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U.S. Politics: Girthers Vs. Anti-Girthers


Martell Spy

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Moderates move to break shutdown logjam
Senate centrists are attempting to hatch a compromise to end the government shutdown before the work week begins.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/21/government-shutdown-2018-trump-senate-354113

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Even if McConnell publicly commits to that process, it's unclear how far it would go in securing Democratic votes. Some Democrats said they need to know the House would take action on an immigration bill, too.

“We have to have in our own mind some way to ensure that the House feels a need to bring up the issue as well,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

McConnell and Schumer met at 5 p.m. to discuss the proposal and possible next steps.

Senators from both sides stressed that the next several hours are critical, predicting if a deal isn't reached today, both parties could remain entrenched — and the government shuttered — for days to come.

 


 

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Graham tees off on Stephen Miller over immigration

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/21/government-shutdown-immigration-graham-miller-354747

Graham singled out White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, a pugnacious conservative who has a keen focus on restrictive immigration policy.

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"As long as Stephen Miller is in charge of negotiating immigration, we are going nowhere. He's been an outlier for years," Graham told reporters as he entered a meeting of more than a dozen senators from both parties who have worked since the shutdown began to carve out space for a compromise.

 

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This whole shit show looks a lot like Bush Jr. and Iraq, except that instead of neocons releasing the American military on Iraq, we have Nazis in suits like Miller and Sessions surrounding a befuddled President, running rings around him, and forcing a government shutdown in order to punish 700,000 or so Dreamers.

Now, the point has been made that Trump is a racist, and so none of this should be a surprise that it is going on. This is a fair point, but would the racism really be this virulent If Miller and Sessions weren't in the Administration? Is Trump  a white supremacist at the level of these jokers? Certainly he holds a lot of responsibility, since he is the idiot that brought them in there. Still, it'd be interesting to see if the Trump Presidency was a different thing if these 2 men were gone. In the meantime, the Administration is stuck doing the bidding of the Nazi right.

 

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The latest major developments: a vote scheduled for 1 a.m. Monday morning was canceled, which means the shutdown will extend into the workweek. Instead, the Senate is set to vote at noon on Monday on a plan to fund the government through February 8 – which is expected to fail. And what other non-surprises does Sunday evening have in store? Find out below.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/government-shutdown-liveblog-day-two.html

Government-Shutdown Liveblog, Day Two

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Ok, people, another Trump tell-all book is due to hit the shelves in a week.  Think Trump will try to suppress this one as well?  (though his attempts at suppression had the opposite effect)

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/defiance-disorder-another-new-book-describes-chaos-in-trump-s-white-house/ar-AAv000L?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580

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Sorry for going back to the Daniels thing-- this is the first opportunity I had to respond.

On 1/19/2018 at 5:03 PM, IamMe90 said:

Because many, many political figures have been brought down by just "an affair between two consenting adults" before, and Trump was about to campaign for the highest office in the country? Like, this is so mindbogglingly apparent I don't know how it requires explanation. This NDA was drafted before any of the huge scandals like pussygate broke, and before Trump could possibly know that he'd basically be free of any impunity from such "mundane" scandals as affairs in his political aspirations. 

I'm agreeing with DP on this one. This story ranks so low on Trump's vile-o-meter of conduct that I scant see how it matters. If multiple, actual sexual assault/rape allegations aren't going to bring him down, I don't see why this would. If it does, it's only because people are stupid and like juicy/gossipy headlines, not because the story is any substantively worse than his other conduct. 

On 1/19/2018 at 6:03 PM, Dr. Pepper said:

I realize that I have some dates wrong.  I had thought the NDA came in Oct 2015, but it was actually Oct 2016, really soon before the election.  As we all recall, the polls fluctuated constantly and any news had the power to sway things one way or the other.  Daniels was apparently in talks to discuss the affair to several news sources before she was presented with the NDA.  Considering it was allegedly singed that close to the election, there really is little doubt about the reason why.  I'm sure Trump's team considered the fact that the election was so close that a bit of change was worth it to stop that story from happening so close to election day.  

It wasn't prior to the campaign, though.  It was done in the wake of the pussygate scandal, and numerous other scandals he was fairly immune from.  And that's one of the reasons I find it a little surprising that a simple Trump-porn star affair is "scandal" the campaign team believed required hush money.

Not only had he already been shown to be somewhat immune from mundane scandals like this, Trump's lived his whole life bragging about being a womanizer, playboy, philanderer, etc.  Having sex with a porn star is basically his brand.  Further, I think Trump tends to benefit from a multitude of scandals flying around him at any time b/c it makes it harder for any one to really stick.

