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US Politics: Russian Roulette Republican Style


Fragile Bird

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In which I say, I can’t but help to paraphrase Sherman.

A fight is a remedy the Republican Party has chosen. I say let’s give them all they want.
 

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/seeing-the-republican-tax-plan-tool-punish-democrats

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It’s easy to get the impression that Republican policymakers aren’t just trying to cut taxes for the wealthy and big corporations; they’re also doing so in a way to punish Democratic voters.

 

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The Heritage Foundation’s Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who worked with the Trump campaign last year, told Bloomberg Politics the GOP tax policy is “death to Democrats.”

“They go after state and local taxes, which weakens public employee unions,” Moore said. “They go after university endowments, and universities have become play pens of the left. And getting rid of the mandate is to eventually dismantle Obamacare.”

Now usually, Moore is a dishonest clown. But, he's probably telling the truth here.

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It appears there’s been trouble in paradise between Trump and the Pences. Multiple reports state that Mike attempted a coup during the campaign after the Access Hollywood tapes dropped, and apparently Karen Pence openly voices that she finds Trump to be disgusting.

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The reason the USPO is a wreck today is because it was deliberately wrecked:

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The Postmaster General was in charge of the governing party's patronage, and was a powerful position which held much influence within the party. In 1971, the Post Office Department was re-organized into the United States Postal Service, an independent agency of the executive branch.

After Woodrow Wilson segregated federal positions along racial lines, it was only in the postal service that African Americans could get federal jobs -- because white postal workers refused to deliver mail in African American communities.

African Americans tended by and large to vote for 'liberals', which became the Democrats by Nixon's time.  With all that Dem patronage that came through the postal service then, something had to be done and Nixon did it, starting with removing it as a cabinet department. The postal service was constitutionally mandated, so it couldn't be outright abolished -- at least not even by Nixon, not in 1971.  But the libertarians and other a$$hats disbelievers in government have been working hard at it ever since. Long game, long game . . . .

Before 1971 the Post Office was the best run and most efficient agency in the government.

 

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2 hours ago, Ormond said:

Of course the federal government isn't any different. But this is a general problem of humanity. You find the same sort of nonsense going on in any large organization. I work at a private university which prides itself on "running like a business" and I see the Peter Principal actualized daily in my workplace. I have friends who work for hospitals, insurance companies, and other businesses who tell me stories about the nonsense within their organizations that sound exactly the same as what you are describing. So I don't think there is any more bureaucratic idiocy in government than there is in the private sector. 

This is 100% true.  I work at a big retailer and there is a TON of bloat.  I worked for a private company of ~1000 people before this, and that company also had a lot of bureaucracy and too much upper and middle managers trying to justify their existence.  Before that a company of 100 that could have easily gotten rid of 1/2 it's people and functioned just fine.

If you really want to compare, look at how much administrative savings there is in Medicare vs private insurance?  There's 5x as much administrative costs in private insurance.

When people talk about govt bloat, they are almost always using it as a code word for poor people and minorities getting too many benefits.

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Trump has informed the Palestinian leader that he’s moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Between this and the growing Russia investigation, the boy wonder really has a high bar to clear when it comes to bringing peace in the Middle East.

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30 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It appears there’s been trouble in paradise between Trump and the Pences. Multiple reports state that Mike attempted a coup during the campaign after the Access Hollywood tapes dropped, and apparently Karen Pence openly voices that she finds Trump to be disgusting.

I believe that the "multiple reports" are mostly just quoting this article from The Atlantic:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/gods-plan-for-mike-pence/546569/

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11 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

But probably voted for anyway because of emails.

:laugh: Of course unfair in that particular case, as she couldn't not vote for Trump without also not voting for her own husband. 

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7 minutes ago, kuenjato said:

Yes, someone already linked to this in the previous iteration of this thread. But posts in the US Politics threads increase so quickly it's no wonder you missed it. :)

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11 minutes ago, kuenjato said:

Yea, I mentioned it in the last thread. We had a quick conversation about how the Senate screwed themselves as now the House has to go to conference rather than vote on the Senate bill as is and there has to be another vote. If Collins doesn't get what she wants from the House (Ryan never agreed to her demands), then she could still vote no along with Corker. The AL Senate race is pretty important even if it's unlikely Jones wins.

