US Politics: What's a couple hundred billion between friends?

[Guest]

Democrats may have one way out of this, but they'll have to grow a fucking spine for it to work; that ratfucker McConnell wrote a lot of checks that Democrats are going to have to cash: a DACA deal, Murray-Alexander passage, etc. They need to start signaling right now that these things will not pass as long as Republicans keep trying to loot public coffers to give freebies to billionaires. Maybe that will be able to siphon off Flake's and Collins' votes.

[Mexal]

2 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Democrats may have one way out of this, but they'll have to grow a fucking spine for it to work; that ratfucker McConnell wrote a lot of checks that Democrats are going to have to cash: a DACA deal, Murray-Alexander passage, etc. They need to start signaling right now that these things will not pass as long as Republicans keep trying to loot public coffers to give freebies to billionaires. Maybe that will be able to siphon off Flake's and Collins' votes.

Thing is, those things are never going to pass. McConnell/Ryan won't bring them to vote and even if they do get voted on, they won't pass the House. Flake, Collins, Murkowski sold their soul for a bill of goods.

[Shryke]

18 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

No one's gonna argue at this point that you can sway more than a few percent of Repub voters over Thanksgiving Dinner. But the argument is that you can sway a few percent of Repub voters over Thanksgiving Dinner.

Apart from that, pay attention to what Sanders is doing with his time. He is the most popular congressman we have right now. Surely that has to be connected to his endless effort to meet the rurals on their own turf?

Why?

More likely it's because 2016 raised his national profile in a way that's made him the darling of most of the left.

Anyway, look at Virginia and you see that it wasn't these much wanked about "rural voters" who won the day, but suburbanites.

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, Mexal said:

McConnell/Ryan won't bring them to vote

And since that strategy worked so well for bypassing Obama's pick for the SCOTUS they will be happy to try it again and again.           

[Shryke]

6 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Thing is, those things are never going to pass. McConnell/Ryan won't bring them to vote and even if they do get voted on, they won't pass the House. Flake, Collins, Murkowski sold their soul for a bill of goods.

They didn't sell their souls, they just did what they and their donors wanted. They are Republicans. They are not good people. They came to DC to slash taxes for the rich, fuck the poor and loot the country and they got their chance last night and took it. Their reluctance is mostly kabuki theatre and the parts that aren't are overridden by the donors screaming for their ROI.

[Inigima]

I agree that it was beyond stupid of Flake, Collins, and Murkowski to agree to this in exchange for something as ephemeral as promises, if indeed they ever truly wanted those things.

I've read the debate in the last couple of pages about the merits of convincing your friends and family. I'm sorry to say I'm not sure I see its efficacy. None of you guys were convinced to change your views over Thanksgiving dinner, you were convinced by going elsewhere and gaining a wider perspective. Even if you could convince people that way, it's not clear to me that it can be done on any significant scale such that change might be effected sooner than a dozen generations from now.

[Mexal]

Trump isn't the smartest. He just admitted that he knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to back off the investigation (Flynn was fired the day before he asked Comey to back off him).

 

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Trump isn't the smartest. He just admitted that he knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to back off the investigation (Flynn was fired the day before he asked Comey to back off him).

 

I just read that too, what to make of it?  Srsly, Trump is an idiot. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mueller removed an FBI agent on his investigative team for anti-Trump tweets.  

 

[Mexal]

Just now, Nasty LongRider said:

I just read that too, what to make of it?  Srsly, Trump is an idiot. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mueller removed an FBI agent on his investigative team for anti-Trump tweets.  

Yes, over the summer. And it wasn't anti-Trump tweets, it was text messages. Mueller was doing everything to make sure there was no charge of bias. Media will make a meal out of this.

[A True Kaniggit]

27 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I've read the debate in the last couple of pages about the merits of convincing your friends and family. I'm sorry to say I'm not sure I see its efficacy. None of you guys were convinced to change your views over Thanksgiving dinner, you were convinced by going elsewhere and gaining a wider perspective. Even if you could convince people that way, it's not clear to me that it can be done on any significant scale such that change might be effected sooner than a dozen generations from now.

