unfortunately as long as bolton is the national security advisor, america will find itself isolated from it's allies. Infact Bolton will result in SK looking away from America. With his past and continuing advocacy for US military intervention in NK, something damn near no one in SK wants anything to do with. Almost no one on the world stage wants anything to with the guy.

 

 While NK summits were almost certainly going to fail, the way this failed while simultaneously pissing off every ally in the region is a pretty solid example on why he keeps getting thrown to the wolves. Dude thinks he's Kissinger but doens't even have the benefit of being halfway competent.

The whole purpose of the summit was denuclearization. Threatening us with a nuke strike was the fastest way to get Trump to call it off. Shutting down the nuke program, and removing that threat, is non-negotiable. That must be done before anything happens for NoKo. China had much to do with where we are at right now, and they will be lucky if Trump doesn't destroy their economy. He's not Obama or Bush. Trump has the spine to do what they didn't have the guts to do. China may soon be the next Soviet Union.

 

Bolton is an excuse. I personally like the position of "stop threatening us and our allies or you're dead".

While you may like that logic, that's not Bolton's logic.

 

To use an analogy, your logic is like having a friend who's having problems with their neighbor, and so you "have a word with them". We could debate the efficacy of that, but whatever not the point.

 

Bolton's logic would be to show up and threaten to napalm the entire neighbor hood, including your friend's house.

 

 

Bolton is an excuse yes. As said before, this is not new behavior. The point is that the excuse in this case has also pissed off SK, Japan, and helps ensure China will back NK as well. NK being NK is one thing. Providing NK the excuse while simultaneously flipping off your allies takes something special.

 

Also even if Bolton is just an excuse, the point is that his actions would have scuttled the talks even if NK was playing in good faith. So NK being NK here doesn't even matter since he managed to undermine US creditably regardless.

Didn't the UN lift some travel sanctions on request of Singapore just days prior, wonder if they will forget putting them back on

 

The cancellation was predictable just cause nothing moved from USA's side. Diplomacy works both ways and now with the nuclear deterrent you definatly lost the bully method towards NK. heck probably just cutting that recent USA-SK army drill short would have been enough towards atleast a possiblity of talks.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/05/24/trump-cancels-summit-kim/640452002/

 

oh geeze. So if that's accurate he did so unilaterally and without bothered to tell anyone else first. It's like he wants to piss america's allies off.

I hear Little Kimmy wants the meeting back now. He asks for a meeting thinking Trump won't do it. Trump immediately says okay. Since Trump immediately said okay, Kimmy then thinks Trump is Obama, and will do anything to keep the meeting. Seriously... Iran could have asked for the Statue of Liberty and Obama would have wrapped it up with a bow. But instead when Kimmy starts talking like he's a badass again, cancels a meeting with South Korea, talking about nuking again... Trump cancels the meeting. Now Kimmy wants it back.

 

Go figure.

Well we know Lys doesn't speak diplo, let alone Trump. Lovely letter btw, sounds like my first english classes.

 

Nobody has gained a thing expect to look "powerfull" by their zealot backers (which is a moot point anyway).

 

 

Lovely letter btw, sounds like my first english classes.

He could have written it in crayon. It was still effective. Kim needs the meeting... Trump knows that. He must be nice, and say please.

He basically signs in crayon, but that's beside the point. If you consider such a letter drafted to be up to snuff, for whatever intended recipient, I call shenanigans on you. Brooms out!

 

 

I hear Little Kimmy wants the meeting back now

 

Or they are just saying that to make NK save face. Then it is Trump who is the bad guy, he is the one that cancelled when NK is obviously open. He played right into their hands.

Let's see... They have sided with Hamas when he moves the Embassy to Jerusalem, as every previous President has promised to do. They have sided with MS-13 murderers on deportation. They have sided with Iranian Mullahs on a pathetic nuke deal that won't prevent Iran from developing nukes. They have sided with North Korea when he accepts a meeting. They have sided with North Korea when he cancels the meeting. They are siding with North Korea when the meeting is back on.

