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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
Folks, I, too, am a fan of George Orwell. But I don't see the problem as being what Trump does as President. Off Shore drilling? Fine with Trump. Reducing the size of Federally protected lands and monuments? He's been there, done that. Saying and tweeting crazy things? He's just playing to his base.
The problem is not Trump's policies as President; the problem is that Trump is President. I'm not saying Mrs Clinton is pure as the driven slush fund, but Donald Trump, really? REALLY?
He's President because people are becoming desperate.
Quote:
The richest 1% now owns more than half of all the world’s household wealth, according to analysts at Credit Suisse. And they say inequality is only going to get worse over the coming years, with millennials having a particularly tough time.
44 million Americans have student loans. These are the people in our society who are the least able to manage their debts. They are the most likely to default.
In 2016, no payments were made by more than 4 million borrowers against a total of $137 billion in outstanding student loans. This represents a 14% annual increase in the default rate from 2015. On average, 3,000 new people default on their student loans each day.
And yet...the issuance of these bad debts continues to soar. Since 2013, the average balance of all student borrowers has increased by 17% to more than $30,000.
What do you think happens next?
What happens when the least educated, least "vested," and most violent members of your society (unmarried men in their 20s)...also make up the largest demographic block...and have the largest debts (relative to income) with zero ability to pay back these debts back or discharge them through bankruptcy?
As I said...44 million people carry a student loan. Most of them can't afford these loans. Nor can they default. They can't restructure. They're stuck – many with $100,000 loans that absorb more than 100% of their disposable income.
This is the first generation who will not do as well as their parents. There is talk of a Debt Jubilee. Don't laugh-- there are billions of dollars in student loans and credit card debt that will never be repaid. People are grasping at straws. Trump may be the last straw.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
Litwitlou wrote:
. . . This is the first generation who will not do as well as their parents. There is talk of a Debt Jubilee. Don't laugh-- there are billions of dollars in student loans and credit card debt that will never be repaid. People are grasping at straws. Trump may be the last straw.
Yes, in a sense we are complaining about Trump without addressing the bigger problem that gave us Trump (and Hillary for that matter). It was a terrible choice for the American people, a choice handed to us by the more desperate—the 99 percent I don't know about this debt jubilee, but without a strong middle class the whole artifice comes down.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
I am not keen on any of this, but it is what it is. The problem of celebrity and the prospect that a future President would be just a celebrity has been well understood for a very long time. The last election which pitted one of the most corrupt figures in recent political history against a celebrity was hard comforting. It is hard to imagine a Trump v. Oprah race could be any worse.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
I like the New York Times' David Brooks. He's been for me the model of a judicious thinker. What I said a few posts back about not getting carried away by anti-Trumpism was probably influenced by hearing Brooks speak on the matter on the PBS News Hour. I believe he has good reason to warn the anti-Trumpers (he's one himself ) not to fall prey to the same sort of partisan-fueled vitriol and exaggeration that has come from Trump (interestingly, little of it has come from the rest of his administration). He might be advising us all to remain critical thinkers about even what we tend to want to believe, not just about what we are predisposed not to like. Brooks has expanded on his oral remarks in the following NYT column. He begins with Three "inconvenient observations" about the actuality of the Trump White House.
I also have in mind the surge for Oprah Winfrey when reading Brooks. Isn't believing that celebrity is the magic quality to look for in a leader following the lead of Trumpism?
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
You have to shake your head at the effrontery of the man. He wants to make it easier to sue for defamation, the New York Times, for instance. Has he thought of the fact that many of his tweets are way out on the defamation limb? It doesn't matter which medium of writing a person employs to make his or her charges. But maybe Trump is sly like a fox. His lawyer claimed recently that a sitting president can't be sued for libel.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
DWill wrote:
You have to shake your head at the effrontery of the man. He wants to make it easier to sue for defamation, the New York Times, for instance. Has he thought of the fact that many of his tweets are way out on the defamation limb? It doesn't matter which medium of writing a person employs to make his or her charges. But maybe Trump is sly like a fox. His lawyer claimed recently that a sitting president can't be sued for libel.
You mean a corporation like the NYT suing Trump for defamation?
It ain't happening. It wouldn't even have one leg to stand on.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
Litwitlou has written: "The problem is not Trump's policies as President; the problem is that Trump is President. I'm not saying Mrs Clinton is pure as the driven slush fund, but Donald Trump, really? REALLY?"
Really. I voted for him and deem the choice obvious. Hillary is not fit for the job and I am glad she did not get elected.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
ant wrote:
DWill wrote:
You have to shake your head at the effrontery of the man. He wants to make it easier to sue for defamation, the New York Times, for instance. Has he thought of the fact that many of his tweets are way out on the defamation limb? It doesn't matter which medium of writing a person employs to make his or her charges. But maybe Trump is sly like a fox. His lawyer claimed recently that a sitting president can't be sued for libel.
You mean a corporation like the NYT suing Trump for defamation?
It ain't happening. It wouldn't even have one leg to stand on.
He says the NYT has defamed him. He wants to be able to sue them. I doubt the NYT would have anything they'd want to sue him for. But individuals targeted by his tweets could, especially if libel laws were loosened up as he proposes.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
TEKennelly wrote:
Really. I voted for him and deem the choice obvious. Hillary is not fit for the job and I am glad she did not get elected.
I know many teenagers more fit to be president than Trump. The majority of America is more fit to be president than Trump. Hillary is/was far more fit, by orders of magnitude. Even if you're diametrically opposed to her policy positions, her fitness is light years beyond that of Trump.
_________________ “In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
Interbane wrote:
TEKennelly wrote:
Really. I voted for him and deem the choice obvious. Hillary is not fit for the job and I am glad she did not get elected.
I know many teenagers more fit to be president than Trump. The majority of America is more fit to be president than Trump. Hillary is/was far more fit, by orders of magnitude. Even if you're diametrically opposed to her policy positions, her fitness is light years beyond that of Trump.
Clinton represents the rise of a dangerous global neo-communist tendency.
Cancer displaces healthy cells with metastasis. So too, the advancing tumour of the public sector crowds out the healthy economy, replacing growth with stagnation, self-reliance with an overweening state, and facts with lies. The task of good government is to cut taxes and provide moral incentive for entrepreneurial business activity, against the howls of the socialist elites.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump
DWill wrote:
You have to shake your head at the effrontery of the man. He wants to make it easier to sue for defamation, the New York Times, for instance. Has he thought of the fact that many of his tweets are way out on the defamation limb? It doesn't matter which medium of writing a person employs to make his or her charges. But maybe Trump is sly like a fox. His lawyer claimed recently that a sitting president can't be sued for libel.
And you believe Trump or his lawyers?? Yes, a sitting president can be sued for libel, just like he can be made to testify, just like he can be sued for fleecing people of their money by founding a phony university. As long as the libel was committed either before he took office or outside of the regular exercise of his duties, he can be sued. Obama could sue Trump for the accusation that Obama tapped his campaign but could produce no evidence--not even bad evidence--none at all. That's libel. Since the accusation did not fall within his presidential duties, Obama could file a suit. Why doesn't he? Because he's a lawyer and he knows full well what the consequences may be and has thought the better of it. He's pretty much unflappable and shows remarkable restraint which I think really burns Trump's big, red, shiny ass.
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