U. S. Politics: A noun, a verb and no collusion.

[LongRider]

2 hours ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

Saw this and just thought it will be good to share.

 

 

Awesome!   Jane Goodall has him pegged.

[LongRider]

 

Trump should have added, but didn't "Hostile work environment? That's feature, a beautiful, beautiful feature, not a bug.  Believe me."

[Martell Spy]

Europe Reveals Its Latest Strategy for Managing Trump

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/europe-reveals-its-latest-strategy-for-managing-trump.html

Quote

Merkel’s job is to close with the larger economic and security context. She is, at least in theory, Trump’s fellow conservative; Germany’s public opinion is considerably more negative toward Trump than is France’s, so Merkel has nothing to lose and perhaps something to gain at home by talking tough. Europeans are looking to her to tell Trump what the costs of a dissolved Iran deal, and an escalating trade war, would be. German diplomats were heard saying before the trip that Macron is the show horse, while Merkel is the work horse. 

 

[Martell Spy]

How Trump botched the Ronny Jackson nomination

Republicans see the VA nominee mess as a distillation of the problems with the president’s management style.

 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/24/trump-gop-management-flaws-va-green-547917

Quote

 

Jackson’s trouble may also signal a new front in the war inside the White House. Aides who‘ve come to realize they can’t control the president have taken to leaking negative information about advisers, Cabinet members and Cabinet nominees in hopes they can shape the president's personnel decisions — or torpedo them entirely — through the news media.

A handful of White House insiders speculated that such a leaking campaign was afoot against Jackson, whose nomination rattled West Wing advisers and was opposed by nearly every senior White House staffer.

 

 

[OldGimletEye]

13 hours ago, LongRider said:

GOP: Dem's will abort the next MLK, but if he is born we'll be sure to suppress his vote when he comes of age.    Ok, I think I got it. 

That and if the future MLK were concerned about the use of police force against minorities and let’s say he joined an organization to address those real concerns, conservatives rather than taking the matter seriously and being engaged about the matter would simply declare blue lives matter, and then take their conservative balls and go to their conservative homes, and generally, act like a bunch of spoiled brats.

Anyway, I hope my post this morning didn’t come off as lectury or disagreeing with what you were saying, but I was merely adding to it, as I’m often frustrated by how conservatives, in order to exonerate their shennigans, often pull the “liberals are the real racist” card and use whatever convoluted argument to justify the claim. I’m sure you, along with many others are quite aware of this phenomenon, but some may not, which I was trying to elaborate on.  Being somebody that grew up in the midwest and is of appalachian descent from both sides of my family, it’s fair to say I know more than my fair share of Republicans and conservative sorts of people. You might say I have the lived experience of a liberal briar. And I have heard the liberals are the real racist meme more than I care to. And making it worse, certain conservative “intellectuals” like to flame this bullshit, like say Jonah Shitbird. He’s not wrong of course that the progressive movement has often fallin down on issues of civil rights and race. But the difference I’d suggest to people like Shitbird is that when liberals or progressive do fall down on the issue they are much more likely to try to pick themselves up from the ground and do better, while conservatives haven fallin’ down make no serious effort to do better and instead focus on past progressive failures on civil rights, while completely ignoring their own set of issues and screw ups, justifying the liberals are the real racists meme.

[LongRider]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Any, I hope my post this morning didn’t come off as lectury or disagreeing with what you were saying, but I was merely adding to it,

If you're talking to me, no, I didn't feel lectured or that you were being disagreeable.  What I like about this thread is as tough as the racial  talk here is sometimes, it's important to hear people's views and takes.  I've lived in mostly a 'white' world and having people who haven't, or people like yourself  come from more overt racism than what I've experienced allows me to get some insight, and that's valuable to me.  

 

5 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

 Being somebody that grew up in the midwest and is of appalachian descent from both sides of my family, it’s fair to say I know more than my fair share of Republicans and conservative sorts of people.

While I have many liberal folks in my family, not all of them are, and the lack of self awareness of their racism saddens me.  I have a niece who became a cop about 7 years ago and her slide into racism and also a growing distaste for poor white people "white trash' is awful to see. So keep talking, you and the others, I'm listening.

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, LongRider said:

If you're talking to me, no, I didn't feel lectured or that you were being disagreeable.  

Okay, good. When I wrote that post in response to your post, I thought later maybe that I had come off as fundamentally disagreeing with what you said or that I was being lectury towards you, which wasn't my intent.

[LongRider]

12 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Okay, good. When I wrote that post in response to your post, I thought later maybe that I had come off as fundamentally disagreeing with what you said or that I was being lectury towards you, which wasn't my intent.

Thanks OGE, you're the best.   

[Crazydog7]

6 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

So, basically what Lyndon Johnson said fifty years ago about dumb white people letting you pick their pocket as long as they get to feel superior to black people.