That's why I was asking what voting bloc was supposed to care about the affair, and what aspect was the campaign trying to keep under wraps.  The fact of extra-marital sex, the fact that he seemed rather pathetic according to her account, or even some yet-identified aspect that had a political import?  I guess it's safe to guess they were mainly just trying to minimize the extra-marital sex aspect to keep Evangelicals from staying home, not yet realizing the Evangelical capacity for overlooking anything for "god's imperfect vessel."  But then there's his chilling of the In Touch story back in 2011, before anything political that's interesting too.

On 1/19/2018 at 5:39 PM, Dr. Pepper said:

The money seems clear.  He was undertaking a presidential campaign.  I'm willing to bet all my money that his team probably asked him for a bunch of names and went around putting out potential fires.  Probably lots of NDAs were signed.  The money Daniels was paid is sort of chump change if it was something nefarious, don't you think?   

The more curious thing to me is why InTouch didn't publish their interview when they made it.  Perhaps it wasn't newsworthy then.  If that's the case, then why not publish when Trump announced his campaign or anytime between then and the election.  It seems pretty shady to me that InTouch sat on this thing for years for no apparent reason.  There's no reason to think Daniels hadn't moved on from that portion of her life, she might have agreed to the interview in 2011 but who's to say that she agrees in 2018 that it should be published?  It's pretty nasty, imo.  

I thought Trump's lawyer threatened to sue In Touch if they published it.  So he was interested in having this disappear even back then, before he was entertaining political ambitions.   Is it simply because he found it unflattering to his image as a desirable playboy?  It seems really strange that he'd want to chill the story for reasons of keeping his infidelity private, especially given his history leaking to tabloids about his infidelity.  It's probably b/c this story make him look like a loser I'm guessing.

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Eighty-two percent of the money made last year went to the richest 1 percent of the world’s population, according to a report by anti-poverty charity Oxfam. With these numbers, the charity claimed that the gap between the global rich and poor has further increased. “Tax evasion, firms’ influence on policy, erosion of workers’ rights, and cost cutting” were the identified factors that contributed to the growing disparity.

Study: 82% of World’s Money Was Made by the Top 1% Last Year

https://www.thedailybeast.com/study-82-of-worlds-money-was-made-by-the-top-1-last-year

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23 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Study: 82% of World’s Money Was Made by the Top 1% Last Year

https://www.thedailybeast.com/study-82-of-worlds-money-was-made-by-the-top-1-last-year

 

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The report’s release is coincides with the World Economic Forum in Davos, where issues of inequality are discussed but “fade away at the first resistance,” said Goldring.

Yeah, I'm sure the clowns at Davos will talk about it, just before engaging in a big old self congratulatory circle jerk, and then concluding the solution is more "market oriented pro growth policies" or whatever meaningless phrase they will use. 

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7 minutes ago, Mexal said:

This drives me nuts.

Yea, assuming the numbers are correct it really is pretty nuts.  If someone were to come up to me and say that the top 1% wealthiest people in the world made 25% of all the worlds income I would think that seemed a little out of balance.  But 82%?  Holy shit.  The amazing thing to me is how so many in the 99% fight tooth and nail, especially here in the United States, on behalf of that 1%. 

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57 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

 

Yeah, I'm sure the clowns at Davos will talk about it, just before engaging in a big old self congratulatory circle jerk, and then concluding the solution is more "market oriented pro growth policies" or whatever meaningless phrase they will use. 

Well that is one thing Trump will be able to show real leadership on.

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19 minutes ago, S John said:

Yea, assuming the numbers are correct it really is pretty nuts.  If someone were to come up to me and say that the top 1% wealthiest people in the world made 25% of all the worlds income I would think that seemed a little out of balance.  But 82%?  Holy shit.  The amazing thing to me is how so many in the 99% fight tooth and nail, especially here in the United States, on behalf of that 1%. 

Why, these people work hard.  They fuel the rest of the world economy. 

Imagine how the personal shopper industry will suffer without people looking out for their interests.

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39 minutes ago, S John said:

Yea, assuming the numbers are correct it really is pretty nuts.  If someone were to come up to me and say that the top 1% wealthiest people in the world made 25% of all the worlds income I would think that seemed a little out of balance.  But 82%?  Holy shit.  The amazing thing to me is how so many in the 99% fight tooth and nail, especially here in the United States, on behalf of that 1%. 

They don't. The political class does. As long as Congressmen are required to spend 3/5ths of their time fundraising, nothing will change.

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