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US Politics: Russian Roulette Republican Style


Fragile Bird

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3 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

I think it's pretty clear that Jr. took the meeting with the Russian lawyer as a member of the Trump campaign.  There hasn't been any attempt to claim that Jr. was acting on his own behalf for personal reasons, and such a claim would be unbelievable anyway given the nature of the meeting.  So the client in this case would be the Trump campaign, which includes both Trump Sr. and Trump Jr.

I'm not sure what your point is here.  The implication seems to be that anyone within the Trump campaign can claim privilege when conversing with the entirety of the rest of the Trump campaign as long as there is an attorney present.  If that's your argument, I don't care that I'm not a lawyer, because it's downright silly.

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38 minutes ago, mormont said:

What you're not accounting for there is that Trump does not care about the last bit at all. He will tell any lie, spin any tale, brazen any incredible story and not show any conern about how politically dangerous it is. 

Sure, but what I don't think he'll do is unnecessarily implicate himself in that infamous meeting, which is what I was referring to.  Even if Junior was in serious trouble, I wonder if he'd put himself at risk.  That's actually a pretty interesting question - to what extent do you think Trump would expose himself (heh) to protect his children?

Edit:  Allow me to add one crucial caveat - Trump may well unwittingly implicate himself in a Tweetstorm that could be happening as I type this considering the timing.  That's something no one can predict.  But I think there's a distinction.

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27 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

While he probably believes what he's saying to a certain degree, I imagine that he is also emphasizing the 'pain of the rurals' narrative just in case he runs in 2020. It makes a lot of sense. He could concievably be the one guy to unite a bunch of working-class fly-over staters and a ton of progressive liberals into one base.

Lol he won't unite them. 

 

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8 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Well, I think it's a number of things.  First, they are counting on many of their broad constituency to not care about this bill, or at least either not care or be ill-informed on its details - while obviously the bill is servicing those that care very much about the details.  That's not a totally out-there expectation.  Second, I do think they genuinely think this will help - in the short term.  As has been mentioned on this thread - the benefits to most voters are frontloaded (while they are punished in later years), and I'm strongly suspect most GOP elites drink their own koolaid and think this will help the economy short term.

As for not just passing a broad tax cut - that's something I openly wondered early in the process as well.  However, it's clear now their main goal is to make the corporate rate cuts permanent, and to do so that meant extracting revenue from everybody else.   

Except that it's not permanent. Passing something in a rushed manner, while barely controlling the Senate Isn't exactly a recipe for permanence. It's an opening bid and we may not know if it's permanent for another 5 to 10 years. They've also expanded the sloppy and rushed use of reconciliation, making it more likely the same process will get used on them. It's not an overnight destruction of reconciliation, but if one side can abuse it, the other can. 

Maybe I'm wrong and it will work out for them. It just seems like a quick cash grab to me, and perhaps a hope that they'll make some of the cuts permanent, in particular the estate tax.

Plus, polling seems to indicate that Democrats won the messaging war on this. People are aware of what this bill is in broad strokes. Of course this is helped by the fact that it's not that hard to understand that lower corporate and estate taxes are not going to help the longshoreman or Walmart worker.

Of course they do have the Presidency for at least 4 years, so perhaps they are relying on veto power.

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32 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

Unite as in create a policy platform that'll satisfy everyone throughout a first term? No.

Unite as in steal a meaningful number of Obama > Trump voters on top of the progressive vote? Absolutely.

Lol what ever you say.  I know quite a lot of progressive voters have an issue with his tone deaf bullshit of pushing that false economic anxiety narrative and how he has no issue tossing the marginalized aside for white votes. He'll toss reproductive rights aside, he'll toss the lgbtq community aside, and he obviously doesn't care too much about people of color, which is why they shunned him and went with Clinton over him. 

Quite honestly, I hope he doesn't run in 2020. He'll lose because he sucks at campaigning and we could use new blood over a never was Dem come lately brosocialist half measure. 


 

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11 minutes ago, Sword of Doom said:

Lol what ever you say.  I know quite a lot of progressive voters have an issue with his tone deaf bullshit of pushing that false economic anxiety narrative and how he has no issue tossing the marginalized aside for white votes. He'll toss reproductive rights aside, he'll toss the lgbtq community aside, and he obviously doesn't care too much about people of color, which is why they shunned him and went with Clinton over him. 

