm an *******.