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US Politics: A Feast for Crows


DMC

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2 hours ago, Zorral said:

Josh Marshall says that what Gov Cuomo is going to get by going to Trump hat in hand for the federally owned bridge and tunnels is Trump demanding protection from the NY state judiciary against prosecution for his myriad state crimes. eff them all and their ilks.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/we-need-a-debrief-andrew

P.S. it's clear from hearing Cuomo dodging every question by people who know a whole lot that he's trying to leverage all these meetings with the orange nazi about the federally owned infrastructure around here (this is far from his first one), to the Dem nom for POTUS in 2020.

 

Even if that's what Cuomo wants, his problem is that the NY AG is independently elected and the governor has basically no power over the office. Unless Cuomo is hoping that Trump doesn't know that and is trying to trick him.

But I suspect Josh Marshall is seeing something that isn't really there.

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8 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Breaking News: Water is wet and Trump is losing his mind.

This interview he gave to WaPo is insane. Here's a funny highlight list:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/28/politics/donald-trump-washington-post/index.html

My favorite is this one:

I thought we couldn't  do a better job of helping Puerto Rico because we had to over come that "big water, ocean water."

In all seriousness though, I can't imagine anyone else saying some of the things on the list. I still have no idea how his supporters can think he's a smart guy.

I prefer:

14. "They're making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me."
This is essential Trump right here. He trusts his instincts more than some nerd's brain. He values his street sense more than something someone read in a book. Virtually every decision Trump makes can be explained by "my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me." And, no, I am not exaggerating.
 
We all knew that already; but it's... impressive to see him state it so clearly.
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10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Breaking News: Water is wet and Trump is losing his mind.

This interview he gave to WaPo is insane. Here's a funny highlight list:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/28/politics/donald-trump-washington-post/index.html

My favorite is this one:

Quote
8. "And when you're talking about an atmosphere, oceans are very small. And it blows over and it sails over."
 
This is not The Onion. This is a real quote. On the "oceans are very small" point: Oceans cover roughly 70% of the Earth's surface.

 

What's so controversial about that? He said oceans are very small "when you're talking about an atmosphere"And he is right. Huge amounts of sand are regularly carried over from sandstorms in Africa to other continents.

He is still incredibly ignorant about climate change so I'm not going to defend him about that, but there is nothing wrong with what he said about the oceans here.

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Too short for the Federal Reserve?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/28/18116652/trump-fed-jay-powell

Quote

President Donald Trump is “not even a little bit happy” with the Federal Reserve and the man he tapped to lead it, Chair Jerome Powell. And he’s got no problem saying it.

Well the orange dumb ass had his chance. But, evidently his opinion, along with the Republican Party generally, on the conduct of monetary policy and "rampant inflation just around the corner", seemingly depends on who is president. And here I was generally thinking it was just a bunch of guys that couldn't get out of the 1970s.

Quote

He could have renominated Yellen, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2012, since it’s been a norm for presidents to renominate Fed chairs picked by their predecessors. Yellen proved to be a steady hand at the Fed, is more qualified than Powell, and was a key player in steering the US economy through recovery after the recession. But Trump didn’t want her. (The Washington Post reported that part of Trump’s issue with Yellen was that at 5-foot-3, she was too short.)

 

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13 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Have you never, civily, told someone to fuck off?  I’d rather have heated discussions than blood in the streets.  But that’s my take.

 

I think there is still a lot of daylight between telling somebody to uncivilly fuck off and throwing a haymaker at them. 

And I don't see much were the Republican Party or Trump can be negotiated or compromised with. They simply need to be defeated politically. And they need to keep on taking political beatings until they change. How that exactly happens, I am still not sure. But, some way needs to be found. And playing patty cake with Republicans isn't getting off to a good start. And, before somebody thinks this is just the mad rant of some wild eyed lefty, I'd submit that even some former Republicans, deeply unhappy with Trumpism, have come to the same general conclusion. 

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2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Snip 

Hey, did you secretly write/ fund/ sponsor the Trumponomics review in NYMAG?   JOking aside, I immediately thought of you when I came across this.

