World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[Blu]

Really makes you wonder how the Power Rangers ever got anything done in the Megazord. Who was steering, who decided where to go, and how was anything ever coordinated? No one knew. I think that's the closest characterization of how our government works. A Megazord on a path straight for the sun. That's right, the Megazord can fly now. The Red Ranger (President) executive ordered a flight suit, from Amazon, Prime shipping.

Edit: Which Power Ranger was Congress? Supreme Court?

Who was Zoron?

[Ack]

All good points and true, sums up how Obama aged 20 years within his term.

This is true of just about every president. Over time the position has become much more powerful, though much of its power lies on the side of foreign affairs where Americans tend not to pay as much attention. And the three most recent presidents have all dealt with Congressional opposition and control by the opposite party at some point. George W. Bush faced the Democrat "thumpin'" of 2006, and Bill Clinton experienced the Republican Revolution of 1994.

[MrPopo]

I'd say that outside the veto and judge appointments (and people only care about the Supreme Court with the latter) the majority of presidential power comes out of the fact that he's the Commander in Chief. That's what leads to all the foreign affairs stuff; Korea set the precedent that the President can deploy the military to somewhere that doesn't involve us being attacked in any way.

[J T]

I have a sneaking suspicion that if Bernie pulled off a miracle and actually won the primary and ended up in the White House he'd be a massive disappointment. He can't dismantle the system that has built up over the past couple centuries and coming out of a Bernie presidency with little changed would be a major disillusionment for people who support him.

I would rather have my expectations of Bernie not be met in full than to have my expectations of Trump be met even in partial.

[Ack]

I have a sneaking suspicion that if Bernie pulled off a miracle and actually won the primary and ended up in the White House he'd be a massive disappointment. He can't dismantle the system that has built up over the past couple centuries and coming out of a Bernie presidency with little changed would be a major disillusionment for people who support him.

I would rather have my expectations of Bernie not be met in full than to have my expectations of Trump be met even in partial.

Does bad hair count? Because Trump has that in spades.

[J T]

Really makes you wonder how the Power Rangers ever got anything done in the Megazord. Who was steering, who decided where to go, and how was anything ever coordinated? No one knew. I think that's the closest characterization of how our government works. A Megazord on a path straight for the sun. That's right, the Megazord can fly now. The Red Ranger (President) executive ordered a flight suit, from Amazon, Prime shipping.

Edit: Which Power Ranger was Congress? Supreme Court?

Who was Zoron?

"Identity politics" nearly killed the blue ranger...


http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainm ... wer-ranger

[BoringSupreez]

That cross-party and cross-demographic appeal is precisely why he's doing well so far, and why the "establishment" and the media are so perplexed about his success. I'm too lazy to gather the links for this post, but he's picking up larger percentages of minorities than any other Republican candidate. He got the majority of the vote in the most Muslim city in America, Dearborn, Michigan. He's winning a higher percentage of black votes than the other candidates, and IIRC he's doing well with hispanics too.

http://www.cityofdearborn.org/images/Db ... s/EL45.pdf

Enjoy your facts. Your candidate didn't win the majority, he won a Plurality. In case you fail to understand what a majority is, it's greater than 50%. Sanders won 59% of Dearborn's Vote. That's a majority. Oh, and Bernie got 7,126 to your candidate's 3,153. Hillary still beat out Trump, 4,730 to HRC. Looks like a sizable difference. I sincerely doubt Donald is getting the pull you think he is from diverse constituencies.

I am enjoying my facts. Trump won the Muslim vote in the Republican primary, that's obviously what I meant considering Trump is not running against the Democrat candidate yet. I apologize for not pointing that out.

Even so, what's more troubling is how you speak about your poor experiences with Muslims in Turkey and about a refugee crisis that we catalyzed by going to war and destabilizing a region, and then are speaking positively about how Trump's winning the most Muslim city in America. You can't go from making borderline Islamaphobic comments in one sentence then making claims like your candidate won a majority in the most Muslim city in America when it benefits your argument. That's the very definition of pandering.

My goal when stating that Trump won the Muslim vote in Dearborn was to point out that he's doing well with minorities, despite the media painting him to be some sort of racist that only white hillbillies could ever vote for. I never said I appreciate the fact that Dearborn is majority Muslim, nor did I imply any approval. I stated a valid (and ironic) fact about the voting percentages. I can make any claim I want if it's factually true.

So no, Trump did not win Dearborn. Like hell would they vote for the man who wants to put a stay on Muslims entering the country. A good portion of those Arab Americans living in Dearborn are Lebanese, another country that's had plenty of strain from this refugee crisis and its fair share of horrific war not 30 years ago. They still have relatives in Lebanon. They are reluctant to vote for a person whose foreign policy continues to devastate the region they emigrated from. Hence why they voted for the Jewish man.

Trump said that he wants to halt all Islamic immigration, not from a specific country... so the fact that Dearborn's Muslims are mostly from Lebanon is irrelevant. They could be from Russia for all it matters. And as I said before, more of them voted for Trump than any of the other Republican candidates, most of whom have no plan to halt Islamic immigration.

Also, the "Jewish man" is pro-Israel, so I'm not sure how you expect him to be any better for Muslims in the Middle East than Trump. If anything, he's going to have a harder time negotiating with Islamic countries because of his religion, and America having a Jewish leader will serve as a nice propaganda point for Jihadis.

Thing is, identity politics don't win elections any more than they sell movie tickets or video games.

Keep telling yourself that. It's why Bernie got massacred in the deep-south in the democratic primaries. You make the claim that poor working class whites who belong to unions vote democratic, I disagree. Tons of states have become increasingly right to work in the past decade, eroding collective bargaining and union influence. Beside that, uneducated working class vote tends to favor the Republicans. The only problem, is that working class, uneducated whites have become only 36% of the vote. So it looks like you'll need some identity politics to broaden your voter base, right?

