Current State of Politics

[ark steel]

I did not want Obama to "succeed" at passing his agenda, but unfortunately he did and exactly as many of us predicted we are now stuck with a massive new entitlement program that is hemorrhaging money and solves almost nothing. And of course now that people are sucking on that teat we are not allowed to pry them off of it. Rule number one of entitlements is that they never go away, they just get bigger and more costly year after year.

I do want Trump to succeed unfortunately his personality and antics make it virtually impossible for anyone in government to get behind him. Who wants to be aligned with him as he goes down in flames? No one. Therefore I think it's better if he goes somehow and Mike Pence takes over. Leave the presidency to the grownups.

Unfortunately, it was the "grownups" in charge of getting us $19T in debt.....

 

[Stryker]

I think both sides are doing an excellent job in making this a circus.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Steeler Nation mobile app

 

[Spike]

HOLY WAR!


ABC News: Christians Who Believe In The First Amendment Are A ‘Hate Group’

ABC News’ Pete Madden and Erin Galloway smeared Christians who believe the Bill of Rights secures religious liberty as a “hate group”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered a speech to an alleged hate group at an event closed to reporters on Tuesday night, but the Department of Justice is refusing to reveal what he said.

Who is this “hate group”? Alliance Defending Freedom is not a hate group at all, but a civil liberties organization that battles for religious liberty. And they’re not a fringe group either. They just weeks ago won their most recent Supreme Court victory — Trinity Lutheran v. Comer — 7-2. It was their fifth Supreme Court victory in seven years, during which time they’ve had no losses at the high court.

And the group is ranked among the top law firms in the country for its successes at the Supreme Court.

For some reason ABC News chose to wholly adopt the Southern Poverty Law Center’s framing for the significance of the attorney general’s speech to the group

http://thefederalist.com/2017/07/13...ieve-in-the-first-amendment-are-a-hate-group/

 

[SteelChip]

Fair enough, then explain to me how Tea Party anti-Obama rallies were any different.

Show me - for example on this very board- any semblence of tolerance or so-called 'adult behavior' from right-wing, conservative Trump supporters.

Anyone dare raise their voice against Trump has been a constant source of ridicule. You don't have to search far, it's literally in every thread.

Hence the irony of the whining about liberal, left wing protests and the hurt feelings of Trump supporters.

It makes it seem as if somehow those on the right are tolerant, benevolent people. It makes me laugh, quite frankly.

Damn Tibsy, you really are delusional aren't you ? You wanna compare the Tea Party with Antifa ? Your Left wing terror tactics start getting push back and now the world is no longer fair ?


Give Uncle George his money back and crawl back under that bed, you just ain't gettin' it.

 

[suncitysteel]

Things are in a state of perpetual turmoil fueled by ridiculous, blatant, over-the-top partisanship.
It is, 100%, the root cause of what's dividing our country and to me is the most troubling thing.
I really believe at the current pace, there will be some type of civil skirmish. Not an all-out civil war, but there will be heavy duty rioting where the military will need to take action.
That's how divided this country is.

I follow politics because politics affect my life in just about every aspect. However, my strength is not American political history, but I'll go out on a limb and say partisanship has been an unfortunate side effect of our process, and has been for generations. It is only until recently that the partisanship has evolved into a sort of juvenile-like refusal to even work together, at all, on anything. Thus, nothing gets done in DC.

I have concluded that the root cause - the fuel that continuously and incessantly fuels the fire - is one thing. And this one thing applies in ALL instances, no matter which party is in control. The cause?

THE STATE

The State is: Elected officials at all levels of government, + Unelected bureaucrats who develop & implement policy that conveniently skips the legislative process, + Lobbyists whose sole purpose is to corrupt govt officials in order to obtain what they want, + Judicial officials who legislate from the bench rather than apply/implement the law as it is written.

My solutions:
* Term limits. For all government. Even the SC.
* Get lobbyists OUT. No more corporate cronyism. No more pay-for-play. Root out the #1 cause of corruption.
* De-regulate ALL government oversight functions to their bare-minimum. Eliminate multi-layers of government bureaucracy.
* Which leads to: Simplify the tax code. Reward productivity, rather than punish it.
* Let loose Free market capitalism... the only economic plan that has ever pulled countries/civilizations out of poverty on grand levels.

When we do this, we do an amazing thing.... we NEUTER the STATE. We return "Power" to the "People" without it's cliche'd inferences. We really return power to its rightful owner(s).

Both the Left and the Right use the State as their enforcement arm. And here is where the division in this country has gone from a gap to a large chasm. With an all-powerful State behind those in power, the citizenry is left helpless. Our rights mean nothing. Threats are carried out under the banner of "law".

If a left-wing liberal/progressive/socialist espouses for (fill in whatever left-wing cause here, ex: pro-choice, gay rights, complete separation of church & state, etc.), that demand dies off a whimpering death without the power of the State behind it to enforce. Same goes for right-wing causes. No enforcement arm behind your demands? You could march/demand/protest all you want; if your newly-enacted demand for special rights infringe upon mine, it ain't happening. The Libertarian code of the "Non-Aggression Principle" covers this very well.

Without the mega-power of the State as it exists now, I truly believe that this country can begin to mend. The extremism of the left/right begins to fade. Extremist numbers are few (though their voices seem the loudest... you ever notice?)... this without the State to be used as their Rottweiller. We begin to see common-sense return to commonplace. Us conservatives/libertarians can promote family, community, faith without fear of being labeled. You left-leaning types can espouse your causes, and as long as your demands/rights don't infringe upon mine, who am I do deny you? After all, I won't have the power of an all-powerful State behind me to force you.

