Top Trump: A Poem

[MyNameIsTerry]

Along with Syria, Venezuela is now taking the war to the Globalists. The failed coup against Maduro shows that the dying American empire does not have the strength to overthrow legitimate governments at will.

Phew. What a relief to all the millions of millionaires in VZ, so rich they can wipe their bums on the biggest notes in their currency

[MyNameIsTerry]

Ah! You mean rather like the UK economy and the sleight-of-hand "low" unemployment stats, comprising folk with what I call "semi-jobs": self-employed, many on zero-hours contracts, and even more juggling two or more "semi-jobs"

And we all know one cannot get very far with a "semi" of any sort

But they can lead to more firmer opportunities. Another problem is the take over of robotic technology

[jray23]

That sounds very conspiracy-theorist to me. Wages haven't grown in generations but jobs are definitely out there, homes are selling, etc. The economy here isn't perfect but it is strong at the moment (though recession is overdue, this is the longest bull run in history I believe). It's got nothing to do with Trump or Obama though. This is what I talk about how us regular joes don't understand complex problems. The economy isn't controllable by one man no matter how powerful. At best the President can merely be one of many influences on the whole (like giving that corporate tax cut = more corporate profit = more return for stakeholders, for example). Anyone who pins total economic success or failure on one guy is showing naivete. Trump himself knows better even though he takes the credit for the growth in the last two years, as he rightly refused in the past to give Obama credit for the eight years of growth before.

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[KK77]

But they can lead to more firmer opportunities. Another problem is the take over of robotic technology

I would be inclined to agree if there were sufficient "secure" full-time jobs which people could then progress to, but I fear there simply aren't. And automation is another elephant in the room

[KK77]

That sounds very conspiracy-theorist to me. Wages haven't grown in generations but jobs are definitely out there, homes are selling, etc.

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But what's the point in "jobs" if people don't earn enough to pay bills and "get by"? Let alone to have a decent "quality of life".

[jray23]

But what's the point in "jobs" if people don't earn enough to pay bills and "get by"? Let alone to have a decent "quality of life".

Well something IS better than nothing. So there is a point to it. We're clearly better off now with unemployment at 40 year lows than in 2008 when unemployment was at 40 year highs.

But I agree, that is why wage stagnation has been such a problem. Everything is progressing except the paychecks. And automation IS the big elephant in the room. If our laws weren't able to keep up with the gradual changes of the past, they're going to massively fail when AI becomes widespread.

I hate to beat a drum, but this is another place that education can help and is failing us. Kids should be taught (and I mean really taught, not just a brief seminar or something. Like an entire class/year on finances) in high school about investing, the wonders of compound interest, etc. How buying that $1,000 iPhone that you don't need is really forfeiting $3,000 of future money. How credit card debt at a young age is a massive trap. I mean from personal experience I'm just a random guy at 37 with an average salary most of my working life and only slightly above average now, but if I had been taught (and acted on) at 21 the knowledge about finances that I have now, I would have easily built over $100k in savings (not including home value) without even really trying rather than living paycheck to paycheck like 90% of us do. But instead we teach kids calculus and chemistry. Imagine how strong our economy would be if even half of the people over age 40 had $100k saved up.

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[MyNameIsTerry]

And our police officers, firefighters, soldiers, etc. do not get paid nearly enough for what they do. Most of them don't even make an average salary. It's a shame really. Is it like that in the UK too? And they are quite educated for their line of work of course, even if they aren't formally educated.

To campaigns though Terry, the demographic percentages do matter quite a bit. A campaign is essentially a giant marketing strategy. They crunch the data and figure out which demographics are to be their target audience. Which votes are they most likely to swing. Which need that little extra nudge to get up and go place their vote. They're going to go after convincing 5% of a demographic that's 50/50 to turn their way rather than trying to convince 5% of an 80/20 because the time and resources are limited. For example, Trump spent very little time on trying to convince African-Americans to vote for him other than a few tweets here or there or one-liners about creating jobs for them. It's not to say that someone who's bucking the trend doesn't have a valid opinion. They might even have a more well-thought out opinion than the majority of their segment.

Noivous is correct that education does not equal intelligence, and that intelligence is a more important factor when voting (or basically anything). (Although quite frankly almost none of us are intelligent enough about complex world political issues to make a qualified vote...but that's another topic I could go on about with a very unpopular opinion) However, there is a correlation between education and intelligence. If you take 100 random people without a specific educational level and measure them up against random 100 people with that level, there will be some overlap and maybe even the smartest one of them all will be in the non-education batch (I mean look at Bill Gates, he dropped out I don't think anyone questions his intelligence!) but the average intelligence is going to be higher on the side with higher education if the sample size is large enough. Could the more intelligent group make the wrong decision though is basically the question we are discussing. Yes, that can happen. But it's less likely to happen than the opposite way. Education does matter. This idea that it doesn't (which is pervasive here in the US) is ludicrous and ass-backwards. It shouldn't be a cause for superiority or snootiness, just as physical fitness shouldn't be, but it should not be demonized. Education should be a valued idea to be aspired to. Even if it means getting educated through an unconventional route as N suggested.

