Quote (jadeoshbogosh @ Mar 21 2020 09:19pm)
I apologize for the wall of text, I wanted to respond to at least everything on the first page of that link lol. Would have gone over more of it, but I thought this was more than enough for now.
Where we differ, is that a handful of small marks in the plus column, will never offset an unprecedented amount of shortcomings both personally and professionally for me.
The best thing out of what I read was the ARPO take down, which was fucking great, but he had nothing to do with it, so it's silly to try and give him the win for that. Fighting healthcare fraud and making bills more transparent is monumentally important, but it doesn't fight the root of the problem, which Trump is firmly opposed to. His overarching stance negates any small amount of good that may or may not come from these efforts, or at least until he changes his tune on education. Bolstering border security is a waste of time and taxpayer money. We're not making the country any safer by making legal immigration impossible and by treating misdemeanor criminals like murdering rapists. As far as the trafficking argument goes, we as a country will ALWAYS get our narcotics with relative ease, regardless of what actions are taken on the southern border. Any big-time narco isn't sending people running across the border, it's just not feasible. This anti-immigrant, illegal or otherwise, rhetoric is great at keeping people distracted, but it doesn't do fuck-all in terms of making the country a stronger or better place. Immigration should be enforced, but we as a country founded on immigrants, need to make the immigration process as painless as possible to the needy people of the world. Doing everything in your power to slow the legal process down and attempting to make desperate people even more desperate, does nothing but make us look like shit. Reducing our NATO contribution from 20 to 16% was a win, but it's a small win. The total budget is what, 2 billion and change? It's cool and all to show that we're not going to foot the entire bill, but it's reaching to consider it as a headline worthy win. The last thing, the space force, I mean.... come on, you can't honestly see this as a win? Space exploration is important, but there's zero reason to spend hundreds of billions on another mission to the moon, unless he's just hoping to make leaps in the private sector (conjecture, I know, couldn't help myself). It's another gimmick without substance, which is what he does best. There are much better ways to allocate funding.
I'm glad that you're able to find a silver-lining in everything, but I just can't do it. Even had some of these wins been substantial, which I've explained why I don't believe they are, it'd be impossible for me to turn a blind eye towards his brazen corruption, theft, nepotism, ineptitude, and never-ending flaws as a person. I'm not going to go into any of that unless you insist, I've found pointing out the flaws of Trump devolves the conversation immediately and since you seem reasonable enough, I'd rather continue this conversation with you if you're interested. I do believe it would be best if we took it elsewhere though. Either PM, or in one of your threads, whatever would be fine, but we should both stop taking up space in this important thread.
1. the ARPO takedown: when Trump was candidate, he ran on combatting the opiode epidemic.
you should skim through it all, but i'll quote the law-enforcement section.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-combatting-opioid-crisis/Quote
is week Attorney General Sessions announced the creation of the Prescription Interdiction & Litigation (PIL) Task Force, which will focus on targeting opioid manufacturers and distributors who have contributed to the epidemic.
In January, Attorney General Sessions announced a new Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) Team tasked with helping law enforcement disrupt online sales of illicit opioids.
The Department of Justice launched a health care fraud crackdown that charged more than 400 defendants, including more than 120 for their role in prescribing and distributing opioids and other narcotics.
The Department of Justice secured its first-ever indictments against Chinese fentanyl manufacturers.
The President signed the INTERDICT Act on January 10, 2018, authorizing to enhance efforts to detect and interdict the supply of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl that are being illegally imported.
immigration: we have fundamental disagreements on this. building a wall is not to keep "legal" immigrants out. a wall has been requested by BCP, and i have a thread that breaks down the cost to USA from "illegal" immigration per year, that i can find if you need. in short though, it is much more than a full-border wall would cost to build. and the wall/policy that president Trump has implemented, has decreased illegal crossings.
this is also an odd argument right now as nearly every country has shut it's border. there are obvious safety reasons that go beyond just this virus.
also you say "drugs" like every drug is a good-time happy drug. sure we can get some weed or harder stuff just about everywhere, but do we need fentanyl crossing the border?
not everyone may be the worst of criminal, but those criminals do exist and there are reasons to put laws in place to prevent/punish them.
i'll need evidence that we are treating misdemeanor criminals as rapists. i'm not even sure what that means really.
i can keep going on this subject, and i can provide links as requested. i'm sure there's enough for you to start on here though.
NATO win may not have been the largest amount of money ever, but it was a good start and hopefully it continues, as president Trump still is vocal about the subject.
space force... just to go to the moon.... not even going to bother with this one. try again after you learn what space force is.