President 'The Donald' Trump and Surprising Consequences - Mod warning in OP

Billy86

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

That would mean going against his republicans who he'll need to get other things done. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

It'll be a calculated risk in either case. Needless to say, lookin out for the little guy's privacy won't feature in the calculation

Oh no, it won't at all. But I'm guessing this is a case of the Reps having had their votes bought, and now they've done their part so not too much they can do if it gets vetoed. Gives Trump a win among Americans and avoids him managing to chip away at even the most rabid of his base which would be an unmitigated disaster to happen for him, also he's petty as f*ck so it let's him get one back on Congress for blocking the health bill, and Congress can turn around and say 'we did our part' to their donors. Apparently Breitbart were against it too, meaning the Shadow President is as well.

Billy86

Also, Trumps approval rating down -AGAIN- this time to 35%. He absolutely cannot afford to risk upsetting his internet troll hardcore base at this stage: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/326352-trumps-approval-rating-sinks-to-35-percent-poll

Professor Moriarty

Billy86 wrote: »

Also, Trumps approval rating down -AGAIN- this time to 35%. He absolutely cannot afford to risk upsetting his internet troll hardcore base at this stage: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/326352-trumps-approval-rating-sinks-to-35-percent-poll

Great. Losing support by the week. He'll be down to the hillbillies and the KKK soon.

Inquitus

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Great. Losing support by the week. He'll be down to the hillbillies and the KKK soon.

That's still a large swathe of America!

aloyisious

20Cent wrote: »

Republicans in congress just voted to repeal rules banning ISP's from sharing data, such as e-mails, geo location data and web history, with third parties without user consent. Donal Trump is expected to sign it into law. His 4Chan and the Donald fans won't be happy.

Oh great. Will this new right to read/listen to others extend beyond the Feds?

Billy86

aloyisious wrote: »

Oh great. Will this new right to read/listen to others extend beyond the Feds?

Oh well beyond, they'll literally be for sale to private corporations. That's what the previous act under Obama was specifically brought in to stop, and what the wording on this one apparently prevents from ever being blocked again.

20Cent

aloyisious wrote: »

Oh great. Will this new right to read/listen to others extend beyond the Feds?

Yes.
Someone has set up a gofundme to buy senators browser histories to publish them. https://www.gofundme.com/searchinternethistory

El_Duderino 09

Billy86 wrote: »

Also, Trumps approval rating down -AGAIN- this time to 35%. He absolutely cannot afford to risk upsetting his internet troll hardcore base at this stage

Don't get too excited about polls. He won the election with 26% of eligible voters. 35% of the electorate would be enough to win with a wide margin.

Naturally it doesn't look good but it never looks good for trump. He still follows you into a revolving door and comes out in front. But you're too busy trying to exit the building to which he set fire, to figure out how he got ahead of you.

MayoSalmon

Billy86 wrote:

I remember some Trump supporters saying LGBT rights would be an issue that would cause them to drop their support for him immediately. Well...

How does a company actually prove compliance in the first place?

jimmycrackcorm

MadYaker wrote: »

He is funny but it's totally one sided and not proper analysis. It's for entertainment only.

John Oliver is 100% accurate. Aren't Trumps tweets totally on-sided (Obama tapped me et all) and 100% inaccurate?

demfad wrote: »

One of the billionaires behind Trump Rebecca Mercer will launch a 10 state advertising blitz in States where a democrat Senators are soon up for re-election. It is a warning shot for the senators against 'piling in' against Trump.

Mercer runs the 'Making America Great' SuperPac for the campaign. Involved also is Dave Bossie who Trump hired to be deputy campaign manager in September 2016.

The democrats should be able to easily respond though, there's plenty of ammunition, but unlike the pre-election promises that seed doubts, it's now about stating facts such as: your Republican senator won't even repeal and replace Obamacare!!!

Billy86

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Don't get too excited about polls. He won the election with 26% of eligible voters. 35% of the electorate would be enough to win with a wide margin.

Naturally it doesn't look good but it never looks good for trump. He still follows you into a revolving door and comes out in front. But you're too busy trying to exit the building to which he set fire, to figure out how he got ahead of you.

Except he did it against the otherwise most unpopular candidate in decades, and it took Comey to swing it by reporting in an innocuous new bunch if emails while insisting on keeping quiet on what might prove to be the biggest scandal is us political history. Added to that, his approval rating rating is lower than it was post election, and his disapproval about double what it was.

