US Politics: Russian Roulette Republican Style

[Fragile Bird]

More Republican Russian roulette.

I think someone briefly mentioned in the last thread the story about K. T. McFarland. She apparently was at least one of the transition team members who talked to Gen. Kelly about how to handle his discussions with the Russian ambassador.

She was nominated by Trump to be the ambassador to Singapore, and was asked if she knew of any discussions with Russians. More roulette- surely by July she knew Flynn was being investigated Why would she think her role would not be revealed?

From the NYT: 

K. T. McFarland served on the presidential transition team before becoming the White House deputy national security adviser. In July, she was questioned in writing by Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, on whether she had ever spoken to Mr. Flynn about his contacts with Sergey I. Kislyak, who was then the Russian ambassador to Washington, before Mr. Trump took office.

“I am not aware of any of the issues or events described above,” Ms. McFarland wrote in response, sidestepping a direct answer to the question.[quote/]

 

[DMC]

So the House has voted to go to conference on the tax bill.  Included is the stopgap CR to fund the government another two weeks that was discussed a few days ago.  That seemed to be somewhat of a hiccup with the Freedom Caucus - and something tells me there will be a further extension before December 23 hits anyway.  The objections from the FC may suggest they are going to insist on more significant compromises/concessions from certain measures in the Senate bill than leadership from both chambers anticipates.

[Bonnot OG]

Moscow Donnie Slashes Size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Monuments. He only respects monuments of slave owning white supremacists that fought to preserve slavery.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-scales-back-two-huge-national-monuments-in-utah-drawing-praise-and-protests/2017/12/04/758c85c6-d908-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html

He could gut an infant open on national TV and his bigoted cult base would cheer it on and praise it.

[Bonnot OG]

https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/

They are paranoid as fuck. 

[lokisnow]

4 hours ago, dmc515 said:

There were probably redundancies, sure.  I just get defensive of bureaucracies when they're called "bloated" - for good reason, because that can often lead to debilitating cuts.

bureaucracies are described as bloated if they employ too many minorities, women, or dispense benefits equally to either of the above.

A woman with a good paying job at state? damn it's so bloated. what a waste!

if it's 99.99% white men, why that simply can't be a bloated bureaucracy, can it? no one describes the Senate or house as bloated, and they're almost entirely bloated white men.

**

also people are generally unnable to scale things properly. the IRS serves 250 million people a year, everywhere, the post office serves 320 million people a year 300 days a year, everywhere, Wal-Mart serves like 30 million, only where it is maximally profitable. 

But somehow it's the universal programs that take on the onerous and expensive task of serving everyone everywhere that are "bloated" and full of "waste fraud and abuse".

No, despite the bipartisan, self-reinforcing DC-media-encouraged circle jerk that the bureaucracies are obviously bloated, the simple truth is that any thing that has to reach everyone is fundamentally going to be expensive. whether its the post office, or health insurance, universality is going to cost money, a lot of it.

and people are too blinkered to understand the sheer massiveness of the country in population and physical size, they just assume a lot of money is obviously wasted because they cannot comprehend a large number.  

The old Terry Pratchett line about how trolls count is basically true for all humans everywhere, all the time, "one, two, many, lots" we can't really count above that, we're too stupid.

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

No, despite the bipartisan, self-reinforcing DC-media-encouraged circle jerk that the bureaucracies are obviously bloated, the simple truth is that any thing that has to reach everyone is fundamentally going to be expensive. whether its the post office, or health insurance, universality is going to cost money, a lot of it.

Preach on says the choir.  The importance of careerist bureaucrats and the impact of their expertise on policymaking is, briefly, the thesis statement of my dissertation.

[lokisnow]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

Continuing from previous thread's latest argument over the benefits or non-benefit of attempting to enlighten one's idiot relatives and acquaintances and neighbors and work place sisters and fellows:

The thing is that there are plenty of R's and those ilks as believers in white supremacy, etc. families, etc.,  who honestly, if they admit it, DO NOT LIKE their family members, neighbors etc., who do not think like they do, so it matters not a bit.

