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jcsmith
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Posts posted by jcsmith
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Trump's claims were based on a report where the own author had this to say, “As I've noted before, voting integrity better in this election than ever before. Zero evidence of fraud.”
Source: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-voter-fraud-groveling-234187
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Mexico has restated they will not pay for the wall: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/mexico-president-donald-trump-enrique-pena-nieto-border-wall/index.html
QuoteMexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said Wednesday his country "will not pay for any wall," defying the claims US President Donald Trump has made. But he did not cancel his trip planned for the United States next week.
"Mexico does not believe in walls. I've said time again; Mexico will not pay for any wall," he said in a video statement posted to Twitter and translated by CNN from Spanish. -
8 minutes ago, dick dasterdly said:
Fingers crossed that Trump doesn't start these 'projects' again.
If he does, then it will clearly show that he has no interest in the environment.
He did yesterday. =( https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/us/politics/keystone-dakota-pipeline-trump.html -
Unless Trump is also going to start denying visas to Mexican citizens (another PR nightmare) they can do that legally. And once they have a visa they could either drive across the border or fly. You can fly from TJ to San Diego for as low as $73.
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Trump deserves all of this. For example if you take the oil and coal industries. Trump boasts how these are creating new jobs, and that the financial gains of them override the environmental impact which is very real, and that is undeniable at this point. Even his long time climate denier cabinet members got roped into acknowledging it in congress recently. However more jobs would be generated by moving to clean energy solutions which will not contribute to us destroying the environment. Moreover investing in renewable energy also gives the country energy independence, and is unlimited unlike fossil fuels. So why is he pushing through on this stuff?
Money obviously. His campaign promises make those in the coal and oil industries happy. He got their support, now he is paying them back for that so that big business can make a buck, at the cost of everyone else. And not only everyone else. We know that Trump himself owned stock in the oil company associated with the pipeline he just issued an executive order to approve last year. How is that not a conflict of interest? This is all about making money for the oil and coal industries while they still can. -
We know Trump has said many times that he supports the return of waterboarding. But a related quote that people rarely mention is this, "The other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. When they say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families."
Even if you can get past the fact the both waterboarding and taking out the families of suspected terrorists are war crimes, I think the fact that he has the audacity to come out and say these things gives you a view inside of the head of this president. And it's not a pretty sight.
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10 minutes ago, dcutman said:
Lets try and use some logic here. First of all, just to get air ticket you need a valid visa and passport, witch cost several hundred dollars. Next you need to buy the ticket another several hundred dollars. We are, for the most part talking about poor peasants. The last hurdle will be getting through US immigration. Please, nobody could be that stupid as to believe even 25% of illegals are flying into the US from anywhere south of the boarder or any where else for that matter.
Lol, man I love how you try to turn fact checked stuff into a conspiracy after you've been caught, so now your telling us that your numbers are right, and the fact checked versions are wrong. Marco Rubio is wrong, please if you are going to make those claims, show us some proof that they are wrong. Show us even an inkling of an argument to prove otherwise.You can get a passport and a flight from Mexico city all the way to Los Angeles for less than $200. From Baja to San Diego is just over $100. And people who are sneaking over the border illegally are usually doing this by paying people to sneak them into the country, or if they can not afford to pay this they may be obligated to do some work when they reach the other side by whoever smuggled them in. It's far safer and more reliable to go the plane route. You aren't going to have to deal with shady individuals in a border crossing, all you need to do is overstay after you get to the other side. That's a lot easier than dealing with the coyotes.
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31 minutes ago, dcutman said:
So you are TV basing as a fact, on an opinion from a news anchor at a Mexican TV station. Really??
Got another source? One that might actually be credible.
TV basing? Nice try. I just gave you a direct link to a fact check of the information from one of the most reliable sites out there for that sort of thing. If you wnat a second fact check of the same statement (when Marco Rubio said it) you can find it here: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/jul/29/marco-rubio/rubio-says-40-percent-illegal-immigrants-are-overs/ And it's rated a Mostly True, the only untruth about it is that it's impossible to know what the actual number is. It's in that ballpark.That 40% number has been thrown around more than once by a lot more than just a news anchor at a Mexican TV station, including fellow republican Marco Rubio. And according to Politifact it's tough to know how valid it could be. Could be as low as 25%, could also be as high as 57%. Did you even read the article before trying to dismiss it? Whatever the number it is a high number which will not be stopped by a wall. However it is due to the nature of it hard to give an accurate number. The 40% number has certainly not been debunked though. Amusing how people who somehow think 3-5 million people voted illegally (which has plenty of studies to support that being false, and Trump even touted no voter fraud himself just a couple months ago to stop Jill Stein's recount) then act as though quoting a 40% number which if it isn't right is pretty close to it (in an area that is hard to tell for sure) as though that is some sort of fake news.