Quite honestly, I hope he doesn't run in 2020. He'll lose because he sucks at campaigning and we could use new blood over a never was Dem come lately brosocialist half measure. 

Yes, someone who marched with MLK, has a 100% pro-choice voting record and who fought for LGBT rights since the early 1970s is a "Dem come lately brosocialist half measure". Meanwhile, a former Goldwater Girl, a former president of college Young Republicans, who supported Defense of Marriage Act and referred to black teenagers as "superpredators" is a lifelong progressive Democrat.

In other news, we have always been at war with Eurasia.

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23 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Except that it's not permanent. Passing something in a rushed manner, while barely controlling the Senate Isn't exactly a recipe for permanence. It's an opening bid and we may not know if it's permanent for another 5 to 10 years. They've also expanded the sloppy and rushed use of reconciliation, making it more likely the same process will get used on them. It's not an overnight destruction of reconciliation, but if one side can abuse it, the other can. 

What I meant is statutorily they needed to find a way to make the corporate cuts permanent under reconciliation by making it revenue neutral after the 10 year limit (to satisfy the Byrd rule), and the Senate bill did - in large part by eventually raising taxes for most Americans and of course the mandate repeal.  Think it's a given I'm with you that it should not be permanent, the Dems should run on it until they do it.

32 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Plus, polling seems to indicate that Democrats won the messaging war on this. People are aware of what this bill is in broad strokes. Of course this is helped by the fact that it's not that hard to understand that lower corporate and estate taxes are not going to help the longshoreman or Walmart worker.

I did not mean to give the impression that I believe or in any way agree with any of the post I made that you're responding to.  Disagree with just about everything I said.  I was simply trying to put on a GOP hat and explain their rationale.  Dangerous game, I know.

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3 hours ago, denstorebog said:

 

You'd be surprised how, on progressive sites like Daily Kos, such a small notch in such an impressive streak is enough to send a lot of people packing and running for the hills. "The blue wave is not happening after all! Now we have nothing left!"

That reminds me of a quote I read  from a pollster who worked for candidates of both parties --"When you tell Republicans they're losing, they want to kill you. When you tell Democrats they're losing, they want to kill themselves."

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3 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

If Trump is impeached and is either removed from office or resigns after 7 years as president, does that make him the anti-Christ?

Oh heavens no. The anti-Christ will be a charismatic figure who almost everyone except evangelical Christians loves and supports who will build a world government.

There is actually a speculation in "religious right" circles that God manipulated a win for Trump precisely so he could be later removed from office and the godly Pence would be president and make everything right (in all the meanings of "right.")

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1 minute ago, Ormond said:

Oh heavens no. The anti-Christ will be a charismatic figure who almost everyone except evangelical Christians loves and supports who will build a world government.

There is actually a speculation in "religious right" circles that God manipulated a win for Trump precisely so he could be later removed from office and the godly Pence would be president and make everything right (in all the meanings of "right.")

Pretty accurate description of the Biblical anti-Christ. And given that description, you can imagine why so many evangelicals suspected Obama of being that person. He was so loved by the world that he won the Nobel Peace Prize just for being elected. And he tried to build bridges with the world as much as any US president has in the modern era, moving us along to a One World Government.

Anyway, it obviously wasn't him, given that he is no longer in power. But someone like Obama is very much a perfect candidate for the Anti-Christ. Not someone like Hitler, Napoleon or Trump. Although my understanding is that he is supposed to originate somewhere in Europe, rather than the US.

Anyway, not the thread for a detailed discussion on this, but something that is quite interesting nonetheless.

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2 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

Lol what ever you say.  I know quite a lot of progressive voters have an issue with his tone deaf bullshit of pushing that false economic anxiety narrative and how he has no issue tossing the marginalized aside for white votes. He'll toss reproductive rights aside, he'll toss the lgbtq community aside, and he obviously doesn't care too much about people of color, which is why they shunned him and went with Clinton over him. 

If this is what they believe on the planet you're from, I hope your kind don't make up too big a portion of the electorate, or we're fucking doomed.

