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Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

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Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#991
post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump railed against the system that allowed politicians to be bought. It turns out his solution is to term limit congress. Sounds like treating a symptom not the root cause.

so what, then let's offer solutions and try to get them enacted? why all the armchair bitching on this site as if everyone is an expert just because they write code? what he did is nothing short of monumental and he WANTS to help America. If everyone is so damn smart then get involved and suggest changes. It's not like he's a fucking robot that is going to sit back and count how many marble statues he has in his gard…

https://www.greatagain.gov/

He's actively seeking suggestions on his transition site.

Share your ideas.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#992

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that much of the mainstream media showed a bias against Trump through this election. (I feel they had very good reasons to be biased against him, but regardless, should have done a better job of keeping the reporting neutral.) That said, Breitbart and Drudge Report are probably the two most well known right-biased sources in existence (aside from the obviously much larger, but less biased, Fox News).…

Thanks for your insights. It seems where we disagree is on your point of Breitbart and Drudge being 'right-biased'. To me they come across as simply more dedicated to reporting the truth and principled in their commitment to reporting said truth regardless of implications or contradictions to the status quo who are often downright misleading and deceitful; this most recent election campaign serving as a magnification…

Thank you for your reasonable reply. As I see it, there are a few ways bias can manifest. The most obvious is in reporting things that aren't true. One step down from that is reporting things that are technically true, but in a misleading way. (You definitely saw a lot of anti-Trump bias manifest in that way.) The next level from there is choosing which truths to report, in order to paint a picture. That's the level that I personally have seen most often on Breitbart/Drudge. You may well be right that they dig up uncomfortable truths that are ignored by other sources. But how often does one of those uncomfortable truths lean toward painting liberals in a better light than conservatives? It's like when negative results of scientific studies are thrown out; we can end up seeing a pattern in the resulting aggregate data that doesn't really exist.

Then you also have to look at the tone in which things are presented. For example, at the top of Breitbart right now: "At Last: The Lena Dunham Meltdown You’ve Been Waiting For ‘I ached in the places that make me a woman’" There may not be anything factually inaccurate in that article, although I haven't checked all the quotations myself. But it seems pretty clear that this is a pretty shameless gloat. I mean, they acknowledge it as such in the headline. I agree with you that there's nothing wrong with looking at varied sources, if you do so critically. I would suggest looking at an article in Breitbart, then finding reporting on the same thing from a more mainstream (call it left-leaning if you want) outlet - say the Washington Post or the NY Times. Compare the statements of fact, sure, but mostly compare the tone of the articles and ask yourself what picture they're trying to paint. Obviously what comes off as neutral and what biased would depend on where you yourself sit on the spectrum, but regardless I think it's a valuable exercise.

To take it further, where the two sources differ significantly, check facts. And it doesn't mean just find a source to corroborate them, as there will always be an echo chamber of sources repeating the same things on both sides. Instead you need to dig a bit deeper.

The easiest example is a quote. It's amazing how often people are misquoted, or the quotation is interpreted differently than I would view it. Very often these days you can find video of the original quote, and interpret it for yourself.

Now, the veracity of a statement is a bit more difficult than just whether or not someone said something. Often you can start by checking wikipedia, then look to the sources it references, for a good start.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#993

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so what, then let's offer solutions and try to get them enacted? why all the armchair bitching on this site as if everyone is an expert just because they write code? what he did is nothing short of monumental and he WANTS to help America. If everyone is so damn smart then get involved and suggest changes. It's not like he's a fucking robot that is going to sit back and count how many marble statues he has in his gard…

https://www.greatagain.gov/ He's actively seeking suggestions on his transition site. Share your ideas.

Gary Sinise for seretary of Veterans Affairs.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#994

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This falls prey to the same fallacious thinking as gambling with the house's money. Assuming we can extort billions of dollars from Mexico, that's money we could be spending on anything – why is a wall the best use for it? And if a wall is the best use for it, the government should be prepared to build it with our own tax dollars, regardless of whether we extort money from Mexico.

I believe the idea is that illegal immigrants are causing more than that amount in harm to our society, i.e. through free healthcare

Maybe this is a better way to look at it.

Candidate: "We're going to build a wall between us and Mexico. It'll cost us $7 billion."

Electorate: "Umm. That's a lot of money. Let's do something else with it."

If that's how people would react, they should react the same way even if we're getting the money from Mexico. Money is fungible, and as much as our hearts enjoy poetic justice, it shouldn't matter where it's coming from.

There are a couple of situations where we would still want it built, even if its cost exceeded what we were willing to pay ourselves. One is if this is a cooperative, non-zero-sum situation: if Mexico were getting some value from the wall, they might be willing to pay some of the cost, beyond what we can extract via tariffs and seized remittances. The other is if Mexico is terrible at negotiations, which is likely what Trump is assuming.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#995

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Can you explain what this means then? "All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered “extreme vetting""

This shouldn't be downvoted. This is a critical question for a candidate who's pledged to expand religious discrimination and torture.

Thank you. It's time Americans took their duty to their country seriously. This is dangerous.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#996
post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not unlike how an opposing party will criticize a bill based on its number of typed pages. The thump of a couple of inches of paper on a podium makes for great and reductive theater. It's likewise naïve to consider the number of regulations to be a direct barometer of the goodness or badness of regulation in general. Next we'll see the refactoring of existing regulations into smaller or larger components to a…

Reducing the number, length and complexity of regulation is a valid goal, and that hasn't changed in thousands of years: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government." - Tacitus

This scheme is vulnerable to the same sort of gerrymandering game we play with districts. It provides no definition or guideline on the size or shape of a (presumably atomic) regulation. It's a meaningless bullet point.

Re: Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

#997

Some of this sounds great - term limits on congress, a measure to reduce the revolving door effect of government officials going into lobbying. Some of it sounds ridiculous - for every new federal regulation, 2 existing regulations must be eliminated. How is that considered feasible by any rational person? It might sound great if you don't think too hard about it. The scariest things for me are the backing out of cli…

There's a lot of room to wonder about his trustworthiness given his record as a businessman, but even in this document, he doesn't address campaign finance reform. Congressional term-limits just consolidate power in the moneyed elites--the problems is not just the politicians, it's who corrupted them. If anything, this is a document to passify those moneyed interests who, unlike say Sheldon Adelson, worry about a Tru…

No. The problem are the corrupt selfserving politicians, and not the ones who corrupt them.

And his program is not only term-limits. mostly going after the criminals and clean up the mess. They should be worried, and are already crying.

Should be doable even with the press witchhunting him and later with the antiliberal nonsense he will come up to please his voter base.

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