U.S. Politics: The Ideas of Mueller

[Larry of the Lawn]

23 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You all have been hearing that Cynthia Nixon, who played a lawyer on TV, namely Sex and the City, was planning to challenge Cuomo for the Dem nomination for governor of NY.  Just now she's announcing the challenge officially.

She's been progressively more activist in matters of our city, particularly in the fields of education, transportation over the last few years.  She's been a guest, and a guest host on the public radio station fairly regularly.

As far as I know, she has no management experience of any kind in any field.  But then -- that didn't stop the long yet squat orangeade from believing in himself perfectly competent to run the whole USA.  She does take public transportation regularly, she has kids in public school, she's deeply familiar with all the issues LGBT and women face.  Through her own non-profit and charitable work -- as well as being a part of theater, film-television (both of which are huge industries in NYC), publishing and art circles she does know a lot about organizations and problems of all kinds. Still, I dunno.  She knows NYC yes, but the rest of the state is very different than NYC.

 

 

 

 

If she keeps Cuomo honest as far as representing the more left-leaning factions of the electorate she's doing us a huge service.  Cuomo has tacked left of late, and Nixon has an uphill battle.  I'd like to see an ugly primary that demonstrated Cuomo would be a poor presidential candidate, because he's definitely got that in his sights.  Let him be content with being the governor of NY and having a reminder that he's got to represent his electorate and not corporations.  

I hope she gives him a good fight.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

51 minutes ago, Ormond said:

We should start a separate thread on heart disease risk if this continues much farther.

But those photos don't show a morbidly obese person. And obesity is only a risk factor in terms of heart disease because it is a risk factor for hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes. If one's heredity is such that obesity does NOT lead to one of those three things, being fat by itself doesn't increase risk of heart attacks. Even being morbidly obese doesn't independently increase risk of atherosclerosis, which leads to what we normally think of as a heart attack. (Morbid obesity increases risk of congestive heart failure on its own, but that's not the same thing as a "heart attack".)

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/severe_obesity_revealed_as_a_stand_alone_high_risk_factor_for_heart_failure

Trump actually DOES have a cholesterol problem and takes cholesterol lowering drugs. He also has a fairly high calcium level in his blood, which is associated with heart attack risk. However, his nonsmoking and his heredity (his father lived to 93 and his mother to 88) combine with those factors to put his risk at about average for an American man of his age:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/17/health/trump-heart-disease-gupta/index.html

As a psychologist I agree that the combination of a stressful job with his hostile personality is a definite risk factor. But in political terms I don't think that makes his risk high enough for anybody to count on it as a factor in the country's political future the next few years. 

 

I didn’t intend for this to become so serious. Aren’t we allowed to set aside academics from time to time and put on our party hats and ride the mechanical bull?

On a side note, I thought he used to some cigars.

Either way, if he has a heart attack while in office, you owe me a Coke. And not one of those cheap ones. I drink nothing less than the Mexican style Coke!

 

[DMC]

27 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I feel like it's gotta be Grab Em By the *****.

I dunno, I could see Clinton surviving that.  Don't think anyone would really be surprised, hell I think most suspect he has said something to that effect - even in 1992.  Granted, he'd need more time to recover and/or have Comey come to the rescue like with Trump.

11 minutes ago, The Wedge said:

The moment in the campaign when he pantomimed a reporter with disabilities. 

Yeah this still disgusts me more than almost anything else he's done.  If we're talking campaign stuff, publicly encouraging the Russians to hack his opponent's emails would have killed any Democrat, full stop.

[Week]

5 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I dunno, I could see Clinton surviving that.  Don't think anyone would really be surprised, hell I think most suspect he has said something to that effect - even in 1992.  Granted, he'd need more time to recover and/or have Comey come to the rescue like with Trump.

Clinton was hurt by this:

Quote

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” Clinton said. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.

Charlottesville, Muslim Ban, The Wall ... I'd say she underestimated. The grossest consequence is those that have leaned into the deplorable label -- as if there is pride in being racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. He truly has lifted them up and it has damaged our country.

[Maithanet]

21 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I dunno, I could see Clinton surviving that.  Don't think anyone would really be surprised, hell I think most suspect he has said something to that effect - even in 1992.  Granted, he'd need more time to recover and/or have Comey come to the rescue like with Trump.