Quote

 

The authors of Trumponomics are Larry Kudlow (who left in the middle of its writing to accept a job as director of the National Economic Council), Stephen Moore, and Arthur Laffer. The three fervently propound supply-side economics, a doctrine that holds that economic performance hinges largely on maintaining low tax rates on the rich. In the 1990s, the supply-siders insisted Bill Clinton’s increase in the top tax rate would create a recession and cause revenue to plummet. The following decade, they heralded the Bush tax cuts as the elixir that had brought in a glorious new era of prosperity. Moore wrote Bullish on Bush: How George Bush’s Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger, and Kudlow wrote the foreward to The Bush Boom.

Their record of being wrong about everything is so incomprehensibly vast it is astonishing they have retained their positions of influence over a major party. Trumponomics inadvertently clarifies how an economist who was declaring the U.S. housing market to be perfectly sound and on its way up in July 2008 secured a job as chief economist to the president of the United States as a matter of course.

 

 

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52 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

Hey, did you secretly write/ fund/ sponsor the Trumponomics review in NYMAG?   JOking aside, I immediately thought of you when I came across this.

 

LOL. No I didn't, but wish I had. Anyway it pretty sums up conservative mythology recording US economic history pretty well.

And Moore in particularly has seemingly revised his views about monetary policy, since Trump took office, the fuckin' hack clown. And yet, despite revising his views, in order to better align with the Trumpster, evidently he still thinks the problem around 2010 or so was too high taxes on the rich or there was too much regulation, and not because we were in a liquidity trap.

Forgot to add:

Quote

Greed is the glue that holds their story together. A large segment of their narrative consists of Trump turning over control of his agenda to various plutocrats. They tell how they wrote a memo defining the administration’s energy strategy during the transition period, drawing on three sources: oilman Harold Hamm; the Institute for Energy Research (a “partner organization” of the American Energy Alliance, a fossil fuel lobby); and Jack Coleman, an oil and gas lobbyist. They do not report consulting on any information sources not controlled by the fossil fuel industry. They describe a coal executive advising Trump, “if you want to make America great again, put a muzzle on the regulators.” At another meeting, one energy executive suggests natural gas, coal, and nuclear power should each have 30 percent of the power grid, with renewables splitting the remaining 10 percent. “That sounds about right,” Trump replies, “except for the ten percent for renewable energy.”

Now these are the sorts of people that need to be very uncivilly told to go fuck off.

I also like the part where the trio of knuckleheads claim Dubya didn't do the "true conservatism".

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7 hours ago, Fez said:

Even if that's what Cuomo wants, his problem is that the NY AG is independently elected and the governor has basically no power over the office. Unless Cuomo is hoping that Trump doesn't know that and is trying to trick him.

But I suspect Josh Marshall is seeing something that isn't really there.

This may be true but Letiticia James was backed by Cuomo and the dude is as corrupt as they come. Not saying what Josh Marshall suspects is true, just that don't underestimate Cuomo's shadiness. 

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5 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

I prefer:

14. "They're making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me."
This is essential Trump right here. He trusts his instincts more than some nerd's brain. He values his street sense more than something someone read in a book. Virtually every decision Trump makes can be explained by "my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else's brain can ever tell me." And, no, I am not exaggerating.
 
We all knew that already; but it's... impressive to see him state it so clearly.

See Trump sees ignorance as a virtue and extolls it as such.

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2 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think there is still a lot of daylight between telling somebody to uncivilly fuck off and throwing a haymaker at them. 

And I don't see much were the Republican Party or Trump can be negotiated or compromised with. They simply need to be defeated politically. And they need to keep on taking political beatings until they change. How that exactly happens, I am still not sure. But, some way needs to be found. And playing patty cake with Republicans isn't getting off to a good start. And, before somebody thinks this is just the mad rant of some wild eyed lefty, I'd submit that even some former Republicans, deeply unhappy with Trumpism, have come to the same general conclusion. 

I see your point but disagree about the space you mention.  When you tell someone to “Fuck off” you are not really talking to that person because you have written them off.  “Fuck off” just makes the person you are purportedly talking to angry.  

