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@Greyparrot
Most things aren't worse than water gate. Nixon abused his power to try to commit crimes and then again to try to cover them up.Thanks, Carl Bernstein. What ISN'T worse than watergate? Cold McDonald fries?
But trump also abused his power to commit crimes and his now using his power to try to cover it up. At best it is just as bad as water gate. At worst, it is much worse. At least Nixon didn't drag other countries into american elections, he was using americans to do it. Giving foreign countries influence over US elections is arguably much worse.
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@Greyparrot
60% of independents are more likely to vote for a democrat who supports impeachment or simply don't care one way or the other. 40% would be less likely. That means that impeachment either helps or at a minimum has no impact for the majority of independents. Why do you think that is good news for you? And this is early on, more evidence is continuing to come out every day. This is not good news for trump.
Did you also read the section where is says more than 50% will definitely vote against trump?
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@Greyparrot
If a pollster asked me if I was for an impeachment inquiry vote, I would say yes in agreement with the Whitehouse.
The fox poll was clear. 51% of voters want trump impeached and removed from office. Not just an inquiry. 6% weren't sure if he should be removed from office. 43% didn't want him removed from office. The majority already want him removed and there is likely still more evidence to come. We are only 2 weeks into the inquiry and the majority are already calling for his removal. This is terrible news for Trump.
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@Greyparrot
There will not be a vote
You are talking about a vote to start the proceedings i believe. But there is no rule that says they have to or even should do that. The dems have decided they don't need a vote to start the inquiry. The inquiry is already ongoing. They only need a vote to finish it and impeach him.
the White house is not going to change its policy of denying subpoenas until there is a vote.
They aren't going to change their policy ever. They will fight to the end to hide evidence and prevent people from testifying because they know they could go to prison. Whether or not the house has an unnecessary vote now is not going to change anything.
Pelosi can't win this impeachment dance under any scenario.
Have you seen the latest fox polls for impeachment? They are already winning.
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@Greyparrot
If they can't politically afford a vote on impeachment inquiry now when support is at an all time high, they most certainly won't be able to afford a vote for impeachment when the media buzz dies down.
That is unlikely any time soon. Subpoena's are going out. 2 of giuliani's allies in his ukranian enterprises just got arrested while trying to leave the country. They have indicated they are willing to talk. This is just the beginning.
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@Greyparrot
Considering the polls for impeachment are continuing to improve and we already know he is guilty, I would say betting against impeachment is foolish. But hey, i'm not the one wasting money.
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@bmdrocks21
I'm not sure they want to hold it. They can't allow a separate kurdish state to exist because that would encourage kurds in their own country to push to join it. So they are going to go in, kill the kurds, and hand that territory over to someone who will agree to continue killing and suppressing the kurds. Probably Assad. But it could be one of the Islamist factions that still exist as well.
So america used these people to fight ISIS, and once ISIS was dealt with, Trump gave turkey the green light to massacre them.
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@Greyparrot
It's not going to get to a vote, but feel free to lose money betting against Orangeman.
You have not given any reason at all why you think that. The memo they released shows that he asked for a thing of value. He has basically confessed. And since the majority of the country now supports impeachment, there is no reason they would not vote to impeach.
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@bmdrocks21
I agree. America needs to get it's nose out of the middle east. But to just up and abandon an ally like that is terrible. If america wants to have influence in the world, but doesn't want to get directly pulled into wars, then it needs allies. This move makes it much more unlikely that anyone will trust america as an ally.
They should have gotten some sort of peace keeping force or at a minimum, an iron clad agreement from Turkey that they would not attack the Kurds. But the Turkish assault on the Kurds has already begun and trump is doing nothing about it. That blood is on Trump's hands.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Could Trump (or any president) be indicted after leaving office? Mueller, legal experts say yes. which is exactly what I said
You said "They can find him guilty but not punish him until after he was out of office I believe". They can charge him once he leaves office. They cannot charge him until then. So no matter how many crimes he commits, no one can touch him until after his impeachment or his term ends.
LOL they don't need any portion of the American population to care to enforce laws, that's not how the legal system works, it's not mob rule, not in the U.S. anyway.
The justice department disagrees. Their memo says the president cannot be charged with a crime. Ergo, he is above the law while he is in office. The only method to punish him for breaking laws is the impeachment process. The impeachment process is not a legal (as in a court of law) proceeding, it is a political proceeding because it is being carried out by elected members of congress. Since those members of congress need to be worried about their next election, they often defer to what the mob wants rather than what the law says. So where the president is concerned, it pretty much is mob rule.
So to summarize. Trump has committed crimes. The justice department cannot charge him with those crimes. Because the justice department didn't charge him with those crimes (and fox keeps telling people nothing happened) people don't believe he committed those crimes. As a result an impeachment didn't happen because the people wouldn't support it.
But the latest polling shows the majority of Americans now do support it. So he will be getting impeached. Whether or not he is convicted by the senate is a whole different story.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
it's amazing of the proof they have only to never show it
What are you talking about? The proof has been all over the news if you watch anything other than fox.
didn't Madcow say something like "we got him!" because of the Mueller report lol which no one is talking about anymore.
The mueller report says that they could not determine if the trump worked with the russians because too many people refused to testify or hid documents. But they had over 100 unreported contacts with russians while they were saying they had none. It also says that trump committed at least 8 chargeable counts of obstruction of justice. In a less partisan world, that would destroy a president. But so many people just listen to fox news which just kept repeating talking points over and over and over that alot of people think that mueller report exonerated Trump, which it very much did not do.
Dems moved on not because trump didn't commit crimes, but because a large chunk of the american population just didn't care that trump had committed crimes.
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@Greyparrot
They are not going to hold a vote for impeachment. I put money on it on predictit.com.