They are glad that those who don't have thoughts like their never show their faces -- or don't open their mouths -- but keep a decent distance -- send the right cards at Christmas and gifts at weddings, but please don't rock our comfy complacent routines and rituals by actually showing up and showing us the whole world isn't like us.

It's impossible to get anywhere with those families, it really isn't.  Many of them will even say, yes, to anything one says, but don't mean it.  They are that terrified of rocking the boat.  They are far more terrified of rocking boats than they are of having actual sexual predators and pedophiles in positions of power.

Just as bad are those family members and etcs. who love to argue just for the sake of arguing, i.e. blowharding. 

It's an entire waste of one's personal energies that can be put to better use by helping fund an electrician to go and work in Puerto Rico.  And to do that funding, informing all the family members that they will no longer be receiving gifts for weddings, etc. because you are donating those funds to the Great Cause of getting power back to Puerto Rico.

 

 

 

I'm going to repost a post from thanksgiving that got buried and unseen at the end of a locked US politics thread:

 

if you want to change hearts and minds, don't lay down the napalm.

basically, the best thing you can do with trump supporting relatives at thanksgiving is to ask them to tell you about the kindest thing they have ever done for someone (not in the family) and why they are thankful for that.

In telling the story they activate what are called their nurturing circuits in their brain, which control positive feelings towards in-group members.

Because you are in their in-group this includes you, and chances are they will ask you to reciprocate--to tell your own story. 

In telling your story, some of that in-group identifier they have for you will subconsciously expand to include people in your story.

The more this is reinforced with repetition (by talking in these positive manners about people in their in-group and hearing about your in-group) the more active and stronger their nurturing circuits become

The more they hear stories about people in your in-group the more their in-group subconsciously expands, as their mental in-group expands, the less reflexively insular and hostile they become to people in the out-group.

(There's a heuristic phrase from the real world that encompasses this entire stream of cognitive research and illustrates the actual success of this process: Coming Out)

of course if you're a typical white-college-graduate-liberal living in a segregated (former redline but still informally segregated of course) neighborhood of a major city and have neither stories of kindness nor generosity to people in your family member's outgroup, you may need to work on the stye in your own eye first.

[OldGimletEye]

Shape Of The Earth: Opinions Differ

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/12/1/16721394/republican-reject-jct-score-tax-bill

Quote

he day before Senate Republicans voted to pass their tax bill, they were faced with an expert analysis of their proposal that undercuts all of the major GOP selling points.

Faced with the choice of taking their tax bill back to the drawing board, or doubling down, Republican leaders made a concerted effort to undercut the official analysis of their bill, circulating two pages of “response points,” giving senators an arsenal of excuses to talk around the unfavorable projections, according to the New York Times, which acquired the documents.

The evaluation from the Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, the official body tasked with estimating the tax bill’s impact, should have been enough to end the Republican “fantasy of magical growth” in the economy, the Finance Committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden (OR), said. The JCT reported that the Senate Republican’s tax bill would grow the economy by about 0.8 percent over 10 years, and still cost about $1 trillion.

Sorry ass Republican Party.

[lokisnow]

10 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Preach on says the choir.  The importance of careerist bureaucrats and the impact of their expertise on policymaking is, briefly, the thesis statement of my dissertation.

here's a question for your thesis, possibly beyond it's scope, "how has the increasing diversification of bureaucracies on gender and racial lines been connected to the perfectly corresponding rise in political and media contempt and hostility for said bureaucracy"

I mean every Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose and Mark Halperin in media out there (they're very serious people, so smart, so good on nitty gritty details and policy!), knows that bureaucracy is a bloated mess, why once a woman bureaucrat was like, indifferent to their marvelous masturbating, so I mean, what more proof do you need that bureaucracies are bloated and no good, when women behave like that?

based just on simple observation, a few loonies didn't like FDRs big bureaucracy, but most people didn't care, it was all white men, nothing to see here.

but if women and minorities can get those jobs clearly it's a bloated awful mess, amiright? 

