American Politics

[Sirioja]

Congress ask Trump to stop his war in Iran, when he made messe and inflation for world economics. What about 300 billions USD? Trump wants to give to support mollahs who are still there, same than before war.

[EihTooms]

Trump absolutely did not implement the tariffs to make "the average Joe fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. " He was just ignorant. He's been strongly pro-tariff since at least 1987, and believes tariffs improve the lives of everyday Americans. Largely what he ended up doing instead in his first term was drive up prices on everyday Americans. When faced with tariffs on clothing, toys, cheap electronics and the like, importers increased prices. And the Chinese built factories in places like Vietnam, and raised prices to pay for the capex and the inefficiencies of their new manufacturing hubs. The overall effect on American jobs, wages, GDP and purchasing power was negative.

So did Biden remove the tariffs? For the most part, no he did not.

In his second term Trump got wilder. China wasn't necessarily the target. He tariffed everybody. He changed the tariffs and the rules frequently, making business planning difficult.

Don't get me wrong, tariffs can be useful in promoting national security and the national interest. For example, Trump and Biden and Obama should have had policies in place, including tariffs, to promote mining and processing and manufacturing of rare earth elements and magnets and the like in the USA and friendly countries, which are essential to defense and industry. Trump IMO was extremely unwise for entering into a trade war with China without having this base covered.

Otherwise tariffs tend to promote crony capitalism. Many countries impose them to help privileged elites, who can raise prices sky high when protected against foreign competition. Again though, I don't believe Trump realizes this..

So poor ol' dumb but well-meaning Donald Trump and, for that matter, every other Repub president of the past 100 years, wants deep deep in his heart to improve the lives of the ordinary American working men and women but, darn it all, it keeps turning out that their policies and stewardship have instead produced every Great Depression, Great Recession, historic jobs destruction, skyrocketing unemployment rate and now Great Pandemic of the past 100 years and none of the great economic recoveries, great economic expansions or historic jobs creation.

And in the case of Donald Trump, also darn it all since he is so well-meaning deep deep in his heart and never intended such a thing since 1987, to make himself, his Crime Family and any cronies to whom he likely owed significant amounts of lost Trump Scams Investment money, massively wealthy to the tune of Billions by leveraging his threats to foreign countries and international corporations to impose otherwise blitheringly irrational Trump Tariffs in exchange for bribes and favors.

Wow. Just wow. Lolol.

BTW, the only thing worse than imposing Tariffs with little rhyme, reason or logic for imposing them in terms of tax revenue that would be far more effective if sourced from somewhere else is to whipsaw in and then back out of them unless they are so damaging to the domestic industries that removing them is imperative just to keep them afloat. By the time Biden mercifully was elected and took office many industries on which Trump had imposed ill-advised tariffs had already laid off the American working men and women they had to lay off in order to offset the damage done by Trump's Tariffs and had readjusted pricing all through the manufacturing, shipping and retail chain to accommodate them. TACO Trump is the whipsaw business models into paralysis King. Not Biden.

And, unlike Trump, incoming President Joe Biden, like every other incoming Dem following an outgoing Repub for the past 100 years, did not have the luxury of strolling in under stable and improving economic and national security conditions, start play golf, goin' fishing, clearin' brush down at the ranch, ride ponies and play more golf. Like every other incoming Dem following an outgoing Repub of the past 100 years, Joe had to hit the ground running to reverse the historic economic decline and crashing markets he was handed to reverse and recover the millions of ordinary American working men and women's jobs the outgoing Repub's policies and stewardship had just wiped out or had merely never created over the Repubs' 4 to 8 to 12 year stint in the White House.

Whipsawing American industries out of all of Trump's irrational, self-serving Trump Tariffs maneuvers was not as high a priority as making sure as many Americans had access to the vaccines Trump was still discouraging anyone from bothering to take, stimulating the economy, recovering American jobs and thereby revive the global supply-chains that Trump's well-meaning and deep deep hearted concern for the common man and woman decisions as far back as 2018 and 2019 had totally collapsed.

