Trumpfs Microwave.

[42Below]

Im amazed you fine Clinton more frightening that the don. From our neck of the woods our concern was don hitting the red button. We figured hillary was such a politician she would only do it after so much messing around that the crisis would probably blow over.

As for drumf and pence - dont you now have Mickey and Donald running the show? Who is goofy then?

Im an ex car mechanic who started at Ford. My heart is in V8s but I left Honda cause NOTHING ever went wrong and I got bored. I was never bored at Ford! They were terrible but I did own a few.Our big cars were made in Australia - Falcons but that stopped recently.
My Mondeo has been great over the last 100,000km. Boring but great.

And surely the whole USA knows the Black and Tan Coonhound is the premier dog??!! Yes we have a few way down here. Mine is currently 'guarding' his bed poised to attack............. his dinner later.

Im relieved to see the comments because the international media painted the states as either brain dead violent drumf fans or liberal Hillary fans.
There was no middle ground.

I have family from the states (grandparents) and love visiting the place but it makes me sad to see whats happening.

I mean what happened to 'made in the USA' really meaning something? How did you let that go? Down here an American car was a big deal even 30 years ago, the machinery was seen as top notch but now you all seem to have gone the other way.
American cars 1980 on are shall we say not well respected and having worked on and driven a few I have to agree.

I apologise for the comment but I see the place a having many baby birds needing a lot fed to them by mommy. What happened to the make what you need, figure it out and get it done country?? You let your manufacturing die.
The public lust for cheap consumerism ie Chinese goods has a lot to answer for.

Putin is more likely to help orphans than don is to make America anything other than poor for his gain.

 

[Kronx]

Im amazed you fine Clinton more frightening that the don. From our neck of the woods our concern was don hitting the red button. We figured hillary was such a politician she would only do it after so much messing around that the crisis would probably blow over.

As for drumf and pence - dont you now have Mickey and Donald running the show? Who is goofy then?

Im an ex car mechanic who started at Ford. My heart is in V8s but I left Honda cause NOTHING ever went wrong and I got bored. I was never bored at Ford! They were terrible but I did own a few.Our big cars were made in Australia - Falcons but that stopped recently.
My Mondeo has been great over the last 100,000km. Boring but great.

And surely the whole USA knows the Black and Tan Coonhound is the premier dog??!! Yes we have a few way down here. Mine is currently 'guarding' his bed poised to attack............. his dinner later.

Im relieved to see the comments because the international media painted the states as either brain dead violent drumf fans or liberal Hillary fans.
There was no middle ground.

I have family from the states (grandparents) and love visiting the place but it makes me sad to see whats happening.

I mean what happened to 'made in the USA' really meaning something? How did you let that go? Down here an American car was a big deal even 30 years ago, the machinery was seen as top notch but now you all seem to have gone the other way.
American cars 1980 on are shall we say not well respected and having worked on and driven a few I have to agree.

I apologise for the comment but I see the place a having many baby birds needing a lot fed to them by mommy. What happened to the make what you need, figure it out and get it done country?? You let your manufacturing die.
The public lust for cheap consumerism ie Chinese goods has a lot to answer for.

Putin is more likely to help orphans than don is to make America anything other than poor for his gain.

Well your media's portrayal of America isn't entirely inaccurate. There isn't nay middle ground in America. America is very much a liberal vs conservative with a very very very small amount of independents. The independents are growing slowly each year, but their numbers still pale in comparison to the two major parties. The only part that I would say that your media got wrong was making "braindead Americans" exclusive to Republicans. Both the left and the right share that population equally.

In short this is how Americans deals with the issues: "If my party did it, it's ok. If the other party did it, it's bad." And you can put that quote on a bumper sticker and slap on every car in America and it would ring about 95% true to all the owners.

To give you a current example. Now that Trump is on office liberals suddenly care about drones strikes and the innocent casualties that occur from them, but they never said **** about it when Obama was drone striking so much we started running low on bombs. And I have no doubt if Clinton was in office they wouldn't say ****. But because Trump is on office? Oh now it's a problem.

And now Republicans want to spend a trillion dollars in infrastructure but they ******* despised that idea when Obama did it back in 2009. Day after day is nothing but fake outrage from both sides. Just gets old.

So what is an independent supposed to do? Me, I've always cared about our use of drone programs but no one ever said **** about it. So now that the liberals are making a deal of it what do I do? I'm not fooled by their motives -- Trump. I'm not buying their fake sincerity. But I DO want to see changes. If I throw my support behind more measured and transparent use of drones am I liberal by taking advantage of the momentum on the issue?

