US Politics: Donnie and the Mystery of the Anonymous Op-Ed

[Maithanet]

27 minutes ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

I'm sure Trump's strong response will consist of throwing paper towels at the Carolinas and calling the job done, and then tweet about how terrible the governors of North and South Carolina are.

I think you mean North Carolina and Virginia.  They're Democrats. 

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

3 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I think you mean North Carolina and Virginia.  They're Democrats. 

As if being Republican would stop Trump from bad-mouthing a person...

[DMC]

Susan Collins calls effort to convince her to vote against Kavanaugh "bribery"

Quote

On another front, the “Be. A. Hero” campaign has raised more than $1 million in a crowd sourcing campaign in an attempt to pressure Collins to vote against Kavanaugh.

Organizers say that donors to the fund will get their money back if Collins votes against Kavanaugh, but if she votes for him, it will be donated to a potential opponent in her 2020 re-election race, according to the organizers Mainers for Accountable Leadership and Maine People’s Alliance.

The campaign is led by ALS patient and father Ady Barkan who has been pleading with senators to uphold health care protections.

Collins’ office calls the effort an attempt at bribery.

“Bribery will not work on Senator Collins. Extortion will not work on Senator Collins. And anybody who thinks these tactics would work on Senator Collins obviously doesn’t know her,” spokeswoman Annie Clark said in a statement. “Senator Collins will make up her mind based on the merits of the nomination. Threats or other attempts to bully her will not play a factor in her decision making whatsoever.”

Subtext:  "Sorry, I'm already bought and paid for - for a lot more money."

[Fez]

26 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I think you mean North Carolina and Virginia.  They're Democrats. 

Virginia is mostly Democratic statewide, but its Republican districts to the south that are most likely to get hit by Florence. And North Carolina is a mostly Republican state with a Democratic governor, filled with Representatives like Mark Meadows. South Carolina, beyond just being Republican, has a Governor who was one of the first to endorse Trump (not that that necessarily means anything, look at Sessions).

Trump screws over his own voters in countless unseen (by them) ways, but he does like making big public showings of support for them; usually, but not always, via corruption (like those subsidies to some of farmers hit by tariffs). Puerto Rico wasn't his voters, Houston wasn't his voters, this is his voters.

Also, he owns a golf course in Charlotte.

[DMC]

39 minutes ago, Fez said:

Trump screws over his own voters in countless unseen (by them) ways, but he does like making big public showings of support for them; usually, but not always, via corruption (like those subsidies to some of farmers hit by tariffs).

Yeah I expect a yuge publicized appearance showing his "relief effort" that will of course be counterproductive to the actual relief effort.

[Paladin of Ice]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Florence is hitting the Carolinas and southern Virginia eight weeks before an election, with several vulnerable Republican incumbents in the area needing to shore up voter support for Trump (there's been an extremely strong correlation between Trump approval ratings and Republican vote share in most special elections and polls). They will be sounding the drumbeat for a strong Federal response, especially with Trump putting himself on the line by saying the Federal government was ready and that the Maria response was "great" (Many voters in the area haven't paid attention to Puerto Rico, but will pay attention to what happens directly to them).

So even if its not for the right reasons, hopefully there will be a concentrated, well-funded recovery effort.

Any response that is competent and prevents mass loss of life or damage that takes years to recover from would be incredibly welcome, and not just because of the people I know and who are posters here who may be effected.

Unfortunately I’m not exactly confident of that happening, even with it obviously being in the interests of Trump and Republicans to do well under these circumstances. Too much time promoting and celebrating ignorance and corruption, not to mention hobbling government functions until they can’t work.

[Week]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

Susan Collins calls effort to convince her to vote against Kavanaugh "bribery"

Subtext:  "Sorry, I'm already bought and paid for - for a lot more money."

Wait -- so money is not speech? Can we get a new ruling on citizen's united?

[Gertrude]

Conservative money is speech, liberal money is bribery. Gets your facts straight. 

Also - conservative facts are what Trump and Hannity deem they are, and liberal facts are all lies and witch hunts.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Morpheus said:

Thousands dead in Puerto Rico due to mismanagement and Trump wanting to fight people who told him that they weren’t doing enough rather than heeding criticisms and the shithead still calls it an unsung success. We are well beyond “bad optics”, every action  needs to be viewed through the deaths on their hands, no amount is trivial, it is all part of the same callous, hateful agenda.