That was a silly thing to bet on. The majority of Americans already support impeachment and the information is still coming out. They will have no choice but to impeach.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Doesn't allow what exactly? They can find him guilty but not punish him until after he was out of office I believe, so why haven't they done that if the facts are so concrete?
No they can't. The memo makes it clear that a sitting president cannot be indicted. unless that memo is overruled, they cannot charge him with a crime even if they watched him do it. The only recourse is to impeach him and once he is removed from office, then he can be charged. Trump has been implicated in several crimes for which he could be charged, but the justice department cannot indict him.
it is possible, no idea why you don't think it isn't, they just couldn't do anything punitive until he was out of office right?
Incorrect. The current position of the justice department is that a sitting president cannot be indicted. So even if he murdered someone on national television, they could not charge him with a crime. He would need to be impeached or finish his term before charges could be laid.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
which court of law found him guilty?
As I said, we know he committed these crimes and would be charged if it were possible. Unfortunately, the justice department memo does not allow it.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
then why the need for subpoenas or investigations? if they are "well established facts" then the case is closed, end of story, so why is everyone still talking about it and why is it still in the news?
Because, unfortunately, the justice department has a memo saying the president can't be charged with a crime. So there is essentially no punishment possible for his crimes other than impeachment. Democrats are also terrible at getting information across. So even though it is established that he has committed these crimes, many people, such as yourself, still believe he didn't do them or are unaware they took place at all. Thus public opinion didn't shift in favor of impeachment, so they did nothing.
We are still talking about them, because the president committed these crimes and has so far gone unpunished for them. So it is established he is a criminal, but he is still allowed to go on using his office to commit more crimes.
The ones i listed are some of the ones he has been committing for the last 2 years. The subpoena's, and the impeachment inquiry, are looking into new crimes. And more information is coming out every day. I mean 2 of Giuliani's friends that helped him in Ukraine just got arrested yesterday. The story continues to unravel.
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@Greyparrot
GOP lost seats in both houses in the next election after a failed impeachment, and the people would have elected Bill for another term if it was possible. The country has already danced this dance before.
No, they haven't .Bill was impeached for lying about an affair. That has no effect on the presidency or the country. It was still illegal, but no one except republican lawmakers thought it was impeachable.
Trump has committed numerous serious crimes. I have listed some above. But just the one the impeachment inquiry is about is, on it's own, extremely serious. He is trying to use the power of his office to get foreign countries to interfere in a US election. That is gross abuse of his office. Even after the impeachment inquiry started, he continued doing this by publicly calling on China to investigate Biden and Warren. He needs to be impeached.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
Trump pushing boundaries, buttons and walks lines. Has any of that crossed over into provable crimes? Not that I have seen yet.
He committed 8 chargeable counts of obstruction of justice, it is in the mueller report. if he weren't still president he would have been charged. He is an unindicted co-conspirator in the crimes his personal attorney, michael cohen was convicted for. If he weren't president he would have been charged.
He illegally asked Ukraine to provide dirt on his political rival joe biden which is a campaign finance violation. He has pretty much constantly violated the emoluments clause because he didn't divest from his company and he uses the presidency to enrich himself.
These are all well established facts.
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@Greyparrot
like coming down the escalator.
Like criminally impeding an investigation at least 8 times. Like violating the emoluments clause constantly. For violating campaign finance laws. For encouraging russia to interfere in the election, which they then did.
The list of the shitty stuff he has done is pretty long.
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@Mopac
I think it makes it look like they are cheating. Ever since he has been elected, they have literally been trying to impeach him by throwing as much crap against the wall as possible and hoping something will stick.
Another way of phrasing that is "ever since he was elected he has been doing unethical and illegal things but has managed to get away with it so far".
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
again that's NOT how the U.S. laws and rights work, I don't have time to give you a basic civics or legal education. You need to learn it on your own
The right is specifically the right to not incriminate yourself. If answering the question would not show evidence you have participated in a crime, then you would not be incriminating yourself.
again you are lost in the woods, Trump has challenged subpoenas asking for his tax returns etc, some of the subpoenas have been dismissed, you are woefully uninformed about these matters it seems, please read up on them more.
The subpoena's you are talking about are not part of an impeachment inquiry. The game has changed. Impeachment gives the house more power. Refusing to comply with subpoena's in an impeachment inquiry is a serious problem.
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@Greyparrot
The prize Trump is after isn't Biden.
Again, who is he possibly going to be able to smear? If he can't get Biden, Warren and Sanders, he is so screwed.
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@Greyparrot
If they call a vote, GOP will uncover a lot of dirt and bring people to the mic to speak in public (especially Ukrainian officials who obviously have an axe to grind with the Dems) during the evidence findings.
Dirt on who? Biden is the only one with any history at all with Ukraine. Warren and Sanders have no connections there. So if the impeachment finishes off Biden's candidacy so much the better.
But since we already know trump has committed 2 crimes related to this and there is a very good chance of a 3rd. Not to mention that the majority of Americans are now supporting impeachment, I would say it is trump who is screwed.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
I understand your opinion, no need to keep repeating it because it doesn't apply to the reality of U.S. law and rights.
It is literally what they are saying. I can't answer the question without revealing information that would incriminate me. Therefore, there is grounds for charges against you.
not if the subpoenas are without merit or illegal which I believe is the reason they are being told not to comply with them.
That is not a valid argument. A subpoena is not something the person being subpoenaed gets to decide the merits of. Congress has the right to oversee the executive branch. They have the constitutionally protected right to perform an impeachment inquiry. There is no valid way to say that is illegal.
and yet they haven't, maybe cause they know it's b.s.? that the subpoenas aren't valid? I guess we'll find out.
