Research better...$7.5 Trillion+- not $10, and mostly due to lost revenue and excess spending from the Republican caused depression. (Caused by lax and removed bank regulations, then bail outs by Bush with federal funds). Also, let's not forget the Iraq war, kept off the books by Bush, then added to Obama's deficit numbers.

Where was I? Here, stating it's ridiculous to raise the military budget by $100 Billion/year (what Republicans call a huge cut to the military) when our economy is tanked.

By percentage, republicans have consistently raised the deficit/debt more than Democrats, who actually lowered it under Clinton. Reagan was by far the worst.

You're actually calling the Democrats in congress obstructionists? I'm reasonably certain we have as many federal vacancies as we do largely due to the Republican congress of the past several years doing their damnedest to block every single thing Obama tried to get done. That accusation is phenomenally hypocritical. I certainly acknowledge the current congressional Democrats have been voting no or voting to not proceed quite a bit lately, but they've also been cut off from the process of lawmaking to the highest degree possible. You can't expect cooperation from people that you don't even let sit at the table while laws are being drafted and discussed.

That last word was a joke of course - there's been damn near no discussion of this bill. The last time the United States had a major tax overhaul was also under republican oversight, in 1986. During the course of creating that legislation they took over 6 months and had more than a dozen hearings on it, ensuring reasonable transparency. This latest bill was slapped together over a few weeks and had a completely opaque process.

You claim the Democrats "fucked Americans" because they added 8 trillion to the debt. My understanding is this bill, over the next 10 years, will add a minimum of another trillion. The fact that it's so negative overall will also, due to existing law, require a balancing by way of cutting other programs - Medicaid at the least is expected to see major cuts, just as a side effect of this bill. Of course, it isn't really a side effect per se, they just couldn't get enough R votes if they either made the necessary changes to keep the bill deficit-neutral or included the provision that would've waived the mandatory cuts. So it's laughable to claim the current Republicans in congress really have an interest in being fiscally conservative or even moderate.

I'm likely wasting my time here though, as I don't think you're actually interested in engaging in an honest conversation, nor do you seem to be open to changing your viewpoint at all. I wonder though whether you know enough about politics from the last several decades to have a guess as what Republicans from the Reagan era would think about how things are being done today. My guess is they'd be appalled, but perhaps I'm overestimating them.

I lived near a SAC base during the 80s, and when the wind was blowing the right direction, I could hear the alert klaxon from the base. Then a stream of B-52s would lumber skyward, engines trailing black smoke.

More than a few times when this happened I wondered if Reagan had pushed the button and I was now 15 minutes from being vaporized.

* flash *
* sizzle *

I upvoted your video because I appreciate the fact you're trying to present a cognizant backing for a lot of the things you say and believe.

I don't know if this was your strongest card, 'tho. He's well-spoken, with impressive CV and an interesting argument. The problem is he's cherry-picking the entire video and sometimes even resorting to rank hypocrisy (it's anti-American to campaign to minorities with a grievance, yet pulling the same stunt got Trump elected when he did it with white people).

I notice he falls back on the Coastal Elite trope, as if being successful and having ideals is somehow an antithesis to all that's good and pure about corn farmers in Kansas. Somehow, it's all those darned people living in that magical wonderland of those who can smell sea salt from the front porch of their homes that fucked middle America.

No. Sorry. Wrong answer.

40 years of Republican-dominated rule, 40 years of a sick social experiment being run by the disciples of Any Rand, is what fucked those people. 40 years of tax cuts for the rich and excess taxation on the poor; 40 years of stealing from schools to pay for subs; 40 years of setting the wolves among the sheep in the form of stripping consumer protections; 40 years of historical revisionism; 40 years of the kind of government that should have landed the perpetrators 12 steps from 6 hooded men with 5 loaded rifles.

Republicans have been calling the shots since Reagan, but yet 8 years of the black dude somehow set the country on a frenzy of self-destructive idiocy unseen since the French Revolution?

Look, I appreciate that you're trying to raise the tone with videos like this. But if you're trying to intellectually shore up the dike, I've got bad news for you: the facts will rarely be on your side.

So...long and short of it seems to be that Reagan didn't really win the cold war and now we're decades behind.

I really wish we could make the whole region international, like Antarctica. The idea that even the poles will be dotted with oil platforms soon is really depressing.

That is how communism fell in Eastern Europe. The ruling elites realized that they would be better off if they just gave up on the ideology and kept their property. Everyone else was so poor by western standards that meaningful investments had to come from abroad, the ex-communists mostly just changed shirts and kept their social "leadership" roles. Reagan and Kohl just talked the talk, the important part was the willingness to give up power, that was how bad the economics of socialism were. Some people still remember socialism as if it was something awesome, a thing to be proud of. One time border guards celebrate anniversaries never pausing to think about the fact that for 40 years they were employed to stop people from LEAVING their country. THAT is a sure sign your country sucks.