And on the second bit of your comment. Let's say that it was only one guy from a Mexican TV station (which it isn't), why would that invalidate what was said or make it less credible given that it has been fact checked. Are you pulling the same nonsense that Trump pulled saying a judge had no credibility because of his Mexican heritage?The bottom line is that a wall is not going to stop illegal immigrants. It's a mild deterrent at best, but a very expensive one. And Mexico is never going to pay for it.
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5 minutes ago, dcutman said:
I would like to see a link to that information source, the BS meter is off the charts.
Here's a thorough fact check of it from politifact, who is generally great for this stuff. Looks like it's a mixed bag from politifact. It's definitely a high number but hard to know exactly where.
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1 hour ago, Bung said:
Aren't most of the Mexicans tunneling into the US?
40% of illegal immigrants are flying into the country and then overstaying. The wall isn't going to help that, it's just going to cost a lot of money and be a PR nightmare.
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Well let's say... so far he has:
- Made a public statement that we should have taken the oil in Iraq, and that maybe we'll have another chance. This is about the dumbest statement imaginable considering that we have U.S. Forces in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East who rely on the participation of local soldiers.
- Picked fights with China. Threatening to use the military to prevent China from utilizing their man-made islands, and alluding towards a possible trade war while also refusing to abide by the "One China" policy.- Banned any public speaking out of government agencies, removed factual information regarding climate change, and is looking for ways to push ahead with things like fracking and lifting regulations on the coal industry. While that may not be a military danger, it is an environmental danger that will affect the entire world.
- Sent shockwaves through the intelligence community and NATO rivals with his ill-conceived statements and his buddying up with Russia.,
- Plans to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusulaem, which will likely mean an end to peace talks.
That's less than a week of Donald Trump. If this is any indication the world is going to be a much more dangerous and volatile place.
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The job of news networks is to report news, the actual news, not what they want to happen. Not based on their own news. They may then add their own opinions of it on top of that. But their job is to report what actually happens, and then provide their opinions if that is the nature of their broadcast (in many cases they offer no opinions). If they don't want to stay in the news in a negative light, they need to stop giving the media negative things to run about them. No more twitter wars. No more lying about figures. Trump once again today went out again yesterday and spread the bs of voter fraud, while Spicer went out and modified what he said before to try to make it sound like he meant the attendance and the streams, but even in that case, his numbers still don't add up. Trump spoke about Iraq saying we should have taken the oil, and that maybe we'll have another chance, and Spicer dodged that question when asked what he meant. When you do these kind of things, of course the media is going to run with it, and of course they are going to paint you in a negative way. When that happens on a daily basis it will appear that the media is against you, but it is a self created problem.
The problem I see here is that Trump is accusing the media of being against him. Yet the media is actual quotes from him or his people. His people can't go out and make up facts, or as they would call them "alternative truths" and then complain when they get called out for it. They can't make extreme policies and then act insulted when people react negatively to those policies. And it's not just the media they are battling. They are picking fights with foreign governments, with government institutions, and with their own citizens, yet are then quick to paint themselves as victims.
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With regards to jobs and automation, the loss of jobs due to this is unavoidable. There will be some more high tech jobs but far less than you would have previously had in labor jobs. This is unavoidable. As the population continues to grow, and life expectancies continue to rise there are going to be more people who are not in the workforce. There's plenty of resources out there though, but the current system where a small number of people control the majority of the wealth needs to go away. Trump isn't going to help this. He is for big business. You look at the tax cuts to the wealthy while he has already pushed out an executive order to end Obamacare, congress is trying to weasel their way out of paying benefits to firefighters from 911, and halted the reduction of annual mortgage insurance premiums. Lifting of climate change restrictions is coming. He also had this to say on Iraq, "We should have kept the oil. Maybe we'll have another chance."
If there was any doubt as to what his intentions were they should be crystal clear at this point. -
4 minutes ago, james1995 said:
Shaping up to be the best presidency ever. Most Americans I know of are behind him 100%.
