U.S. Politics: Despite Negative Press Covfefe, We Will Always Have Paris

[drawkcabi]

How about "The Twitter Twit" or "The Twit Tweets" for the next thread?

Didn't last October we have a "Twit..ter Tweet" thread? If not, that'd be good too.

[Zorral]

What is so striking, i.e. characteristic of who these people are and always have been, in all the notes that Comey made, all the twits that orange forever showing his ass has made, there has never once been even the slightest indication that he gives a damn that russians messed with a US election (and, as it turns out, also some local election candidates too).  He is interested ONLY that somebody say "You didn't do anything wrong or illegal."  Notice, he only interested in somebody saying it, not whether or not that he actually is guilty.

Gads, Ryan how far up the orange can you crawl?  "Be fair to him, he doesn't know how government works and had no idea that there's supposed to be separation of your money and the government's, er, separation between a politician being investigated and the POTUS talking with the FBI director f2f.  Gimme a break.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

No crook, no crook. You're the crook.

Well played sir.

1 hour ago, Mexal said:

It will hurt America long past 2020.

Unfortunately yes, but in time all wounds can be healed, assuming Trump doesn't do something monumentally dumb. 

55 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

We hope. I had hoped that Dubya would long discredit the Republican Party and conservatism. Instead, what it did was double down and elect Trump.

The Republican Party has this amazing ability to create a mind bending and convoluted version of reality and then get just enough people to buy it. Who needs LSD when you can just listen to the Republican Party?

It would seem that the Republican Party is kind of like Michael Myers (and just as scary). No matter how many times you shoot it, stab it, burn it or whatever, it seems to come back scarier than ever.

I don't really disagree with any of this, but I think there's one important difference. The Republican Party was still largely unified during Dubya's terms, but it isn't today. Trump's victory helped cover up some of the fractures within the party, but I believe this will only be short lived. We'll see more and more in fighting if Trump drags the party down with him. and that's the potential long term damage that Trump can do past 2020 for the Republican Party. 

54 minutes ago, S John said:

and don't nominate someone terrible for President in 2020.  

I don't know if this was intended to be a dig and Clinton, but it's important to remember that she was pretty popular prior to the email scandal. And by time it broke there wasn't really any plausible second choice (I like Sanders a lot, but I don't think he would have done any better than Clinton). Frankly, I think she could have brushed it off to a greater extent if she would have just owned up to it in the beginning. She handled the email scandal  exactly like how Brady handled Deflategate. Both initially laughed it off, then as the drip drip drip began they tried to dismiss it and then rationalize their behavior and avoided accountability at all costs, which inevitably made the scandals much worse than they needed to be.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

13 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Frankly, I think she could have brushed it off to a greater extent if she would have just owned up to it in the beginning. She handled the email scandal  exactly like how Brady handled Deflategate. Both initially laughed it off, then as the drip drip drip began they tried to dismiss it and then rationalize their behavior and avoided accountability at all costs, which inevitably made the scandals much worse than they needed to be.

Great comparison. You may as well own the little stuff, cause the half-assed cover up always looks worse.

[lokisnow]

3 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Trump could resign tomorrow, the allegations and investigations won't be going away.  He's going to be an albatross around the necks of Republicans in 2018 and still in 2020.  Can Republicans overcome that? Never say never, otherwise we wouldn't be in the mess we are now, but he's still am albatross.

Doubtful, republicans will gain seats in the senate in 2018, and the DCCC is dedicated to ensuring democrats don't retake the house, so the gains in the house will not be enough because democrats refuse to try to win and are strategizing to lose 2018 already (that's the democrat establishment for you they truly hate winning).

in any event, more people voted for trump in 2016 than will probably vote total in 2018, so republicans and trump are probably very / extremely safe for the next two elections. No albatross anywhere

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

I don't really disagree with any of this, but I think there's one important difference. The Republican Party was still largely unified during Dubya's terms, but it isn't today. Trump's victory helped cover up some of the fractures within the party, but I believe this will only be short lived. We'll see more and more in fighting if Trump drags the party down with him. and that's the potential long term damage that Trump can do past 2020 for the Republican Party. 