He's done an excellent job mobilising voters against him for 2020 you would have to assume. He maximised turnout in his hotbeds which is where the polls proved to be off (though again, the gap tightened by 40% after Comey got himself involved) and when those mining and manufacturing jobs have not come, and they won't, he'll have lost the trust of a lot of people from those areas. That 26% number was his absolute ceiling barring a huge upturn in the economy that with his and the GOPs incompetence simply isn't coming. Don't forget that only about half of the electorate actuslly vote, he had 56% of the actual vote.

The backlash to all the circulation of fake news that did him so much good also won't help, especially if he chips away at his troll army by letting people know who they are.

Christy42

In case people start to think that the current selling of Internet data is simply a disagreement of philosophy between them and the GOP here is a reminder that the GOP do not have a serious philosophy here.

http://fortune.com/2017/03/28/donald-trump-taxes-tax-returns/

They can't release tax returns due to privacy but people's data - sure nothing there will show they supported a fraud so go ahead. Plus their friends can make money on that. Tax returns could kill their re election chances and won't make their friends money.

I only hope enough money is raised to buy their history. Realistically it is the best way to kill this bill though I imagine an exception for themselves is more likely.

Edit: I forgot Obama introduced the privacy rules they are repealing (due to take effect later this year) so of course they have to get rid of them. Can't have any of the good Obama did having an effect now can they.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

MadYaker wrote: »

He is funny but it's totally one sided and not proper analysis. It's for entertainment only.

You want him to publish insightful, logical tweets from Trump as well...?

Billy86

http://resistancereport.com/news/cards-humanity-creator-just-pledged-buy-publish-congresss-browser-history/

(owner of Cards Against Humanity)
https://twitter.com/MaxTemkin/status/846856243797016576

Hopefully he follows through, would be fecking glorious!

Quin_Dub

Billy86 wrote: »

http://resistancereport.com/news/cards-humanity-creator-just-pledged-buy-publish-congresss-browser-history/

(owner of Cards Against Humanity)
https://twitter.com/MaxTemkin/status/846856243797016576

Hopefully he follows through, would be fecking glorious!

There are a few of these , however , it's not a clear as it seems.

There are still laws to protect the "individual" so you can't rock up to an ISP and say "Can I buy Quin_Dub and Billy86's browsing history please?"

However as Geo-location information can now be included in the bundle of info, you can ask for very specific information , narrowing the data down to street and maybe even building level - So in certain circumstances using the right analytics you could get very very close to ring-fencing a specific individuals data.

Google et al have been able to monetise your anonomised browsing info for years , this just allows the ISP's to do the same.

It's the addition of the Geo location data that's the big change though , that starts to open up new potentially significant privacy risks..


This stuff is probably worth it's own thread for those that want to get into the weeds on it though..

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

The democrats should be able to easily respond though, there's plenty of ammunition, but unlike the pre-election promises that seed doubts, it's now about stating facts such as: your Republican senator won't even repeal and replace Obamacare!!!

Depends on the reasoning: the voting behind senators who felt that Obamacare repeal didn't go far enough are very unlikely to turn around and vote Democrat.

Billy86

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

Depends on the reasoning: the voting behind senators who felt that Obamacare repeal didn't go far enough are very unlikely to turn around and vote Democrat.

Outside of the very wealthy in that demographic, I doubt literally anything would get them to vote against the letter (R) - it's not a matter of ideology or policy with many of them at all beyond R = God (after all many of these would have been the worst hit people by repealing Obamacare, and worse hit again by it going 'further'). If you don't vote R you're not a good Christian and so you're the enemy, basic fundamentalism essentially. Much like Islamic fundamentalists will STFU and believe/do whatever their Imam tells them to, these will do the same and believe/vote whatever way their pastor/local R politician tells them to.

Leroy42

Billy86 wrote: »

Outside of the very wealthy in that demographic, I doubt literally anything would get them to vote against the letter (R) - it's not a matter of ideology or policy with many of them at all beyond R = God (after all many of these would have been the worst hit people by repealing Obamacare, and worse hit again by it going 'further'). If you don't vote R you're not a good Christian and so you're the enemy, basic fundamentalism essentially. Much like Islamic fundamentalists will STFU and believe/do whatever their Imam tells them to, these will do the same and believe/vote whatever way their pastor/local R politician tells them to.

It like that Tomi Lahren who just got fired from The Blaze.

She was a real hot head, she even came out with the line "I love the constitution, I mean I'm a constitutionalist". I have no idea what that even means.

But she offered an opinion on abortion, basically if we want small government, and want government to stay out of our lives and leave our guns alone, then its kinda hypocritical to want government to be involved in a woman's decision about her body.

You can agree or disagree, or should I say normal people would, but she was fired as her new thinking didn't fit the mould. This despite her being one of the new breed of conservatives.