Considering his approval ratings are at 40% I'd guess that is a rather inclusive group.
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@JackThompson: Steve Bannon is that you? You have a lot of disdain for these "globalists". Serious questions though: What makes your life more valuable than someone else's just because of where you happened to be born? And what gives you the right to deny those same privileges to someone else because they were born on the other side of this imaginary line?
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45 minutes ago, JackThompson said:
- The most recent labor participation rate was 62.7 percent, with slightly more than 94.5 million Americans out of the work force. Not just retirees, because ...
Politifact fact checked this after Trump's recent press conference recently and here's an excerpt from that article on that very subject. The full article here: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/jan/11/live-coverage-donald-trumps-first-press-conference/
Excerpt below:
QuoteA longtime skeptic of the official jobs figures, Trump claimed the "real number" is 96 million people without jobs, which would correspond to an unemployment rate of 37.8 percent out of potential workforce of 255 million (everyone age 16 and up).
The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meanwhile, says there were 7.5 million people unemployed in December, or an unemployment rate of 4.7 percent.
During the election, Trump repeatedly said the unemployment rate could be 42 percent, and received two Pants on Fire ratings for that claim.
To get to a rate that high, you’d have to count college and high school students, stay-at-home parents, job-training participants, those with disabilities, those with part-time jobs and senior citizens. The highest credible number we could calculate was 15.6 percent. -
The 100% rise only happened in one state. The average nation wide was 25% rise, which is lower than it was under Bush... before Obamacare was even enacted.
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19 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:
Shock horror, hold the press! It was warmer a long time ago and humans were not around to make it happen- how could that be??????
There's a big difference between natural warming and man made warming. We are rapidly accelerating the process, and adding to what would have naturally occurred. CO2 levels are higher now than they have been in at least 400,000 years, and growing at an accelerating rate.
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25 minutes ago, oilinki said:
These guys are going to kick snowflakes ass.It's hilarious that a lot of you guys assume that liberals can't fight. If anything liberals represent a larger number of poor people, who grow up with a harder life on average. I'd hope there is no violence from the protesters or anti-protesters today. But I have a hard time imagining protesters from the hood cowering at the sign of bikers.
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1 hour ago, heybruce said:
" Trump also is expected to impose a federal hiring freeze and take steps to delay implementation of a Labor Department rule due to take effect in April that would require brokers who give retirement advice to put their clients' best interests first. "
Someone help me out here--why is it a bad idea to make brokers prioritize the best interests of the people who hired them for advice?
In his quote he mentioned Trump plans to delay it. These guys are not looking out for any of your best interests, they have the best interest of big business.
Some info on what he is talking about here: http://fortune.com/2016/12/09/donald-trump-andy-puzder-labor-401k/
And another recent example of shady Trump dealings here: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/trump-tries-to-stick-sc-taxpayers-with-bill-for-trump-jr-s-mess-854853699850In that example Trump bought his son's business and wants to sell the property. But the problem is that this property has some possible health violations which will cost money to clean up. So trump has applied to have the tax payers foot the bill because in the state the tax payers will cover the bill if the damage is as a result of a previous owner who you do not have any relationships with... But the previous owner was Donald Trump Jr. He likes to talk about things like people collecting from welfare money or government assistance, but he has absolutely no problem with abusing the system to avoid paying taxes, and stiffing the working man and making them pay for his bills.
Add to it his long list of contractors who Trump has stiffed over the years (see http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/06/09/donald-trump-unpaid-bills-republican-president-laswuits/85297274/ ) refusing to pay them after the work was done, stretching out court dates until they went out of business or just gave up... He does not have anyones best interest in mind but his own. Never has, never will. Which is why him not releasing his tax records and allowing his kids to run his business is unacceptable. When you see him constantly making comments about companies on Twitter and how he can manipulate their stock prices very easily, you can't trust him to not abuse this for his own self interests.
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1 hour ago, catinthehat said:
People are just pissed off at the fact that a NON POLITICIAN will run this country. Neither he nor his cabinet picks need to paltry (to them) salaries and the continual dirt digging and hassles that go with these jobs? Is it too much for Americans to thin that these people might share a real and genuine passion for helping to make America great again?
