u.s. politics: a cruel and unusual government

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Pretending like it's someone else's problem if Trump wins is the attitude. It's everyone's problem.

I said it'd be the Dems' problem.  I've voted, funded, and worked for the party for over a decade now.  So no, I'm not pretending it's someone else's problem.  Just expressing my opinion that we should still be able to beat him in 2020 even in the event a good infrastructure bill is passed in late 2017/early 2018.

17 minutes ago, Shryke said:

There is zero reason to give Trump anything he wants or to let himself paint himself as a populist hero.

Yeah, that's exactly the type of attitude that will relegate a party to permanent minority status.  Among friends/colleagues I'm pretty extreme on McConnell-ing Trump, but presenting this as dogma is what's wrong with this country.

[LongRider]

@ThinkerX the grand jury isn't thinking about impeachment, but indictments. 

[ThinkerX]

2 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

@ThinkerX the grand jury isn't thinking about impeachment, but indictments. 

I typed too dang fast. 

But, the point still stands.  Trump WILL take an indictment as a direct personal attack and WILL strike back.  Doesn't matter if Congress elects to follow suit or not.

 

[LongRider]

1 minute ago, ThinkerX said:

I typed too dang fast. 

But, the point still stands.  Trump WILL take an indictment as a direct personal attack and WILL strike back.  Doesn't matter if Congress elects to follow suit or not.

 

Have you been reading about Trey Goudy and his efforts to discredit Mueller via the Steele dossier?  Vanity Fair has an article about that.  I'd link but I'm on the phone. 

My point being Trump is already trying to strike back. 

[Zorral]

38 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

You said a lot there but did not provide much of an argument for why these disasters will affect elections.  Katrina was devastating to Dubya politically because of how devasting it was to the people he ignored, but that needs to be considered in context.  Even liberals have granted the current FEMA chief great press in dealing with Harvey - that's fundamentally different than "heckuva job Brownie."  

Further, if you think a couple devastating hurricanes are going to change minds on partisan inclinations, I think you're naive.  There is, of course, still many ways the recovery of Harvey and whatever happens with Irma has a political effect.  But it's also entirely plausible that these storms are handled well and the only effect is bumping Trump's approval a couple points during the aftermath.  You've yet to present any reasoning for why this will remain a salient issue 14 months from now.

You are missing the point.  There are more catastrophic climate events going on than 'a couple' of hurricanes which already are 500 and thousand year events. And they are happening back-to-back. And it's 9 months into 2017.  You are forgetting the wildfires.

The incredible people, the heroes, who do the fighting against, the evacuations, the show-up, are already exhausted.  The money is running out.  Tax relief / tax reform, so far, are all about = huge tax relief for the very rich.  Hello?

Wonk election / voter stuff isn't all that elections are made of.  So points are being missed.  Before the next pres. election there is going to be no section of the USA that isn't going to be affected by major climate destablization (partly even caused by frackin' by gawd! -- and look at what all that volume / weight of water that fell on southeast Texas that has caused a further fall of ground surface levels).

People so weighted toward to certain sorts of quant miss whole lots about other kinds of measurements, including what is happening globally with climate destablization. Which, if quants think none of this could affect elections -- well, rgwt are as out of touch as much as Hillary ever was.

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Have you been reading about Trey Goudy and his efforts to discredit Mueller via the Steele dossier?  Vanity Fair has an article about that.  I'd link but I'm on the phone. 

My point being Trump is already trying to strike back. 

In the event Mueller delivers indictments and findings that go directly to Trump and his immediate family, he's going to need far more cover than the likes of Trey Goudy and/or discrediting the Steele dossier.

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Wonk election / voter stuff isn't all that elections are made of.  So points are being missed.  Before the next pres. election there is going to be no section of the USA that isn't going to be affected by major climate destablization (partly even caused by frackin' by gawd! -- and look at what all that volume / weight of water that fell on southeast Texas that has caused a further fall of ground surface levels).

People so weighted toward to certain sorts of quant miss whole lots about other kinds of measurements, including what is happening globally with climate destablization. Which, if quants think none of this could affect elections -- well, rgwt are as out of touch as much as Hillary ever was.

