Moderators: LyricalRico, nate33, montestewart
Rafael122 wrote:Well the Mexican president isn't even coming up for the meeting, so it is what it is. But again, it doesn't matter, they'll take our money first and then figure it out later.
The 200 million in aid doesn't even make a dent in what Mexico "should pay."
bsilver wrote:Rafael122 wrote:Well the Mexican president isn't even coming up for the meeting, so it is what it is. But again, it doesn't matter, they'll take our money first and then figure it out later.
The 200 million in aid doesn't even make a dent in what Mexico "should pay."
That's breaking news! Looks like Trump has now declared Twitter war on Mexico.
Mexico has too much national pride to give in. They'll ride this one out.
Mexico is the destination of the largest amount of remittances from the United States. According to BEA’s estimates, of the $33 billion (net) transferred from the United States to people in other countries in the Western Hemisphere in 2009 or earned as compensation by short-term migrants, about $20 billion was identified in the international economic accounts as going to Mexico; by BEA’s estimates, such flows from the United States to Mexico (adjusted for inflation) rose by an average of 2 percent per year between 2000 and 2009. The Banco de Mxico estimates that all gross inflows of funds from abroad—not only from the United States—were about $22 billion in 2009. (The bank does not estimate outflows.) Estimates from the Banco de Mxico indicate that all gross inflows (adjusted for inflation) rose by an average of 11 percent per year during the past decade.
nate33 wrote:From the Congressional Budget Office:Mexico is the destination of the largest amount of remittances from the United States. According to BEA’s estimates, of the $33 billion (net) transferred from the United States to people in other countries in the Western Hemisphere in 2009 or earned as compensation by short-term migrants, about $20 billion was identified in the international economic accounts as going to Mexico; by BEA’s estimates, such flows from the United States to Mexico (adjusted for inflation) rose by an average of 2 percent per year between 2000 and 2009. The Banco de Mxico estimates that all gross inflows of funds from abroad—not only from the United States—were about $22 billion in 2009. (The bank does not estimate outflows.) Estimates from the Banco de Mxico indicate that all gross inflows (adjusted for inflation) rose by an average of 11 percent per year during the past decade.
If $20B in remittance payments are sent per year, we could impose a 10% tax on them and make $2B a year. 10% is a small enough tax that they're rather pay it than risk sending the money by other means. If the Wall costs $14B, it would be paid for by the end of Trump's second term.
Bickerstaff: who's up for kickball?!!
Ed Wood: Only if it's the no-pants variety.
Rafael122 wrote:
Bro, this is assuming Trump gets a second term. This has all the makings of 2008, everyone hated Bush so much that they voted blue. The cherry on top that the Democratic candidate was African American.
Wizardspride wrote:
“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” says Kerry Chief of Staff David Wade.
This is bad for Tillerson. But it's bad for everyone. Kennedy was reportedly trying to stay on in his position, as I believe he did from Bush to Obama. It sure sounds like there was some precipitating event.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/top-state-dept-leadership-resigns
How Losing My Political Values Helped Me Gain My Freedom
There's a frustrating game that the left plays with conservatives. It's an Alinksy tactic called, "Make them live up to their values." Now, living up to one's values isn't a bad thing, but setting high standards ultimately means that you'll sometimes fall short.
The left loves to exploit these shortcomings--every Christian who falls short of perfection is a hypocrite; the social values candidate you voted for just got arrested for drunk driving. Haha, everything you believe and advocate is now discredited.
They got away with it for years, waving away the lies, hypocrisy, indiscretions, and criminal behavior from their own politicians while beating the right mercilessly with the missteps of their own. It's effective because the right always maintains a baseline of integrity not displayed by the left, as evidenced by comparing what happens to Republican politicians when they're caught in criminal behavior with what happens to Democrats. Republican voters and politicians reluctantly dump the malefactor while Democrats defend their guy and launch an offensive against those who demand accountability.
And then came along Trump, a guy just ripe for demonization by the left. I think it's fair to say that even his early supporters worried that the Democrats would successfully make him toxic to the general voting public with his boorish behavior, vulgarity, multiple bankruptcies and very public divorces.
But something strange happened. Not only did Donald Trump not care about attacks on his character, neither did anyone else. We saw this new paradigm assert itself over and over during the primary throughout repeated media predictions that this time he's gone to far and he's cooked.
This same indifference that helped Trump carry the election has continued into the early days of his administration. With it comes a refreshingly freeing state of mind. Personally, I don't feel in any way responsible for Trump, nor do I feel compelled to defend him against attack.
Why? Because I voted for retribution.
"He's think-skinned and petty!" shrieks the left. "He takes everything personally!"