I don't think that is it at all. The problem is not that there are outsiders coming in. It's that people are being assigned to key positions who not only have zero experience in their tasks, but in some cases are the exact opposite of what you would expect to fill those positions. The idea that these billionaires won't try to use the position to line their pockets is questionable, as well. There are conflicts of interest all over the place.
Scott Pruitt in charge of the EPA? It seems like a sick joke but it's likely that he gets pushed through. This is a climate denier who dodged and ducked questions on it in his confirmation hearings trying to say that his personal opinion was irrelevant, who BTW has ongoing lawsuits against the very agency that he is going to be in charge of. He doesn't deny that climate change is happening (though dodged the question on if it was man made), yet still wants to see regulations lifted.
Speaking of the environment, you have Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. A guy with no qualifications for this job, spending a career with Exxon as their CEO most recently. A whole lot of shady business went on during his watch there, including Exxon's disinformation campaign against climate change when they knew for a fact that it was happening. Similar to Pruitt he dodged questions on that issue. An order of friendship with Russia, and the fact that he has been for years actively campaigning to lift sanctions on Russia in light of the recent events also has to raise some eyebrows. The fact of the matter is that doing so would net him a lot of money with his interests in Exxon, and the fact that Exxon has a huge money deal in place with Russia to drill oil which has been put on hold due to the sanctions. This must just be a coincidence, right?
DeVos for example has no experience in the public school system at all, but has for years pushed for charter schools and stood against public school systems. I think we can all see the effects of a similar approach here in Thailand. Kids who can pay the most money get the better education, and public schools are a disaster. She lacks any type of a familiarity with core and common issues in the very post she will represent, and recently told congress that she wasn't against guns in schools in case for example a grizzly bear entered the school.
Andy Puzder in charge of Labor? He comes from a fast food background, fights against minimum wage hikes and paying overtime to workers. All the while, recent data shows the U.S. was 29th out of 30 developed countries in wealth inequality. It's good to know that Andy Puzder will be fighting against you on this!Ben Carson may be a great brain surgeon, but how does that qualify him to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development? What experience does he have here that is relevant at all to his position?
Jeff Sessions long history or alledged racism and anti-civil rights moves probably isn't going to stop him from becoming the next attorney general. That is probably bad news for states which legalized Marijuana.
Mnuchin is one of six representatives of Goldman Sachs on board and is assigned to head the Treasury Department. His shady housing history is well known, and this heavy representation of Goldman Sachs should end any discussion about draining the swamp. To give you an example he foreclosed on a 90 year old woman over underpaying her bill by $.27... Are you serious?Then there are other guys who are simply nut cases like Bannon and Flynn who have a history of spreading fake news and making racially charged or inaccurate statements.
So please can we stop with these claims that somehow Trump is going to do something great to turn things around. He's filled the swamps with pythons and gators and the only solace I can see is that we won't know how much he is fleecing the country for (with his stock manipulating tweets) because he refuses to release his tax returns or divest from his business.
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Meanwhile of the 690 positions which require senate approval, he's only assigned 30 positions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-administration-appointee-tracker/database/
In his haste to do away with Obama's legacy and declare his own greatness he's apparently paid no mind to the little things. He reached out to many of the people standing in those positions and asked them to stay on while he seeks replacements YESTERDAY... one day before he takes office.
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Who cares if he slept with hookers? That's his own private business. It's only an issue if he did something embarassing that they can use to blackmail him with.
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It's really frustrating but you see this happen all the time. Ambulances with sirens going, and cars in front of them refuse to get out of the way as it might cause them to reach their destination a minute later.
President Trump signs order to build Mexico border wall
in World News
Posted · Edited by jcsmith
Since there is no real way for either of us to win that argument I would only point out that you would have to assume that both those reports are accurate, and that other research numbers were based on actual counts rather than percentages. So I won't try to argue one way or the other there, I appreciate any time someone is willing to make an argument and back it up with information.
With regards to Trump though my point wasn't anything based on him. Simply pointing out that simply because people who fund a site are contribute to a charity owned by the Clinton's doesn't mean that they in any way in the Clinton's pocket. Of the fact checking sites that I have visited, I've found politifact to be the most reliable, and bipartisan. They fact check everyone. Trump is often featured on there, but let's be honest Trump is about the most dishonest player in politics right now. He has a tendency to read things from irreputable sources, and then quote them as facts time and time again. I personally can't tell if he honestly is just gullible and believes all of this stuff, or if he is only pretending to do so to manipulate the people.