Trump "Press Conference" Game Thread

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“She picked a radical left man that is he's got things done that he's -- he has positions that are just not -- it's not even possible to believe that they exist.”

“I do seem to be doing very well with other segments. Extremely well with Hispanic.”

“So -- but on crowd size, in history, for any country, nobody's had crowds like I have, and you know that.”
 
Centerpiece said:
IGNORE HIM! He's been placated here long enough. He showed who he is long ago on the old ZZLP. I was notified by admin to IGNORE the trolls on this new site to allow for easier moderation. I'm trying to comply. HY2012 is at this point in time, on this site, a 100% troll looking for attention. He claims he has to vote for trump (again) not because he likes him as a candidate, but because he has to "Vote for" the policies - and platform - of trump and against the Dem policies on principle. BUT just look at what he is actually saying: He WANTS TO VOTE FOR Project 2025! Anyone who can say with a straight face they want to vote for trump because of the "policies" is trolling you. Ignore that shit.
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FWIW I mostly disagree with this. HY12 occasionally has some trolling tendencies when he gets upset and starts reverting to trite Fox News talking points but I don't doubt that he legitimately believes the things he's saying about why he's voting for Trump, no matter how pigheaded or ignorant it seems. It is not trolling to believe foolish things. You're going to have to grapple at some point with the understanding that while many of the 70 million people who voted for Trump are the real-life epitome of "trolls" many more are not. There are tens of millions of people who actually believe these things - that Trump is good for the border, that Trump is good on foreign policy, that Trump was a good President. No one is helping anything by just dismissing every one of those people as a "troll."
 
Tend to agree, Lando. I find it interesting when people like HY12 and Lynch (on the dead ZZLP covid thread) bring alternate viewpoints, as long as they're willing to discuss their opinions and not just flame and retreat. I understand feeling angry that you cannot get people to come around to your point of view, but just because their values or beliefs are different from yours doesn't necessarily mean that they are a troll.

ETA that I don't agree with his viewpoints, I just find it interesting to hear how other people think and how they arrive at their conclusions.
 
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I am glad people are calling him out for saying that presidents should have a say/influence on fed rates
 
Centerpiece said:
It's actually not about giving "Donald Trump any power over my personal friendships" but it is ALL ABOUT how some of my personal friends have allowed Trump power over THEM. I will not countenance that, nor will I try to engage with those "friends" anymore in some sort of discussion or debate anymore. They have literally and figuratively drank every bit of the kool-aid. It gets us nowhere fast, and after 8 years of it, I'm the bigger fool if I continue down that path with them. It's a much better idea to ignore, block or otherwise avoid them until - hopefully - they awaken from the Rumpelstiltskin-type slumber!
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I agree with all of this. I actually have had to do this with my father.
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
Draining the swamp: major candidates to be cut significantly are FBI, IRS, ATF, Department of Ed, and I’m sure there are a ton of others. The bloat is just absurd and this is an area where I think Ramaswamy was really on the right track even if he sometimes went a little bit too far - I think he was talking about 75% reductions or similar and maybe that’s possible (idk), but certainly could trim some serious fat from all of these. All the money spent on paying the bureaucrats in the department of education should be rerouted to teachers on the front lines.
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You want to cut the IRS' funding? Really? Really? They just got additional funding so they could make rich people pay taxes. Hiring IRS auditors is literally one of the best investments available. Where else can you find something that will deliver a 500% ROI within three years?

Let's make sure we understand. The thing you are calling "fat" is actually an investment that delivers a 500% return in three years. Do we need to belabor this point, or are you going to die on this hill? I mean, you're an accountant, right? You're supposed to have familiarity with numbers, even large ones.

The total budget for the FBI is $11B per year. I'm 100% positive that you have no idea what that money pays for, and haven't the faintest idea if there is fat there. But even if we assume that half of it is fat (it's not), that's $6B a year. In other words, it's less than 0.5%. It's five parts in a thousand. This is the issue that causes you to embrace the GOP over Dems? Yeah, sure. Also, you might do a little bit of research on the party IDs of the people who have boosted the FBI's budget.

I mean, it's amazing that you guys fall for this. Ten years ago, if anyone suggested cutting the FBI, you would have been calling them a dangerous socialist hippie radical. Now it's an inefficient agency that should be destroyed. The reason for the switch is . . . they investigated Trump because Trump committed crimes. Sure, not a cult.