They don't do so because no one has used those powers in a long time. For a long time governments complied with subpoena's because to not do so would be politically damaging. In the age of trump where the more trump undermines the political norms the louder his base cheers, that is obviously not the case. The political norm is to obey the subpoenas of congress and also to not lock people up. Since trump has torn that norm to shreds I hope dems use the full force of their powers.
If the White House stonewalls, Congress can seek enforcement of the subpoena in court.
That is exactly what the white house wants. They want to abuse their powers by making the dems fight in court to get access to every single witness and every single document. They want the information of trump's crimes to drip out slowly over months so that people get used to it and no longer care. if it all came out rapidly then trump would be destroyed by it. They are hoping to drag this out as long as possible until people lose interest in the scandal.
I hope the dems use the full force of their powers. they can levy massive fines and imprison people for non-compliance. That is what it is going to take to get people to co-operate.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
I would also ask because the population is increasing (more people) and yet the murder rate is decreasing
Where did you get the idea that the murder rate is decreasing? In 2018 it was 5.0. In 2014 it was 4.5. It has dropped .1 per year for the last 2 years. but it is still .5 higher than it was in 2014.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
you are entitled to your opinion even if factually wrong, that's not how things work in the U.S. even you have to admit innocent people go to jail and have even been executed via death penalty.
The 5th is used because what you would say to answer a question would incriminate yourself. If you didn't do anything wrong, then how would your answer incriminate yourself? I can imagine that there could be rare cases where for complicated reasons innocent people could need to do this. But the vast majority of people who use this are guilty of a crime.
again that is wrong, they can enter a judgement against you based on the information they have, but you are NOT required to say a word, nor can you be forced to via threat of penalty.
You may want to look up contempt of court. Judges can hold people in contempt for refusing to answer them. Please note this is only the judge, not the prosecutor.
But again, you are only allowed to plead the 5th when asked a question. Which means you have to show up to the questioning. The 5th does not mean you can refuse to show up. The white house ordering people to refuse to obey a subpoena is impeding a congressional impeachment inquiry, which is an impeachable offense.
i hope dems decide to use the full power at their disposal. They are legally allowed to lock people up in jail if they refuse to appear when subpoenaed. This administration's contempt for the constitution requires a stronger response.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
lol no it doesn't wow that statement is just way way out there.
You refuse to answer a question because you may incriminate yourself. You can't incriminate yourself if haven't committed any crimes. Completely innocent people do not use that defense.
rights are not conditional or subjective in the U.S. in the context you have laid out.
Of course they are. You have the right not to answer the police. You refuse to answer a judge and you sit in jail for contempt of court. You refuse to answer the IRS and you go to jail. You don't have a blanket right to not answer people. You have a right to not answer questions in a criminal investigation.
are they refusing or challenging the subpoenas? Huge difference isn't it?
They subpoenaed a diplomat. He flew back the US and wanted to appear. The state department, under orders from the white house, ordered him not to show up. The witness wanted to testify but the white house is refusing to allow him or anyone else to testify. That is impeding an investigation. It is also impeachable.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects people from being compelled to give testimony that could incriminate them.
In order to invoke that right you have to show up. That right does not allow you to refuse to be questioned. It gives you the right to refuse to answer them. It also acknowledges that you have committed criminal acts. If members of trump's government want to go to congress and refuse to answer because they are criminals, they have that right.
much like the police, what good can come from talking to authorities, their purpose is to convict, you don't have to prove your innocence they have to prove your guilt, in the U.S. anyway.
Perhaps you do not understand. An impeachment inquiry is not a trial. You do not have the same rights in an impeachment inquiry as you have in a court. Additionally, you have the refuse to answer questions from the police, but you do not have the right to refuse to hear the questions. The police have the power to question people. So does congress. Refusing to show up for questioning is contempt of congress and is punishable by fines or jail.
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@Greyparrot
There's plenty of TDS Democrats that don't know that though. They are being promised the removal of Trump.
Impeachment is not a commonly used power of congress. Many people are unfamiliar with how it works. The rules around how it should work in congress are also intentionally vague to allow congress to use this power in any case it sees fit. So this also adds some confusion.
Pretty much every media outlet I have seen has made it clear that removal from office is highly unlikely because the republican puppets in the senate are too afraid to uphold the constitution. However trump will still be impeached, he just won't be removed from office.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
imagine what it will do to the stock market and China trade or even jobs.
There is already a recession coming. Trump's trade wars have seen to that.
They seem to be really trying hard to judge this in the court of public opinion rather than any formal fact finding. No surprise there.
The impeachment inquiry is like a week old and the white house is ordering people not to testify and to refuse to provide documents. How exactly are they supposed to base it on formal fact finding when the white house wont allow them to get any facts?
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@Greyparrot
51% is a good cushion of 16% considering you need 67% to impeach. I can't wait for these chickenheads to call a vote.
No popular vote is needed to impeach. A simple majority in congress is all that is needed to impeach Trump. They already have that.
You need 67% in the senate to convict him and remove him from office. We will see if they decide to turn on trump. But that is unlikely. They are too afraid of Trump's base to do their jobs.
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@TheRealNihilist
More fantasy or to put into terms you understand trying so hard to put Biden in a bad light while not acknowledging the problems of Bernie. Are you incapable in knowing the flaws of your favorite?
Which flaws specifically? Are you unable to see the massive flaws of Biden?
Are you actually going to make that argument? Originally back in 1828 the Democrats were against education reform.
An excellent example of reductio ad absurdum. Obama uses a plan that was thought up by the right wing a few year before. clearly that is exactly the same as going back almost 200 years.
No it isn't. A public option is left wing. Do you not comprehend that?
It was a plan to make a small change to sand off some of the roughest edges of a broken system. A right wing think tank came up with the idea to protect corporate profits. It is not a left wing plan.