[Tiny 12]

And the mother (profanity redacted) Democratic Politicians who want to steal it from me can go (profanity redacted) themselves.*

Oklahoma is a Republican State where 1 in 7 people live in poverty.

This is the Republican answer to social problems. Let them fend for themselves. Most of the people claiming the Republican party posting in this thread are hypocrites and racists. But that the core of the Republican Party that I have known for as long as I have been alive.

If the red elephants want to impress me, they can start by showing me how since 2004 the Republican party has improved Oklahoma.

Time to put in some work!

Hi SubCmdr,

Esteemed board member Canada visited Oklahoma shortly before the Second Iran War and the price of gasoline was about $2. 20 a gallon. At that time most Californians paid north of $4. 00 a gallon.

The cost of living in Oklahoma City and Tulsa is a hell of a lot lower than San Francisco and LOS Angeles. Your figures do not take that into account.

You should be looking at the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) which adjusts for price differences, taxes, government benefits, and out-of-pocket medical expenses. See Appendix 3 here, for averages for the % of the population living below the SPM in various states: https://www2.census.gov/library/work...-wp2025-14.pdf

California and Louisiana, both at 17.7%, lead the list. Oklahoma clocks in at 19th place at 11.6%.

Oklahoma's population is increasing. And California's is decreasing, albeit slowly. Why the hell is that? California has mountains, beaches, movie stars, and hot and cold running women. Oklahoma is an armpit. Still 11,600 more people left California for Oklahoma than vice versa in 2024 according to ChatGPT. California has tons of homeless people and Oklahoma has relatively few.

Open your eyes.

Whoever you quoted complained that Oklahoma chronically underfunded public education, ranking 49th in the nation. ChatGPT tells me it was actually the 4th lowest, spending $12,162 per pupil in 2024. California spent about $25,000, twice as much. What did it get for it? NAEP test scores that were equal to or only slightly higher than Oklahoma's. And this is from the state that gave us Stanford and Caltech.

I don't believe that Oklahoma leads the USA in food insecurity, whatever that is.

Do you think Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Thomas Sowell are racists? If the USA elects its first Hispanic president in the next decade, he'll probably be a Republican.

*Please note that I harbor no ill will towards Democratic voters, particularly fellow board members. It's the politicians I despise.

[KeviKev68]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=990RXnk8X-U

How many white male police officers have fucked up on the job? What do you categorize that?

[Tiny 12]

Just when I was about to say you're more balanced than I thought, you had to just blurt this out:

"I think Trump's plan on tariffs was actually the right idea but instead of implementing them the legally correct way and going through Congress, he signed executive orders and acted in an incredibly impulsive way when doling out said tariffs. So I give him an A on the idea and a F on execution."

The tariffs were probably the 2nd or 3rd most stupid things this moron leader of yours did. Ostensibly they were to "reduce the American debt". How's that working out? Be honest Elvis, they are a mechanism for making the average joe fund the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. You accuse me of TDS, but you're suffering from TMS- Trump Messiah Syndrome, seeking to find logic in the dumbest of moves. He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy.

I agree though that Kamala Harris was a daft choice and that's on Biden. As for the ME, no in honesty I can't excuse or justify the conduct of most of his predecessors but the one thing you can say is he's upped the volume to 11 on everything. It's on his watch that Israel has conducted itself with such impunity that it's now victimizing and brutalising the Palestinian christians. Still there is a silver lining to everything, and America is finally opening up to seeing what Israel is and has been doing. This is consequential of Trump's callousness but of course does not mean he deserves any credit for changing the American mindset.

Trump absolutely did not implement the tariffs to make "the average Joe fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. " He was just ignorant. He's been strongly pro-tariff since at least 1987, and believes tariffs improve the lives of everyday Americans. Largely what he ended up doing instead in his first term was drive up prices on everyday Americans. When faced with tariffs on clothing, toys, cheap electronics and the like, importers increased prices. And the Chinese built factories in places like Vietnam, and raised prices to pay for the capex and the inefficiencies of their new manufacturing hubs. The overall effect on American jobs, wages, GDP and purchasing power was negative.