 

And people are shocked... SHOCKED! when I say this country needs a divorce. An irreconcilable difference is when they side with the worst enemies we have over our own country... again and again... just because they hate a man, and can't stand the thought of him succeeding. Really it would be best to just not say anything until he fails at something... if I was wrong that often I would disappear in shame just like Ice Wolf did. He said we would get tired of winning... I'm not even breathing hard yet.

This Trump presidency is just a never ending win train for you, isn’t it Lys?

Something about living in a black&white world I'd imagine, very easy to spot your enemy's obviously.

This Trump presidency is just a never ending win train for you, isn’t it Lys?

The only time it's let me down so far is when John McCain voted against repealing Obamacare... but that's okay, we killed the individual mandate, and he's dying anyway... so I still call it a win. The Super Bowl will be when the entire Obama criminal organization is brought to justice for attempting to rig an election for Hillary Clinton, and framing an opposition candidate, and then a sitting President, for bogus crimes, and I hope the American people will punish the entire Progressive regime for falling for their lies. That may be a bit too much to hope for, but things are looking pretty good right now.

Let's see... They have sided with Hamas when he moves the Embassy to Jerusalem, as every previous President has promised to do. They have sided with MS-13 murderers on deportation. They have sided with Iranian Mullahs on a pathetic nuke deal that won't prevent Iran from developing nukes. They have sided with North Korea when he accepts a meeting. They have sided with North Korea when he cancels the meeting. They are siding with North Korea when the meeting is back on.

 

And people are shocked... SHOCKED! when I say this country needs a divorce. An irreconcilable difference is when they side with the worst enemies we have over our own country... again and again... just because they hate a man, and can't stand the thought of him succeeding. Really it would be best to just not say anything until he fails at something... if I was wrong that often I would disappear in shame just like Ice Wolf did. He said we would get tired of winning... I'm not even breathing hard yet.

 

 

Well if you want to deal with the political divide  by way of controversial opion

 

Step 1: Improve access to education. A huge chunk of the divide is by education attainment. Technically reducing access to education would also work, but i think that's a bad plan. 

 

 

Step 2: making 65 the mandatory *maximum* voting age, since above that is the demographic that most drives the divide. 

 

 

Step 3: Burn the electoral college to the ground and ditch FPTP in general for IRV, allowing for bipartisan or more centrist candidates to gain support over extreme ones 

 

 

Give it a generation and it'll be much less of an issue. 

 

I mean, failing that we could partition america like you suggest. but in that case the geographic divide is urban/rural which will be interesting. 

 

 

Step 1: Improve access to education. A huge chunk of the divide is by education attainment. Technically reducing access to education would also work, but i think that's a bad plan.

Since we have a public education system that pretty much requires free K-12... you must be requesting free college. Since age of majority is 18, you are requesting taxpayers to remain responsible for adults, that can already vote, many years beyond the age they are no longer required to answer to their parents. I'm a US taxpayer, and I don't want to pay for freeloading career students that refuse to grow up. I suggest the United States Military. They will take care of them, and help them through college as well.

 

Step 2: making 65 the mandatory *maximum* voting age, since above that is the demographic that most drives the divide.

Wow. I have dinner with a 90 year old Air Force Veteran twice per week. He served on Air Force One for Lyndon Johnson. He bowls on 2 of my league teams with my wife and I. Would you be the one to tell him that he can no longer vote, and you would nullify his vote for the past 25 years? On what grounds would you say he no longer has the right to vote? He hasn't given enough to his country? He's too old to hold a logical thought? I'll duck when you tell him that... he has many guns older than me.

 

Step 3: Burn the electoral college to the ground and ditch FPTP in general for IRV, allowing for bipartisan or more centrist candidates to gain support over extreme ones

Still can't get over that election? Donald Trump was not only ahead in the Electoral College... he was ahead in popular vote as well... until they brought in the count from California. California gave Hillary a whopping 55 electoral votes, winner take all, plus 4.3 million votes more than Trump. According to your logic, we all should have just sat it out and watched California choose the President. That's not how it works... that's not how it has ever worked... and you think, because you lost, we must change it now. Once again... we are not a Democracy... we are a Republic. Each state also has two Senators, regardless of state population.