If left wing ideas were so unpopular Warren or Biden wouldn't be getting the support they have but they do.
1) Biden isn't left wing. His support mostly comes from the right wing of the democratic party, rich people, and people who just like him because he was Obama's VP.
2) warren is using left wing plans. Whether or not she will carry through with them remains to be seen.
They are not busy not accepting fundraisers and accepting your other purity tests to make actual change happen not like Bernie over there who is steadily decreasing in the polls.
Warren isn't taking corporate donations. Biden is spending all his time sucking up to millionaires telling them that nothing will change if he is elected. That is not a selling point for Biden. It is one of his massive handicaps.
I get it you have a hate-boner for Hillary. The thing I don't get is that how you can't even back anything up.
Which part of that statement are you saying I can't back up? Are you saying trump does have moral values, or that hilary didn't lose? I'm pretty sure I can back up both of those statements.
More like instead of Bernie being more palatable he is let a lot of people die because of his purity tests he has allowed a person like Trump to win and remove the ACA.
Do you actually believe that? You think that hilary being an unlikable candidate that few wanted to vote for was Bernie's fault? She was a right wing democrat. If democrats want to win they need a candidate that actually appeals to their own party instead of trying to pick one that will appeal to republicans that would never vote for them anyway.
The polling I made points against.
Lets look at favorability polling then. Here are the favorability polls for Bernie and Biden. Bernie's spread is about +20 in recent polls. Biden's is about 0. Just because people are willing to park their vote with someone they think can win, doesn't mean they like them or agree with their policies.
You defending Biden and Hillary are right wing.
They defend and push for terrible trade policies. they supported stupid, aggressive foreign wars. Hilary co-sponsored a bill to criminalize flag burning which is part of her right wing jingoism. Biden's 1994 tough on crime bill. Support for the death penalty.
I will acknowledge that researching this list made me see she is not as right as I had thought. She does support some moderately progressive things. She was still a very unlikable candidate though.
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I had seen this one actually.
But the problem with long analyses like this one is that the story is moving so fast they are out of date with a day or 2 of it being posted.
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@TheRealNihilist
These replies are getting way too long.
Pretty much every single poll has Biden winning against Trump.
Biden has never set foot on stage with Trump. Biden is also pretty quiet about what he really believes. So alot of that support is basically generic democrat vs Trump. If biden won the nomination and had to compete against Trump he would get torn apart. Biden has decades of bad votes and support of bad policies for trump to drag him through the mud with.
If energized you mean steadily decreasing then you are correct.
Some of them have moved to warren because they think she might be more electable. That wont save Biden though.
Either you are ignorant or you are intentionally ignorant. Biden is left. Just not left enough for you. Please don't ask others to conform to your socialist worldview. ACA as a policy makes you a left winger because it closely aligns with the left than it ever did with the right.
You're kidding right? the ACA was originally a plan by a right wing think tank (the heritage foundation). It was a way to keep less poor people from dying but still keep all the profits in private companies' hands. It is not a left wing plan, it is a right wing one that people tried to spin as left wing.
ACA. Heard of that? I am guessing you haven't.
As i said, the ACA is a right wing plan.
If that means winning elections then yes. Purity tests don't win elections.
So to beat evil, you have to be evil? What is the point of getting a democrat elected if they are just going to be right wing anyway? The path to winning is by convincing people that left leaning ideas are the right ones, not by moving the democratic party to the right.
His conspiracy theories about Obama. His reduction in taxes. Removal of the ACA. Right wing enough for me but for some reason Biden is right wing but Trump isn't? Okay guess this is HistoryBuff's worldview not a socialist one.
I don't deny that he went along with alot of what the right wing people wanted. But Trump was a democrat a few years ago, he doesn't actually believe in anything except money and fame. But someone with 0 values at all was still able to beat hilary.
Bernie has said this but as you can see from polls he is steadily decreasing. Your fantasy doesn't align with reality.
And do you know who is now in the lead? Warren, another progressive. You say sanders isn't winning so left wing ideas must be wrong. But a solid chunk of Warren's campaign are Sanders' ideas.
Moving the goalpost from:
Those 2 sentences mean the same thing. Biden's plan will still keep millions of poor people from getting heathcare. because of that, many people will die. Bernie's plan means everyone gets healthcare. No one needs to die because they can't afford healthcare. Ergo, Biden is planning to let poor people die and bernie's is not.
You are not even addressing my complaints.
What complaints?
Show me evidence that he has the 2nd highest margin if he wins and who is first?
Biden still has a very slight lead. but they are all in a statistical tie.
This is the IBD/TIPP for october 7th
Biden 51, Trump 44
Warren 48, Trump 46
Sanders 49, Trump 45
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They accuse him of asking for a thing of value that would help him in an election. His released memo (it was not a full transcript) confirms that he did that. So he has already proven he is guilty.
He is now outright refusing to in any way participate in the impeachment inquiry. Impeding the investigation is also an impeachable offense. His letter is basically a confession of that.
There is also a very good chance that there is evidence that his team, or trump himself, made it clear to Ukraine they needed to dig up dirt on biden in exchange for US support. This would be a 3rd impeachable offense.
Given that we have 2 confirmed impeachable offenses and 1 very likely, I would say the dems are on good grounds to impeach him.
That being said, the dems have a good chance of screwing it up. But recent polls show the majority of americans now support impeachment and removal from office.
The support for impeachment has multiplied in the last few weeks, including from republicans. When 51% of the country already wants you gone, saying you will do everything in your power to block any investigation of yourself is not a good look.
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@Greyparrot
Recent polls suggest the majority of Americans now support impeachment. Be careful what you wish for.