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Today In;

The self congratulating circle jerking, stupidity, and cruelty of Republicans and the Republican Party.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/house-republicans-welfare-restrictions-are-needed-for-the-economy-to-grow/

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Some House Republicans believe that Congress should cut Americans off government anti-poverty programs in part to help grow the national economy.

 

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For us to achieve 3 percent GDP growth over the next 10 years from tax reform, we have to have welfare reform. We need people who are mentally and physically able to work to get into the workforce,” Rep. Rod Blum (R-Iowa) said. “In my district, a lot of employers can’t find employees ... Sometimes we need to force people to go to work.”

Now, wait, I thought the Republican corporate tax bill was sold on its own merits and had nothing to do with “welfare reform”. But anyway, supposing there isn’t welfare reform, what would your projections of growth be then? 2.8% 2.5%? Could you please give us an estimate of this?

And why, oh why, to believe “welfare reform” is going to increase the supply of labor that much? Could it be that many of the recipients that receive medicaid, snap, etc. wouldn’t be able to work anyway? Could it be that many able bodied people that receive this stuff do work? And you know if your corporate taxes raise wages the way you say, then some people probably ought to be drawn into the labor force anyway.

Anyway, these employers you talked to? Did it ever cross your mind, that perhaps you should have suggested to them to raise their wages? I mean Republicans are fans of markets, are they not? Perhaps the real problem here is some of these employers you talk too are just cheap skates and think they should get whatever quantity labor they would like at the wage they would like to give. Perhaps people are getting better jobs in other sectors or maybe they are trying to do better than take some crapola job. I mean heaven forbid labor taking advantage of a market that might be turning in their favor. Certainly employers wouldn’t do such a thing. Oh wait they did for years.

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Other House Republicans similarly argued that there would be “no excuses” for poor Americans to need welfare once economic growth took hold. “Once we light this economy up, my brother, there’s going to be jobs for everybody. So there will be no excuses for anyone who can work to sit at home and not work,” Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said. “If we pass tax reform, we have to have welfare reform. When you have a vibrant economy, there’s no reason for Americans to suffer on welfare.”

Republicans like to talk about themselves as if they are the pro bowl team of economic growth, when the truth is they are more like a bunch of back benchers on the local highschool JV team.

Where oh where does all this trash talk come from? It certainly isn’t in any historical data.

Any Republicans want to defend this conservative trash talk?

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President Trump and top Republican officials have signaled prioritizing welfare cuts, including new restrictions on who can receive benefits like food stamps, housing assistance and direct cash welfare for the poor.

Beat up on the vulnerable and helpless. That’s what Republicans do.

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But many economists note research that contradicts that conviction, and they say America's social safety net is too small to play a major role in constraining economic growth.

Yeah, the idea that you're going to expand the supply of labor significantly by “welfare reform” is pretty shady. This isn’t about that. It’s about handing more cash to the rich and dog whistles.
 

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At a recent speech in Missouri in which he vowed new welfare restrictions, Trump said that “the person who is not working at all and has no intention of working at all is making more money and doing better than the person that's working his [or] her ass off.”

Yeah, this is mostly a figment of your conservative imagination. And I’m doubtful that your “reforms” won’t hit people that don’t meet this conservative bogeyman.

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One program congressional Republicans have already said they want to target is food stamps, which 41.3 million Americans currently receive. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have introduced legislation to add new work requirements to food stamps, and a poverty blueprint released last year by Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) calls for the same.

I think a lot of Republican clowns believe that we spend trillions of dollars on SNAP. The reality is that out of a total federal budget of around 3.8 trillion dollars, we spend somewhere between the 70-80 billion dollar range. That’s literally nothing considering the size of the budget. And spending on it is falling as the economy improves. During the economic crises conservatives spent an enormous amount of time complaining about food stamp usage, but what the hell else would they expect when unemployment was high?

I do not  know why conservatives get so much sand in their crotch over this. Oh wait, I think I do. Most likely it’s probably a racist dog whistle.

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Republicans have also said that they want to impose new work requirements on the direct welfare payment program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. That idea is included in the Lee-Jordan proposal, which would add work requirements to get who they call the “completely idle” to work.

Yeah, the US government spends about 16.5 billion dollars out of a 3.8 trillion dollar budget just to put this in perspective, about TANF. But again, a lot of Republican clowns probably believe that TANF is real budget buster.