I think re-investing into our infrastructure is exactly the reason for taxes and we ALL benefit from that re-investment. Am I a conservative because I throw my support behind it?

Like I said in a previous post... you'd *think* there would be some issues we could find a middle ground on, but we cant. Can't even agree on which bumper gets that bumper sticker.

As far as your question regarding "Made in America" you answered it by pointing out the public lust for cheap consumerism. That's pretty much it in a nutshell. And I'm just as guilty of it. If you think about it there has been an undercurrent of "Made in America" for a while, but we ridicule it because the source of that undercurrent are hipsters. If we block out the skinny jeans and Buddy Holly glasses... the major component of their culture here in America is ultimately"Made in America". We make fun of them for buying $200 motorcycle gloves that look like they were hanging on a shelf in an Ace Hardware store, but the reality is in most cases they're putting their money where their mouth is -- they got those gloves from a couple of dudes with beard and tattoos in Portland while we cover our mouths snickering at the hipsters while wearing cheap gloves made in Malaysia. I actually respect that part of the culture quite a bit. I'd probably be a hipster if I didn't look so bad in plaid.

 

[42Below]

Fair enough re the hipsters. I do have a beard but to me hipsters are a kind of low cut jeans that girls wear.

Having been to the states the people I meet are not the people on the TV but the media do what they please in any democracy. Reasonable discussion makes for a boring news clip. Hate speak sells I guess.

Over here its pretty well right or left wing with the greenies and minors making up the rest. We have MMP parliament - mixed member proportional. Seems closer to 'more morons in parliament' in reality.

 

[Kronx]

Fair enough re the hipsters. I do have a beard but to me hipsters are a kind of low cut jeans that girls wear.

Having been to the states the people I meet are not the people on the TV but the media do what they please in any democracy. Reasonable discussion makes for a boring news clip. Hate speak sells I guess.

Over here its pretty well right or left wing with the greenies and minors making up the rest. We have MMP parliament - mixed member proportional. Seems closer to 'more morons in parliament' in reality.

Yep, just like sex sells in the entertainment business, hate sells in the political world. And business is booming. As an outsider I just ask you to watch how this will unfold and keep in mind the Republicans are in complete control right now. They got the majority in congress... they can push through anything they want. But mark my words. When this **** show of a GOP healthcare plan that they took 6 years to come up with goes through and the **** show of a budget gets passed... and it all starts hitting the fan... they will blame the Democrats even though the Democrats a pretty much completely powerless at this point. That fact will fly over most of America's head. Zero accountability in today's American politics.

Here's a perfect recent example about lack of accountability. Trump makes the false wiretapping claim and when pressed about it what does he do? He points the finger at a pundit on Fox News and says "I heard it from him. Go talk to him." Think about that... how much of a ******* chickenshit coward move is that for president? And now reports are saying Fox News is benching that pundit. This guy is getting punished for Trumps **** up. This pundit says the same sort of **** he always says on Fox... then Trump takes it and runs with it. Then its proven that it's a lie and makes Trump look bad so they punish the dude on Fox? What the actual ****? I'm sure the pundit will come back eventually or maybe its just rumors about him being benched. But just for Trump to point his finger at someone else for his tweets is just cowardice... plain and simple cowardice. But hell, they're literally still chanting "Lock her up" in March of 2017 - proof that hate for Clinton who is now totally ******* irrelevant is still far more important that present day politics. Yep the hate business is booming.

 

[Traumahawk]

FYI, there were other news than just fox talking about wire taps.

 

[Traumahawk]

I am a huge believer in the phrase "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

The government will do what it wants, and will use any "logic" that it wants to to justify its actions. Just ask James Rosen.

On May 13, 2013, the Associated Press announced telephone records for 20 of their reporters during a two-month period in 2012 had been subpoenaed by the Justice Department. AP reported the Justice Department would not say why it sought the records, but news sources noted the US Attorney's office for the District of Columbia was conducting a criminal investigation into a May 7, 2012 Associated Press story about a CIA operation which prevented the Yemeni terrorist Fahd al-Quso's plot to detonate an explosive device on a commercial flight.[1] The DOJ did not direct subpoenas to the Associated Press; instead, the subpoenas were issued to their telephone providers, including Verizon Wireless.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Department_of_Justice_investigations_of_reporters

 

[Kronx]

FYI, there were other news than just fox talking about wire taps.

Trump specifically stated his source for claims -- Judge Nepalitano of Fox News. Starts about the 1:15 mark of the below video, but I can quote:

Trump: "We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain...very talented legal mind... who was responsible for saying that on television. I didn't make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox. So you shouldn't be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox."