But impeding an impeachment inquiry is also, on it's own, an impeachable offense. That brings us up to 2 impeachable offenses he has publicly admitted to.
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@Greyparrot
Trump is trolling Pelosi to hold the vote so they will lose the House in 2020.
Oh yes, committing a crime to troll someone. he must be a genius. Impeding an impeachment inquiry is an impeachable offense.
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@Vader
Guns do not kill people. People kill people and it has been the mentally ill that do it
I would have to disagree. There are cases of toddlers killing their parents with guns. there are cases of people getting angry in traffic and killing another driver, there are cases where someone finds their partner cheating on them so they shoot them. there are cases where people kill other people by mistake. I read a case the other day where a guy flew to florida to surprise his father in law for his birthday and his father in law shot and killed him.
Those aren't mentally ill people. They are just people. People die every single day to guns in america, and most of them weren't killed by someone mentally ill. So while keeping guns out of the hands of mentally ill people is certainly a good idea, it is only a tiny fraction of the problem.
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@Dr.Franklin
the gun culture does not include criminals who shoot victims, it includes gun owners,airsoft,militas,etc.
You would just prefer not to include them in your definition to serve your own purposes. Anyone who owns a gun is part of the gun culture. That includes mass shooters, criminals etc.
What statistics, sure it might be down now but it doubled during the 2000's and in the last 100 years the gun crime rate hasn't changed, it proven to be an ineffective gun ban as always.
I just explained and provided a link that explained that they changed how they counted the crimes in 2003. This cause a big spike because more crimes were being counted, not that more crimes were being committed. So no, there was not a spike in the 2000's. And gun crime has been falling since 2003.
How so? The stats don't lie
I literally just explained how they methodology for the stats changed. Therefore you cannot compare the stats from the late 90's to after 2003 without being intentionally misleading. You are comparing apples to oranges.
banning guns is not effective
Canada and most of Europe would disagree with you.
"The year they made the change there was a huge spike because crimes that previously wouldn't have been counted were now being counted." How do you know that, reports about the crime rates surging came out in 2006 and 09. Clearly your lying and dont want to admit that Bristains gun ban was bad.
I know that because it was in the article I linked. Here is is again.
Please provide those stats. I have looked. here is a link to an article.
Please look at the graph entitled "Gun crime in England and Wales". There has been a rise in the last 2 or 3 years, but they are still way below 2003. There was no spike in 2006 or 2009. So either please provide stats that support your point or stop repeating that talking point.
I mean violent crime and yes it is true, the fact of the matter is that Britain is not safe anymore. Terrorism, knife deaths, violent crime and illegal snuffling of guns. Britain is a shit hole, it is now officially Londonstan
Their crime rate is way lower than US rate. So the UK is a shithole with a homicide rate of 1.2 but america is a shining beacon of lawfulness with a homicide rate of 5.3? Oh yes, it must really suck to be them with 1/4 the number of homicides.
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@TheRealNihilist
Who are the corrupt neo-libs and what did they do?
Most of the democratic party. They sold out to their millionaire donors and stopped doing what was best for their constituents and started doing what was best their donors.
Your a revolutionist. I think you will be waiting a long time for anything like that to happen.
That's not a revolution, that is reform. And the pressure that makes that reform necessary is already there. Trump is not the cause of america's problems. He is the symptom. The failed policies of the dems, and the intentional policies of the republicans, have caused a large percentage of the american population out of the middle class and are creating more and more people who can't afford to live. They don't all agree on how to solve the problem, but they all know there are serious problems. Trump should have been a massive warning sign. If someone like that can beat a "centrist" candidate like hilary then you should know there is a serious problem. Running a candidate like Biden, who is to the right of hilary on some issues, is crazy and stupid.
When you have Biden/Warren vs Trump there is a better option. Do you understand that or are you on the side of abstaining on voting just because you don't get your socialist revolution?
As I said, warren would be an acceptable choice, biden would not. The dems need reform. Biden is worse than hilary. If that is the candidate they push through, then they have learned nothing from their mistakes.
He is beating Bernie so he his harder than the softy Bernie.
Bernie's supporters are energized. They would walk through fire to vote for him. Biden's supporters are not. They don't particularly like him or the things he says. They support him because they think he can win, or he was VP to a black president, or because they are afraid of change. That is soft support. Those are voters that would change their mind if Biden no longer looks like he can win.
Which is what wins elections. It is a democracy. The most popular person wins if we go by states not people. Relatability is helpful in winning.
my point was that she has trouble looking relatable. Her cringey "i think i'll get a beer", her pretending to be native, her lying about getting fired for being pregnant etc. She is Harvard professor and she acts like it. She has trouble being relatable because she has to fake much of it.
You completely missed that I am talking about the left supporting Bernie. They don't. They support Warren and Biden over Bernie.
many on the left support warren that is true. Virtually no one on the left supports Biden. Biden's ideas are right leaning. If someone likes Biden's ideas, they aren't left wing or they don't understand Biden's ideas/history.
Sure I can accept Bernie did have an impact on medicare being palatable. Too bad other party members do a better job at presenting it or using it to improve themselves in the polls.
But that means he has already won. Even if he doesn't become president, his ideas have taken over. He has changed the landscape of his party. Very few people can say that. Not all presidents can say that.
AOC is awful. She is awful for the Democratic party.
Are you kidding? She, and people like her, are the future of the democratic party.
The election is won if either party wins swing states. I wish she can shut her mouth so that other members trying really hard to win Republican or tied states so that the Democrats have a chance of winning.
