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Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 10:29 pm
by DB Roy
What kind of bonehead move is it to say that we need less testing to get the virus count down and when your staff tell the media he was joking (he wasn't, that's a real solution according to Trumpian logic), he insists he wasn't and to prove it he's now yanking all funding for testing??????? It boggles the mind to think a president could be so childishly vindictive, cruel and stupid all at the same time.

Just like his refusal to wear a mask. Everyone knows it's because his makeup will come off on the mask and everyone will laugh at him. So he turns it into a political weapon and his stupid followers go along and also refuse to wear masks and we see the result it is having in the Trump-loving South. But does he care that his BS is ramping up the infection- and death-rate? No. He couldn't care less.

I think most Americans have had enough of this crap.

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 4:51 pm
by Murmur
Apparently Trump tweeted a video that had two people saying "white power" and didn't realize it. In my opinion, he had it up so long purely due to stupidity, and he didn't even listen to nor watch the video.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/202 ... -politics/

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 11:23 am
by ant
Most all of you ( heck, none of you) will not mention it because of the bandwagon, or are afraid to because it might sound too pro trump, but this new law signed by Trump seems like it can reduce class discrimination:

skill and merit over degrees

https://newsvoice.com/i/4675861

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 2:58 pm
by Murmur
ant wrote:Most all of you ( heck, none of you) will not mention it because of the bandwagon, or are afraid to because it might sound too pro trump, but this new law signed by Trump seems like it can reduce class discrimination:

skill and merit over degrees

https://newsvoice.com/i/4675861
Ok.

Hey, that's great!

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 4:32 pm
by DWill
It's fine, although I would think difficult to enforce against entrenched bureaucracies. I'd expect that experience would be added as another important area of qualifications. How else are skills acquired and demonstrated?

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 5:35 pm
by Harry Marks
ant wrote:Most all of you . . .are afraid to because it might sound too pro trump, but this new law signed by Trump seems like it can reduce class discrimination:
skill and merit over degrees
https://newsvoice.com/i/4675861
I hope the edit does not offend: I lifted out the part that applies to me. I really do hate approving of anything he does. But this one sounds good.

Of course a lot of Civil Service jobs are already filled from test results. If you are doing a specific thing in the job, you take a test to show you can do the thing. My Civil Service job did not, but my degrees counted for almost nothing. I was hired because I had done a relevant type of work 15 years before, in addition to knowing the field (international economics). Some of the best people in that job had been go-getters rather than experts.

There has been a lot of criticism of meritocracy as practiced in the US today. Some of the criticism focuses on the discrimination that results. The problem is partly reliance on degrees, and while I am in favor of degrees, I really don't like the idea of people getting practical jobs because of credentials, especially if the credentials are not directly relevant. Experience should certainly be important, and probably more important than credentials.

I am a little skeptical about the implementation. For one thing, Trump seems to have emphasized personal loyalty over skill at every non-military opportunity. For another, any time you downgrade an objective criterion, you may be increasing the scope for old-boy networks, cronyism and "fitting in", which have been far more discriminatory in the past. So the combination looks a little suspicious.

Still, why not give the change the benefit of the doubt, at least at first?

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2020 3:04 pm
by ant
Kayleigh McEnany is spot on here regarding the medias blind eye to all the violence that's skyrocketing in big cities.

This is justified outrage.
Tearing down statues is a peripheral issue when compared to innocent lives cut short.




Youtube some of this.. In once instance the police arrived at a shooting only to be harassed and nearly chased away by violent thugs, who if they participate in voting, will likely vote Democrat.

The left is full of self righteous moral indignation.

We don't have journalists .. We have political activists masquerading as journalists.

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:56 pm
by Harry Marks
ant wrote:Kayleigh McEnany is spot on here regarding the medias blind eye to all the violence that's skyrocketing in big cities.
This is justified outrage.
Tearing down statues is a peripheral issue when compared to innocent lives cut short.
Maybe, but it's hard to pin down what exactly should have been done to prevent the violence surge, or what should be done about it now. The surge in killings in both Chicago and Baltimore had a lot to do with loss of jobs and, oddly enough, police success. When the gangs were broken up, especially in Chicago, the guns found their way to 14 to 16 year old fools who have no idea what life is about and who started picking fights with guns like boys that age usually pick fights with fists.

The current surge may be due to the police being tied up with demonstrations, or it may be due to covid lockdown, or it may be due to lack of funding for schools facing massive cuts.
ant wrote: In once instance the police arrived at a shooting only to be harassed and nearly chased away by violent thugs, who if they participate in voting, will likely vote Democrat.
Big if. Most of the kids in that mess consider things like voting to be beneath their dignity, and can't see beyond the next potential slight from a rival. They are more likely than not to be incarcerated by the time they reach voting age.
ant wrote:The left is full of self righteous moral indignation.
You just showed a video of the right being full of self-righteous moral indignation. It seems to be in the air these days. I would love to see more real action and less symbolism - on both sides or either one.
ant wrote:We don't have journalists .. We have political activists masquerading as journalists.
This is a long-run problem the country needs to take on. Journalism is commercial in the U.S., which means that the journalist's instinct for conflict simply divides into the ones who portray liberals as the good guys and the ones who portray conservatives as the good guys. How do we finance journalism of integrity, that focuses on solutions and successes and turning points, rather than on taking political sides? I think of the old MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, which was as willing to put George Will on as to put Robert Reich on. That may be as close as we have ever come.

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 12:14 pm
by ant
Harry wrote:
Maybe, but it's hard to pin down what exactly should have been done to prevent the violence surge
It's called the National Guard.
When the Guard was called and arrived in Los Angeles, the looting came to nearly a complete stop.
In situations like social anarchy it does little to open a forum to debate what exactly needs to be done when you have specific resources that are available and have been known from experience to quell civil unrest. Indecisiveness is a hallmark of Democratic thinking.

Big if. Most of the kids in that mess consider things like voting to be beneath their dignity, and can't see beyond the next potential slight from a rival. They are more likely than not to be incarcerated by the time they reach voting age.
I think you're right here. The problem is I worry about the few that do.

You just showed a video of the right being full of self-righteous moral indignation. It seems to be in the air these days.
As I said, I consider it justified. But it does seem to be in the air these days. It is much, MUCH more prevalent on the left though.
Follow mainstream media today if you don't normally do. You will see it daily


I'm glad you agree with the statement journalism of today is actually political activism:

CNN
MSNBC
PBS
CBS
ABC
NYT
NewYorker
LAT

vs

Fox

Re: Trump Watch

Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2020 2:19 pm
by Harry Marks
Paul Krugman, pithy as always, made some observations about why Trump's policy analysis has been so useless, inconsistent and even incoherent:
Krugman wrote:But while you can trust incompetent hacks to toe the party line, one thing you can’t expect them to do is devise policy responses to a crisis they weren’t expecting.

Hence Trump’s policy paralysis. There’s nobody he trusts to be both competent and personally loyal, because those are, in a fundamental sense, incompatible traits. So he effectively decided early on not to even try to deal with Covid-19, and just brazen it through instead.
Sorry I don't have a cite. I get email from his column. Probably it will hit the web soon.