There is a way of thinking, and no-one is allowed to deviate from it. They are all about compromise, but only if it works from the other side.

demfad

Billy86 wrote: »

Outside of the very wealthy in that demographic, I doubt literally anything would get them to vote against the letter (R) - it's not a matter of ideology or policy with many of them at all beyond R = God (after all many of these would have been the worst hit people by repealing Obamacare, and worse hit again by it going 'further'). If you don't vote R you're not a good Christian and so you're the enemy, basic fundamentalism essentially. Much like Islamic fundamentalists will STFU and believe/do whatever their Imam tells them to, these will do the same and believe/vote whatever way their pastor/local R politician tells them to.

I believe Bannon is trying to persuade the disssenters for another run at a vote next week. He will say something like this.

'If you don't vote this in Trump is a lame duck president and you wont get anymore of those other religious Statist policies you want. If you DO vote it through we will give you EVERYTHING ELSE you want and we will revisit and and finish the gutting of healthcare again later.'

Worryingly, it might work.

Quin_Dub

demfad wrote: »

I believe Bannon is trying to persuade the disssenters for another run at a vote next week. He will say something like this.

'If you don't vote this in Trump is a lame duck president and you wont get anymore of those other religious Statist policies you want. If you DO vote it through we will give you EVERYTHING ELSE you want and we will revisit and and finish the gutting of healthcare again later.'

Worryingly, it might work.

I'm not so sure..

It wasn't just the Freedom caucus that were against it.

If they go full Tea party on it they might win back the Freedom Caucus guys but they still lose the moderates and maybe more of them.

And even if they bludgeon it through the House they won't get it through the Senate where their buffer is much much narrower.

Billy86

Quin_Dub wrote: »

I'm not so sure..

It wasn't just the Freedom caucus that were against it.

If they go full Tea party on it they might win back the Freedom Caucus guys but they still lose the moderates and maybe more of them.

And even if they bludgeon it through the House they won't get it through the Senate where their buffer is much much narrower.

And what's more is the moderates are far, far more likely to swing to voting for a democrat, independent, or just not voting at all - the fundamentalist attitude I was talking about above in my opinion is far more applicable to the religious right and tea partiers (the latter of which probably have the biggest crossover with Trump's hardcore base to begin with).

B0jangles

demfad wrote: »

I believe Bannon is trying to persuade the disssenters for another run at a vote next week. He will say something like this.

'If you don't vote this in Trump is a lame duck president and you wont get anymore of those other religious Statist policies you want. If you DO vote it through we will give you EVERYTHING ELSE you want and we will revisit and and finish the gutting of healthcare again later.'

Worryingly, it might work.

Hopefully not; apparently he tried bullying them into voting for it last time around and they basically told him to eff off, I doubt they'll want to seem to be capitulating to Bannon after that.

White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon told a group of House conservatives they had no choice but to back the GOP's ObamaCare repeal bill days before the bill was pulled, according to a new report. Bannon confronted members of the House Freedom Caucus earlier this week during the White House's push for the American Health Care Act, Axios's Mike Allen reported Saturday in his newsletter.
"Guys, look. This is not a discussion. This is not a debate. You have no choice but to vote for this bill,” Bannon reportedly said. A Freedom Caucus member reportedly replied: “You know, the last time someone ordered me to something, I was 18 years old. And it was my daddy. And I didn't listen to him, either."

http://thehill.com/homenews/325767-report-bannon-told-conservatives-this-is-not-a-debate-you-have-to-vote-for-bill

demfad

B0jangles wrote: »

Hopefully not; apparently he tried bullying them into voting for it last time around and they basically told him to eff off, I doubt they'll want to seem to be capitulating to Bannon after that.



http://thehill.com/homenews/325767-report-bannon-told-conservatives-this-is-not-a-debate-you-have-to-vote-for-bill

Ok thanks!

El_Duderino 09

Billy86 wrote:

Except he did it against the otherwise most unpopular candidate in decades, and it took Comey to swing it by reporting in an innocuous new bunch if emails while insisting on keeping quiet on what might prove to be the biggest scandal is us political history. Added to that, his approval rating rating is lower than it was post election, and his disapproval about double what it was.

It was a bit of a perfect storm alright but that's his whole brand. Taking long shots and claims all the credit for being so clever when he wins and blames everyone around him when he loses. It looks bad today but the election isn't today so who cares? Apart from a to Trump people who were never going to vote for him anyway.

Bathing in shadenfreude is fine and dandy but playing the persecuted victim is also a big appeal to his potential voters. There's nothing about his last campaign that he can't repeat next time around because it wasn't really based in reality. So if reality changes I don't think his approach has to change at all.