This is part of the failed ideology. Basically what you are saying is that the only way to beat the republicans is pretend to be them. You have to have "moderate" (right wing) democrats to win. But that isn't true. Do you think trump is actually right wing? He's not. He didn't win because is a republican, he wont because he could see the problems and wanted to address them. You don't win by going right, you win by convincing people they are better off with medicare for all. Once people realize that they don't have to go bankrupt to get medical care, the republicans will not be able to compete with that.
the Republicans are agreed on what they are going to do.
No they're not. They agree on parts of it. But they wildly differ on lots of issues.
You and people like Bernie, AOC fracture the left making it more lean to an independent vote or a Republican one.
No, people like bernie and AOC are redefining what left means. People like the clintons have been so far right for so long that people started thinking that was the center. so even moderately left candidates seem crazy.
Does Biden go into their homes and shoot them or something? No so stop with the outrageous claims.
He is actively working to stop all poor people from getting health care. That is an immutable fact.
Instead of winning during 2016 he lost and that lead to Trump.
Seriously? Hilary lost because she was a terrible right wing candidate no one really wanted. It is right wing policies that keep costing dems elections.
Note that you also pretty much didn't even bother to challenge my criticisms of Bernie being popular.
The head to heads of bernie vs trump show him winning by the 2nd highest margin. Clearly he is popular. There are just alot of people who are afraid that he isn't "electable" because news outlets won't stop saying it, so they park their vote with someone they perceive as having a better chance of winning.
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@TheRealNihilist
Things change and ideas must also change. If you want reform you do it by accepting current norms so that you can win and hopefully do what you wanted in the first place.
why would you do that? The current "norms" were created by corrupt neo-libs. They will do anything to prevent those norms from changing. Why would anyone want to conform to a broken system in an attempt to fix the system? You will just end up corrupted by the system.
Again with this 1 equals less bad. You don't understand 1 is also the best.
The best of 2 bad options still isn't good. Why settle for less terrible, when you can have something actually good?
Are you going to go to a poor diabetic person and say look I can't exactly get what I want so I won't help you get someone like Biden in charge.
No, Biden's plan leaves millions of people uncovered. I'm saying why would you pick someone who wants to leave millions of people without healthcare when there are candidates that will cover everyone? You are arguing that a lesser evil is the best choice when there are good choices.
How was this the fault of neo-liberalism?
The neo-liberal policies put in place by dems failed. Dems promised to help people, then took actions that hurt them or at best did very little to help. This contributed to their significant political loses.
Same question above.
More or less the same answer. The dems' neo-liberal policies helped to create the greatest income inequality in american history. The middle class got wiped out. People heard obama and believed things could get better. Then he failed to even try to bring about significant change and people lost hope. They turned to a lunatic demagogue who promised to fix the broken system and fight the corruption that is rampant in both parties. People voted for change when they voted for obama. He didn't deliver so they voted for change with Trump. Offer them change now or get a 2nd term of Trump. And no, biden is not change. He is more of the same.
Lol. You still think he is going to win. That is a major if and if you actually think he has a chance with recent polling to look at please look at it again.
Biden's support is soft. Warren's ability to look relateable is iffy. Warren is the most likely candidate to win at this point. But Sanders is certainly still in the running.
Why are you looking a snippet of history instead of the events around it? You are clearly missing the quality of life being better now. Clearly missing trans rights. Clearly missing out homosexuality wasn't even illegal. Why are you missing out the bad of FDR presidency and not realizing we live in a better time than we did in the past?
Do we though? Undoubtedly certain things are better such as the examples you provided. Economically, most Americans are worse off. The constant attacks on unions and deregulation of corporations has lead to the economy being designed around making the rich as rich as possible. The middle class is a shadow of it's former self. it is a fantastic time to be in the upper or middle class, but the large majority of Americans aren't in those classes. i'm not suggesting that we go back to what they were doing back then. I'm saying we need a new populist leader to actually get things done to improve the lives of the people. Anyone who takes big checks from corporations isn't going to do that.
Bernie can't even get the left on his side to win.
Are you kidding, the left is already winning. 4 years ago bernie's ideas were seen by most democrats as crazy and fringe. Now medicare for all is the baseline that every candidate is judged against. Bernie might not win the nomination, but he has reset the conversation in the Democratic party. The entire conversation has taken a huge jump to left.
And to add to that, progressive challengers are lining up to take down the neo-lib establishment candidates. I had trouble finding a recent number, but last I heard there were over 100 primary challengers for democratic seats in the next election. A normal election cycle as 2 or 3. People like A.O.C has shown people that long standing neo-libs are vulnerable. I think we are likely to see either a general shift left in the democratic party as neo-libs get scared of their primary challengers and have to move, or we will see alot of neo-libs go the way of Joe Crowley.
Biden wants the ACA. ACA is better than nothing. You do know that right?
Of course it is, but it is nowhere near enough. Biden's plan lets poor people die. I am opposed to letting poor people die when it can be prevented. Am I willing to support someone who advocates for letting poor people die? no.
Sanders is the best choice, warren would also be acceptable. Virtually all of the rest of the field are basically more of the same candidates.
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@Greyparrot
And what exactly has he fixed in all those decades?
As I keep pointing out, the system is corrupt. Neither the democrats nor the republicans want to fix it. I said he had been fighting hard for change. The fact that corrupt politicians are often capable of preventing that change does not mean that he didn't fight for the people. It means other politicians refused to fight for the people.
If he were president, that is the moment that he would have the power to bring about real change. So the authenticity of the candidate is critical. Do you believe the candidate will do what they say they will. For bernie sanders, he has been on message for decades so 100% yes. For someone like Biden, hell no. For someone like warren, who knows.
But we have shifted pretty far from the original topic, which is that donald trump is getting his ass impeached.
The latest update isn't likely to help with that. He has gone full crazy and is denying that congress has the authority to impeach him. Interfering in an impeachment inquiry, is itself, an impeachable offense.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
what are the gun laws then compared to what you just described? Have you gone through the process to purchase a firearm?