I honestly don't know what this means.  Seriously, I'm open minded to your argument, but you need to clarify your logic.  Because all I can discern at this point is "more voters are going to care about climate change because there are/were a couple unprecedented major hurricanes."  I just don't think that's the case because even the establishment GOP is fine delegitimizing climate change to their constituents.  So help me out here.

[LongRider]

3 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

In the event Mueller delivers indictments and findings that go directly to Trump and his immediate family, he's going to need far more cover than the likes of Trey Goudy and/or discrediting the Steele dossier.

Indictments are down the road and Goudy is just one step to discredit Mueller and the FBI as well.   

Mueller working with NY AG Schneiderman is a shrewd move. 

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Indictments are down the road and Goudy is just one step to discredit Mueller and the FBI as well.   

Not clear what your argument is here.  If you think Goudy can successfully and/or significantly discredit Mueller in the meantime before the latter publicly reports his findings, I strongly disagree.

[LongRider]

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Not clear what your argument is here.  If you think Goudy can successfully and/or significantly discredit Mueller in the meantime before the latter publicly reports his findings, I strongly disagree.

My basic argument is Trump isn't waiting for indictments to strike out as I think he taking the probe personally now.

....…………

Zorral I relate to your phrase 'climate destabilization'.   No Calif went from very heavy rains with a near broken dam chasteophe, to a very fast drying out of the landscape with devastating fires.  My area was covered in smoke, something new to the locals.  

We have lots of fire season left, alas, and too much cheat grass waiting like tinder for a spark. 

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

I said it'd be the Dems' problem.  I've voted, funded, and worked for the party for over a decade now.  So no, I'm not pretending it's someone else's problem.  Just expressing my opinion that we should still be able to beat him in 2020 even in the event a good infrastructure bill is passed in late 2017/early 2018.

It will be everyone's problem. And "should" means jackshit. A lot of separate things put Trump in power in the first place. There's no reason to stack another thing in his favour. Or ya end up with a 2nd term Trump "shouldn't" have and then it is, again, not just the Democrats problem.

 

1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

Yeah, that's exactly the type of attitude that will relegate a party to permanent minority status.  Among friends/colleagues I'm pretty extreme on McConnell-ing Trump, but presenting this as dogma is what's wrong with this country.

/looks at GOP

Uh, you might want to re-evaluate these ideas.

And no, what's wrong with the US is, in large part, the right-wing. Trump needs to be ditched as fast as possible. There is absolutely no reason to give him anything he can use to gain popular support. The Democrats should be getting their priorities passed and not giving Trump what he wants.

[ThinkerX]

2 hours ago, dmc515 said:

In the event Mueller delivers indictments and findings that go directly to Trump and his immediate family, he's going to need far more cover than the likes of Trey Goudy and/or discrediting the Steele dossier.

With all due respect - and I hold you in considerable respect - you are forgetting three key things about Trump -

 

1 - first, he calls himself a 'counter-puncher who strikes back ten times harder.'  Prides himself on it in fact.

2 - you cannot 'out-crazy' Trump.

3 - something on the order of 1/5th of the electorate will support Trump come hell or high water.

Trump won't be thinking 'cover.'  He'll be thinking 'attack.' 

A couple of the possibilities I came up with include having political enemies arrested on dubious charges.  Or the imposition of a state of emergency, perhaps under the guise of multiple natural disasters.  Really scary thought: technically, 'contractors' ('mercenaries') are not part of the US military, meaning they could be deployed domestically without violation of posse comitias. Now, you will probably argue that such acts are 'out of bounds' or some such - but Trump does not see himself as bound by laws.  He's 'strong.'

Likely, these courses will not come to pass, or if Trump attempts something along these lines, they'll fail.  But he could make Hell's own mess.

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

As I understand it, Mueller is widely respected across party lines. Really can't see how Trump is going to smear him with something like the Steele files. If there are some serious skeletons in his closet, perhaps Trump could dig them up, but given the brand of weaksauce he's come at him with thus far (back dues from a golf membership?) it doesn't appear that he has anything like that. I suppose the next step would be to try and frame him for something, but given this administrations seeming lack of competence, I have to imagine that attempt would be ham-handed at best.

[lokisnow]

11 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

 

ETA:

Also many people have pointed out (like Blanchard) that a lot of the US' infrastructure needs are things that really can't be monetized anyway.