When you tell someone to “fuck off” in a public setting you’re talking to your supporters and preparing them for the fight (political or worse) you see coming.  You are rallying your troops because you see no other option.

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Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I see your point but disagree about the space you mention.  When you tell someone to “Fuck off” you are not really talking to that person because you have written them off.  “Fuck off” just makes the person you are purportedly talking to angry.  

Trump and (part of) the GOP are biggots and racists. I am with OGE, there's no point in talking to them, or some middle ground there. So there's really little else to tell Trump and his accolytes but to FUCK OFF! loudly and repeatedly.

The whole house called the Republican party really has to be burned down to the ground, preferably with the Trump Klan still in it. Just so something new can be built, it's gonna be a beautiful, beautiful thing. Well, less awful will do.

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8 hours ago, Fez said:

Even if that's what Cuomo wants, his problem is that the NY AG is independently elected and the governor has basically no power over the office. Unless Cuomo is hoping that Trump doesn't know that and is trying to trick him.

But can't Cuomo (theoretically) issue pardons for state crimes? Genuine question.

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17 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Trump and (part of) the GOP are biggots and racists. I am with OGE, there's no point in talking to them, or some middle ground there. So there's really little else to tell Trump and his accolytes but to FUCK OFF! loudly and repeatedly.

The whole house called the Republican party really has to be burned down to the ground, preferably with the Trump Klan still in it. Just so something new can be built, it's gonna be a beautiful, beautiful thing. Well, less awful will do.

I appreciate your point.  But we work in a system that values compromise and consensus.  When both sides see their opponents as “evil” and refuse to talk to them but for exchanging “Fuck offs” there is no where to go but down.

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35 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Trump and (part of) the GOP are biggots and racists. I am with OGE, there's no point in talking to them, or some middle ground there. So there's really little else to tell Trump and his accolytes but to FUCK OFF! loudly and repeatedly.

Ah yes, the best solution to any disagreement. It's sure to work, never backfires, never makes things worse.

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29 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I appreciate your point.  But we work in a system that values compromise and consensus.  When both sides see their opponents as “evil” and refuse to talk to them but for exchanging “Fuck offs” there is no where to go but down.

But when one side not only refuses to respond to civility from the other, but actively takes advantage of it while refusing to reciprocate, it's folly to ask that the second side continues to be civil regardless.

Talk to me about civility when any Republican in congress sees it as anything more than a useful tool to use against Democrats. In the meantime, do you know what is more important than civility? What gives civility meaning? What civility is supposed to actually communicate? Respect. And at present, the Republicans have no respect, nothing but contempt in fact, for Democrats or indeed the institutions of civil society in the US. In fact, such contempt is the glue holding their entire party together. While that is true, your repeated quest for civility will not magically produce the outcome you want. It can't. 

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7 minutes ago, mormont said:

But when one side not only refuses to respond to civility from the other, but actively takes advantage of it while refusing to reciprocate, it's folly to ask that the second side continues to be civil regardless.

Talk to me about civility when any Republican in congress sees it as anything more than a useful tool to use against Democrats. In the meantime, do you know what is more important than civility? What gives civility meaning? What civility is supposed to actually communicate? Respect. And at present, the Republicans have no respect, nothing but contempt in fact, for Democrats or indeed the institutions of civil society in the US. In fact, such contempt is the glue holding their entire party together. While that is true, your repeated quest for civility will not magically produce the outcome you want. It can't. 

I agree. The time has long passed for the Democrats to throw down the gloves and say, "Bring it!" Turning the other cheek isn't going to work. It's fire with fire and an eye for an eye. 

The thing about Trumpers is that they're not very bright. Any reasonably informed Democrat or non-Trumper Republican can run rings around those morons any day of the week. But I have no problem telling them to f*** off and shaming them into submission. Compromise requires middle ground--there isn't any, and there's no foundation on which to build a reasonable discussion. So don't try. 

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1 hour ago, Mexal said:

This may be true but Letiticia James was backed by Cuomo and the dude is as corrupt as they come. Not saying what Josh Marshall suspects is true, just that don't underestimate Cuomo's shadiness. 