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

here's a question for your thesis, possibly beyond it's scope, "how has the increasing diversification of bureaucracies on gender and racial lines been connected to the perfectly corresponding rise in political and media contempt and hostility for said bureaucracy"

This is an interesting question - and yes it's beyond my scope both topically and in capability.  Getting simple data on the number of FTE employees per agency per year is difficult enough.  If you're going to focus on comparing the demographics of agencies and their subsequent treatment by the media and/or officeholders, I'd think you'd have to narrow it down to a comparison of only a few agencies.  Sounds like a really cool project though.

[Mexal]

Could you imagine Trump with his own spy network? How is this even legal?

 

[ThinkerX]

21 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

This is an interesting question - and yes it's beyond my scope both topically and in capability.  Getting simple data on the number of FTE employees per agency per year is difficult enough.  If you're going to focus on comparing the demographics of agencies and their subsequent treatment by the media and/or officeholders, I'd think you'd have to narrow it down to a comparison of only a few agencies.  Sounds like a really cool project though.

Can't say much about the bureaucracy in general.  Can say a little about the one I work for - USPS.  Ok, delivering mail is the core function of USPS.  Requires sorting, clerks, carriers, people to answer questions.  These days, we peons doing that are reminded pretty much daily that USPS is strapped for cash.  Yet, despite that, there is a sizable, deeply entrenched, and mostly completely clueless bureaucracy above our level.  Occasionally, they issue bizarre edicts which *hamper* mail delivery.  On occasion, this bureaucracy will spew forth somebody with a bizarre title that is not relevant to the core mission.  A couple times, these clueless souls were made acting postmasters (their stints were short and disastrous) where I'm at.

I suppose other parallels can be made as well. More than once, multiple boarders here have complained about a mythical malevolent bureaucratic infestation of the University system.  Any reason to think the federal government is any different? 

[ThinkerX]

Just now, Mexal said:

Could you imagine Trump with his own spy network? How is this even legal?

 

Do remember that Trump's heroes, such as they are, tend to be dictators.  Spies and secret police come with the territory.  Wait until he executive orders himself a first cousin of the Sedition Act.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

I suppose other parallels can be made as well. More than once, multiple boarders here have complained about a mythical malevolent bureaucratic infestation of the University system.  Any reason to think the federal government is any different?

Everybody hates their University bureaucracy, myself included.  Just as everybody is likely to hate any interactions they have with the federal bureaucracy.  But what most people don't take into account is the vast majority of time the federal bureaucracy is working and making life more convenient for its citizens.  It's a little like intelligence agencies and attacks (to be clear I'm not saying these are the same) - agencies are only noticed by the public when they make mistakes.

Further, any time an agency truly does become "bloated," it is almost always due to political interests of outside groups or officeholders.  An agency does not have the ability to get bloated on its own, and indeed their annual budget requests are more likely to align with adjustments for inflation than what Congress appropriates (this has been empirically demonstrated by, well, me).  

[Kalbear]

27 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Do remember that Trump's heroes, such as they are, tend to be dictators.  Spies and secret police come with the territory.  Wait until he executive orders himself a first cousin of the Sedition Act.

Remember when Babylon 5 was ridiculed in its 3rd season for having a plot involving the authoritarian takeover of earth, complete with secret police and their own spy system, as being way too unrealistic and happening too fast? 

 

[DMC]

Re:  Grassley's "booze and women" comments on the estate tax - this is a really hilarious article.