I thought Trump was the world's best deal maker, didn't he have a book ghost written for him (because he can't read and write well past the 4th grade level) called the "Art of the Deal"? During the campaign he said again and again how "Only I can... [insert whatever]". None of those things are done that only he could do. It's like he lied... "lies, all lies!" to quote Frau.

They blame Democrats for not joining in, but they weren't even invited to participate in Trumpcare on the Senate side at all... hell, most of the Republicans themselves weren't allowed to participate in the creation. Compare that to the ACA, which had over a year of public debate and had plenty of Republican input and amendments. The Republicans have the number of people to pass anything they could want to pass, but the world's best deal maker, can't make a deal with his own party?

I think this shows more and more how the Republican party needs to split. The divides in the party itself are becoming too great. The problem of course is then they loose control as you split the vote, Fox News and the right wing media would follow the more right wing split, while the Reagan era style Republicans would be sidelined, though maintain a big voting block among less brain washed Republicans.

The party can't even get a simple repeal passed, which they've passed before, of course it was just symbolic then, actually passing a repeal seems harder. They campaigned for years on how they had a better plan, of course they didn't show it, which should have been the first warning they didn't have one, and now they spend all this time trying to come up with something better and still can't pull it off, despite having a clear majority. Of course another warning sign should have been the fact that last break, only 2 of them had enough guts to actually hold town halls, the rest avoided their constitutions...

Unrelated side note: I still say all the Senators and Representatives should stay home, in their home districts. Technology is such that they don't need to all be in Washington at all. Of course I'd also cut their pay then, say to what an entry level soldier (sans hazard pay) would make since it is a service position, not a career, term limit them (12 years House, 12 or 16 years Senate, 8 years President, or 20 years combined total max). And then you make the number of Representatives actually be based on population, we've had 435 Reps since 1911, and the population has grown a lot since then... say one Representative for every 500,000 people, which would give us 646 Representatives, which stay in their home districts. But of course that would rob them of their money, their political careers, and make them more liable to the people they represent, so congress would never make those changes.

Laffer is to economics what Lamarck is to biology.

He deserves to end his days screeching "HEIL REAGAN!" and "The Democrats will hang you one day!" like some latter-day GOP-branded Julius Streicher.

Ronald Reagan was a senile old man who barely knew where he was, he regularly confused movies he had been in with reality. He built Star Wars,because it was in a movie he had been in. No one thought it would or could ever work, and it never,ever,did. When he testified he could not recall, he wasn't lying.

So yeah, im a half in, half out of the closet trans person living a genderfluid reality. Complicated existence, and unlesz you're in the demographic or a serious ally, you just don't understand what it's like. This isn't a new revelation, I have known this about myself as long as i have had self awareness.

I grew up during the Reagan era, so no one gave a shit that I thought I was a girl.

Literally just shit on and reshaped and fear thunderstruck, raped, molested as a form of homosexual comversion -- you got this shit?

I just didn't understand what people meant when they were trying to explain the differencez between male and female because i was CERTAIN i was a girl when I was 3 years old. And yes i have those memories. In fact, the age of 4 through 7 are the most vivid and awful memories of my reality an you may stare theough me and rwfuse to understand if you want, but like the song says "We exist." (By Arcade Fire; Cool song even if the musician isnt trans.)

Anyway. We are just shit on. I'm used to it. A friend of mine used to call me a white nigger and honestly, as racial insensitive as that is (a black guy telling me this) that is the feeling. Police brutality and all. Whatever. You dont want to understand so just dont bother. I got sick to death of explaining this so long ago it doent matter to me. How fu king sad is that? How fu ling sad is my goddamn perspective? How can I even be happy in this world? Its shit.

Logic: If you are so afraid we are a bunch of rapists, what about gay people who aren't transgender -- where do they take a pee where people won't fear them molesting people of the same sex? I mean, is there going to be a "Gays Only" and "Transgender Only" bathroom?? It doesn't make sense even if you fear us.

And in my humble and humiliated existence, gay people have wanted nothing to do with me and have even tried to convert and change my opinions of myself. Even in the middle of FUCKING LA PRIDE. Assholez like that CUNT Milo. He can go DIE.

It doesn't make sense. Have you ever peed in a Men's Restroom with a dress on? Totally awkward.

I know I'm using colloquialisms and non-PC language, but I'm just really depressed about this -- as if I wasn't already depressed about everything all the time lol

Republicans. Fuck you. I have no other means of relating my disappointment in the entirity of all reality -- the very fabric of this universe is hate.

Its easy to surprise people if you just make s#!t up.

Reminds me of that one time Ronald Reagan joked about nuking the Soviet Union with the mike switched on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgSSRE27GQ0

... except Donald does it all the time and keeps a straighter face. Or maybe he is not joking? Is that why he elicits such uncomfortable laughter?

Pretty much interview scripted by Putin personally.

Why the drama about US - russian relations if the russians supposedly are not dangerous and Putin is not evil.