 

Give it a generation and it'll be much less of an issue. I mean, failing that we could partition america like you suggest. but in that case the geographic divide is urban/rural which will be interesting.

Call for a Convention of States... a Constitutional Convention. Put your proposals forward. The Constitution gives us the ability to hit the reset. No one, at any time, has ever done this. I would love to see all your proposals go down in flames, and then I would love to see how fast you want to hit the "Secession" button. It wouldn't be a city split... each state would vote which way to go.

Well i mean, it's *less* drastic than trying to partition the country into two separate countries based on the geographic urban/rural split.

 

 Wow. I have dinner with a 90 year old Air Force Veteran twice per week. He served on Air Force One for Lyndon Johnson. He bowls on 2 of my league teams with my wife and I. Would you be the one to tell him that he can no longer vote, and you would nullify his vote for the past 25 years? On what grounds would you say he no longer has the right to vote? He hasn't given enough to his country? He's too old to hold a logical thought? I'll duck when you tell him that... he has many guns older than me.

 

I mean, you're the one who wants drastic action to deal with the political divide, and a large part of it boils down to the oldest generation voting against the future of the nation. When 65 and older votes 80/20 and then 55 and under votes 20/80 on the same issue. That's a large part of what kept Jim Crow around for so long. And then the people supporting got out of the way (ie, died) and we're all better for it. If you want drastic and dramatic action yea, your buddy isn't going to be around for the consequences of his choices in all likelihood, no real reason for him to not step aside. It's certainly preferable to conducted a mass expulsion from geographic regions like you effectively proposed. 

 

 

Still can't get over that election? Donald Trump was not only ahead in the Electoral College... he was ahead in popular vote as well... until they brought in the count from California. California gave Hillary a whopping 55 electoral votes, winner take all, plus 4.3 million votes more than Trump. According to your logic, we all should have just sat it out and watched California choose the President. That's not how it works... that's not how it has ever worked... and you think, because you lost, we must change it now. Once again... we are not a Democracy... we are a Republic. Each state also has two Senators, regardless of state population.

 

hooooooie, so guess you're real sore about the popular vote thing. you do know there are tons of systems that aren't the electoral college and all it's bullshit that still enable geographic preference. And i mean, how dare you not even further discount the votes of a population group that makes up 10% of the US population. 

 

I mean, since you *loooove* the electoral college so much, take the simplest change; abandon the pretense of 1 man 1 vote, since it's bullshit as far as presidential elections go, and then use the current electoral college to weight the results from each state, and then use that weighted popular vote to pick the winner. For exmaple since Californa's very existance offends you so:

 

Cali's got 55 of 538 votes, and works out to about 0.102 as a weight factor. 

 

Trump got 31.62%, which works out to about 3.23% after normalizing it, and clinton got 61.73% , which works out to about 6.31%. 

 

Repeat for say texas, 38  electoral votes and works out to about 0.07063197026

 

Trump got 52.23%  and Clinton 43.24%  which works out to  3.69%   and 3.05% respectively.

 

 

Continue that on for all 50 states and DC, and the weighted percentages will total up to 100% across all candidates assuming you carry enough digits in your calculation. Keeps your precious geographic weighting, gets rid of the winner takes all nonsense. It's even better at ensuring each state gets represented, since there's now no such thing as a red or blue state, forcing candidates to actually spend time on each state to try and carry as much as possible. 

 

Extra points for using IRV.  

hooooooie, so guess you're real sore about the popular vote thing.

Not at all... because I know it means nothing, They only add it up so when this happens, the loser can point at it and say they didn't really win... which is a lie. It's happened before, and it doesn't change anything... ever... at any time.

 

Electoral votes for each state is the number of Representatives, plus 2 for Senators. There is nothing nefarious about it. The state determines how they are awarded. If you don't like how they award the votes, take it up with the states.