Which Clinton and which election are we talking about?  I doubt that Bill saying something horrible would torpedo Hillary's candidacy (although it would hurt).  But if a VIDEO of Clinton bragging about committing sexual assault came out in 1992?  I think he would have been toast. 

[Jace, Extat]

7 minutes ago, Week said:

Clinton was hurt by this:

Charlottesville, Muslim Ban, The Wall ... I'd say she underestimated. The grossest consequence is those that have leaned into the deplorable label -- as if there is pride in being racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, etc. He truly has lifted them up and it has damaged our country.

I think that was sexism.

Men who hate women hate seeing women get over on men.

And women who hate women hate seeing women get over on men too.

Add those up and you've got a basket of less than 63 million votes.

[Ice Queen]

6 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Which Clinton and which election are we talking about?  I doubt that Bill saying something horrible would torpedo Hillary's candidacy (although it would hurt).  But if a VIDEO of Clinton bragging about committing sexual assault came out in 1992?  I think he would have been toast. 

Hillary would have been toast, too, because of course the wife is always responsible for the behavior of her man. Trump even paraded Bill's accusers at a debate and his base ate it up. 

[Jace, Extat]

2 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Hillary would have been toast, too, because of course the wife is always responsible for the behavior of her man. Trump even paraded Bill's accusers at a debate and his base ate it up. 

Phil Mudd went on a rant on CNN on Friday I think about the still existing notion that a woman can't have a life independent of her husband. It started about Andrew McCabe, but once he got going he was unstoppable.

I adore that guy. I normally don't deal with pigs, but I'd make an exception for that dude.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

If she keeps Cuomo honest as far as representing the more left-leaning factions of the electorate she's doing us a huge service.  Cuomo has tacked left of late, and Nixon has an uphill battle.  I'd like to see an ugly primary that demonstrated Cuomo would be a poor presidential candidate, because he's definitely got that in his sights.  Let him be content with being the governor of NY and having a reminder that he's got to represent his electorate and not corporations.  

I hope she gives him a good fight.

 

There's also the current NYC mayor,  who would like to run Cuomo out of Albany.  De Blasio is surely not happy about Nixon's run.  I'd rather she'd challenge De Blasio for mayor -- and push him further out of the thrall of his real estate cronies.  But one has the sense, based on nothing solid at all, merely the way the people I know -- who aren't necessarily representative of the city as a whole, though they are representative of certain groups, particularly downtown -- and uptown too -- that she could have a successful NYC mayorship. 

One also feels she'd have an effective campaign team, and people she could appoint to various agencies and offices -- she knows a LOT of people, and a LOT of NYers know her, personally, and even more who feel they know her. 

I like her -- I just am dubious about a successful campaign for Governor, even if she got the nomination.  And feel she'd get eaten alive in Albany.  The more one reads of Albany in the various political eras -- woo.  Eleanor Roosevelt saw it from the inside, as a woman, and is it ever anti-woman -- but all politics are, pretty much.  But she's willing to put herself through that to help change it, and change will take far longer than anyone ever dreamed -- even Eleanor Roosevelt, who thought it would take a long time.

Cuomo's accumulated a lot ill will via corruption, and a fair number of NYers don't like him.  He and the mayor don't get along, but a lot of NYC voters don't like the mayor either, and for the same reasons that Cuomo's been collecting crony corruption baggage.  But then, at least when it comes to state politics and politicians the Empire State can't claim #2 for crony corruption and cozy control of the entire pie, and that goes back to colonial days, and even the days when the Dutch owned the colony.  Making sense of politics and the history of same requires the same degree of time, attention and digging, digging, digging as do the thousand years of the eastern Roman empire until 1453.

[DMC]

26 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Which Clinton and which election are we talking about?  I doubt that Bill saying something horrible would torpedo Hillary's candidacy (although it would hurt).  But if a VIDEO of Clinton bragging about committing sexual assault came out in 1992?  I think he would have been toast. 

I was talking about Bill.  I don't think he'd be toast in 92 and certainly not in 96.  He didn't dub himself the comeback kid for nothing.