In which state and in which circumstances? In some states you can legally buy a gun with little to no oversight.
In some states 15 year olds can drive cars, might even be as low as 14 in some states, do you consider that "strict" compared to the age limitations of firearms?
They still need proper training and to pass a test proving they are capable of using the tool. Most states have nothing like that for guns. There are alot of 15 year olds who are more careful with their driving than some 40 year olds are with their guns. if you want to advocate for guns being like cars I would be very happy to agree. That means all gun owners would need to get proper training, get a license, register any gun they buy etc. Those would all be hugely positive moves.
If I understand you correctly, you think if law abiding citizens are disarmed that eventually that will have an impact on the ability for criminals to get guns. Is that how you see it working because I can't see any other way.
sort of. Many criminals buy their guns legally. They then use those legal guns to commit crimes. Preventing them from buying a gun would prevent alot of gun crime. Making guns less easily available will also help to dry up the readily available black market guns.
How long would that take before any real change could be seen?
What kind of argument is that? It might not solve the problem instantly so we shouldn't try to solve the problem? It will take as long as it takes. The longer you do nothing the more people will die before you start to fix it.
How many guns are stolen from law enforcement or military bases?
I couldn't say, but if the number is in any way significant then that is an argument for seriously ramping up security measures for firearms for law enforcement and military bases. It is in no way an argument against gun control.
Don't you think the diy technology would advance much much faster?
Potentially. But you need to consider why people would use them. There is a reason why you don't see many people using automatic weapons to carry out crimes. Because getting caught with one will automatically land you in prison for 10 years. If a gun might marginally increase your odds of successfully carrying out a crime but significantly increase you potential jail time, that is a pretty good deterrent to using one even if you can get one illegally.
Consider the guy who created the 3d printed gun and gave out the files for free, don't you think that will happen but on a huge scale? I mean there's already TONS of videos.
1) those guns are terrible. You get like 2 or 3 shots before it falls apart. home made weapons are, in almost all cases, significantly inferior to professionally produced ones.
2) they do that because it isn't really illegal to do so. If you get caught with one it is a slap on the wrist. If you were going to get 10 years in prison for printing or owning one of those, is it really worth it to do that?
Once law abiding citizens have been disarmed don't think that crime like break ins, robberies etc would go up?
Why would they? A criminal who wants to do a break in/robbery is not going to know if the person he is robbing has a gun. He is just going to rob them. And even if it did go up temporarily while the US was in the process of dealing with the problem, that still isn't an argument against trying to solve the problem. Allowing the problem to continue forever is worse.
consider the restrictions some states tried to place but people being as creative as they are found ways around them, bump stock is a pretty good example.
It's easy at the moment because there is no consistency. No matter what rules a state or city put in place, the next state over will have laxer rules. You can just drive across the state line and come right back. If you want to address the problem you need national rules and consistent enforcement.
More restrictions and or bans will drive that even more along with diy. Then whatever controls there are now will no longer exist.
How could you think that this is a real argument? Some people might find ways around the law so we shouldn't have a law? Some people find ways around everything. People find ways to cook meth in their basement, that doesn't mean you let them sell meth at walmart. Will enforcing the law require work, of course. Will it ever be 100% successful, no law ever is. But that is not an argument for doing nothing.
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@Greyparrot
Actions are kind of important. (or inaction in the case of Bernie)
What inaction do you mean? He has been fighting hard for the things he believes in for decades.
If greed was so bad then that "free education" shouldn't have a 14 dollar price tag on it.
1) I just said greed is not inherently bad. Unrestricted greed is bad.
2) Bernie's been putting his ideas out for free for years. Anyone can go through his statements and interviews and get lots of information for free. He decided to put work into putting his thoughts and ideas in one place. There is nothing wrong with selling that. it's not like he has hidden any of the information behind a pay wall.
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@Greyparrot
I don't need to send a person 14 dollars to explain to me why greed is evil any more than I need to send the Pope 14 dollars to explain why greed is a sin, and why God needs my money.
So listening/reading to an expert in a specific field and thinking about whether or not you agree with their points is somehow religion to you? You're not big on thinking about stuff are you? You just go along with whatever your local republican tells you to?
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@Greyparrot
Lol they have buttigieg valued higher than Sanders? That guy is just an empty suit.
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@Greyparrot
Again, all it takes is to stare at a 14 dollar price tag on a book lecturing us about how evil greed is to understand the problem.
The issue is considerably more complex than that. Greed is not in and of itself evil. However, if that greed does not have limits it causes people to do evil things. Greed might make you want to steal your neighbor's car. There needs to be laws to prevent people doing that.
Greed drives corporations to take actions that are not in the best interest of their workers or the country. We need laws to make sure that greed is also kept within limits so that they do not take harmful actions in pursuit of profit. Republicans want to make sure there are as few rules as possible so that corporate greed is completely unchecked. This has led to the destruction of the middle class and the greatest income inequality in modern american history.
So yes, alot of people want to buy a $14 book to learn more about the details of the problem and how we can go about fixing it.
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@TheDredPriateRoberts
like cars, tobacco, alcohol, swimming pools......ban those too right?
We have strict laws about who can drive a car. You need to take tests to prove you can handle the responsibility. You need to have a driver's license. You need to license your car so people know who owns what cars and how many. i think having those kinds of laws would be great for guns as well.
Tobacco and alcohol, for the most part, only kill the person who buys them. Therefore if people want to kill themselves they should be able to. Guns are designed to kill other people.
Perhaps we need tighter laws on pools, I hadn't really given that any thought. Presumably on securing your pool so children can't get in unattended. But since guns kill way more people it is a much lower priority.
you are barking up the wrong tree imo you'll create a bigger black market, unintended consequences and markets.
