POTUS Impeachment Trials

[Britesea]

A friend told me her father always asked to be buried in one particular cemetary. Everyone was curious because it wasn't the most conveniently placed, nor the prettiest, etc. He drove them by, and pointed out the business that was across the street.... a tax consulting business. Death and Taxes.

 

[CrealCritter]

Good Lord man, I can't believe my tax dollars are going twords this guy's salary and pension. We need >>>Term Limits<<< for both the House and Senate. I say two terms in a life time, with no pension.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I can’t believe my tax dollars are going to this:

LOL! But I totally agree with you on term limits!

 

[CrealCritter]

I can’t believe my tax dollars are going to this:

View attachment 13082
LOL! But I totally agree with you on term limits!

My wife just loves to point people to this article. I still have it book marked btw.

The final tab for former President Obama's eight years of family travel to ski resorts, beaches and European cities has finally come in and the bill is $99,714,527.82.

www.washingtonexaminer.com/final-obama-travel-tab-100-million

And think I could have chose to be a politician

 

[frustratedearthmother]

White House Says It’s Happy to Disclose Secret Service Spending on the Trump Clan—After the Election

President Donald Trump likes expensive things, if not nice ones, as does his brood.

slate.com

 

[NHMounttainman]

I try hard to avoid political discussions. But this forum has been so polite I thought I'd weigh in - as a variety of opinions has been presented and welcomed. I truly appreciate that! Sorry - but this is gonna be a long one for those that want to tune out right now!

I am a moderate, and an undeclared voter. In NH you can register for a party on the day of the election, and I have registered as both a republican and a democrat so I could vote in the first in the nation primaries. I then immediately re-register as undeclared (the first in the nation proimary means a crap ton of money is spent here on ads - and if you are registered you get non-stop mail for donations. SERIOUSLY - I counted that 30% of all TV ads here are for a presidential candidate. If I were to guess - I've probably voted 55% Rep/ 45%.

Before retirement, I was an economist. Business took me all over the world. One of the things few American's understand is that everything we do on TV is broadcast all over the world, whether our TV and movies with a misrepresentation of real American life, or our news media. And for the past 20 years, our once revered political system has become a laughingstock. From the Bush / Gore election where it took weeks for the most powerful nation on earth to count and for the supreme court to determine our president, we've lost prestige. The 9/11 attacks and Pres. Bush's short term leadership of that crisis brought us global remorse and goodwill. And us blowing the crap out of Afghanistan was accepted, while Iraq wasn't - we went from acceptable vengeance and self security to appearing to be nation builders. But understand - all of our political system plays out on almost every country's TV news every night. They see the debate and it's presented in a way to make us look small and petty. They loved Pres. Obama's election - bacuse they hated the Iraq war, and because they actually believe that America is a very racist country. If you were to ask educated japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Singaporean, Australian (all Asia Pacific areas) - They think that America is close to 40% African American - and saw the fact that it took forever for an African American to be elected as a sin. But when they hear that only ~12-14%, it puts a different spin on how remarkable it was that an African American was elected! How many other countries have elected a leader from a 14% representation?

OK - now to present day. This impeachment crap is played out all over the world. Media reports of our elected Pres. are 85% negative. He's been called a fascist, a racist, a rapist, etc - which is headlines everywhere.

My take on this Pres. is that he may be an agent of change - good in the long term. I agree with many of his policies, and almost none of how he presents his plans. For example - when Richard Nixon met with China, leading to them opening their economy - China was practically a third world country. Since they really allowed foreign companies to invest in China - they've grown into the 2nd largest economy in the world on manufacturing low cost stuff for the west. And the debate on intellectual property rights are real - they required joint ventures with a western company and access to technology. WE, Rep and Dem, allowed them to have access to patents, research etc. Correcting those policies was essential - and I 100% agree. But he's done a really crappy job presenting it to the American public, and our news, broadcast all over the world, take his poor presentation, and make us look bad.

The same is true on immigration. No sizable country has an open immigration policy (there is between EU countries for the most part, but not for access to the EU.) But - most economists forecast that our present 330 million people needs to grow to close to 400M by 2050, and our birth rate won't get us there. So - we need immigration, but we also need a balance of unskilled and skilled labor. And - for social security to remain solvent beyond 2035, it needs more people paying in, or later retirement ages, or a combination. It's really about math - not a BS policy debate. But I sure wish he could sell some of those policies in a way that more could understand.

Trump is shaking things up, From my memory, I can't think of any president who has actually tried to do much of what he promised to do on the campaign trail. And he has been stymied, as are all presidents. But what so few people seem to remember is that the framers of our constitution wanted to make it hard to change. Freedom was built into the bill of rights, and amending the constitution is difficult. We aren't a democracy. We are a republic. The framers were some of the most brilliant and unselfish thinkers. We have the oldest continuous constitution on the planet.

Our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, and this impeachment was a waste of time. But the right to impeach was built in to our constitution, and it'll do exactly what they wanted - it's really, really hard to overturn an election, and the senate will acquit. But what our founders couldn't anticipate is modern media - and the damage that our global reputation that these types of political stunts play out as "a constitutional crisis," or the end of America. These political stunts embolden our enemies (i.e radicalism inside and outside our boarders) and strengthen our competitors (China and Europe).


Sorry for the ramble.... had to get that off my chest. Thanks for the therapy.

