Trump and his team were touting all the countries eager to make deals with the U.S. on trade. They changed their tune when it became clear such deals wouldn’t materialize quickly.

FTFY.

The constitution is to protect the government from the people.

Revoke it at your own peril.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cli_KbfJcDs

With the Trump administration arresting judges it doesn’t like, judges need to start deputizing individuals to execute orders of the court.

Exactly. The current GOP looks more like the Tea Party than it does the pre-tea-party GOP. They managed to effect change within the party.

We need a Guillotine Party, to do for the Democratic party what the Tea Party did for the GOP: Take it over from the inside out.

Problem Class. Guillotine Fodder.

Why do people keep saying that I can’t get that money out of the house?

I can use the equity as an asset to borrow money at low interest rates compared to unsecured loans.

In which case, you owe more than you borrowed. The net result of your borrowing is handing money to oligarchs. That makes them the problem, not you.

I can sell the property and move to a lower cost of living location, or even just a smaller home if I wanted.

Proportionally, you are not making any gains when you do that. That smaller home’s value increased at the same time your own home did.

I can rent part of the property out at a rate commensurate with it’s current value.

In which case, you would then be leveraging your wealth to strip others of wealth generated through labor. You would become part of the problem class with this approach.

Your ownership of an appreciating asset is not the problem.

No, you’re not the problem there. The problem in your scenario is the landlords buying up all available real estate and leasing it back. Not you.

That million dollar gain has no actual value to you. You can’t get that money out of the house, because you’ll need to spend it to acquire new housing.

And in the meantime, your tax payments are going to increase: you’re a victim of corporate investment in the housing market, not a perpetrator.

Your observation is only true where the working class controls the capital. Your point would be well taken if we all had significant shares providing passive income. Buy not even the wealthiest of the working class controls a share of capital proportionate to their productive output.

The worst injustices injustices in history have been perpetrated by oligarchs of some shape or another. We are in the middle of such an era now.

And the word is “ridiculous”.

Capital investment strips wealth out of the worker/consumer economy (where it is traded for goods and services, and becomes someone’s paycheck) and transfers it to the securities market (where it is used to convert worker productivity into more capital)

Capital investment is only beneficial to the economy when the working class holds the capital.

Nah, he’s still a Democrat, even though his position conflicts with the electorate. As are you.

The “test” here isn’t one of purity. Here, the test is whether he can represent that electorate. He can’t.

His position on gun control is the most obvious example, but it’s not the only one. He idolizes Pelosi and Clinton, and wants to replace “useless incumbents” with Baby Nancy and Baby Hillary.

You and David Hogg are Democrats, despite your irrational, centrist support for gun control. I’m apparently Wayne LaPierre because I oppose it.

One of us is using gun control as a purity test. The other is not.

Until just now… Did you just decide to stop using gun control as a purity test?

No part of my comment history suggests I have ever supported Wayne LaPierre.

You and I probably agree on 99% of the issues, but you’re willing to alienate me on the basis of this particular, obviously divisive issue.

You are not alone in this. The party has long used gun control as a purity test, rejecting candidates (and alienating voters) who offer anything less than full-throated support for gun control.

But that purity test is one of the things that needs to be excised from the party.

Gun control does not have the broad support it did in the 90’s. The wave of concealed carry adoption in the late 90’s/ early 2000’s has radically expanded the number and political diversity of gun owners across the country. The party has thus far failed to recognize this shift in the political climate. We can see the results.

Just seems like whenever there’s someone who is trying to get the party to move to the left,

Again, “gun control” is not a leftist issue. Gun control is keeping the party from moving left.

Further, Hogg isn’t trying to move the party to the left. He openly supports legacy Democrats like Pelosi and Hillary who built the failed party, and he is looking for younger candidates who will keep the party right where theose decrepit fossils planted it.

Provided that the person calling for it has the opinions you prefer on guns. And only guns.

No, that conclusion does not follow from the facts at hand. There are any number of issues that raise my ire. I’ve railed just as vociferously against Hogg for guns as I have against any number of democratic fossils, for reasons ranging from pro-genocide, to appeasing Republicans, to senility. Gun control is just one of many disqualifying conditions. That he and I share an absolute disgust for Retired-in-Place Democrats is not sufficient to rehabilitate his image. He is an honorary fossil, and needs to go along with them.

As always, there’s some excuse for why the person who is trying to move the party to the left shouldn’t be doing that.

I don’t know if you didn’t get the memo or something, but the left likes guns now. Gun control is not “moving the party to the left”. Gun control is a plank in the old, establishment platform, and needs to be thrown out along with those ancient fossils.

Of all of the people in this thread for whom the second amendment fills the void where a personality would be in a more complete person, not one cares about the incumbents’ opinions on firearms.

Nobody gives a shit about the incumbent positions on anything, with the possible exception of their retirement. Get them the hell out of office, and bring in some actual leftists.

I agree, we do need a “Guillotine Party” to do for us what the Tea Party did for the GOP.

Unfortunately, Hogg and gun control are part of what needs to be removed.

Who sees what is happening in the white house and wants to crack jokes?

For the next four years, the Correspondent’s Dinner should be a wake, and not an Irish one.