 

He was alot of things but LBJ was first and foremost a politician for the most part an effective one.  As far as a "southern strategy" goes it isn't exactly a new idea.  Love me i'm a liberal was saying it way back in 1967.  Rich people have always stayed on top by dividing iwhite people from people of color. 

[Martell Spy]

Mick Mulvaney Tells Bankers to Pay Up If They Want Favors From Trump

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/mulvaney-tells-bankers-pay-up-if-you-want-favors-from-trump.html

Quote

That’s not even the scandalous part! The scandalous part is that Mulvaney asked the executives and lobbyists to donate more money, and told them the more they donated, the more influence they would have. 

 

[LongRider]

23 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Mick Mulvaney Tells Bankers to Pay Up If They Want Favors From Trump

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/mulvaney-tells-bankers-pay-up-if-you-want-favors-from-trump.html

Quote

That’s not even the scandalous part! The scandalous part is that Mulvaney asked the executives and lobbyists to donate more money, and told them the more they donated, the more influence they would have. 

Transparency baby, that's what he's talking about.

[LongRider]

Flip, flip, flip.

 

[LongRider]

Up periscope! 

Needs more slide whistle.

[IheartIheartTesla]

No discussion of the Arizona 8th? Looks like Lasko won by only 5, which is further bad news for the Republicans (but also points out the limits to which a 'blue wave' can flip seats). Worth noting is that the generic ballot and special elections are telling slightly different stories, so as always we might just average the two things.

[Guest]

So Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has long been a political mentor for EPA Director Pruitt, to the point where the conventional wisdom is that he is grooming Pruitt as the successor to his Senate seat when he retires.

But now even he has called for Pruitt to answer for allegations of lavish spending, both as the head of the EPA and as Oklahoma AG, which suggests Pruitt may be living on borrowed time as EPA head.

I'm very interested in allegations against Pruitt as Oklahoma AG, because not much of that came up during his tenure that I was aware of.

[Shryke]

On 23/04/2018 at 8:37 PM, Martell Spy said:

Republican Ad Accuses Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin of Wanting to Abort the Next Martin Luther King Jr.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/04/republican-ad-tammy-baldwin-wants-to-abort-the-next-martin-luther-king-jr.html

I'm betting this is squarely aimed at voter suppression. The GOP, if they didn't notice before, certainly noticed during the 2016 primary that "Clinton hates black people" style attacks seemed to be getting real traction and so they are trying the same style thing. Trying to peel off black support for Democratic candidates at the margins.

[Fragile Bird]

Yesterday on CNN they reported that a message has been quietly sent out from the White House telling congressmen and senators to tone down their vocal support of Pruitt. Does that mean something is about to happen or merely that it’s too vociferous?

[Maithanet]

29 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

No discussion of the Arizona 8th? Looks like Lasko won by only 5, which is further bad news for the Republicans (but also points out the limits to which a 'blue wave' can flip seats). Worth noting is that the generic ballot and special elections are telling slightly different stories, so as always we might just average the two things.

Yeah, winning a R+25 district by 5 points isn't exactly something for Republicans to cheer about, but it's still another loss for the Democrats, so unlike PA-18, it isn't getting the same attention. 

The generic ballot and special election split is interesting, some are speculating that it might be a voter intensity issue.  The portion of the country who "strongly oppose" Trump is shockingly high, in some polls it is above 50%.  Something similar happened in 2014 when the generic ballot wasn't too bad for Democrats, but the actual result was horrible, because the most motivated voters were largely Republican. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Right, the problem is (as has probably been pointed out before here) that the generic ballot talks about who people will hypothetically vote for in the future, while special elections tell us who have actually turned out right now. Unfortunately we need to know who will actually turn out in the future, and since it is such a dynamic problem, I am always skeptical of correlations that are made from either of the above data.

One thing the result proves for sure, Jeff Flake's open seat is definitely up for grabs (it would be great if the same were true of Ted Cruz's seat, but I suspect we will eke out a victory)

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Right, the problem is (as has probably been pointed out before here) that the generic ballot talks about who people will hypothetically vote for in the future, while special elections tell us who have actually turned out right now. Unfortunately we need to know who will actually turn out in the future, and since it is such a dynamic problem, I am always skeptical of correlations that are made from either of the above data.

Indeed, although they're the tools we have.  If we go by ONLY the generic ballot, which has been hovering between D+6 and D+9 recently, then Democrats will either narrowly win or narrowly lose the House.  If we look at ONLY the special elections, they're showing a trend more along the lines of D+17, which would mean they take 50+ seats in the House and take the Senate. 

Quote

One thing the result proves for sure, Jeff Flake's open seat is definitely up for grabs (it would be great if the same were true of Ted Cruz's seat, but I suspect we will eke out a victory)

Democrats are looking good in the AZ seat, for sure.  We'll have to hope they can seal the deal come November.