Now that has no imagination. Say we privatize DC's sewers by selling the rights to them to black water, they immediately pay to force every toilet connected to the sewer to be updated or you're cut off. 

The new toilets are wifi rfid enabled, and you have to use your smart phone (Apple wallet... ding... flush) to pay a per flush fee in order to flush your toilet. Black water sells the data on what you are voiding and when to Amazon and google so Amazon and google can know whether to bombard you with constipation or diarrhea cures (and when).

so something that is free (which is bad amiright, stupid commies and socialists with their free flushes) once it is gloriously privatized by the wonderful free market can be turned into a proper Christian American money making endeavor.

and if you're too poor to own a smartphone? Well If you just worked harder and weren't so lazy you could afford a smartphone and therefore afford to poop like everyone else can. But since you are poor and being poor is evidence of being guilty you are just shit out of luck.

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

and if you're too poor to own a smartphone? Well If you just worked harder and weren't so lazy you could afford a smartphone and therefore afford to poop like everyone else can. But since you are poor and being poor is evidence of being guilty you are just shit out of luck.

And even the fancy-schmancy smart phone shitters are going to pay a price when all the poors start shitting in the streets.

[all swedes are racist]

trump to extend the cuba embargo as the island is hit by first cat 5 hurricane since '28 (which has already destroyed several carribean nations, and cuba is sending support to those nations)

[A Horse Named Stranger]

9 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Yeah, that's exactly the type of attitude that will relegate a party to permanent minority status.  Among friends/colleagues I'm pretty extreme on McConnell-ing Trump, but presenting this as dogma is what's wrong with this country.

The problem with McConneling is, that only works if you give zero fucks about the consequences for actual people.

Of course if you are a self-righteous, self-absorbed POS like Ted Cruz, then a goverment shutdown and the fiscal cliff is awesome to show them. If you think about the people that get harmed by it, it is way less awesome.

7 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

We have lots of fire season left, alas, and too much cheat grass waiting like tinder for a spark. 

That screen name doesn't work half as well, as you might think.

[DMC]

7 hours ago, Shryke said:

It will be everyone's problem. And "should" means jackshit. A lot of separate things put Trump in power in the first place. There's no reason to stack another thing in his favour. Or ya end up with a 2nd term Trump "shouldn't" have and then it is, again, not just the Democrats problem.

/looks at GOP

Uh, you might want to re-evaluate these ideas.

And no, what's wrong with the US is, in large part, the right-wing. Trump needs to be ditched as fast as possible. There is absolutely no reason to give him anything he can use to gain popular support. The Democrats should be getting their priorities passed and not giving Trump what he wants.

"Should" is all we have in a hypothetical.  The context of the hypothetical raised is that there's an infrastructure bill on the table that puts thousands of Americans to work (not to mention improving the sorry state of public transit) and does not line the pockets of Trump and his cronies.  To the bolded, that is getting a Democratic priority passed.  With the debt ceiling deal Trump confirmed a long held suspicion - he does not care about policy details or even affronting the tenets/position of his conservative base as long as he can sell it as a win.  

In the event Dems can exploit this in the coming months with an infrastructure bill (a hypothetical I find unlikely) they should vote yay based on the surety it will benefit their constituents, not on the remote possibility such a measure will affect the presidential election three years hence.  I agree with the precept that Trump and the GOP are not just the opposition but the enemy, but refusing to pass a bill that helps people based on the fear granting Trump one substantive legislative victory (on a policy item that has very low salience with voters) significantly boosts his reelection chances is not only feckless but loses the forest for the trees on what it means to be a public servant.

6 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

and I hold you in considerable respect

That was nice - likewise.

6 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Likely, these courses will not come to pass, or if Trump attempts something along these lines, they'll fail.  But he could make Hell's own mess.

Yes, I agree with your three points on Trump and even the potentialities of his reaction.  All I was saying was he's going to need better ammo in his "shoot em up" response than the likes of Trey Gowdy and/or conflating the Steele dossier with Mueller's findings.

[DMC]

25 minutes ago, Notone said:

The problem with McConneling is, that only works if you give zero fucks about the consequences for actual people.

Agreed.

[LongRider]

2 hours ago, Notone said:

 

That screen name doesn't work half as well, as you might think.

???