As for cities, that is a great point about moving. In the 2016 election (again can't remember the source I saw two years ago. I may have even just looked each of the 40 up individually to see the winners), 37 out of the 40 most populous US cities went for Clinton. Over 90%! That included cities in VERY conservative states, such as those in Texas, Atlanta, Louisville, Nashville, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, etc. If I recall correctly Phoenix and two other smaller ones (Jacksonville, FL one maybe?) were the only of those 40 cities that Trump won in. The movement of educated people to cities could be a role in that result although I believe the higher racial diversity of most cities probably was another factor in that result. That result is also reflected in the breakdown that Trump supporters like to brandish, about how about 95% of all counties in the US favored Trump showing a US map of almost all red. Well they did. And the cities favored Clinton. It was very consistent throughout the country that way.

As for Trump and the GOP being the party for the working class. Sure, they're marketing themselves that way. But their actions don't show it. They just gave a permanent 14% tax cut to corporations even though our debt is higher than ever, while giving the working class a temporary tax cut of only a couple percent. There is no party for the working class in the USA. Neither of them give a hoot about us except if we give them our vote or not. Wage growth has been stagnant for 30+ years, not 8. It's not because of any one leader.

Yes, our police, firefighters and soldiers get paid very little for what they often do. The government are also very resistant to wage increases too. Comparing them to other sectors shows how little you get paid for putting yourself in so much danger. When I left school a soldier was paid little more than a shop worker. They also need to be very aware of legislation in a way most professions don't and they have to do it on the spot.

Yes, campaigners only care about the win so will target those they can bring over. Those they can't swing will be left alone. The swing vote is the important one, there are never enough on either side to win elections (certainly not over here) compared to the centre left/right.

It's subjective what is the right decision thought, isn't it? If all the educated, thus better off, vote for the parties that enrich their bank balances that doesn't make it a right choice. Typically in our politics those will be further right than the working classes who would vote Labour to the left of them but within each group you have those who further out e.g. the working class who go far right, the middle class who vote more centre left, the middle class who go more green, etc.

But when you consider education you also have to look at it from an age demographic point of view. I don't know about your country but in ours education has changed so that tons more go to university. Previous generations didn't have that privilege and education was more skills based than academic. So, you could false claim the younger generations are more intelligent by counting their degrees but who was running the same country before them without those degrees? Are older generations less intelligent? And we also have a culture of watered down degrees for governments to claim their populations are more intelligent than that of others...but how many of those degrees are equivalent to the older style ones?

Take John Major, former PM. He obtained far less academically than the vast majority of pupils. Aside from running the country, and being a senior minister of some years before this, he was a major instigator of the Northern Island peace process. Most politicians are going to have better education.

With cities we also need to think about how they are treated differently. They get more inward investment, more rural areas are often left alone. It's obviously more complex than this as many in the cities are also forgotten but they will be reported on and see as a priority a lot more than those further out. That's just another way the divide is formed.

Education does matter but it's not something which makes you an adult. Experience counts for a lot, possibly more. It's a lot harder to politically bluff many of the older generation who have become cynical about politicians and their empty promises by way of experience as opposed to the young idealistic types who are yet to have their kicking in the ways only life provides. That's all obviously a generalisation because it's about the details within since many older people can be just the opposite and many young people have matured quite quickly. But possibly just as education is viewed as "mainly" being an indicator so is "experience" which takes us into a bit of stalemate.

But perhaps I'm talking less about the groups and more about the nonsense peddled by biased media sources about why people didn't vote the "right way".

[MyNameIsTerry]

They're not wrong, they're and most of all of us are absolutely getting screwed over. I'm just stating the data. It was something like 80% of white men with no degree, voted for Trump, whereas white men with degrees were about 60% voted against Trump. I do think it was an odd choice since he is one of those very same elites that does the screwing (and I'm not talking about his personal life!). Again, that very lack of any semblance of critical thinking - they just swallowed the line without looking at Trump's extensive business history of screwing over the little guy and profiting off of their hard work. There were plenty of other conservative candidates they could have chosen (who also may have supported this medical law, not saying this one is Trump's fault).

Terry - I suppose if it were a betting proposition, that the wiser bet would be that a sensationalist case would happen in those areas, but I suppose it could happen anywhere, just depends on the person involved. Plus if it's in a big city, well it would be easy to just find another doctor.

As for Alabama abortion laws, I'm not familiar with that one, but the general trend in deep red (conservative) states has been to try and pass laws that limit and hinder abortion access, yet aren't considered a direct conflict against the Supreme Court decision that legalized it in the first place. Although, there are now efforts to get a new case to the Supreme Court since it has been pushed to the conservative side with Trump's two appointments.