Spin it all you want, but it's still a coward move of Trump to blame someone else for **** he tweets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_18yYdyZd_k

 

[Kronx]

I am a huge believer in the phrase "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Then I ask respectfully and sincerely, Donald Trump on the campaign trail bragged about paying politicians to get what he wants. His bragging about it was even brought in the GOP debates and he doubled down on it. Trump University is a proven scam. Many of Trumps real estate deals that go back decades are peppered with corruption(money laundering and fraud). He fires people who aren't steadfast loyal to him regardless if they are just doing their job. I wont even go into the long list of valid concerns about his administrations ties and actions regarding Russia. Are none of these indicative of the corruption you claim concern over?

 

[Traumahawk]

Trump specifically stated his source for claims -- Judge Nepalitano of Fox News. Starts about the 1:15 mark of the below video, but I can quote:

Trump: "We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain...very talented legal mind... who was responsible for saying that on television. I didn't make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox. So you shouldn't be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox."

Spin it all you want, but it's still a coward move of Trump to blame someone else for **** he tweets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_18yYdyZd_k

All I said was......there was more than Fox news talking about wiretaps.....nothing more.....nothing less.

 

[Traumahawk]

Then I ask respectfully and sincerely, Donald Trump on the campaign trail bragged about paying politicians to get what he wants. His bragging about it was even brought in the GOP debates and he doubled down on it. Trump University is a proven scam. Many of Trumps real estate deals that go back decades are peppered with corruption(money laundering and fraud). He fires people who aren't steadfast loyal to him regardless if they are just doing their job. I wont even go into the long list of valid concerns about his administrations ties and actions regarding Russia. Are none of these indicative of the corruption you claim concern over?

I did NOT mention Donald trump in anyway shape or form......i said the government, will do what it wants to, and use any logic to justify it, and brought up an instance of abuse from over 3 years ago.

 

[Kronx]

I did NOT mention Donald trump in anyway shape or form......i said the government, will do what it wants to, and use any logic to justify it, and brought up an instance of abuse from over 3 years ago.

Interesting. Ok. Last time I checked Trump is part of the government is he not? You wont get any argument from me on abuse of power by government office or agencies. Hence why I have an issue with the President of the United States using the official White House Twitter account to bash business partners of his daughters business. But now she's getting her own office in the West Wing and is getting a security clearance so maybe she'll use the White House Twitter account for future slights on her businesses instead of her dad. I also think using the power of the Oval Office to make claims of major illegality that further erodes trust in our government and democracy without providing evidence is wrong. One could argue these two of many examples are abuses of the Executive Branch.

But you wont get any argument from me on abuses of other agencies and offices from previous administrations either which why I have always been an outspoken opponent of the Patriot Act(created by Bush Admin and embraced fully by the Obama Admin) and the executive authority of a president to drone strikes for years without transparency to the people. And abuse of government agencies doesnt happen just on the federal level. It can go all the way down to the local level. I'm looking at you Civil Asset Forfeiture.

 

[Kronx]

All I said was......there was more than Fox news talking about wiretaps.....nothing more.....nothing less.

Yea and the picture you attached shows it was from Jan 20 2017 which is around the time Flynn was under fire for his undisclosed conversations with a Russian ambassador. And yes, when it comes to foreign ambassadors, particularly from Russia, all of their phone conversations are monitored. And all of our embassadors that sit at embassies on foreign lands have their phone calls monitored by the hosting governments intelligence agencies. That's not something new -- its been that way for some time.

Trumps claims from a couple of weeks ago about Obama illegally tapping his phones is something very different than what the NYT article was discussing. Anyone trying to link the two together either doesn't understand the circumstances or deliberately deflecting. At the end of the day, regardless of how many people are talking about wiretapping, when the president makes a claim as he did a few weeks ago it carries far more gravitas than anyone else and he should have proof to back up those claims. If his administration expects people to just accept them at face value is at worst foolish -- at best naive.

 

[forestdaledave]

I glad I checked in this morning. The last time I was here all I read was how great a president Trump would make. Making deals with Putin to diss Hillary to help him win. Well, it seems some attitudes have have changed. Where are all the blind Trump supporters now?
Forestdaledave

 

[V-Maximus-98]

Buddy, you ain't lying. All this time worrying about the commies only to have them waltz through the front door and with all the access to everything to boot. I hope I'm wrong. I'm just waiting and getting ready if and when the crud hits the fan. All this crap about illegals was a nice smoke screen. It's a know fact this country has benefited from their labor. Take the great state of California-cation for example. Back under my rock.