 

[Spike]

"Politics" is getting things done



Trump Administration Approves Plan to Drill Offshore Alaska

Eni US will become the first energy company allowed to explore for oil in federal waters off Alaska since 2015 after the Trump administration this week approved a drilling plan on leases the company has been sitting on for 10 years.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the drilling plan of Eni US as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to boost oil and gas drilling and make the country “energy dominant.”

http://gcaptain.com/trump-administr...aptain+(gCaptain.com)&utm_content=Yahoo!+Mail

 

[Tibs]

Feel good story for this Sunday.


Trump’s Trolls Are Waging War on America’s Civil Servants
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/10...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Alt-right bloggers are singling out government employees deemed hostile to the president’s agenda.

“It’s singling people out and then publicly engaging in character assassination,” said Bruce Riedel, a former career CIA officer who served in the agency for over 30 years and is now a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “It will certainly send an intimidating effect throughout the bureaucracy.”

Before the 2016 election, Cernovich wrote self-help books for men who wanted to discover their inner “alpha male.” He found a larger audience, however, with his fervent pro-Trump, Hillary Clinton-bashing online blogs, tweets, and memes. Tweeting from his home in Southern California, he helped spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and has threatened to smear members of the Trump White House if Stephen Bannon is ever removed.

Those whom Cernovich targets often face a barrage of online threats and harassment from his followers. Last week, for example, he focused on Andrew Kaczynski, an investigative journalist at CNN. Kaczynski had written about the anonymous Reddit user who created a video of Trump wrestling a figure with CNN’s logo superimposed on his head.

Still, members of Trump’s inner circle, and even his family members, have endorsed Cernovich’s posts. The White House has given him press credentials and he says he gets his information from West Wing officials, a claim supported by what he’s able to report and when he’s able to report it.

The online trolling fits within a broader idea pushed by Trump supporters in Washington and the media — the threat of a “deep state,” or the idea that an unseen group of people inside government are working against civilian leaders. The term has often been used in countries such as Egypt or Turkey, where members of the military and others have orchestrated coups.

In Washington, the term “deep state” has been adopted in recent months to refer to the alleged threat from disloyal civil servants conspiring to harm the administration. “We are talking about the emergence of a deep state led by Barack Obama, and that is something that we should prevent,” Iowa Rep. Steve King said in March.

The online attacks on the reputations of particular civil servants “has a very Nixonian quality to it,” Riedel, of Brookings, said.“What strikes me is there is another deep state that’s being fed information to wage war on the professional cadre.”

 

[Ron Burgundy]

Yet the Dem leader in the House keeps getting her Republican Presidents mixed up.

 

[Stewey]

Protesting is protected in this country, and is not a negative to me. Though they do need to be nonviolent. When they are not, the protesters need to be criminally prosecuted.

And again you are pushing a perception, not a reality. I didn't feel that the election was ever in the bag. The networks wanted people to think the dems had an advantage, but networks don't decide elections, people do. The result of the election is the accepted result we now have.

I think the most disparaging aspect of creating animosity between parties started to get bad after the Rs lost the last presidency. Anti Dem outrage became a huge cottage industry and gained steam for 8 years. Now we're seeing the exact same thing happen the other way. Both times the ire is fabricated and misrepresented to create derision.

And now we have 2 sides that are starting to share the same vitriol.

Do you think there would have been protests by conservatives had Hillary won?

Not a chance.

 

[Stewey]

Fair enough, then explain to me how Tea Party anti-Obama rallies were any different.

.

You either have to be one of two things...a complete idiot or from another planet if someone has to explain to you the difference between Trump protesters and Tea Party rallies.

And you ain't from another planet.

The Tea Party doesn't so much as to leave a piece of litter when the day is done.

 

[Stewey]

And now we have 2 sides that are starting to share the same vitriol.

Ok, on one side we have:

CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, New York Times
Universities and their purveying of Trump hate
Rioting college kids.
Celebrities like Kathy Griffin and their public vitriol.
Comedians using anti Republican humor to spread their hate.
Black Lies Matter.
An assassin trying to kill Republican congressmen
Democrat politicians.

And on the other side we have:

Uh..
Hmm...
Um..how about We the people?

Hell, we don't even have Republican politicians speaking out against Trump haters. The fact that those dirty ******* are just sitting back waiting to see what happens proves this hate is rooted on one side.

Who btw are the ones being called racists, misogynists, homophobes, Islamophobes?

To suggest that "both sides are fault" is bullshit. Its about one side defending itself.

Its no more about democrat vs. Republican, its about good vs. evil. The Right vs. the wrong.

 

[CharlesDavenport]

You either have to be one of two things...a complete idiot or from another planet if someone has to explain to you the difference between Trump protesters and Tea Party rallies.

And you ain't from another planet.

The Tea Party doesn't so much as to leave a piece of litter when the day is done.

No ****..

 

[Steelin]

Some of the cleanup stories from the occupy new york freak show were scary indeed. I think they found a dead body amongst several tons of other ****. From laptops to garbage.

 

[1976steelers]

I think Pelosi has alzheimers

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Steeler Nation mobile app

 

[Booted]

....
The Tea Party doesn't so much as to leave a piece of litter when the day is done.

No ****..

Literally.