Good, I say. I want him to take attacks personally and deal out payback. I know I won't be the target, you will be.
"He's unpresidential! He'll destroy the integrity of the office!"
No, that's already happened. Remember, you elected a **** jackass who takes selfies at state funerals when he's not giving stealth middle fingers to his opponents during debates. There is no dignity of the office, not after Clinton and Obama.
"He's a narcissist! He's got totalitarian impulses!"
Yes, he's basically a mirror version of Obama. Except now, he'll be working for what I want. The end justifies the means. You taught me that.
"A sitting president going after the media. OMG!"
Oh, like Obama trashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News? How about when he sent his lackeys to berate news reporters for failure to flatter him at all times. Oh, and NSA spying on the press. That was pretty great, too.
"He won't show his taxes!"
Don't care. Where are Obama's college transcripts, by the way?
"He's a bully! Is this what you want? Someone who uses his power to bully other people?!!!"
And this is where everything funnels down to the very nexus of my change in attitude from "Do unto others" to "I will do unto you what you do unto me."
It's two words: Memories Pizza.
It was that moment that everything changed for me--not only the harassment, fake Yelp reviews and the death threats that forced them to temporarily close up shop--oh, that was bad enough, but the most powerful man on Earth bullying a couple of small town pizza owners from Indiana simply for expressing an opinion on a hypothetical asked of them by a reporter with a malicious agenda? That was when I snapped.
Do you remember?
It's this that sent me to a place from which I'll never return. I literally don't care what Donald Trump does because nothing he can do is worse than what they've already done.
Donald Trump isn't the bully; he only insults and abuses people in power who have attacked him. They're the **** bullies. The left, with their smears, their witch hunts, their slanders, their insults, their riots, their violence, and their weaponizing of the federal bureaucracy.
There aren't any rules anymore because the left only applies them one way. And in doing so, they've left what once was a civil compact between the two parties in smoldering ruins.
I have no personal investment in Donald Trump. He is a tool to punish the left and roll back their ill-gotten gains, no more and no less. If he succeeds even partially in those two things, then I'll consider his election a win.
Further, I no longer have any investment in any particular political values, save one: The rules created by the left will be applied to the left as equally and punitively as they have applied them to the right. And when they beg for mercy, I'll begin to reconsider. Or maybe not. Because **** these people.
This new philosophy has freed me of more emotional angst that I can describe. Literally nothing the left says or does matters to me anymore. I don't care about their tantrums. I don't care about their accusations. I don't care if they say Trump is lying. I don't care if Trump is lying.
They created this Frankenstein. They own it. I am free of all obligation. I will never play defense again. I will attack, attack, attack, attack using their own tactics against them until they learn their lesson.
What I will not do is let them play my values against me ever again. I don't need to prove that I'm better than them. I already know it.
nate33 wrote:This is from popular and respectable conservative blog, Ace of Spades. This blog was formerly NeverTrump but has had an epiphany or two along the way. I think this post summarizes the thinking of most conservative Trump supporters, and I believe the trend here will continue in Trump's direction. Trump will consolidate the conservative base to a much stronger degree in the next election than he did last time around. (Whether or not he wins depends on whether or not the left can unite their fragmented base.) I posted it in its entirety. It's a good read:How Losing My Political Values Helped Me Gain My Freedom
There's a frustrating game that the left plays with conservatives. It's an Alinksy tactic called, "Make them live up to their values." Now, living up to one's values isn't a bad thing, but setting high standards ultimately means that you'll sometimes fall short.
The left loves to exploit these shortcomings--every Christian who falls short of perfection is a hypocrite; the social values candidate you voted for just got arrested for drunk driving. Haha, everything you believe and advocate is now discredited.
They got away with it for years, waving away the lies, hypocrisy, indiscretions, and criminal behavior from their own politicians while beating the right mercilessly with the missteps of their own. It's effective because the right always maintains a baseline of integrity not displayed by the left, as evidenced by comparing what happens to Republican politicians when they're caught in criminal behavior with what happens to Democrats. Republican voters and politicians reluctantly dump the malefactor while Democrats defend their guy and launch an offensive against those who demand accountability.
And then came along Trump, a guy just ripe for demonization by the left. I think it's fair to say that even his early supporters worried that the Democrats would successfully make him toxic to the general voting public with his boorish behavior, vulgarity, multiple bankruptcies and very public divorces.
But something strange happened. Not only did Donald Trump not care about attacks on his character, neither did anyone else. We saw this new paradigm assert itself over and over during the primary throughout repeated media predictions that this time he's gone to far and he's cooked.