Hello, It Is I, The Man Who Blew Every Last Cent Of His Fortune On Booze, Women And Movies

Quote

It seems obvious Chuck could not have been speaking about regular Americans when he brought up booze, women and movies in his conversation with the Des Moines Register. A regular American could avoid all three things for an entire lifetime and never be close to the $5.5 million-plus in assets it takes to owe the estate tax.

I, however, should get there, and I have had my moments of self-doubt when I wonder how it could be that one of the top earners in the continental United States can possibly, month after month, year after year, spend every dollar he earns on, again, booze, women and movies. But then I place those concerns to the side, open up Tinder and take yet another woman to yet another viewing of “A Bad Moms Christmas” for the fifth straight night, before heading home to drink the entire bottle of a $13,000 Romanee-Conti Grand Cru I purchased on a whim one night in September.

 

[A True Kaniggit]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I asked what ATK does. He didn't respond. I know what SoD does. I know what I do. I know what Simon does.

Hm? I did respond. It's the very next post after yours.

Just woke up and have caught up on the conversation since I fell asleep. I think I get what the problem is. The discussion with SoD started from the 10th page of the last thread. Not the 18th page where it seems you first saw me reply to SoD.

[lokisnow]

2 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Can't say much about the bureaucracy in general.  Can say a little about the one I work for - USPS.  Ok, delivering mail is the core function of USPS.  Requires sorting, clerks, carriers, people to answer questions.  These days, we peons doing that are reminded pretty much daily that USPS is strapped for cash.  Yet, despite that, there is a sizable, deeply entrenched, and mostly completely clueless bureaucracy above our level.  Occasionally, they issue bizarre edicts which *hamper* mail delivery.  On occasion, this bureaucracy will spew forth somebody with a bizarre title that is not relevant to the core mission.  A couple times, these clueless souls were made acting postmasters (their stints were short and disastrous) where I'm at.

I suppose other parallels can be made as well. More than once, multiple boarders here have complained about a mythical malevolent bureaucratic infestation of the University system.  Any reason to think the federal government is any different? 

On the other hand, this could easily be a particularly persistent and intractable Alaska problem because Alaska is geographically a unique state that is exceptionally more expensive to provide mail service to than any other state.

So when you bring in people with lower 48 expertise or provide solutions that are applicable To almost all jurisdictions in the lower 48 or have solved similar problems in the lower 48 and it never works cause Alaska gonna Alaska, well it does make them seem incompetent or like they're from another planet.

a state the size of western Europe with a population the size of Wyoming isn't going to fit many patterns is it?

[DMC]

In terms of the Postal Service, I obviously can't speak to @ThinkerX's personal experience.  But it's not an entity that is under my or anyone else's analysis when they operationalize the federal bureaucracy.  While it's not technically a government corporation, the USPS is effectively treated as such, meaning it is extremely insulated from political influence - both by the president and (obviously to a lesser extent) Congress.  I'd have to check, but I don't think I have any government corporations in my dataset for precisely that reason (I think the Tennessee Valley Authority might be included for a few years).  These entities are managed and overseen entirely differently than the vast majority of government agencies.  Further, the USPS is rather unique as it has explicit constitutional authorization.  

[ThinkerX]

25 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

On the other hand, this could easily be a particularly persistent and intractable Alaska problem because Alaska is geographically a unique state that is exceptionally more expensive to provide mail service to than any other state.

So when you bring in people with lower 48 expertise or provide solutions that are applicable To almost all jurisdictions in the lower 48 or have solved similar problems in the lower 48 and it never works cause Alaska gonna Alaska, well it does make them seem incompetent or like they're from another planet.

a state the size of western Europe with a population the size of Wyoming isn't going to fit many patterns is it?

From the bits that trickle to me, the situation does not seem unique to Alaska.  (Gets into boring national level union stuff that has a sideways effect on contractors like me.)  The people actually sorting, transporting, and delivering the mail know what they're doing.  The bureaucracy above that level...I sometimes think a frontal lobotomy is part of the upper level training process.