We will find out whether identity politics works or not outside of the Democrat primaries come November. Turnout is the game maker. But as I said earlier in the thread, Trump is polling better among blacks and Latinos than Republican candidates usually do. Being a minority doesn't automatically mean that you agree with the Democrat positions.

And I'm not sure why people are even talking about Sanders anymore as if he is still a factor. I've read several articles pointing out that for Sanders to win the nomination, he has to win ridiculous percentages in all remaining states. Including New York, Hillary's adopted home state. And there's a much smaller chance of the Democrats going to an open convention than the Republicans. Hillary's doing better at this point than Obama was when he beat her in 2008.

[BoringSupreez]

Remember what I said at the end of my post about the mass sexual assaults by migrants in Cologne?

Call me ignorant, a bigot, hateful, nazi, racist, islamaphobe, extremist, whatever pejorative de jour fits your fancy. I'm going to voice my opinions regardless, and I'll more likely than not be back with another piece like this before spring starts.

I may have been off by 2 days, but here we are:

There's been multiple bombing in Brussels, Belgium today. Belgian authorities have confirmed it as terrorism, although the group responsible has not been determined. So far the only lead is "shouts in Arabic were heard before the two explosions at the airport". My bet is on ISIS supporters for now.

Tying it back into our election, Trump caught flack 2 months ago for pointing out the problems with Islamic immigration in Brussels. From the linked article:

“There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Shariah law, where they want this, where they want things that — you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on.”

Warming to his theme, he added that Brussels was in a particularly dire state. “You go to Brussels — I was in Brussels a long time ago, 20 years ago, so beautiful, everything is so beautiful — it’s like living in a hellhole right now,” Mr. Trump continued.

And now look what's happened.

[puke_face]

We have a broken economic system that continues to reward the top 1% and gets tax breaks, bailouts, and deregulation to work in their favor while the class divide continually widens. I want a president who will break up the banks so we don't have to bail them out again, who will regulate Wall Street, who supports labor unions, who wants to raise the minimum wage to a more liveable rate, and who will change the tax structure so that it isn't the wealthy who benefit most.

Climate change is a reality, not a debate. I want a president who listens to science rather than denies it, and who recongizes that we need to live as part of nature, rather than to destroy it out of selfishness and fear.

We have an overly militarized police force that has resulted in a wave of police shooting people without due process. These are largely black people, and the cops are often let off the hook easy. I want a president who will help demilitarize police so that they better serve their function to protect and to serve, and who holds bad cops accountable for their actions, and who isn't afraid to say black lives matter enough to do something about this uniquely black issue.

We have a healthcare system that leaves many people uninsured, burdened with medical bills, and paying way too much for overpriced medications that have been price gouged. I want a president who wants to better regulate the pharmaceutical industry and who views healthcare as an American right, not a privilege.

We have a failed war on drugs that has put many people in jail and failed to actually curb drug usage, and which also mistakenly classifies drugs like marijuana as being on a similar legal level to heroin. I want a president who will stop treating drug use like a criminal issue and instead treat drug addiction as a health issue.

I want a president who serves his people through democratic processes and who doesn't simply listen to whoever pays the biggest donations to the campaign. I want a president who will serve all people whether they be white, black, or brown; men or women; straight or LGBT. I want a president who will listen to detractors rather than have them thrown out or assaulted. Someone who tries to unite the people rather than divide them and who understands that love is more valuable than hate.

In case you haven't guessed it yet, I want a president named Bernie Sanders.

You want a unicorn? You will be hard pressed to find a president who can match your criteria, especially once they get into office. I still find it hard to believe that people actually WANT a president to have the amount of power required to change these things single handedly. He is simply campaigning... that doesn't mean he is actually going to bear the fruit of the promises he keeps planting. Just my two cents. I know I'm not up for a long winded debate about the ins and outs of campaigning, but they aren't regulated due to the freedom of speech our country has. There are some things that the president should not be able to do. Manipulate the economy, I feel, is one of those things. I'm not saying I'm against Bernie, nor am I for him. I really don't like any of the candidates with exception to Gary Johnston, but he being elected is simply not going to happen.

Anyways, have fun.

I'm gonna leave this thread for a good long while. This presidential bullshit is just getting much too irritating for me.

[J T]

I'm sorry you feel you have to leave the discussion after my comments puke_face. I wasn't trying to say anything personally insulting or inflammatory, just noting issues I am personally passionate about.

In response to your statement that I am asking for something so unrealistic as to be on the level of a unicorn, I will simply say that major changes in these areas have occcurred under presidents throughout history. Obviously, things don't change just because the president says so. There is a great deal of work from a great many people to make any of these things happen. Nevertheless, a president has the power of delivering executive orders and can serve as a leader to motivate and drive others towards shaping the country. In regards to the economy, presidents have had a great deal of influence throughout American history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal had a huge effect on relief for the poor, recovery of the economy after the depression, and reform of financial institutions. President Benjamin Harrison's Sherman Antitrust Act had a huge effect on the economy by breaking up the monopolies. Reagan's trickle-down economics affected the economy, perhaps not in a way I find appealing, but they certainly had an effect. Some things affect the economy in a less direct way, like when Carter deregulated airlines, trucks, and trains industries, which allowed for more efficient delivery of goods, as well as consumer transit. Or when Lyndon B. Johnson signed in Medicare and Medicaid. These are major events that ripple through the economy. A lot of people express their doubts about Bernie's ability to deliver the economic change he is talking about. That's fine, maybe he won't be able to achieve everything on his list, but he is the one candidate that advocates an approach that I most agree with, so he seems an obvious choice for me.