So did Biden remove the tariffs? For the most part, no he did not.

In his second term Trump got wilder. China wasn't necessarily the target. He tariffed everybody. He changed the tariffs and the rules frequently, making business planning difficult.

Don't get me wrong, tariffs can be useful in promoting national security and the national interest. For example, Trump and Biden and Obama should have had policies in place, including tariffs, to promote mining and processing and manufacturing of rare earth elements and magnets and the like in the USA and friendly countries, which are essential to defense and industry. Trump IMO was extremely unwise for entering into a trade war with China without having this base covered.

Otherwise tariffs tend to promote crony capitalism. Many countries impose them to help privileged elites, who can raise prices sky high when protected against foreign competition. Again though, I don't believe Trump realizes this.

So, back to your point about revenue raising. Yes, tariffs effectively are regressive taxes. However, if you believe the highest end of mankind is to raise revenues for all encompassing government, you're not going to be able to milk the rich for much more than the USA already is. The maximum tax rate (federal + state + local) on ordinary income is 40.8% to 54% and on long term capital gains 23.8% to 39%, depending on location. That's close to Western European levels. Total tax rates (income tax + sales tax + property tax) on middle income Americans are much lower than European levels. You can't raise anywhere close to what Progressives like AOC and Bernie Sanders want by upping taxes on the wealthy. They just don't have the money. And you end up with self-defeating policies, that lower investment and incentives. If you want a European welfare state, you need to do what the Europeans do, impose a Value Added Tax, which is similar to a sales tax. A VAT, like tariffs, is regressive.

About your comments on Israel, I'd attribute the problem not to Trump's callousness, but rather to his impetuousness. There's a book being released today, Regime Change, by two New York Times reporters that says Rubio and the CIA both thought Netanyahu's plan to accomplish regime change in Iran was half baked. Unfortunately, Netanyahu had Trump's ear, and the rest is history.

[MarquisdeSade1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=990RXnk8X-U

[SubCmdr]

Oklahoma is a Republican State where 1 in 7 people live in poverty.

This is the Republican answer to social problems. Let them fend for themselves. Most of the people claiming the Republican party posting in this thread are hypocrites and racists. But that the core of the Republican Party that I have known for as long as I have been alive.

If the red elephants want to impress me, they can start by showing me how since 2004 the Republican party has improved Oklahoma.

Oklahoma faces significant social challenges, including a 16.9% poverty rate (the sixth highest in the U.S.), chronic underfunding of public education (ranking 49th in per-pupil spending), and severe food insecurity (leading the nation).

Time to put in some work!

[SubCmdr]

Not a bad idea IMHO. Also, how about doing away with primaries? Instead have a general election with ranked choice voting. Anyone who gets enough signatures on a nominating petition can run, regardless of party.

I'll one up you. How about doing away with parties altogether? George Washington strongly favored avoiding them. Two of his main reasons were that they would divide the country into hostile factions and encourage loyalty to party over loyalty to the nation. And he was right!

Agreed!

I will go another step and say there should be term limits for each Federal office. 12 years total. 3 terms for President; 2 for the Senate; 6 for the house. No pensions after office except for President. Payment for each federal office should be 1 million dollars a year. But there should be no other benefits. They rent office space from the Dis United States of America or pay for their own. No trips on private jets. No junkets. All finances placed in a blind trust during the period of time you hold office.

They are suppose to be public servants after all!

[Tiny 12]

At the end of the day, you really only have two choices as a voter (sorry Tiny) and I do not regret voting Trump over Harris at all. That the dumb Dems keep calling people like me stupid versus realizing that they need to get better candidates reinforces my decision even more.