Building a case to sell Poland and the Baltic countries to Putin. Worked like a charm with Hitler and Czechoslovakia before WWII. Poland these days does not even have a border with Russia proper, only with what used to be Koenigsberg. Poland is part of NATO and if Abby and her friend the professor want to give that up then it is them who are pushing us all closer to a war (cold or not).

Ukraine has already exploded. Putin has already taken 1/3 of the country breaking bilateral treaties. Cant get much worse, hard to imagine how the US can get involved, Trump notwithstanding.

Syria - its basically over, except for the humanitarian and human rights catastrophe. Putins ally won - a slightly pyrrhic victory perhaps, but for the meantime Assad stays. Did they level cities or liberate them? Hard to tell the difference. Probably both. That said US involvement in the middle east is a grave shitstorm.

This awesome "analysis" somehow misses the biggest current problem of NATO - Turkey - possibly because Putin does not have a good handle on Turkey yet so its off-limits. Also Pakistan/India and North Korea does not get a mention for the same reason - no chance to push Putins agenda.

NATO might have reassured Gorby it had no intention to spread. It is important to understand that Warsaw pact countries generally accepted Russians as saviours from German occupation, by the 1970s this had changed firmly to perceiving Russians as occupants, political persecutors and economic idiots.

After the economic collapse of the USSR (supposedly somehow caused by Ronald Reagan :-) all these countries needed reassurance that the Russians were not coming back. The only possible reassurance was joining NATO. If that meant breaking a promise made to an ex-representative of a no longer existing country, that is fine by me. If NATO had promised not to spread to Mother Theresa I would be more concerned.

The problem with the Ukraine is that we (EU) made an offer that put them in danger (from Putin) and we could not back that up with real economic or military assistance. Dumb move. But also Ukrainian politics is an incredible mess and simply too many ethnic russians live there giving Putin a strong nationalist base.

None of the recent elections have been landslides because voting groups are so separated and gerrymandering.

There hasn't be a McGovern/Nixon or Reagan/Carter result in decades.

Losing the popular vote is a landslide? Doesn't sound like it.

He certainly won, but he's won over a divided country with 50% participation, with almost 50:50 split supporting him / hating him. So he was basically elected by a quarter of the country.

LOL

I'll never understand the mindset of the dedicated Republican who thinks a Reagan-era Republican like Clinton is somehow liberal.
Talk about identity politics in action...if she only had an (R) after her name.

See, the important Clinton here is Hillary. Despite your hope and your ignorant conflations, Bill is not running for the presidency. Hillary Clinton is just as moral as Reagan and Romney. (Period, but also specifically with respect to sexual indiscretions. She has been faithful. Don't take that away from her just because she's a woman.)

And with respect to the rape allegations, it's disingenuous to presume they're true. Bill Clinton was accused of rape, yes. But no charges were brought against him. Indeed, one of the women who accused him signed an affidavit saying that she was lying about the accusation and then later (now) wants to rescind her affidavit. Until there are charges it's just more bullshit to slander the Clintons.

(Trump, on the other hand, is actually facing charges soon regarding the rape of an underage girl.)

And if you think that a woman standing by her man when he's accused of rape isn't a beautiful thing, well, I would question your humanity. If Hillary hadn't stood by Bill it would have reflected poorly on him. That she did tips the scales in the other direction. Also, it reflects well upon her. (I am sure Melania will stand by Trump during his trial and that will speak well to both of them.)

Again, it comes down to allegations vs. facts. Your whole characterization of the Clintons is based on allegations. The right's characterization of the Clintons is based on allegations. All of the characterizations come down to histrionic allegations. The things that are facts that they've done wrong they've apologized for. Hillary apologized for using a personal e-mail server, despite the fact that it was common practice for people to use personal e-mail servers in the 2000's. Hillary has apologized for the mistake at Benghazi, despite the fact that many similar attacks happened under Bush/Cheney's watch. The allegations of 'voter fraud' in the Democratic primary are bad, but even Hillary's opposition sided with her in the end.

And there's really nothing else propping up the perception that Hillary is bad in any way other than these allegations. It's just a matter of the right's echo chamber (including you) repeating it over and over again, which anybody can see is totally devoid of substantive reason. People 'feel' like Hillary is bad, but there's nothing there to show it.

It is because there is indeed, nothing there.

But with respect to Trump he has shown time and time again that he is unfit for any office, that he will take personal advantage of any power given to him. He continues to act in a way antithetical to the position he seeks. They say that you should dress for the position you seek. If the position of the Presidency requires one to wear a button down shirt and nice slacks Trump is a drunk, dirty, smelly bum wearing a trenchcoat, running down the street with no self control, yelling about how great Putin and Kim Jong Il are, grabbing whatever pussy he can find.

This admission of sexual assault is just the final nail in the coffin for him. (Or perhaps just the latest final nail.) To speak of sexual assault as anything other than the dictionary definition of being unfit to be president is just wrong.