He’ll definitely be a disaster.

It’s gonna be a real hoot, after he ends up being a complete disaster, when they say, “We just need to get back to our conservative principles” or something like that.

I’ll probably be eating popcorn or something when I hear it, and I’ll start laughing so hard when I hear it, I'll probably end up choking to death.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

4 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

No albatross anywhere

Eh., there's plenty of albatross. You just have to know where to look for it.

 

[BloodRider]

15 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Eh., there's plenty of albatross. You just have to know where to look for it.

 

It's bloody sea, bloody bird flavor.  What fucking flavor did you think it was.

ALBATROSS!

[S John]

19 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I don't know if this was intended to be a dig and Clinton, but it's important to remember that she was pretty popular prior to the email scandal. And by time it broke there wasn't really any plausible second choice (I like Sanders a lot, but I don't think he would have done any better than Clinton). Frankly, I think she could have brushed it off to a greater extent if she would have just owned up to it in the beginning. She handled the email scandal  exactly like how Brady handled Deflategate. Both initially laughed it off, then as the drip drip drip began they tried to dismiss it and then rationalize their behavior and avoided accountability at all costs, which inevitably made the scandals much worse than they needed to be.

It wasn't intended to be a specific dig at Clinton, just a general statement.  Though I do think she was uniquely positioned to lose to Trump.  The Clinton's, both of them, have been the Boogeyman of conservative media for 20 years.  Was very easy for them to frame this election as Trump vs. Satan.  Like, yea we know Trump isn't perfect - but you aren't really going to vote for Satan are you?

Goes back to my earlier point that Trump had no public service record to attack.  So its him vs. someone with a lengthy record to attack, and not just any someone, but a someone who has been a favorite target for two decades.   Next time he will not have that luxury.

I don't know if Sanders would have done any better against Trump.  Maybe.  He might have been able to keep states like PA, MI, WI because he was striking an anti-globalist, pro-worker tone similar to Trump.  But he didn't win the primary, so we will never know.  I voted for Bernie in the TX primary and was happy that I got to vote for a candidate that I actually liked and thought was a genuinely good person.  That opportunity doesn't come around every day.  But even though he didn't win, and I do not particularly care for Clinton, I voted for her over Donald Trump enthusiastically and with absolutely zero reservations.  I felt like Trump's presidency was a train wreck that anyone with any sense could see coming from miles away, but Clinton was anathema to a large portion of the electorate right out of the gate, and many did not do as I did. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Maybe. You are right that it is difficult for an outsider to understand why certain people care so deeply about specific issues. However, if progressives really did care so much about fairness rather than in-group stuff, why didn't this help Sanders? What the Clinton camp and DNC did to him certainly wasn't fair.

It wasn't particularly fair, but it wasn't a huge deal, and a lot of people were already in Clinton's camp. And that said, one could easily argue that between the DNC rift and her having to pivot so much towards Sanders' in order to get any kind of concession from him that unfairness WAS a big deal, and did help Sanders. Note that most of the 'unfairness' label came literally at the DNC, when the hack was revealed.

And the consequences for the Democratic party were pretty severe. The DNC chair and sub-chair both got removed, the Democrats as a party are split quite heavily, and that still hasn't been fully healed. 

[Rippounet]

I'm sharing this just for fun.

An article that could be titled "Conservative student takes her teacher to court because she is too liberal for her taste" :

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2017/06/07/uwsp-student-asks-court-force-poetry-professor-give-her/357759001/

[Jaxom 1974]

2 hours ago, lokisnow said:

Doubtful, republicans will gain seats in the senate in 2018, and the DCCC is dedicated to ensuring democrats don't retake the house, so the gains in the house will not be enough because democrats refuse to try to win and are strategizing to lose 2018 already (that's the democrat establishment for you they truly hate winning).

in any event, more people voted for trump in 2016 than will probably vote total in 2018, so republicans and trump are probably very / extremely safe for the next two elections. No albatross anywhere

I just simply don't agree with any of this.  I refuse to be this pessimistic.

[Zorral]

It's interesting that Europe has looked at what we all wrought here in the USA.  Which means that Le Pen and May, who were riding the romperola's coat tails, they thought -- are not winning.  