No Elvis, you have lots of choices! I'll be writing your name, Elvis 2008, in on the ballot for the upcoming Talarico / Paxton contest. And if the main parties can't come up with better candidates for president than last time, I'll vote for the Libertarian unless he / she is a dumb ass. In that event I'll write in Amy the wonder dog.

I suspect you and Hot Dog agree on more than you think.

[Tiny 12]

Actually what the Dis United States of America needs is more than two parties.

Not a bad idea IMHO. Also, how about doing away with primaries? Instead have a general election with ranked choice voting. Anyone who gets enough signatures on a nominating petition can run, regardless of party.

I'll one up you. How about doing away with parties altogether? George Washington strongly favored avoiding them. Two of his main reasons were that they would divide the country into hostile factions and encourage loyalty to party over loyalty to the nation. And he was right!

Thomas Jefferson was the founder of the predecessor to the modern Democratic Party. John Adams and Alexander Hamilton founded the opposing Federalist Party. All were involved in Washington's administration, Jefferson as Secretary of State. He resigned in a tizzy because he wasn't getting his way. Notably he wanted to involve the USA on the side of France in its war with Britain. Ironically, later in his inaugural address as President, Jefferson emphasized the wisdom of avoiding foreign entanglements, much more articulately than Washington ever did.

Originally the President was the person who got the most votes in the general election, and the Vice President the second most. When John Adams was elected president in 1796, Jefferson was runner up. He couldn't get along with Adams, and spent most of the next four years at his home, Monticello. This was the beginning of the end for American bipartisanship.

What Jefferson did do during those four years at Monticello was spend considerable time banging Sally Hemings. Sally was a mixed-race slave who bore six of Jefferson's children. Jefferson's Will did not provide for Sally's freedom upon his death. His estate would have sold her along with most of the other slaves on Jefferson's estate to settle his considerable debts. Fortunately, Jefferson's daughter intervened on behalf of Hemmings.

This is all from a great series currently on Netflix. Highly recommended.

I shall return to this topic in the near future, to provide Tooms with further details of the sordid pasts of the founding fathers (Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson) of his beloved Democratic Party.

[HotDog666]

Just when I was about to say you're more balanced than I thought, you had to just blurt this out:

"I think Trump's plan on tariffs was actually the right idea but instead of implementing them the legally correct way and going through Congress, he signed executive orders and acted in an incredibly impulsive way when doling out said tariffs. So I give him an A on the idea and a F on execution."

The tariffs were probably the 2nd or 3rd most stupid things this moron leader of yours did. Ostensibly they were to "reduce the American debt". How's that working out? Be honest Elvis, they are a mechanism for making the average joe fund the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. You accuse me of TDS, but you're suffering from TMS- Trump Messiah Syndrome, seeking to find logic in the dumbest of moves. He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy.

I agree though that Kamala Harris was a daft choice and that's on Biden. As for the ME, no in honesty I can't excuse or justify the conduct of most of his predecessors but the one thing you can say is he's upped the volume to 11 on everything. It's on his watch that Israel has conducted itself with such impunity that it's now victimizing and brutalising the Palestinian christians. Still there is a silver lining to everything, and America is finally opening up to seeing what Israel is and has been doing. This is consequential of Trump's callousness but of course does not mean he deserves any credit for changing the American mindset.

No big deal? You must have missed this part.

It got auto corrected but I graded him at a DD (should be only one Dee) MINUS for his grade on the war with Iran. The only things saving from getting a F was his being right on shutting the SOH was not the apocalyptical event others predicted and more importantly, he corrected his horrific mistake.

It take someone with TDS to somehow think that is a positive grade.

Oh brother. Yeah, if only Trump were as perfect as you. To rewind things, Tooms was blabbing on and on about how Arab Americans cost Dems the White House, and the reason the Arab Americans did not turn out is because of Biden's policies on Gaza and Israel. Do you have one American pol who HAS been astute about how to handle Israel and the Middle East since you have the perfect solution?

