[snoopy11]

Hmmm,

Surely Congress has to veto any wall building the whole thing is the height of madness...

[depricated]

I just can't fucking believe any of this is actually happening.

Everyone was like "you're overreacting! that's hyperbole!"

Nope. This is what I said would happen.

I fucking hate being right. Son of a bitch.

And the whole withdrawing from the UN thing? Yeah, that's gonna go over like a lead balloon.

Oh and if you missed it we're threatening war against China over our "interests" in the South China Sea. Which is to say Putin's interests.

Still think nuclear war is off the table?

[jon.kiparsky]

ArtificialSoldier, on 25 January 2017 - 03:20 PM, said:

He can order DHS to use the money they have to start building the wall, but Congress still has to give them the money to finish it.

In case anyone missed it, this is how we lost Senatorial control over war powers. "Oh, look I've got you into a war - are you going to vote to declare it?"

snoopy11, on 25 January 2017 - 03:53 PM, said:

Surely Congress has to veto any wall building

Nope. Under normal procedures, Congress would allocate funding for a project like this, but if a department has the money they can spend it now and ask forgiveness later. Congress could pass a resolution condemning the action, but they're not going to.

The interesting question is, what happens to DHS' other actions - the ones they're legally mandated to undertake? What are they not going to be doing to keep us "secure" while they're dumping their funding and time into this fantasy wall?

Quote

the whole thing is the height of madness...

Yes. Yes it is.

[ArtificialSoldier]

This isn't very encouraging. Trump has a history of publicly responding to things he apparently sees on TV. Now he's going to make policy based on what he sees on Fox News. That's a scary thought. I don't think that there has ever been a president who is more like his voting base than this. I imagine him sitting in a chair with his phone, his expressionless face soaking up whatever the TV is throwing at him, and having an immediate emotional reaction (as designed) which results in him stabbing out a Tweet on his phone and talking about what he's going to do - as president - in response to what he just watched on TV. The difference between him and the people who voted for him is Twitter.

We've always known that media outlets can influence public thinking and perception, but this is unreal. Completely skipping the middle man and just spoon-feeding policy straight from the media to the president. Oh, but the media is dishonest, don't forget. Whatever media disagrees with his emotional reaction, anyway. This is a man who is apparently deciding what he's going to do that day based on what he sees on the news. What happens when he wakes up to stories about the leaders of other countries saying things about him that he doesn't like? For example, North Korea. I've never thought that I would see someone in charge of the country who is so ruled by emotion without any rational thought, but the fact is that we have a lot of those people living in this country and they put him there.

If Time Magazine doesn't name Bill O'Reilly their person of the year, they aren't doing their jobs. For some reason a bunch of people decided that Donald Trump would make a good president, and now Bill O'Reilly has more influence on what happens in the world than almost anyone else.

Oh, but don't forget, the media is dishonest and routinely lies. Make sure you've got the cognitive dissonance in full effect.

This isn't 1984, this is Brave New World.

[modi123_1]

Well this is nice...

Quote

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released the following statement today on reports that President Trump will sign an executive order directing a review of interrogation policies:

“The President can sign whatever executive orders he likes. But the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America.

http://www.mccain.se...83-E063B51BADF2

[jon.kiparsky]

ArtificialSoldier, on 25 January 2017 - 05:18 PM, said:

This isn't very encouraging.

I think I'm going to puke.

[modi123_1]

I'm going to say, SouthPark nailed their Trump analogy this last season with Mr. Garrison.

[modi123_1]

Oh, and another thing to keep an ear out for ..
Trump White House Senior Staff have Private RNC email accounts

[ArtificialSoldier]

Quote

I think I'm going to puke.

Seriously. I'm not one to get overly worried about things, I'm a very chill and level person. I was surprised that so many people voted for Trump, but I wasn't scared or afraid or emotional about it, just surprised. That article is leaving me with a pit in my stomach though, because it shows how easy it is for Trump to be manipulated. That is a terrible quality in a leader. It's one thing, and probably pretty innocuous, when it's Bill O'Reilly doing the manipulating, but the scary part is thinking about an entire department like Russia's FSB or China's intelligence services setting out with the goal of achieving a specific aim by manipulating Trump through news or other sources of information, figuring out what to do in order to make him do what you want him to. It's geo-political spear-phishing, except nuclear weapons and billions of lives and dollars are involved. And the thing that is legitimately scary about it to me is how susceptible he actually is to it. That's very disconcerting.

[BenignDesign]

Jesus. It's becoming a full-time job just keeping up with the news.

[rgfirefly24]

I held out some shred of hope that it wouldn't be as bad as it seems. I didn't vote for him, but I genuinely wanted him to do well as he is the president after all. If I have been able to keep up, as @B9 said it is a full-time job now, He has enacted executive orders for the Mexico City policy, Keystone Pipeline, removing the US from the TPP, repeal of the ACA, and building the wall. He's also parroted multiple stupid opinions that have been aired on TV. I am honestly starting to wonder what he can do next or will it get better.

[BenignDesign]

rgfirefly24, on 26 January 2017 - 09:12 AM, said:

He has enacted executive orders for the Mexico City policy, Keystone Pipeline, removing the US from the TPP, repeal of the ACA, and building the wall. He's also parroted multiple stupid opinions that have been aired on TV.

Plus defunding of the arts, plans to privatize NPR and PBS, reducing support for UN, issued gag orders on science-related government agencies, insisted there are 3M+ fraudulent voters, halted immigration, and threatened to impose sanctions on sanctuary cities.

...and it's only Thursday.

[depricated]

Last night my band and I had a serious discussion about moving out of the country. After looking at a list of countries that would take us as refugees we decided if things start looking too bad we're just gonna bolt for Sweden.

America's apathy got us into this, they can have my apathy in return when the suede denim secret police show up.

I should probably change my tag. I give up on this cuntry. No more patriotism, I'm ashamed of it.

[Atli]

You could, ironically, try to make a run for Mexico

Maybe that's why Trump's so insistent on building the wall, to stop Americans from escaping when he starts draining the rest of the money out of the country.

[depricated]

Well, walls are usually built to keep people in, rather than out, historically speaking.