Even if it never does affect elections, shouldn't the effort be made anyways? 

Edit: And we're not talking about convincing people over Thanksgiving dinner. We're talking about family and friends who can be convinced over months 

[Dr. Pepper]

11 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I just read that too, what to make of it?  Srsly, Trump is an idiot. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Mueller removed an FBI agent on his investigative team for anti-Trump tweets.  

 

He's priming his base.  It's like what Don Jr did by releasing all the emails to be 'transparent' and his base ignored the part where he was colluding with Russia and instead shrugged their shoulders and moved on because they hear the word transparency and can't think beyond it.  So now Trump is pretending to be 'transparent' and when charges start raining down on his kin, his base will be all fired up about it being a witch hunt because mr. trump did the right thing, see he even said it!  

This investigation is going to lead to a civil war.  

[Zorral]

21 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

He's priming his base.  It's like what Don Jr did by releasing all the emails to be 'transparent' and his base ignored the part where he was colluding with Russia and instead shrugged their shoulders and moved on because they hear the word transparency and can't think beyond it.  So now Trump is pretending to be 'transparent' and when charges start raining down on his kin, his base will be all fired up about it being a witch hunt because mr. trump did the right thing, see he even said it!  

This investigation is going to lead to a civil war.  

We're already, long already, in a civil war.  They just won.

[Inigima]

56 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Even if it never does affect elections, shouldn't the effort be made anyways? 

Edit: And we're not talking about convincing people over Thanksgiving dinner. We're talking about family and friends who can be convinced over months 

Sure? But I don't see evidence that it works, at least not at a scale that makes any difference.

[Mexal]

Article from the Washington Post today about the ongoings of the Mueller investigation. Worth a read.

Quote

A white sedan whisked a man into the loading dock of a glass and concrete building in a drab office district in Southwest Washington. Security guards quickly waved the vehicle inside, then pushed a button that closed the garage door and shielded the guest’s arrival from public view.

With his stealth morning arrival last week, White House Counsel Donald F. McGahn II became the latest in a string of high-level witnesses to enter the secretive nerve center of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Twenty-hours later, Mueller and his team emerged into public view to rattle Washington with the dramatic announcement that former national security adviser Michael Flynn would plead guilty to lying to the FBI.

The ensnaring of Flynn, the second former aide to President Trump to cooperate with the inquiry, serves as the latest indication that Mueller’s operation is rapidly pursuing an expansive mission, drilling deeper into Trump’s inner circle.

In the past two months, Mueller and his deputies have received private debriefs from two dozen current and former Trump advisers, each of whom has made the trek to the special counsel’s secure office suite.

Witnesses enter the special counsel’s offices through a loading dock at the back of the building. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

Once inside, most witnesses are seated in a windowless conference room where two- and three-person teams of FBI agents and prosecutors rotate in and out, pressing them for answers.

Among the topics that have been of keen interest to investigators: how foreign government officials and their emissaries contacted Trump officials, as well as the actions and interplay of Flynn and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

 

[Paladin of Ice]

3 hours ago, Seli said:

Part of it might be strategy though. They know this plan will cause a deficit, and will use that in the future to attack medicare, social security and the like. Of course that only works when they manage to hang onto power.

Yeah, the old Republican 3 step plan.

Step 1: Swear that you will never cut *insert beloved public program like Social Security or Medicare here*... unless it becomes necessary in the name of fiscal responsibility, that is. (Government does spend too much money, after all.)  Accuse your democratic  opponent of being a ridiculous mudslinger and trying to exploit fears when they say you would do otherwise.

Step 2: As soon as you get elected, work to cut the government revenue stream, either up front through tax cuts or on the back end through things like refusing to adequately staff collection and enforcement agencies like the IRS or the SEC, or ginning up and playing up scandals about them in order to reduce their ability to function.