Of course there will be a black market. I don't think anyone has ever said otherwise. But if they need to be bought on the black market, that makes them expensive and hard to get. If they are expensive and hard to get then that significantly reduces the number of them in the hands of criminals.
Do you really want to open pandora's box?
What pandora's box are you talking about? Lots of western countries have strict gun controls and they have much lower gun crime and homicide rates. We have decades of evidence that gun control works. The idea that there is some big mystery about what would happen is a right wing talking point.
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@TheRealNihilist
Do provide proof. I doubt you can. You are just biased.
Medicare for all has polled at 70% support. It varies considerably in many cases if the question is framed in a right wing way. But it is still very popular as highlighted by the fact that most dem candidates have ripped it off.
Increasing taxes on the rich is also very popular. Here is a poll that shows 76% of voters want taxes on the wealthy increased.
Here is a poll showing 58% of voters support free college and eliminating tuition debt
Here is polling showing that left leaning environmental policies are popular
Authentic = not reinventing yourself? This is a reason why he isn't beating Biden and Warren steadily increased over time.
Authentic means telling people what you really think and really want. Bernie has been doing that for decades. How can you reinvent yourself if you have always been telling people what you really think. The reason other politicians can do that is because they just pretend they are someone else now. That is a bad thing.
The Democrats want a public option. The Republicans do not.
That's a bit like saying the republicans want to cut off your leg with a chainsaw. The dems just want to cut off your foot. Both are bad, 1 is less bad. The republicans' plan is to let poor people die. The dems' plan is to only let some poor people die.
Example?
1) dems lost over 1,000 seats during Obama's tenure. He gave people hope that he would bring change. Then he failed miserably by only making small changes to a broken system.
2) Trump. People elected trump because they wanted a change. Going back and forth between failed neo-cons and failed neo-libs was just making their lives worse. So they turned to an extreme answer. Going back to the neo-lib model will only make things worse. The dems need to learn from their failures.
Another way to interpret this is that the Democrats are better than the Republicans. There are only two options. For you to say the best option is the bad option is clearly showing your biases.
I don't disagree that dems are better than republicans. Republicans want to actively make poor people's lives worse. Dems just want to make rich people's lives better and don't particularly want to do much to help poor people. Neglect is better than active antagonism.
Roots? What time? Please do tell.
FDR and the new deal
So he would stoop down to Trump's level and still not have a chance at the election? I called that a failure.
Your point is self defeating. The populist strategy worked. The message of fighting against the corruption of the current system is exactly what people want. Picking someone who revels in that corruption, like Biden, is the best chance dems have at giving trump a 2nd term.
They must all be really scared at his non-existent lead.
They aren't scared yet. But if he wins they will be.
Bernie is failing and I think he will fail. If lets say Bernie drops out would you vote for Warren or Biden or would you abstain from voting?
It is certainly possible that Sanders wont win. In that case Warren would be an acceptable 2nd choice. Biden would not be acceptable. Dems need to learn that Neo-liberalism is dead.
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@Dr.Franklin
Those are criminals, they are just thousands of criminals while over 100 million gun owners, Gun culture is not toxic when compared to politics or celebrity shit.
No, they are just people. There are alot of victims of gun crimes who are not criminals. You could save thousands of lives per year by enacting stricter gun laws. If something is killing that many people, then it seems pretty toxic to me.
But Britons gun control has been proven to be unchanged after and before the gun ban, plus in-home bulgurlys are 60% of all bulguries in the Uk will they only account fro 13% of bulgaries in the U.S, clearly there is a link between guns and violent crime because guns stop 8 to 10x thimes more violent crimes.
I'm not certain what you are trying to say. The statistics say gun crimes are way down, so obviously they are not unchanged. You are comparing percentages of where burglaries take place. Maybe american burglars just prefer breaking into businesses. This doesn't support your argument as far as I can tell.
In the decade, the 2000's lets take a look at it,
Here is an article about why the statistics you are trying to use are not helpful. Basically they changed how they counted violent crimes. The year they made the change there was a huge spike because crimes that previously wouldn't have been counted were now being counted. So trying to compare stats from before 2003 to stats in the few years following is completely useless and intentionally misleading. In the article you provided, the conservatives were intentionally using this change to the statistics to sell the narrative that there was a huge crime wave.
Look at a map, what do you think western europe is, anyway It is homicides, but it was violent crime where britain is up
My point is that they aren't even the highest in western Europe, let alone all of Europe as you had claimed. If you are meaning because of the changes to the stats in 2003, then I have already addressed that. If you mean between 2003 and now then the stats do not support your assertion.
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@Greyparrot
So naive. None of these books written by politicians seem to sell well when they are out of power. Do their creative brains just suddenly turn off?
Politicians are most relevant when they are in office or shortly thereafter. If they have been out of office for years why would anyone care what they think? It isn't that they stop being creative, it is that they stop being relevant. Bernie's book came out shortly after the 2016 election. Alot of people were very interested in what he had to say after a terrible candidate managed to take the dem nomination and then lose to an idiot.
It is pure naivety to believe people are buying this Politician's book to be entertained or enlightened. They are clearly supporting a person in power for the free stuff he can give them.
Do you have any evidence to back up that claim?
All politicians funnel crony corrupt money through speeches and books and charity foundations. It's a very old game you apparently have not heard of.
Many politicians do that. Bernie doesn't take corporate money and he wants to ban politicians doing those practices. i understand you are jaded and accept that politicians are corrupt. But that is no reason to not want to fight against that corruption. The reason those practices are so widespread is that the mainstream politicians all like doing it. That is why we need sanders, a candidate who doesn't need those things to win, to get elected so we can finally get change.
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