This is also good for us here in the USA -- at least one can hope . . . .

[all swedes are racist]

14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

It's interesting that Europe has looked at what we all wrought here in the USA.  Which means that Le Pen and May, who were riding the romperola's coat tails, they thought -- are not winning.  

This is also good for us here in the USA -- at least one can hope . . . .

hah... the democrats are going to take all the wrong lessons from the uk tonight, trust me

[Crazydog7]

Paul Ryan’s quote about Trump today doesn’t surprise me although it might have a year ago. 

He’s new to government

Jesus Paul this is the United States Government not fucking reality TV.  I read statements like this and I have horrible sinking feeling in my stomach like for the next 4 years the Republicans are going to be like that annoying new parent who has to pretend to be amazed that little Donald can tie his shoes on his own not only that but they expect the rest of us who don’t have children to demonstrate the same level of exuberance. 

 

[Gertrude]

Safe spaces have always been a thing, just put in different terms and the person wanting it always feels justified. How many times have you heard someone say, 'I don't mind LGBQ couples, I just don't want to see PDAs.'  They want a safe space.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I'm sharing this just for fun.

An article that could be titled "Conservative student takes her teacher to court because she is too liberal for her taste" :

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2017/06/07/uwsp-student-asks-court-force-poetry-professor-give-her/357759001/

Wow... talk about an entitled student.  If you don't want to be exposed to ideas you may not care for or that force you to stretch your frame of reference perhaps University isn't the place for you.

[OldGimletEye]

Wage Theft

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/08/the-latest-sign-trumps-labor-department-will-be-nothing-like-obamas/

Quote

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta gave the business community a clear signal this week, rescinding Obama-era guidelines that suggested corporations be held more accountable for franchise workers who don their uniforms.

For decades, franchisers relied on the opposite — that franchisees, who essentially operate as small-businesses owners, are solely liable for the people they hire. The nonbinding Obama-era guidance that inched away from that convention has now vanished from the Labor Department’s website, providing some relief to pro-business circles and irking some worker’s rights groups.

 

Quote

Heidi Ganahl, founder of Camp Bow Wow, a webcam-equipped day care for dogs, said the Labor Department’s thinking tore down the wall between franchiser and franchisee.

“We had 40 people at corporate, and we had 4,000 people working at franchises,” said Ganahl, who sold the day-care business in 2014 but still serves as an adviser. “All of a sudden we had 4,000 employees to manage.”

I haven’t seen the latest movie with Michael Keaton, about Ray Kroc. But, I was told that a key point of the movie, about McDonald’s and Croc’s eventual success, was that McDonald’s standardized everything. And it expected their franchisees to closely adhere to standards.  Now are you fuckin’ tellin me that it’s that difficult for a franchise to take a vigorous stance about wage theft, when it will go to the ends of the earth to make sure that the franchisees uses the right amount of pickles on a hamburger? Like seriously?

Quote

Ganahl added that individual franchise owners had an interest in maintaining good working conditions.

“You just don’t do well in business,” she said, “if you don’t treat them well.”

Now hmm. Wage theft couldn’t possibly be problem, now could it? Not at all.

It would appear that we've found another issue that defines the difference between liberals and conservatives.

[Ormond]

49 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Wow... talk about an entitled student.  If you don't want to be exposed to ideas you may not care for or that force you to stretch your frame of reference perhaps University isn't the place for you.

Can we also note that this student is 59 years old? So much of the discussion of "entitlement" in college students focuses on the supposed negative characteristics of the "millennial" generation. But in my experience and that of other professors at my university, older adult students are just as or even more likely to believe they deserve to get A's just for enrolling for the course and doing a minimal amount of work as traditional age students are. This is a general problem with American culture -- and one that does have a negative impact on our politics.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I'm sharing this just for fun.

An article that could be titled "Conservative student takes her teacher to court because she is too liberal for her taste" :

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/education/2017/06/07/uwsp-student-asks-court-force-poetry-professor-give-her/357759001/

Fun fact, my step-dad's father and step-mom are both professors there.