Trump

[MoValley John]

One last thing about student id's, FERPA. Regardless of issuing institution, FERPA privacy rules prevail. Information cannot be shared. So, even if the state institution issues the card, the school cannot release residency or citizenship information to other agencies without permission of the student.

[CBB_Fan]

I'm not going into a circular debate, if you look,at my previous statement, I'm mostly agreeing with you that picking and choosing id's could be problematic.

Should a state enact a constitutional voter id law,the problem I see with student id's in particular, is that obtaining a student id does nothing to verify either A. Residency, or B. Citizenship, both requirements to vote.

I also believe that for voter id to be required, the state needs to provide state id's free of charge and easily accessable. If you get past the arguing with me at all costs, you will find that we really aren't that far apart.

The point I made earlier is that Voter ID does not require proving anything beyond identity. You prove citizenship by registered, and an ID nearly needs to confirm you are the person who registered. I didn't mention residency because (assuming you meant state residency) it explicitly isn't a requirement. Out of state students are one reason for this.

However, I do agree that I would be for Voter IDs in principle if they were free and easily accessible.

[Aargh]

I've never heard of "proof of citizenship" to buy (or register) a firearm before. Is a birth certificate required, or is it a question on an application that establishes citizenship?

[MoValley John]

I've never heard of "proof of citizenship" to buy (or register) a firearm before. Is a birth certificate required, or is it a question on an application that establishes citizenship?

A series of questions on the application.

[MoValley John]

Screenshot_20170526-172205.jpg

[MoValley John]

Here is the application.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/4473-part-1-firearms-transaction-record-over-counter-atf-form-53009/download&ved=0ahUKEwjR88Hwy47UAhUi_IMKHWpsDyYQFggcMAA&usg=AFQjCNEkDOXYAPuYoy9ORsnL9oWHGZYFTg

[MoValley John]

Here's the gist. You do not have to provide your SSN on your application. But if you don't, you raise a red flag and you are investigated more thorougly. If you are an alien, you get investigated more thorougly. Citizenship is easy to establish on the application.

All of that said, I don't have any problem with the federal government requiring all private sellers of firearms to submit this application prior to selling any guns. I would demand, however, that the government provide the paperwork and service free of charge.

[wufan]

Voting is corrupt. Both parties have participated in this corruption at some point in the past and probably still do. An appropriate voter ID is one way to lessen the corruption even if there is some inherent corruption in the selection of IDs.

@jdshock:, what's your take?

[pinstripers]

It seems like Trumps first NATO meetings didn't go well. Say bye to some allies.

I dunno how to handle it. They are breaking the agreement and we just continue to support them?

[shocka khan]

I dunno how to handle it. They are breaking the agreement and we just continue to support them?

That's a good point. However, in looking at the totality of the situation, it's really obvious he did not 'hit a home run'.

I don't know why he continues to let his ego get in the way. I think it would have been better messaging to be saying part of his trip went really well and part of it did not, the part that did not relating to the ongoing NATO financial support issues, which need to be addressed and should be important to all Americans.

And he also seriously needs to ditch the whole 'let's get along with Russia' thing. As many people here have pointed out, the Russians can't be trusted, we are natural adversaries, and his continued insistence we need to improve relations with them totally makes optics of the Russian interference issue turn against him. It was widely reported in the press he made a number of statements to the European leaders about Russia.

Most reasonable people would conclude, at some point, that it is getting too hot in the kitchen and the issue needs to be parked for the time being (or the special prosecutor's investigation gets close to wrapping up).

Trump is a victim of his own hubris.

PS: I did not like him shoving the Prime Minister of Montenegro. It made him look very petty. And not only that, if you looked at a tape of it, it is clear he is nervous, perhaps even angry about something when he did it. As they say in acting school (and the deodorant commercials) 'never let them see you sweat.'

[shocka khan]

okay, I get that but what about this:

The four main deterrents against a Eurasian aggressor into Europe are:

US missile siting / nuclear umbrella
US nuclear sharing
US forward deployed bases
Article 5 of NATO / US Commitment to redeploy to Europe in case of war
Let's be real: Man With Half A Potato Latvia may spend its dutiful 2% of GDP on defense but the Baltics' existence in NATO is (pick your favored theory) either A) as a buffer state whose mission is to slow the Russian tanks to buy time for USA's redeployment / mobilization plan to make Germany defensible, or B) an aggressive, Kissingerian attempt to pressure the Russian state into balkanization by overloading its defense needs. The important point is that in either scenario, the actual strategic value of Latvia is its geographic position vis a vis the Russian state, NOT ITS DEFENSE BUDGET. The same goes for many other NATO states, such as Iceland and Turkey. The actual strategic value of Iceland is the GIUK Gap which enables the US to track and kill Russian subs if they try to enter the Atlantic. What's the value of that compared to how far Iceland is falling short of the 2% goal? Well, since Iceland spends just 0.1% of its GDP on defense, the shortfall is 1.9% of Iceland's GDP. That's not very impressive: 315 million dollars, or five hundredths of a percent of the Pentagon's annual budget. The in-kind value of having anti-sub warfare capabilities based in Iceland dwarf that figure, considering that a single current generation Russian sub costs on the order of a billion dollars.