Likely the real problem with TANF is that states don’t spend enough money and resources on helping unemployed people to find work. If Republican clowns are that concerned about people not working because of TANF, then maybe what they really ought to do is increase the amount of money to TANF and then mandate that the states use the money to help unemployed workers find jobs. It’s not exactly a secret, that given the block grant nature of TANF, a feature which conservatives pushed, that states haven’t often used the money for the purposes that TANF was created.

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Congressional Republicans have also floated long-term reductions in spending on Social Security and Medicare, though that would violate Trump's campaign pledges. They have also discussed imposing work requirements on Medicaid, although doing so would elicit fierce partisan opposition and would also violate Trump's campaign not to touch the health insurance program that primarily benefits the poor.

And now we get to the big prize that conservative clowns have always been gunning for. Would Republicans and conservative clowns just admit they are going after the house FDR and LBJ built because you just don’t like it cause it goes it against your fucked up “conservative values”. And really all the talk of “fiscal responsibility” is just a smoke screen. Will a Republican clown answer this truthfully?

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15 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Pretty accurate description of the Biblical anti-Christ. And given that description, you can imagine why so many evangelicals suspected Obama of being that person. He was so loved by the world that he won the Nobel Peace Prize just for being elected. And he tried to build bridges with the world as much as any US president has in the modern era, moving us along to a One World Government.

Anyway, it obviously wasn't him, given that he is no longer in power. But someone like Obama is very much a perfect candidate for the Anti-Christ. Not someone like Hitler, Napoleon or Trump. Although my understanding is that he is supposed to originate somewhere in Europe, rather than the US.

Anyway, not the thread for a detailed discussion on this, but something that is quite interesting nonetheless.

A more accurate description of the boogeyman for evangelicals would be "a good leader who he probably not white or male or straight and who seeks to make positive changes for others, especially the disadvantaged."

Obama's race was why so many religious nutjobs didn't like him and called him the anti-christ.  Period.

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Another likely conservative created disaster. Net neutrality edition.

https://promarket.org/will-repeal-net-neutrality-accelerate-trend-media-consolidation-history-cable-suggests-yes/

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The history of cable and cable programming strongly suggests that without specific FCC safeguards, we can expect a massive “arms race” by providers to vertically integrate and to discriminate against unaffiliated services. From what we have seen so far in the broadband market, we can expect this history to repeat itself once the FCC deregulates broadband.

 

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4 hours ago, dmc515 said:

I'm not sure what your point is here.  The implication seems to be that anyone within the Trump campaign can claim privilege when conversing with the entirety of the rest of the Trump campaign as long as there is an attorney present.  If that's your argument, I don't care that I'm not a lawyer, because it's downright silly.

Yeah, that logic doesn’t make a ton of sense, and it would set an incredibly dangerous prescient. Plus I am anti-@Mudguard this week. The evil jerk had to go and score 170 points and leapfrog me to steal my playoff bye in W-C. :tantrum:

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I have the news shows on this morning and the number of times these conservatives say "deep state" without being stopped to explain their conspiracy theory is mind boggling.  Corey Lewandoski said "Deep state" probably 25 times in a two minute segment.  What the fuck is with these people.  

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9 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

Just last week, Trump used Deep State in a tweet.

And the pitch for that private spy program mentions protection from theDeep State

Everything is stupid

God bleths the United Sthasheths

Just once I'd like a journalist to stop the conversation and say "Um, you aren't on Alex Jones's show, stop peddling your conspiracy theories here."

Or better yet maybe they stop to point out that the Republicans meet the criteria for deep state considering they have been so terrified of losing their demographic relevance that they've worked to strip rights from women (better to have them too busy raising unwanted babies than voting), remove the voting power of minorities (closest they can get to going back to their good old days where blacks couldn't vote at all), or ruining the economy so anyone who wouldn't vote for them will be too tired working to keep abreast of current events and regularly vote.

These people are so fucking nuts.  Horrific scum.  

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38 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I have the news shows on this morning and the number of times these conservatives say "deep state" without being stopped to explain their conspiracy theory is mind boggling.  Corey Lewandoski said "Deep state" probably 25 times in a two minute segment.  What the fuck is with these people.  

It makes me wonder, if lying becomes acceptable and the norm, do people inevitably turn into compulsive liars?

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