There is some next level irony in calling the deaths of 3,000 people an unsung success on the day we mourn the deaths of 3,000 people. Deaths that could have also possibly been prevented if President Bush wasn’t on vacation. Vacations Trump promised us he’d never take, even though he’s taken more than any other president as far as I’m aware of it.

We’re through the looking glass, and someone spiked the punch with acid.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Need a podcast to listen to? One that’s a real pick me up? Here’s a wonderful one about how the Trump Administration is trying to circumvent the law and indefinitely detain migrant children:

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/09/11/detain-migrant-children-immigration-trump-administration

[Bonnot OG]

Man Steve King really just keeps outing himself as a bigger racist piece of shit than he has in the past. He's one tweet away from the 14 words.

[Paladin of Ice]

4 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

Man Steve King really just keeps outing himself as a bigger racist piece of shit than he has in the past. He's one tweet away from the 14 words.

I call bullshit. In what possible way could Steve “We can’t rebuild our civilization with other people’s babies/Latinos have calves the size of cantaloupes because all they do is carry huge bags of drugs through the desert all day” King possibly be a bigger racist than he’s already shown himself to be?

[Darth Richard II]

51 minutes ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

There is some next level irony in calling the deaths of 3,000 people an unsung success on the day we mourn the deaths of 3,000 people. Deaths that could have also possibly been prevented if President Bush wasn’t on vacation. Vacations Trump promised us he’d never take, even though he’s taken more than any other president as far as I’m aware of it.

We’re through the looking glass, and someone spiked the punch with acid.

I feel like we went through the looking glass inside the looking glass. It's like...looking glassception, or something.

[Gertrude]

Steve King embarrasses me every time he opens his mouth. Iowa can do better and it makes me sad that it doesn't. He's not my rep, but it still hurts.

[Bonnot OG]

2 hours ago, Paladin of Ice said:

I call bullshit. In what possible way could Steve “We can’t rebuild our civilization with other people’s babies/Latinos have calves the size of cantaloupes because all they do is carry huge bags of drugs through the desert all day” King possibly be a bigger racist than he’s already shown himself to be?

Justifiying his neo nazi retweets by saying they aren't nazis and saying the left are the real nazis because nazis were socialists. 

[Fragile Bird]

14 hours ago, felice said:

 

By the numbers: 20,000 pallets of water, 38 MILLION bottles of water, basically 10 bottles of water for every person in PR.

Apparently after sitting in the sun for months they started distributing it, until people complained the water tasted foul. Cuz, you know, sitting in the baking sun for months.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Steve King embarrasses me every time he opens his mouth. Iowa can do better and it makes me sad that it doesn't. He's not my rep, but it still hurts.

Always felt the same way about Michele Bachmann

[Bonnot OG]

29 minutes ago, Casablanca Birdie said:

By the numbers: 20,000 pallets of water, 38 MILLION bottles of water, basically 10 bottles of water for every person in PR.

Apparently after sitting in the sun for months they started distributing it, until people complained the water tasted foul. Cuz, you know, sitting in the baking sun for months.

This is also a good related story
https://www.newsweek.com/puerto-ricans-restore-power-after-hurricane-maria-1114070

[Martell Spy]

FiveThirtyEight’s Forecast Shows Very Tight Battle for the Senate

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/fivethirtyeight-forecast-shows-tight-battle-for-the-senate.html

Quote

If the Senate elections all break the way the probabilities suggest, and the parties split the two toss-ups, Republicans would hang onto the Senate by the narrowest possible margin, holding 50 seats plus Mike Pence’s tiebreaking vote. But the range of probabilities makes other possibilities entirely feasible. Altogether FiveThirtyEight suggests seven competitive races, three in which Democrats are narrowly favored (Arizona, Missouri, and North Dakota), two in which Republicans have a narrow advantage (Tennessee and Texas), and then two toss-ups in Florida and Nevada. A very slight shift in probabilities in a state or two could change the forecast considerably

.

[Martell Spy]

Judge rules DeVos delay of Obama-era student loan rules ‘unlawful’

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/12/devos-obama-student-loan-rules-818296

Quote

 

DeVos had taken actions to delay those rules until July 1, 2019, in order to give the Education Department enough time to rewrite them. But in a sweeping 57-page decision, the judge ruled that DeVos’ actions were “unlawful”, “procedurally invalid” and “arbitrary and capricious.”

The final delay of the regulations, the court ruled, was “procedurally defective” because DeVos failed to conduct a negotiated rulemaking on whether to postpone the rules.

Moss, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, did not immediately order the Education Department to take any action. He said that he would rule on how to proceed in the case after a hearing at 10:30 a.m. on Friday.