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Jray,

These are the sort of cases that worry me with these state law changes.:

Melissa Ann Rowland of Utah was charged with murder after one of her twins was stillborn - because she refused a c-section.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mom-arr...ah-stillbirth/

Purvi Patel of Indiana was sentenced to 20 years in prison for feticide. She said she had a miscarriage, and no traces of any abortifacent were found in her blood work.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...or-an-abortion

Angela Carder was 27 years old, 26 weeks pregnant, and had cancer. She was forced to undergo a c-section to try to save the baby despite the risk to her health. They both died.

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/08/o...r-s-agony.html

Rennie Gibbs of Mississippi was 16 years old when she delivered a stillborn baby - she was indicted on charges of "depraved heart murder" after accusations that she used drugs

https://www.propublica.org/article/s...-on-fetal-harm

A woman in Louisiana was jailed on charges of second-degree murder after she went to the hospital for unexplained vaginal bleeding. It was over a year before medical records showed that she had a miscarriage.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/o...?smid=fb-share

Christine Taylor of Iowa was charged with attempted feticide after she fell down the stairs at home.

https://www.vox.com/2015/4/3/8336863...n-for-feticide

Admittedly, I don't know the full stories and have grabbed these from debates elsewhere over the change in Georgia. For law enforcement/justice to put people likely to be struggling into the same kind of scenario where we have to scrutinise the death of an infant is worrying. That is a terrible ordeal to have to go through alone, and yes some are murderers, but it must do some terrible mental health damage on top of the loss itself and now this is expanding into pre-birth situations that many of us wouldn't consider.

Are these the unintended consequences?

This is why I'm grateful for national laws. We do have different countries with their own law/legal systems (Scotland, Northern Island) but we don't see issues like this where regional governments set laws in the opposite direction. We do still have issues with backward laws in Northern Ireland which, yet again, is a reflection of a country too deep in with religion.

And then we see the US denouncing child marriage whilst still allowing it themselves:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...decade-n960416

If you took any references to the US out of the above and asked someone where they thought these occurred would you answer somewhere in Africa, The Middle East? Maybe somewhere like Qatar or Yemen? Afghanistan, India, Pakistan?

It's not only that abortion laws might change but that it will lead to prosecutions, all women of course. Law makers in the US might want to take a look at highly Catholic El Salvador and how it locks women up for many years for a miscarriage or lets a rapist off but prosecutes the mother for losing the baby.

It all looks very regressive. And at the centre of it all, religion.

[jray23]

Sigh. Yes, anything fetus/unborn baby related here is always about religion. Fake religion though, this is a great example of the hypocrisy I grew up seeing. The Biblical Jesus would never treat women this way. He was compassionate to those who suffered. It's horrible. Those cases you bring up are absurd and shocking. We claim to be pretty advanced but we really aren't, as you point out in some situations we are right in the middle of what backward third-world countries do.

The right of states' powers in general aren't based on religion even though those are what gets the headlines. It was setup that way from the beginning. It's literally in our name United States. It was originally even more very much 13 independents in our first run at a government in 1781 after becoming independent from you guys then tweaked six years later to our current Constitution to a stronger federal system. And the trend over the centuries has pushed towards more federal power (our civil war in the 1860s was primarily over states' power to keep slaves if nationally it was banned - that was a big turning point towards more federal power) but it's way behind the times at this point. Not as outdated as our electoral college at least. (another state vs federal conception) as it can have advantages sometimes, like some progressive states legalized marijuana and gay marriage and the former is now picking up momentum and the latter was federally legalized a few years ago. As someone in a more liberal state (Illinois - well it's liberal only because so many of us live in/around Chicago, the rest of the state is rural and conservative) under a conservative federal government it's good to have somewhat of a check on that. Likewise conservative states would have said the same thing ten years ago when federal government was in full liberal control. But it can be bad too...Illinois has terrible taxes and a terrible financial situation.

And it does lead to all sorts of weird stuff like what you mentioned happen. Any law at any level, even presidential "executive action" can be overruled by the federal courts if deemed to violate federal law, especially the Constitution. (State courts can overrule state law or below, but cannot overrule federal law) But it doesn't happen often. Like there's a push for state marijuana legalizations to be overruled as federally it's still ~illegal, but I don't think that one is going to happen. I remember several years ago, a case about a city handgun law in Chicago was struck down as it was viewed by the court to violate the right to bear arms. (Not coincidentally...just after that was when the Chicago shooting rates started to skyrocket....but don't expect our lawmakers or citizens to be able to put two and two together...). I assume there will be a push for the new medical state laws you mentioned to be challenged as well, but with conservative courts in power I doubt it has a chance.

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[Noivous]

This just in:
"Trump Takes London By Storm"

I saw him shaking hands with a beaming Queen. And he called the mayor of London dumb and incompetent. Lol this oughta be fun.

I wonder if he's going to Scotland? That's where his mother is from I believe.

N.