 

Let's raise the voting age to 30... then the young stupid ones can keep their mouths shut until they get some real life experience, have some kids, buy a house, and have an income worth holding on to... before they have a chance to destroy the country.

Now why would we want to do that lys. The under 30 group is currently the *least* politically polarized group. Infact if you control for "social issues", they're by a wide margin the least decisive, and what division their is, is mainly the issues that the religious right continue to push. It's a positively  centrist demographic. It's the silent generation and the boomers incapable of meeting in the middle.

I

For that matter, not only are they the least polarized group they're the one with the greatest distaste for the sixth party system. Something like half of that age group register as independents, because one of the issues they most strongly meet in the middle on is "fuck all this bullshit". Turns out a decade or two of bullshit from both parties engender no strong love for either, who'd of thunk it.

 

 And I mean, the boomers expect us to pay for their pensions and medicare (under 65 takes on something like 85%of the tax burden, and paying that out is something like 2/3 of the total tax burden in general), the least they could do is get the hell out of the way of the people paying their way. You say a lot about *your* precious tax dollars going to stuff like "lazy kids" or other nonsense, but you know what, I've done the math: about 40 cents of every dollar I pay in taxes goes to supporting the boomers and up, a full third of which doens't even *pay* taxes.

 

And i don't really begrudge that. I'd hate for someone  to end up dead because cancer or something took a dunk on their life savings and they couldn't afford treatment. But there is just something special about a generation of voters who, for example, least support single payer healthcare but flip their collective shit with something like 96% consensus whenever anyone even looks at their precious medicare.

 

No if you want drastic solutions to the political divide, raising the voting age would only further exacerbate it by excluding the least divided demographic in America. A maximum voting age would reduce it quite nicely.

Pffft, just bring Feudalism back, seeing that the USA likes it money so much, 1 vote per $1M, hows that?

 

 

Anyway, if you want to truely fuck over your elections/representation, go Belgium style, if you think you got a mess now, ooooh boy >_>

 

 

Now why would we want to do that lys.

After all this time, you still don't understand my ever present sarcasm. I was mocking your desire to deny voting rights to those that have contributed most to the USA. I am self employed, therefore I have no pension to look forward to... but those that do have a pension, it's not their fault that their employer made promises to them that future generations find a burden to maintain. The best course of action is to fulfill the promises made in the past, stop making promises for the future... and work out a better system.

 

Social Security sounded like a wonderfully stupid idea when FDR was talking to a country full of dirt poor people at the time. I mean seriously... back then, people only lived to 70 years old anyway... let's rob them of a good percentage of their paychecks every week, all their entire lives, and then when they retire, we can easily shell out some crumbs for them to survive on until they die in a few years. I believe it's high time to revisit this form of government theft. Give the people their money back, turn retirement over to the private sector, get the hands of government thieves off of our money, and allow people who know how to create wealth to do what they do best for the money of our people. This would probably be the greatest thing to do... ever.

How liberal of you!

don't like the electoral college lets go by land area  http://i0.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/election-2016-county-map.png?resize=600%2C386

don't like the electoral college lets go by land area  http://i0.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/election-2016-county-map.png?resize=600%2C386

Lol, I show a similar map to Democrats whenever they start talking about kicking off another civil war. Go right ahead and see how well that turns out for you

 

don't like the electoral college lets go by land area  http://i0.wp.com/metrocosm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/election-2016-county-map.png?resize=600%2C386

Lol, I show a similar map to Democrats whenever they start talking about kicking off another civil war. Go right ahead and see how well that turns out for you

 

 

Dunno how they got the information for that map but its wrong. Oregon and Washington are extremely democrat, and independent. You can look at election history if you don't believe me. There is only a few areas in the state of Oregon that have had republicans elected regularly and it has a tiny population there.

 

I would also like to point out all the southern counties in Oregon have less of a combined population than just Multnomah County. So comparing it by landmass is silly, it should be based off of population, unless of course dirt started voting.