If he fails to bring back coal mining jobs it just means he can campaign on anti climate change legislation in his second term etc. Everything he fails at, he will say it's because of the opposition. That's prime campaigning territory. Clinton was in Avery weak position because she had to back up the last president and he was free to take pot shots about how terrible things are. If he's at odds with the house and senate (which are very unpopular institutions) it only strengths his case for re-election.

I wouldn't bet against him no matter how long his odds become

Billy86

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

It was a bit of a perfect storm alright but that's his whole brand. Taking long shots and claims all the credit for being so clever when he wins and blames everyone around him when he loses. It looks bad today but the election isn't today so who cares? Apart from a to Trump people who were never going to vote for him anyway.

Bathing in shadenfreude is fine and dandy but playing the persecuted victim is also a big appeal to his potential voters. There's nothing about his last campaign that he can't repeat next time around because it wasn't really based in reality. So if reality changes I don't think his approach has to change at all.

If he fails to bring back coal mining jobs it just means he can campaign on anti climate change legislation in his second term etc. Everything he fails at, he will say it's because of the opposition. That's prime campaigning territory. Clinton was in Avery weak position because she had to back up the last president and he was free to take pot shots about how terrible things are. If he's at odds with the house and senate (which are very unpopular institutions) it only strengths his case for re-election.

I wouldn't bet against him no matter how long his odds become

That will work with his hardcore base, but his hardcore base is not especially large - the "let's just give someone else a chance" crowd do not fall into that, and he already has pushed through the anti climate change stuff to no effect. Perhaps his biggest strength was (ridiculously) having no experience and so no track record in politics to knock him on - that's gone already and it's only going to get worse as time passes.

He would need to be against a less likable candidate than Clinton going through an email-sized scandal to have a chance as things stand. Either that, or manage a huge turnaround in the economy (not happening) or do everything possible to destroy democracy in the US (which is actually a possibility).

Beyond his alt-right fanbase and Republican fundamentalists he's going to struggle to even approach what he got in November, and even the fundamentalists might have issue with him enough for some to stay at home depending on how his relationships are with their local senators and congressmen (who they tend to have the most reverence towards).

Water John

Am I right in that Kushner committed a criminal offence in meeting said Russian banker?

Leroy42

Water John wrote: »

Am I right in that Kushner committed a criminal offence in meeting said Russian banker?

Well, it depends on what they discussed and what action was taken.

I don't think meeting with them is an offence in of itself, if it was he would have already been charged.

The sanctions mean that no business could be conducted by a US company with the bank so if he was proposing some sort of business deal then he would, I think, be in a spot of bother.

You can be assured that he will claim it was only to discuss healthcare or holidays or the Denver Broncos or something. The problem will be if the FBI/CIA have a record of the meeting.

However, given how Nunes has been acting, any information that has been dug up is no doubt already known to Trump and the rest and they will be well prepared so what coming at them.

Harika

Seems like even the economy likes to fight climate change

http://fortune.com/2017/03/29/exxon-mobil-donald-trump-paris-agreement-climate-change/

Too bad, the successor of Tillerson couldn't get the influence to stop, Trumps madness.

demfad

Quin_Dub wrote: »

I'm not so sure..

It wasn't just the Freedom caucus that were against it.

If they go full Tea party on it they might win back the Freedom Caucus guys but they still lose the moderates and maybe more of them.

And even if they bludgeon it through the House they won't get it through the Senate where their buffer is much much narrower.

I was thinking the Healthcare Act would remain as is mostly ....with more promises being made/improved in other areas of interest to the tea party.

I know Trump promised the Council For National Policy (Christian Statist group inc. tea party) everything they wished and they have many people in the administration.

Bannon's leverage would be to offer more (non-healthcare stuff, RW stuff) , or threaten to offer less.

Edit: Someone linked that Bannon has used his tricks up already re. healthcare, so hopefully its gone.

El_Duderino 09

Billy86 wrote:

Beyond his alt-right fanbase and Republican fundamentalists he's going to struggle to even approach what he got in November, and even the fundamentalists might have issue with him enough for some to stay at home depending on how his relationships are with their local senators and congressmen (who they tend to have the most reverence towards).

I take the point about fundamentalists Vs independents and normal Conservative. And the pint about how narrowly he beat a poor candidate with an FBI email scandal.

If trump is good at anything, it's setting the agenda. I think you might be underestimating how he'll use the fact that he gets so much opposition from republicans. It lets him play the victim and be on the side of the common man who also feels like a victim.

Trump is also extremely proactive. If it's not going his way, he won't just let it proceed. He'll do what he needs to tilt the balance in his favour. If Paddy Power offered odds on the US being involved in a major war by the time the election cones around, I'd put money on it - boots on the ground, Iraq style war as opposed to Syria bombing campaign.