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11 minutes ago, Mexal said:

 The AL Senate race is pretty important even if it's unlikely Jones wins.

I think this is the reason McConnell and the establishment have gotten back behind Moore - if he wins they're worried he may vote against it as well.

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1 minute ago, dmc515 said:

I think this is the reason McConnell and the establishment have gotten back behind Moore - if he wins they're worried he may vote against it as well.

Oh for sure. Their moral outrage lasted a whopping 2 weeks. Big fucking deal.

Worth scrolling through this guys tweets. He's an NBC News reporter who is spending some time in Fairhope, Alabama that went for Trump 77-19%. Some Republicans are at least looking to vote for Jones. Small sample size and all but interesting none the less.

 

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47 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Trump has informed the Palestinian leader that he’s moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Between this and the growing Russia investigation, the boy wonder really has a high bar to clear when it comes to bringing peace in the Middle East.

I expect Trump to give a speech claiming that this will do wonders for Mid East peace and our relationship with the Arab world, just like he said shrinking the Utah monuments was great for native groups. If the president says it, it must be true.

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10 minutes ago, Mexal said:

 

Worth scrolling through this guys tweets. He's an NBC News reporter who is spending some time in Fairhope, Alabama that went for Trump 77-19%. Some Republicans are at least looking to vote for Jones. Small sample size and all but interesting none the less.

 

Although most observers expect Moore to win, almost no one expects him to get as high a percentage of the Republican vote as Trump got -- and that was true even before the sex abuse allegations, given Moore's other problems. So there will be a lot of normally Republican voters in Alabama who vote for Jones or stay home. The question is, will it be enough. 

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3 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Although most observers expect Moore to win, almost no one expects him to get as high a percentage of the Republican vote as Trump got -- and that was true even before the sex abuse allegations, given Moore's other problems. So there will be a lot of normally Republican voters in Alabama who vote for Jones or stay home. The question is, will it be enough. 

I wonder what kind of ground game there is for the Dems in Alabama. What they did in Virginia was a very large, coordinated effort of knocking on doors, making phone calls, signing people up to vote, etc. I wonder if that's happening in Alabama as well.

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From this point on (really from November 2016 on - or before that if you want to quibble) any Republican, whether or not in their own personal life acts as a decent person, if they call the GOP the party of traditional family values in a sincere not ironic way, deserves to never be taken seriously again, laughed out of public sight, and this sound needs to blared.

I'm serious. I'm closer to Simon Steele's and IamMe's view than SoD's. But any conservative friend or family says that phrase in my earshot they get a finger pointed at them and a "Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!" from me.

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29 minutes ago, Mexal said:

I wonder what kind of ground game there is for the Dems in Alabama. What they did in Virginia was a very large, coordinated effort of knocking on doors, making phone calls, signing people up to vote, etc. I wonder if that's happening in Alabama as well.

If it did, hopefully it was enough.... because per their registration laws, voter registration ended a week ago.

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3 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

From this point on (really from November 2016 on - or before that if you want to quibble) any Republican, whether or not in their own personal life acts as a decent person, if they call the GOP the party of traditional family values in a sincere not ironic way, deserves to never be taken seriously again, laughed out of public sight, and this sound needs to blared.

I'm serious. I'm closer to Simon Steele's and IamMe's view than SoD's. But any conservative friend or family says that phrase in my earshot they get a finger pointed at them and a "Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!" from me.

I wouldn't disagree with this. I argue quite a bit with self-deemed Republicans that I run into, and I'm not shy about it. Hell, I recently just quashed an otherwise-promising first date with someone by getting into a very, very heated hour long argument about the media and Trump. I just don't think we need to go as far as some people are suggesting. 

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23 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

From this point on (really from November 2016 on - or before that if you want to quibble) any Republican, whether or not in their own personal life acts as a decent person, if they call the GOP the party of traditional family values in a sincere not ironic way, deserves to never be taken seriously again, laughed out of public sight, and this sound needs to blared.

These just about anything a Republican sort person says, on just about anything, deserves a laugh, snicker, and a roll eyes.

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