The total budget for the ATF is $1.1B. It's not even a footnote. Again, you're an accountant, right? You understand these things, I would hope.
 
Sorry, boys HY 2012 has gone past the point of no return with his posting. There is nothing left to discuss with the man. There is no debating anymore. He is voting for project 2025, which is beyond the pale. Anything else he says from this point forward has to be considered trolling IMHO.
nyc has already weighed in… without calling out any names, the mods are calling for the ignore button as opposed to giving any more air to proponents of project 2025.

Now, if you don’t want to “ignore” HY 2012 because you may want to engage with him in conversations on other topics besides Trump and project 2025, I can see that. That’s a reasonable take. so be it. However, one should simply not respond anymore to his political posts. It gets us nowhere, all of that ground has been plowed before with him. Simply read back over all of the comments and responses to his posts on this very thread. Numerous people have explained, and typed out well thought out responses and replies. Must we continue down this road some more with him? It’s all been done before. He’s voting for Trump and project 2025. There’s no changing his mind. Why discuss it anymore with him? Either ignore him or simply don’t respond to his posts politically.
 
rodoheel said:
1. Do you seriously believe that the Republicans who want to cut the Department of Education have any intention of "rerouting that money to teachers on the front lines"? They don't. Your wife is a teacher, right? I know you care about teachers and think they're underpaid. There is only one party, at the state and national level, that champions paying teachers more. It isn't Republicans.

In terms of actually "cutting the fat," here is the Department of Education's most recent budget request.

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget24/summary/24summary.pdf

Their total request for salaries and administration is $3.5 billion dollars, which is a tiny fraction of their total budget (running into the hundreds of billions). (And as you will note, about $2 billion of that $3.5 billion goes to salary and administration for student aid programs; who is going to do that if not the fat cat bureaucrats you suppose are hoovering up all our tax dollars for their own benefit?.) You could pull every dime that goes to those "bureaucrats" and you would accomplish absolutely nothing in terms of any "fat-cutting." Why don't you look through the document at where the money actually goes and see what you think about Vivek's batshit crazy (not "a little far") proposal to cut the department's budget by 75%?

2. On immigration - I mean you're admitting that Trump and the Republicans intentionally kept us from doing anything about the immigration problem for purely political reason. You have, right there, the perfect illustration of the dichotomy between the modern Republican party and the Democrats: The Republicans have no desire to fix anything at all because they want to campaign on all the problems. This has been illustrated over and over again. Yet you still think Republicans are the party to vote for if you want to "fix" the border? Leaving aside any policy disagreements you and I have about the border (and I promise they are many) why do you and other Republican voters keep credulously swallowing the Republicans' proclamations about being the party for border security when they so clearly have no intention of fixing the problem? It's exactly the same thing as health care/Obamacare - Republicans literally have no plan. They'll just have Trump issue some meaningless executive orders, hire more border patrol officers to murder a few more people trying to cross the border, and proclaim it's all fixed then as soon ass Dems are elected again they will talk about the CRISIS AT THE BORDER that has NOW AGAIN SUDDENLY HAPPENED! You're smarter than this. Come on.

3. As for foreign policy - correlation isn't causation man. You can't possibly believe that there was more relative peace during Trump's presidency because the dictators of the world - who Trump routinely praises as strong leaders he admires - were quaking in their boots at the thought of big, bad Trump. Trump is an isolationist; he doesn't want to project our strength in foreign countries, he wants to pull us back from the international stage and leave other countries to their own fate. There is a reason Putin has worked so hard over the last decade or so to have Trump in power. Why do you want Vladimir Putin to get what he wants - either in terms of who the US President is, or whatever countries he decides he wants to annex?
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Anybody that says they support public ed and believes that public school teachers should be paid and treated better and yet still votes Republican either isn't sincere in what they claim or is wholly ignorant of what Republicans want to do (and are doing) to public ed in NC and other red-governed states. Period. You simply can't look at what Republicans have done here in NC and in Texas and Florida and Oklahoma and elsewhere and say that they care about or support teachers and public ed in their states. It really is that simple.
 
