Individual-1, a joke or a threat? (talk Trump)

[pErvinalia]

[Animavore]

On Tuesday night, Donald Trump used the first Oval Office address of his presidency to falsely depict undocumented immigrants as savage criminals. Trump is keeping the US government shutdown because Congress, which was controlled by Republicans until last week, has refused to give Trump border wall money for two years.

Trump considered declaring a national emergency on Tuesday night so that he could direct the military to build sections of the wall. At least for now, he has decided not to do so. The absence of an emergency declaration, which would blatantly violate democratic norms and be quickly challenged in court, meant that Trump’s speech contained no new information or policy announcements. Instead, it was a return to the theme that launched his path to the White House: Immigrants are violent and they’re coming for your family.

Trump ticked through a long list of gruesome murders in the speech that he said were committed by undocumented immigrants. But while individual stories might be horrific, there is no evidence of a crime wave perpetrated by undocumented immigrants. Crimes stats don’t suggest that people residing in the country illegally commit crimes at a higher rate than people born in the US. In Texas, according to a 2018 analysis by the libertarian Cato Institute, native-born Americans were convicted of crimes at more than twice the rate for the undocumented population. Another recent study in the journal Criminology found that violent crime appears to fall–not increase–when more undocumented immigrants live in a community. US border communities also have low crime rates.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... gUBc8t_mxg

[Scot Dutchy]

Declare a national emergency over a manufactured crisis. That's not fascistic at all!

Burn down the Whitehouse, blame it on the Democrats, proclaim martial law, and declare Trump president for life, in a new Amerika which will last a thousand years?

How very Hitlerian.

[Scot Dutchy]

The manchild had a tantrum.

Donald Trump fuels immigration fears in TV address on 'border crisis'

President offers no new solutions to government shutdown in first Oval Office address of his presidency

Pelosi said: “President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must reopen the government.”

Schumer added: “We don’t govern by temper tantrum. No president should pound the table and demand he gets his way or else the government shuts down, hurting millions of Americans who are treated as leverage.

Does he want to reopen government?

[BarnettNewman]

Rivers of blood/American carnage redux.

Check the ad below your comment

[Tero]

I really want this Trump gone so I can get off Twitter. I have tweeted many times. Only one post has 6 likes
https://twitter.com/P_Lepinkainen/statu ... 2868860931
oh, also this has 6, probably the same 6
https://twitter.com/P_Lepinkainen/statu ... 9374391296

[Tero]

He did not write this shit: They don't build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside.
He had a speech writer.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/08/68323086 ... s-response

[Forty Two]

Look like many right wingers he compares poverty in America to third world countries. Of course no comparison.

Right, when compared to most countries in the world, there isn't much poverty to speak of in the US. That's true of some other countries in the world.

"Most" countries in the world are impoverished, poorly ruled, third world disaster areas. If you are comfortable in getting a passing grade when comparing poverty and inequality in the US to them, then fair enough.

If you want to compare apples to apples, then compare the US to a basket of developed western democracies, mainly Europe plus Oz, NZ and Canada...

The US gets a stellar grade when compared to most first world countries, too, in terms of overall well-being of "the poor."

The United States performs very well in many measures of well-being relative to most other countries in the Better Life Index. The United States ranks at the top in housing, and income and wealth. They rank above the average in health status, jobs and earnings, education and skills, personal security, subjective well-being, environmental quality, and civic engagement. They rank below average in work-life balance and social connections. These rankings are based on available selected data.

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/coun ... ed-states/

90% of adults aged 25-64 have completed upper secondary education, much higher than the OECD average of 74%.

the average student scored 488 in reading literacy, maths and science in the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), slightly higher than the OECD average of 486. On average in the United States, girls outperformed boys by 1 points, slightly less than the average OECD gap of 2 points.

tiny air pollutant particles small enough to enter and cause damage to the lungs – is 10.1 micrograms per cubic meter, lower than the OECD average of 13.9 micrograms per cubic meter. The United States also does well in terms of water quality, as 84% of people say they are satisfied with the quality of their water, higher than the OECD average of 81%.

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/coun ... ed-states/

We are pretty solidly ahead of the OECD average on the Better Life Index.

However, look at it a little more closely in relation to other countries. We're often told that to be poor in the US is much worse than being poor in the social democracies of Europe. And the bottom 10% in the US are indeed worse off than the bottom 10% in Sweden. But they're better off than the bottom 10% in Germany or France: places where we are told that there is indeed that social democracy.

Maybe there's something for this capitalism red in tooth and claw then: given that it does seem to improve the lives of the poor.

Take another look as well: we know that Russia is where bloated plutocrats loot everything from the country: and yet the bottom 10% in the US have, by this measure at least, better lives than the top 10% in Russia. And the top 10% in Portugal (where I live) and Mexico.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstal ... eba37154ef

The US is a much more unequal place than other countries. But notice also that we're told that the US bottom 10% have a living standard very similar to those of Finland and Denmark: you know, those icy social democracies where they care more about the poor.

Notice how the entire line for the United States resides in the top portion of the graph? That’s because the entire country is relatively rich. In fact, America’s bottom ventile is still richer than most of the world: That is, the typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than 68 percent of the world’s inhabitants.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstal ... eba37154ef

Even if you're stuck in the bottom 5% of the US income distribution your standard of living is about equal to that of the top 5% of Indians. Even if you're in the bottom 10% your standard of living is about the same as that of the bottom 10% in other rich countries (which, so we are told, care so much more and do so much more) like Sweden and Finland. And when we sweep everything together into some sort of quality of life measure the American poor are better off than the French or German poor.

'

Maybe it's true that the US doesn't do enough for the poor in the US. That's rather a judgement call based upon your own morals. But it's very difficult to see in the actual figures that the US doesn't do enough. The poor in the US are richer than around 70% of all the people extant. The poor in the US are about as poor, perhaps a bit richer, than the poor in other rich countries. It is true that there is more inequality in the US: but this isn't because the poor are poorer. It's because the rich are richer.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstal ... eba37154ef

[Forty Two]

He did not write this shit: They don't build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside.
He had a speech writer.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/08/68323086 ... s-response

Any President with a speech writer should be impeached!

[Forty Two]

The manchild had a tantrum.

Donald Trump fuels immigration fears in TV address on 'border crisis'

President offers no new solutions to government shutdown in first Oval Office address of his presidency

Pelosi said: “President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must reopen the government.”

Schumer added: “We don’t govern by temper tantrum. No president should pound the table and demand he gets his way or else the government shuts down, hurting millions of Americans who are treated as leverage.

Does he want to reopen government?

Only Democrats should be able to demand to get their way or else shut down the government.

[Tero]

He did not write this shit: They don't build walls because they hate the people on the outside, but because they love the people on the inside.
He had a speech writer.
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/08/68323086 ... s-response

Any President with a heart [speech writer] should be impeached!

Fixed.

[Forty Two]

Good! Not sure why we want more god-botherers in the country. But, you're free to think otherwise.

[Forty Two]

[Scot Dutchy]

Republican senators defy Trump by backing bill to end government shutdown without funding for border wall

Cracks in GOP resolve begin to show as federal shutdown approaches fourth week

Not just the people are fed up with him.

[Forty Two]

Notice, the press does not portray the Democratic Senators (such as Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, John Tester of Montana) as being fed up with the Democrats refusal to compromise and defiance of the Democrat establishment like Pelosi and Shitmer.

Democrats like Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, etc -- they supported a wall in 2006, when it was a "fence." https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/2006 ... order-wall

Fed up, indeed.