[Sirioja]

War can't stop with Netanyahou war business with tsahal.

[EihTooms]

Hey Tooms, Would you favor one party rule in the USA if the Democratic Party were the one party? Like the PRI in Mexico for many years.

I favor One Party Rule in the USA like the way it was when the Dems controlled the White House and the Majority in both Houses of Congress under FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden. And along the way we still got all of the Separation of Powers the Founders envisioned would be beneficial to a democratic republic.

One Party Rule in the USA like the way it was under Repubs for a decade leading up to the end of Hoover's presidency, under GW Bush and Trump is obviously a disaster for the USA. It has literally been an existential disaster for the country every time.

That's why it is so dangerous for bothsider / neithersiders to even casually flirt with the total destruction of the USA economy and American democracy by insinuating and voting in such a way that allows so much as a single Repub to slither into a position of power on any of those fronts because just that one Repub or Repub pretending to be an "Independent" can and will infect the system with an America-hating cancer that might soon enough cause a razor-thin election outcome that once again puts a Repub in the White House and hand them the Majority in both Houses of Congress. Clearly, America can't afford to take such a foolish risk.

It is certainly too great a risk to take for patriotic Americans who want the best for America, the vast majority of the American people and to avoid the Worst at all cost.

[Elvis 2008]

Clearly someone or something dialed up the level of delusion to 11 with you, Elvis. I don't even know what to say to this.

Truly ridiculous level of mental contortions in your attempts to excuse your lord and master. On one hand you concede he's a sucker to go the war, on the other you claim it's no big deal

No big deal? You must have missed this part.

But the mistakes were huge. He was totally suckered by Netanyahu. He thought Iran would be taken down as easily as Venezuela was. And when I said the performance of the American military was abysmal, that is on Trump as Commander and Chief. He is in charge of the military not the generals. Then there was the endless drivel of how we have won then we are going to bomb Iran back to the stone age and then we have a peace deal and then we do not. For a guy who wrote the Art of the Deal, he should know that you are not going to get a deal if the other side thinks you cannot keep your word. It seemed like the stock market got to the point of just not listening to him any longer.

It got auto corrected but I graded him at a DD (should be only one Dee) MINUS for his grade on the war with Iran. The only things saving from getting a F was his being right on shutting the SOH was not the apocalyptical event others predicted and more importantly, he corrected his horrific mistake.

It take someone with TDS to somehow think that is a positive grade.

The smart guy does'nt do stupid things in the first place.

Oh brother. Yeah, if only Trump were as perfect as you. To rewind things, Tooms was blabbing on and on about how Arab Americans cost Dems the White House, and the reason the Arab Americans did not turn out is because of Biden's policies on Gaza and Israel. Do you have one American pol who HAS been astute about how to handle Israel and the Middle East since you have the perfect solution?

America is alone, disliked, embarrassed and humiliated; every time the fool opens his mouth or does something, anything, he disgraces America.

Well, America isn't just Trump, and so many people from around the world who have came to the World Cup have learned just that. If you did not have such TDS, you would see that his plan on Venezuela was brilliant and well-executed, and I think the people of Cuba will benefit from Trump playing hard ball with the Cuban leadership.

I think Trump's plan on tariffs was actually the right idea but instead of implementing them the legally correct way and going through Congress, he signed executive orders and acted in an incredibly impulsive way when doling out said tariffs. So I give him an A on the idea and a F on execution.

It has been pretty amazing to see how many people have come to the USA with the wrong idea having believed all the negative media bullshit and seen how great our country is.

At the end of the day, you really only have two choices as a voter (sorry Tiny) and I do not regret voting Trump over Harris at all. That the dumb Dems keep calling people like me stupid versus realizing that they need to get better candidates reinforces my decision even more.

[SubCmdr]

Hey Tooms, Would you favor one party rule in the USA if the Democratic Party were the one party? Like the PRI in Mexico for many years.

Actually what the Dis United States of America needs is more than two parties.