[Jace, Extat]

7 minutes ago, Zorral said:

There's also the current NYC mayor,  who would like to run Cuomo out of Albany.  De Blasio is surely not happy about Nixon's run.  I'd rather she'd challenge De Blasio for mayor -- and push him further out of the thrall of his real estate cronies.  But one has the sense, based on nothing solid at all, merely the way the people I know -- who aren't necessarily representative of the city as a whole, though they are representative of certain groups, particularly downtown -- and uptown too.

Cuomo's accumulated a lot ill will via corruption, and a fair number of NYers don't like him.  He and the mayor don't get along, but a lot of NYC voters don't like the mayor either, and for the same reasons that Cuomo's been collecting crony corruption baggage.  But then, at least when it comes to state politics and politicians the Empire State can't claim #2 for crony corruption and cozy control of the entire pie, and that goes back to colonial days, and even the days when the Dutch owned the colony.  Making sense of politics and the history of same requires the same degree of time, attention and digging, digging, digging as do the thousand years of the eastern Roman empire until 1453.

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

I want Two Corinthians Trump to just flatly state one day "I am an atheist", would be interesting to if his numbers dip at all after that. I suspect not, at this point I quite honestly believe there is nothing he can do that will peel off those numbers.

[The Wedge]

10 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I want Two Corinthians Trump to just flatly state one day "I am an atheist", would be interesting to if his numbers dip at all after that. I suspect not, at this point I quite honestly believe there is nothing he can do that will peel off those numbers.

Nope. He's the "imperfect vessel" and will get mulligan after mulligan after mulligan.

Three things he could do to torpedo his base: 1) Declare himself pro-choice. 2) Actually stand up to the NRA. 3) Amnesty for undocumented immigrants. These would have to be backed by some executive order to put teeth into them.  These are the things his base cares about and would surely abandon ship in numbers.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

Right, that's why I said "direct effect."  I choose my words carefully!  ...sometimes - although obviously not enough for Ormond. 

I don't think you're playing your own game correctly.  Needs more specificity.

This is why I posed the question though. Five people have given their opinion and they gave five different answers, and nobody has mentioned his comments about Mexicans, which would be one of my step-brothers’ answers. It just goes to show that he’s done so many things that no other politician could get away with. I’m curious why that is. Are people that mad at the establishment that they’re willing to just flip the board over and see what happens?   

[Mexal]

So many lawsuits. Stormy Daniels. Karen McDougal. And now, Summer Zervos' defamation case is going to court.

And, with the SCOTUS refusing to take up the PA Congressional Map case, they have officially filed legislation for impeachment.

 

[Jace, Extat]

You should buy a nice love story about a rabbit who falls in love with another rabbit.

All proceeds go to the Trevor Project and Aids United.

The book was also written specifically to undercut and humiliate the bunny book that Mike Pence is selling. So that's an extra reason to buy.

https://betterbundobook.com/

[LongRider]

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I feel like it's gotta be Grab Em By the *****. 

The only defense possible of that is "well, he's a scumbag, but...", and yet people were willing to elect him Scumbag in Chief. 

One thing about that Pussy tape, the woman he bragged about chasing, but didn't catch.   Later it came out that he made crude comments about her weight and body size when she became pregnant (with her husband) .

Secpulation; what if Stormy has him on tape or texts complaining to his paramour about his wife's pregnancy and it's effect her body to Stormy? 

That could have some possible blowback plus be horrible humiliation of Melania.  He's cheated on his pg wife which continued after the child was born.  Pretty low down behavior for most folks. 

[Jace, Extat]

8 minutes ago, Mexal said:

So many lawsuits. Stormy Daniels. Karen McDougal. And now, Summer Zervos' defamation case is going to court.

And, with the SCOTUS refusing to take up the PA Congressional Map case, they have officially filed legislation for impeachment.

 

So are they gonna be able to do it?

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, Mexal said:

And, with the SCOTUS refusing to take up the PA Congressional Map case, they have officially filed legislation for impeachment.

Looks like 12 co-sponsors.  Pennsylvania, stayin classy.

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

So are they gonna be able to do it?

Fuck if I know, but the GOP has the exactly numbers to in the Senate (and, obviously, in the House).  It's 34 GOP and 16 Dem.  They would need 34 votes to convict.