Step 3: Oh my gosh, there's a deficit between what the government takes in as revenue and has to pay out! Nobody could have possibly predicted this would happen or that it would impair the government's ability to pay bills! (Because it's not like 2 seconds worth of thought could tell you that if somebody got a pay cut at their job, they'd be less able to pay their bills if they didn't make up that lost pay somewhere else.) Well, there's only one thing to do now; cut spending! (Definitely not try to increase revenue, the way someone who got a pay cut might look for a second job or a better paying one.) Man, *insert beloved public program like Social Security or Medicare here* sure does cost a fair bit to run, maybe we ought to look at cutting that... purely in the name of fiscal responsibility, of course, not because we want to take money and healthcare from our beloved parents and grandparents.

Rinse and repeat as needed until Ayn Rand paradise/nightmarish Dickensian hell hole has been achieved.

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Mexal said:

Thing is, those things are never going to pass. McConnell/Ryan won't bring them to vote and even if they do get voted on, they won't pass the House. Flake, Collins, Murkowski sold their soul for a bill of goods.

Well, Murkowski specifically got a big ol' drill to destroy a beautiful nature preserve in her state (which sadly is what she wanted) passed within the bill.  Sure, it's still gotta pass the House, but Senate opposition (e.g. Collins and McCain) was arguably the bigger hurdle that she just cleared.  I'm not sure what Flake got - maybe I missed something?  Don't get why he didn't just vote with Corker, especially since it wouldn't have changed the outcome.  As for Collins, yeah as I said yesterday, the notion the House is gonna pass Alexander-Murray or her bill with Nelson just because Trump and McConnell say so is either incredibly naive or disingenuous.

1 hour ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Even if it never does affect elections, shouldn't the effort be made anyways? 

Edit: And we're not talking about convincing people over Thanksgiving dinner. We're talking about family and friends who can be convinced over months 

There are a number of studies identifying a contagion effect on certain issues between family members, albeit these usually focus on homosexuals or minorities - don't recall any changing views on economic issues.  Plus, we know that family is by far the most important aspect of an individual's political socialization (with education a distant second), so it's certainly worth a try.  However, don't think much can be done about neighbors or friends - unless the latter are really close, in which case they're functionally family anyway.  The internet ate the idea of social capital.

More importantly, there's nothing productive to be had by being a dick towards and calling your family members terrible people.  Of course that's not going to do anything to change their minds.  All it does is make the person doing so feel better about themselves if they strangely feel like it's righteous and a social imperative, which seems to be a psychological defect in and of itself.

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I mean, it seems like the constitutional crisis is knocking, doesn't it?  Mueller has to have some serious goods on either Trump Jr. Kushner, Pence, or Trump Sr, or all of them.  

Indeed.  If you accept the premise that Flynn flipped on a bigger target, which seems apparent, then the only question is who is that target or targets.  Other than the four names above, I'm hard pressed to think of anyone that's plausible.  Maybe Bannon?  Don't really think the Preebs qualifies as a bigger target, nor Conway, Hicks etc. that compose (or composed) the staff inner-circle.  Obviously Ivanka, but like Bannon, that would certainly come out of nowhere - and Pence would surprise me as well.

[Morpheus]

A constitutional crisis does not matter to Republicans, they will excuse away almost anything Mueller may potentially find. When Republican lawmakers are asked about any developments in the investigation, Flynn included, they sort of shrug their shoulders. It is merely a procedural formality, they do not let on that it could be a major problem.

[Shryke]

The US is already undergoing multiple constitutional crises. Has been for years. It just turns out if you pretend they don't exist, the government shambles on anyway.

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

A constitutional crisis does not matter to Republicans, they will excuse away almost anything Mueller may potentially find. When Republican lawmakers are asked about any developments in the investigation, Flynn included, they sort of shrug their shoulders. It is merely a procedural formality, they do not let on that it could be a major problem.

Well, obviously indicting Junior and/or Kushner is not a constitutional crisis on its own.  What would be is Trump's anticipated response - either pardoning them, reenacting the Saturday Night Massacre to eventually fire Mueller, or both.  How Republicans react to such actions is certainly conditional on a number of factors, but regardless those actions constitute (heh) a constitutional crisis.