Cuomo is shady, sure, but he wants to be President some day and he'd be toast in Democratic politics if he unambiguously helps Trump. Also, there's no indication that James is corrupt, Cuomo backed her basically just as a way to stick it to Teachout. The entire AG primary campaign was the two of them and two minor candidates competing to see who could be the toughest sounding on prosecuting Trump.

Plus, the NY AG is an office for ambitious politicians, not toadies. Ignoring political appointees to fill a vacancy, there's only been six elected AGs since 1957. Two left to become governor, another resigned in disgrace before he could run for governor like he planned, one served for 22 years and totally transformed and expanded the office, another served for 15 years and had an extremely distinguished career there, and the last was the final Republican to hold the office and had a single term that was relatively unremarkable. The point is though, James almost certainly has her own ambitious, probably to run for governor in 4 or 8 years; and I don't think she'd sink that by supporting something like this.

 

45 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

But can't Cuomo (theoretically) issue pardons for state crimes? Genuine question.

Theoretically, yeah. The NY Governor has wide-ranging pardon powers. There are a lot of regulations and procedures surrounding them, but I don't know if a governor could just muscle past them if they really wanted. Funnily enough though, the two places the NY Constitution specifically forbids the governor from pardoning are for treason and crimes that resulted in impeachment. So if things really went south for Trump, Cuomo couldn't save him even if he wanted to. The financial crimes and obstruction of justice stuff that NY is actually looking at though could technically be pardoned.

But again, I think this is all pretty fanciful. I have a low opinion of Cuomo too, but I don't think his incentives line up with supporting Trump at all. More likely, he plays hardball and tells Trump that if transportation funding is held up he'll sue.

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23 minutes ago, mormont said:

But when one side not only refuses to respond to civility from the other, but actively takes advantage of it while refusing to reciprocate, it's folly to ask that the second side continues to be civil regardless.

Talk to me about civility when any Republican in congress sees it as anything more than a useful tool to use against Democrats. In the meantime, do you know what is more important than civility? What gives civility meaning? What civility is supposed to actually communicate? Respect. And at present, the Republicans have no respect, nothing but contempt in fact, for Democrats or indeed the institutions of civil society in the US. In fact, such contempt is the glue holding their entire party together. While that is true, your repeated quest for civility will not magically produce the outcome you want. It can't. 

I’m not asking any one side to disarm unilaterally.  I’m pointing out that the ongoing lack of civility is taking the US to bad places.  

If I see a Trump supporter or Republican in this thread endorsing their bellicose bullshit I’d say exactly the same thing to them.

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54 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I appreciate your point.  But we work in a system that values compromise and consensus.  When both sides see their opponents as “evil” and refuse to talk to them but for exchanging “Fuck offs” there is no where to go but down.

Have you been sleeping the past ten years? The GOP has trampled upon that system that needs compromise and consensus. You can't haggle with extremists. Every compromise requires some middle ground, that is simply not there.
I don'T mean to mock you or anything, but how would compromise with the current GOP?

That only half of the Mexicans are murdering rapists? Will you build half wall at the Mexican border? Or one that has only half the height envisioned by them?
Did Twitler commit treason? If so, is it really that bad?

I mean really, how do you suppose a compromise with those people is going to work? Those people attack the very institutions of your system, you really can't afford to compromise those. (does that qualify as a pun?)

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45 minutes ago, mormont said:

But when one side not only refuses to respond to civility from the other, but actively takes advantage of it while refusing to reciprocate, it's folly to ask that the second side continues to be civil regardless.

Talk to me about civility when any Republican in congress sees it as anything more than a useful tool to use against Democrats. In the meantime, do you know what is more important than civility? What gives civility meaning? What civility is supposed to actually communicate? Respect. And at present, the Republicans have no respect, nothing but contempt in fact, for Democrats or indeed the institutions of civil society in the US. In fact, such contempt is the glue holding their entire party together. While that is true, your repeated quest for civility will not magically produce the outcome you want. It can't. 

Talk about projection, holy hell. You're claiming Republicans have no respect, only contempt for Democrats, while you guys are here claiming there's no point in talking to them, except loudly and repeatedly telling them to FUCK OFF.

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