This same indifference that helped Trump carry the election has continued into the early days of his administration. With it comes a refreshingly freeing state of mind. Personally, I don't feel in any way responsible for Trump, nor do I feel compelled to defend him against attack.
Why? Because I voted for retribution.
"He's think-skinned and petty!" shrieks the left. "He takes everything personally!"
Good, I say. I want him to take attacks personally and deal out payback. I know I won't be the target, you will be.
"He's unpresidential! He'll destroy the integrity of the office!"
No, that's already happened. Remember, you elected a **** jackass who takes selfies at state funerals when he's not giving stealth middle fingers to his opponents during debates. There is no dignity of the office, not after Clinton and Obama.
"He's a narcissist! He's got totalitarian impulses!"
Yes, he's basically a mirror version of Obama. Except now, he'll be working for what I want. The end justifies the means. You taught me that.
"A sitting president going after the media. OMG!"
Oh, like Obama trashing Rush Limbaugh and Fox News? How about when he sent his lackeys to berate news reporters for failure to flatter him at all times. Oh, and NSA spying on the press. That was pretty great, too.
"He won't show his taxes!"
Don't care. Where are Obama's college transcripts, by the way?
"He's a bully! Is this what you want? Someone who uses his power to bully other people?!!!"
And this is where everything funnels down to the very nexus of my change in attitude from "Do unto others" to "I will do unto you what you do unto me."
It's two words: Memories Pizza.
It was that moment that everything changed for me--not only the harassment, fake Yelp reviews and the death threats that forced them to temporarily close up shop--oh, that was bad enough, but the most powerful man on Earth bullying a couple of small town pizza owners from Indiana simply for expressing an opinion on a hypothetical asked of them by a reporter with a malicious agenda? That was when I snapped.
Do you remember?
It's this that sent me to a place from which I'll never return. I literally don't care what Donald Trump does because nothing he can do is worse than what they've already done.
Donald Trump isn't the bully; he only insults and abuses people in power who have attacked him. They're the **** bullies. The left, with their smears, their witch hunts, their slanders, their insults, their riots, their violence, and their weaponizing of the federal bureaucracy.
There aren't any rules anymore because the left only applies them one way. And in doing so, they've left what once was a civil compact between the two parties in smoldering ruins.
I have no personal investment in Donald Trump. He is a tool to punish the left and roll back their ill-gotten gains, no more and no less. If he succeeds even partially in those two things, then I'll consider his election a win.
Further, I no longer have any investment in any particular political values, save one: The rules created by the left will be applied to the left as equally and punitively as they have applied them to the right. And when they beg for mercy, I'll begin to reconsider. Or maybe not. Because **** these people.
This new philosophy has freed me of more emotional angst that I can describe. Literally nothing the left says or does matters to me anymore. I don't care about their tantrums. I don't care about their accusations. I don't care if they say Trump is lying. I don't care if Trump is lying.
They created this Frankenstein. They own it. I am free of all obligation. I will never play defense again. I will attack, attack, attack, attack using their own tactics against them until they learn their lesson.
What I will not do is let them play my values against me ever again. I don't need to prove that I'm better than them. I already know it.
Trump is like a James Carville on the Republican side. Forget making a methodical, consistent argument; just attack, attack, attack! The Democrats and the media have never faced anything like him before and they still haven't figured out how to counter him. All of their tried and true tactics are failing them.
Bickerstaff: who's up for kickball?!!
Ed Wood: Only if it's the no-pants variety.
bsilver wrote:Trump is threatening sanctuary cities, by trying to withhold federal funds. Living in a sanctuary city myself I'd gladly pay more taxes to fight Trump on this issue, or any issue, for that matter.
However, it probably won't come to that for quite a while. Looking at the list of sanctuary states, counties, cities (http://cis.org/Sanctuary-Cities-Map) is impressive. Looks like more than half the US population.
This will probably go to the courts since I don't think Trump has the authority to accomplish anything without legislation. Even with legislation would be fought in the courts.
In the end, the issue will probably blow over, but it would be interesting to see how this would play out if Trump and R's go all in.
popper wrote:Rasmussen daily tracking poll show 59% of likely voters approve of Trump's job performance.
Rafael122 wrote:The counter attack is to let him hang and watch the world burn. It hasn't even been a week and there are far more leaks about him and how he's running things than I have read in all of Obama's 8 years. Sit tight, get seats in 2018 and then swoop in 2020 assuming the DNC have a capable nominee.
nate33 wrote:
Trump is like a James Carville on the Republican side. Forget making a methodical, consistent argument; just attack, attack, attack! The Democrats and the media have never faced anything like him before and they still haven't figured out how to counter him. All of their tried and true tactics are failing them.