Centerpiece said:
Sorry, boys HY 2012 has gone past the point of no return with his posting. There is nothing left to discuss with the man. There is no debating anymore. He is voting for project 2025, which is beyond the pale. Anything else he says from this point forward has to be considered trolling IMHO.
nyc has already weighed in… without calling out any names, the mods are calling for the ignore button as opposed to giving any more air to proponents of project 2025.

Now, if you don’t want to “ignore” HY 2012 because you may want to engage with him in conversations on other topics besides Trump and project 2025, I can see that. That’s a reasonable take. so be it. However, one should simply not respond anymore to his political posts. It gets us nowhere, all of that ground has been plowed before with him. Simply read back over all of the comments and responses to his posts on this very thread. Numerous people have explained, and typed out well thought out responses and replies. Must we continue down this road some more with him? It’s all been done before. He’s voting for Trump and project 2025. There’s no changing his mind. Why discuss it anymore with him? Either ignore him or simply don’t respond to his posts politically.
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I truly can’t imagine coming on a political message board and losing my mind when I find out someone is voting the opposite of me. Why even join the board if you can’t handle an opposing viewpoint?
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
I truly can’t imagine coming on a political message board and losing my mind when I find out someone is voting the opposite of me. Why even join the board if you can’t handle an opposing viewpoint?
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It's not a viewpoint if you can't defend it. It's just silliness.

You said you wanted to cut the IRS. IRS agents have a 500% ROI. Care to explain?
 
I believe that the conservatives from this board and the old board have presented us with honest versions of themselves. How they interact with people here is how they interact with people out in the world. They believe the things that they say here.

That doesn’t mean they are worth debating, so I find the troll label to be relatively meaningless.
 
superrific said:
You want to cut the IRS' funding? Really? Really? They just got additional funding so they could make rich people pay taxes. Hiring IRS auditors is literally one of the best investments available. Where else can you find something that will deliver a 500% ROI within three years?

Let's make sure we understand. The thing you are calling "fat" is actually an investment that delivers a 500% return in three years. Do we need to belabor this point, or are you going to die on this hill? I mean, you're an accountant, right? You're supposed to have familiarity with numbers, even large ones.

The total budget for the FBI is $11B per year. I'm 100% positive that you have no idea what that money pays for, and haven't the faintest idea if there is fat there. But even if we assume that half of it is fat (it's not), that's $6B a year. In other words, it's less than 0.5%. It's five parts in a thousand. This is the issue that causes you to embrace the GOP over Dems? Yeah, sure. Also, you might do a little bit of research on the party IDs of the people who have boosted the FBI's budget.

I mean, it's amazing that you guys fall for this. Ten years ago, if anyone suggested cutting the FBI, you would have been calling them a dangerous socialist hippie radical. Now it's an inefficient agency that should be destroyed. The reason for the switch is . . . they investigated Trump because Trump committed crimes. Sure, not a cult.

The total budget for the ATF is $1.1B. It's not even a footnote. Again, you're an accountant, right? You understand these things, I would hope.
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the "party of law and order" when actual law and order is imposed: "no, not like that! cut their funding!"
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
I truly can’t imagine coming on a political message board and losing my mind when I find out someone is voting the opposite of me. Why even join the board if you can’t handle an opposing viewpoint?
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I try to be super cordial and honest with you every chance I get. I tried in the immigration thread to get you to explain the actual reason you are for Trump's border ideas. You gave a few and those were all countered with very hard facts.

It was determined with data that undocumented immigrants:
- commit less crime than citizens
- are a vital factor in our economy
- are not the leading cause of drugs coming into the US by a wide margin

And when Trump says he wants to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, you say he doesn't actually want to do that, so that confuses me even more. You want him to do something but not what he says. I don't understand that part.

You haven't ever explained what the actual problem is yet. Is it their culture you don't like, their strong work ethic, their insistence on using asylum to get in (which is legal)? What's the issue here, and are you willing to change your mind when presented with the data, or is it just a gut feeling?
 
superrific said:
It's not a viewpoint if you can't defend it. It's just silliness.

You said you wanted to cut the IRS. IRS agents have a 500% ROI. Care to explain?
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The US tax code is entirely too complex if we need that many people working for the IRS just to enforce it. It’s honestly absurd what our system is. A much simpler tax code would achieve many objectives but one of them would be no need to hire that many IRS agents.
 
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