 

[CrealCritter]

I try hard to avoid political discussions. But this forum has been so polite I thought I'd weigh in - as a variety of opinions has been presented and welcomed. I truly appreciate that! Sorry - but this is gonna be a long one for those that want to tune out right now!

I am a moderate, and an undeclared voter. In NH you can register for a party on the day of the election, and I have registered as both a republican and a democrat so I could vote in the first in the nation primaries. I then immediately re-register as undeclared (the first in the nation proimary means a crap ton of money is spent here on ads - and if you are registered you get non-stop mail for donations. SERIOUSLY - I counted that 30% of all TV ads here are for a presidential candidate. If I were to guess - I've probably voted 55% Rep/ 45%.

Before retirement, I was an economist. Business took me all over the world. One of the things few American's understand is that everything we do on TV is broadcast all over the world, whether our TV and movies with a misrepresentation of real American life, or our news media. And for the past 20 years, our once revered political system has become a laughingstock. From the Bush / Gore election where it took weeks for the most powerful nation on earth to count and for the supreme court to determine our president, we've lost prestige. The 9/11 attacks and Pres. Bush's short term leadership of that crisis brought us global remorse and goodwill. And us blowing the crap out of Afghanistan was accepted, while Iraq wasn't - we went from acceptable vengeance and self security to appearing to be nation builders. But understand - all of our political system plays out on almost every country's TV news every night. They see the debate and it's presented in a way to make us look small and petty. They loved Pres. Obama's election - bacuse they hated the Iraq war, and because they actually believe that America is a very racist country. If you were to ask educated japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Singaporean, Australian (all Asia Pacific areas) - They think that America is close to 40% African American - and saw the fact that it took forever for an African American to be elected as a sin. But when they hear that only ~12-14%, it puts a different spin on how remarkable it was that an African American was elected! How many other countries have elected a leader from a 14% representation?

OK - now to present day. This impeachment crap is played out all over the world. Media reports of our elected Pres. are 85% negative. He's been called a fascist, a racist, a rapist, etc - which is headlines everywhere.

My take on this Pres. is that he may be an agent of change - good in the long term. I agree with many of his policies, and almost none of how he presents his plans. For example - when Richard Nixon met with China, leading to them opening their economy - China was practically a third world country. Since they really allowed foreign companies to invest in China - they've grown into the 2nd largest economy in the world on manufacturing low cost stuff for the west. And the debate on intellectual property rights are real - they required joint ventures with a western company and access to technology. WE, Rep and Dem, allowed them to have access to patents, research etc. Correcting those policies was essential - and I 100% agree. But he's done a really crappy job presenting it to the American public, and our news, broadcast all over the world, take his poor presentation, and make us look bad.

The same is true on immigration. No sizable country has an open immigration policy (there is between EU countries for the most part, but not for access to the EU.) But - most economists forecast that our present 330 million people needs to grow to close to 400M by 2050, and our birth rate won't get us there. So - we need immigration, but we also need a balance of unskilled and skilled labor. And - for social security to remain solvent beyond 2035, it needs more people paying in, or later retirement ages, or a combination. It's really about math - not a BS policy debate. But I sure wish he could sell some of those policies in a way that more could understand.

Trump is shaking things up, From my memory, I can't think of any president who has actually tried to do much of what he promised to do on the campaign trail. And he has been stymied, as are all presidents. But what so few people seem to remember is that the framers of our constitution wanted to make it hard to change. Freedom was built into the bill of rights, and amending the constitution is difficult. We aren't a democracy. We are a republic. The framers were some of the most brilliant and unselfish thinkers. We have the oldest continuous constitution on the planet.

Our forefathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, and this impeachment was a waste of time. But the right to impeach was built in to our constitution, and it'll do exactly what they wanted - it's really, really hard to overturn an election, and the senate will acquit. But what our founders couldn't anticipate is modern media - and the damage that our global reputation that these types of political stunts play out as "a constitutional crisis," or the end of America. These political stunts embolden our enemies (i.e radicalism inside and outside our boarders) and strengthen our competitors (China and Europe).


Sorry for the ramble.... had to get that off my chest. Thanks for the therapy.

I've said before and I'll say it again. Follow the money and you'll find the root of all kinds of evil. How in the world does a life time politician that supposed to be a public servant become so wealthy?

 

[NHMounttainman]

So true. It's been a while since I'd seen the data, but I recall the average net worth of a congress person is 250k when they are elected, and the average net worth after their term was almost 2M, Crazy. Term limits, only getting benefits for their term plus a little time for them to find a real job, and no retirement benefits would certainly drive down the cost to us tax payers.
But the other money issue is in the news. When ABC, NBC and CBS were THE news stations, they were for the most part independent companies that competed for ratings to get the most advertising dollars, and journalistic integrity mattered.. As they are all now owned by big conglomerate corporations, not only do they compete for ratings and ad $, they are also expected to deliver consistently with other businesses owned by the corporation. So - every headline is intended to steal viewers and clickbait from other sources. The money even drives the media. AND that ignores the advertising and impact on social media, which I have no experience with, so cannot really comment.

 

[baymule]

I've said before and I'll say it again. Follow the money and you'll find the root of all kinds of evil. How in the world does a life time politician that supposed to be a public servant become so wealthy?

Corruption. Greed. Liars and thieves.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Very well spoken @NHMounttainman !
I stand here and applaud you! I wish I were able to state my opinions as succinctly and effectively.