Now you might accuse me of choosing an easy to defend example since Iceland has tremendous (yuge) geographic value and is a small economy. What about those freeloading Frenchies and other West Europeans who make up "Not-So-Secret Real NATO"1 and benefit from a security umbrella while not living up to that 2% commitment? But the same logic of in-kind contributions still applies. Two of the most important of the Not So Secret Real NATO states, UK and France, provide immense diplomatic/strategic value for the US just by having their own sovereign nuclear arsenals sited in WEU. The dollar value of maintaining these arsenals is totally incommensurate with their military value. So why are we talking money again?

It's important to be clear about this ****. Don't accept Trump's premise that we're getting screwed if the allies don't pay 2%. The fact is the USA gets a fantastic geostrategic bargain if the allies pay 0%.

Seeing things in this light is important for another reason. It underlines the most significant fact about this debate.

So you're saying it's OK for them to ignore the treaty and promises made and we should let them continue to freeload?

Pretty sorry thinking if you ask me. If we got the land for the bases in Europe for free, then perhaps I would think different. I don't believe that's the case. We can't continue to be the world's protector. If the Germans and French had to use their resources to defend themselves, perhaps their products would be so expensive more people would buy American. Letting them skip these payments indirectly subsidizes their industry by allowing these countries to keep tax rates low because we pay for their defense.

[shocka khan]

://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-trump-allies-20160930-snap-story,amp.html

Good article about overseas base cost

The article you cited goes into a lot of detail regards Japan and South Korea and mentions Western Europe in one or two sentences. Not exactly something relevant to NATO, the article's tilt is definitely more towards Asia.

This is probably better:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

Judging from the list, it would appear as if Germany isn't exactly killing themselves to spend a lot of their GDP on defense. Neither, for that matter, is France. It would seem as if India, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia are spending more. Japan is around the general France/Germany area, but they don't really spend money on defense (except to pay us as your posted article points out).

I'm going to ignore your post about the filibuster as it does not add value to what we are currently discussing.

[shocka khan]

And the filibuster thing is relevant as this thread is all about trump.

And I guess you did not read the prior postings in this thread regards how the democrats actually started this process and were the first to remove filibuster requirements regards Senate confirmation of certain individuals. To me, this is just more evidence of how liberals get tunnel blindness and can't seem to grasp that both sides are guilty of creating a toxic partisan environment in Congress.

My recommendation would be to go back and re-read those posts and to quit scapegoating republicans for finishing a process the democrats actually started. They started us down the slippery slope, if you will.

[CBB_Fan]

So you're saying it's OK for them to ignore the treaty and promises made and we should let them continue to freeload?

Pretty sorry thinking if you ask me. If we got the land for the bases in Europe for free, then perhaps I would think different. I don't believe that's the case. We can't continue to be the world's protector. If the Germans and French had to use their resources to defend themselves, perhaps their products would be so expensive more people would buy American. Letting them skip these payments indirectly subsidizes their industry by allowing these countries to keep tax rates low because we pay for their defense.

1. They are not ignoring the treaty. The 2% mark was a goal for 2024 and was always non-compulsory.
2. The country that benefits the most from NATO is us. We are the only country to invoke the defense pact, and it acts as force projection for us.

We spend $10B keeping US forces in industrial countries, 2% of our own defense budget. Not only is this a small amount, it actually represents a substantial savings. By having forces where they are needed instead of at home we can use a much smaller force to apply the same amount of pressure. And it isn't entirely a military alliance, as our EU allies absorb much of the cost and risk of economic sanctions with Russia. Those nations also spend more on peacekeeping missions and on refugee resettlement, figures that won't be mentioned in reports on the 2%.

NATO represents greater than 50% of the world's military power. As long as it exists, large-scale conflicts against NATO countries are an absolute impossibility. The period from WWII and now is the most peaceful in world history, and NATO's force projection is a big reason why. We've had almost 80 years without major conflicts among world powers, and that doesn't happen without NATO. It stops NATO members from fighting each other, and it stops the rest of the world from fighting NATO.

The EU isn't paying as much as the US. We spend $600B on our military, they spend $300B. But that $300B mark is still #2 in the world, above Russia, above China. Cutting ties because the #2 military spender isn't closer to the #1 is an absolutely terrible idea. It will literally cost us money, and instead of having the power of the $300B somewhat on our side and at our command we will lose it entirely. Or in other words, we get that $300B for free and we want to cut ties because it isn't closer to $350B.

It makes no economic or military sense to lash out and alienate our allies or flat out tell them we won't honor our treaties.

[SHOXJOCK]

Can anyone find out about the bases overseas? I just don't understand how having them as an enemy and having our only allies as dictator type countries such as russia is a good thing.

On another note, he wants to do away with the senate filibuster. 90% of the filibusters used in the senate was from 2010 to 2016 from the Republicans. You know if obama stated to get rid of it then he wouldve been chastised for that. Getting rid of the filibuster and consolidating power to a simple majority is dangerous to democracy.

God help this country. "Getting rid of the filibuster and consolidating power to a simple majority is dangerous to democracy." You can't make this sh*t up. #sosad