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US Politics: Sing us a song, you're the Tariff man


Kalbear

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Call me a cynic, but I doubt that new generation of Republicans is ever going to arrive. They have had massive electoral success by clamoring for fiscal responsibility whenever they were not in charge. And they have never been punished for their irresponsibility when they were in power. This has been the pattern for four decades. Why should it change?

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

From my perspective, the conversation had shifted to a discussion of what means justified the ends, and it seemed like people were pretty willing to say do whatever it takes to win. I personally think that will lead us to a horrific situation.

Well, that's not what I was trying to convey at all.  There's a whole lot of ground between saying the standard you were admonishing AOC for violating has never really existed and her tweet reflected something pretty much all MCs do (misrepresenting budget estimates), and on the other hand advocating a "by any means necessary" approach.  A whole, whole lot of ground.  And even if one were to adopt a politically amoral position, "stooping to Trump's level" - in pretty much any way - would be a bad political move for his 2020 opponent.

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Just for your interest, on Friday the S&P 500 formed a death cross for the first time since January, 2016.

”A death cross forms when an index’s near-term moving average of daily closing prices falls below its long-term moving average as both averages are declining. The 50- and 200-day moving averages are declining. The 50- and 200-day moving averages are commonly used.

The S&P 500’s 50-day moving average is now 3.7 points below its declining 200-day moving average.”

- The Globe and Mail, Toronto

Historically the death cross indicates the markets will fall further, but that’s not guaranteed. 

Opinions about what will happen are divided (there are always optimists and pessimists) but some of the pessimists point out that world-wide growth looks shaky and the yield curve has flattened.

Stay tuned!

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4 minutes ago, The guy from the Vale said:

Call me a cynic, but I doubt that new generation of Republicans is ever going to arrive. They have had massive electoral success by clamoring for fiscal responsibility whenever they were not in charge. And they have never been punished for their irresponsibility when they were in power. This has been the pattern for four decades. Why should it change?

It's become clear to me that Republicans' electoral success in the last several decades has always been based on stoking white racial resentment, and all the other nice-sounding stuff like fiscal responsibility was just window dressing.

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53 minutes ago, Fez said:

Yep, really. Either he and Roberts see some technical issue in the case that would've messed up their longterm judicial plans (which I doubt, since Gorsuch would've probably recognized any such issue too; Alito and Thomas wouldn't care) or this is Roberts being concerned about court legacy and somehow has leverage on Kavanaugh to keep him in line too (since it only takes 4 justices to agree to hear a case).

Or, and I find this least likely of all, Kavanaugh doesn't want to defund Planned Parenthood.

Stare Decisis does matter to Justices regardless of their political point of view.

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31 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Stare Decisis does matter to Justices regardless of their political point of view.

Roberts is hedging to prevent court packing and he’s using the sexual harassment cases against kavanaugh that he’s kept hushed up as leverage to keep kavanaugh under his thumb. Stare decisis has zero to do with it. It’s naked political manipulations as per usual in the judicial system

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Regarding trump and his guilt. 

One he never admits guilt, he always fights back and escalates. Escalation from trump is the rule. He also never loses he always uses his escalations to gain leverage And manipulate the settlement process to maximize his own advantage. So the ultimate outcome is almost guaranteed that trump will get away with it and declare victory because he’ll use the legal process to get a settlement and declare victory even if it is an extremely unfavorable settlement the details  of the settlement matter exactly zero, the only thing that matters is the headline and since no one involved other than trump understands this simple fact, trump will win the headline and that means he ultimately wins.

two, he doesn’t care a bit about his family, he is ruthless And will pragmatically throw all of them under the bus if he believes it will advantage him.

Three Gerald ford has provided us with a highly ethical and extremely historically praised precedent that allows trump to get away with all of it, immediately possess a rehabilitated public image, and his successor getting nothing but decades of fellating ecstatic praise for taking this action. Namely if things get really bad. Trump wins his headline, takes the settlement, pardons all his family and compatriots, resigns the presidency and is immediately pardoned fully by his successor (invalidating the bad settlement, but “proving trump is innocent in the eyes of the public”).

basically there is almost no way that trump can lose no matter how bad it gets because the media will universally be eager to be complicit in aiding all of this along. Can’t wait for the daily NYT pieces praising 46 for pardoning trump and helping the nation grieve as a true and strong good leader must do.

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52 minutes ago, The guy from the Vale said:

Call me a cynic, but I doubt that new generation of Republicans is ever going to arrive. They have had massive electoral success by clamoring for fiscal responsibility whenever they were not in charge. And they have never been punished for their irresponsibility when they were in power. This has been the pattern for four decades. Why should it change?

I think your intuition is correct, unfortunately. The only way Republican politicians will change, is when they fear losing elections more than they do the GOP donor class and the various bullshitters in the conservative media (Hannity, Limpdick, and so forth). How we get them to lose elections, though is not an easily solvable problem.

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57 minutes ago, The guy from the Vale said:

Call me a cynic, but I doubt that new generation of Republicans is ever going to arrive. They have had massive electoral success by clamoring for fiscal responsibility whenever they were not in charge. And they have never been punished for their irresponsibility when they were in power. This has been the pattern for four decades. Why should it change?

Because there will always be new generation of misinformed racists who will use any policy position available to fuck over America. 

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1 hour ago, Martell Spy said:

Paul Ryan’s long con
He betrayed his promises and left a legacy of debt and disappointment.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/10/17929460/paul-ryan-speaker-retiring-debt-deficits-trump

Ryan is a polite and "civil" bullshitter. Where Trump is a crude and obnoxious bullshitter.

Honestly. I think I prefer the crude and obnoxious kind of bullshitter, more than the polite and "civil" kind, as it seems to me the polite and "civil" kind seems able to convince more people that they are in fact "serious", when they really aren't.

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19 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Ryan is a polite and "civil" bullshitter. Where Trump is a crude and obnoxious bullshitter.

Honestly. I think I prefer the crude and obnoxious kind of bullshitter, more than the polite and "civil" kind, as it seems to me the polite and "civil" kind seems able to convince more people that they are in fact "serious", when they really aren't.

Oh, no thank you.  Ryan is fading out of public view while the obnoxious bullshitter has cult of personality 60 million strong.  

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48 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

Roberts is hedging to prevent court packing and he’s using the sexual harassment cases against kavanaugh that he’s kept hushed up as leverage to keep kavanaugh under his thumb. Stare decisis has zero to do with it. It’s naked political manipulations as per usual in the judicial system

Assuming you are correct and that is his rationale (he has no direct control over the other Justices) why is the SCOTUS leaving a win for planned parenthood in place a bad thing?

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42 minutes ago, S John said:

Oh, no thank you.  Ryan is fading out of public view while the obnoxious bullshitter has cult of personality 60 million strong.  

60 million is a lot of clowns. Not that I don't doubt there about 60 million clowns, but I tend to think, if Trump was a bit more subtle and not such an obvious obnoxious dumb ass, then the results of the midterms might have been more favorable to him.

Or perhaps my contempt for Paul Ryan, and his years of putting the "con" in conservative, is clouding my judgment about this matter.

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3 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

I thought the choice of cases by SCOTUS justices was supposed to be secret. When did that change? Is this official? Or was Thomas being a dick and breaking tradition here?

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James Fallows had an interesting article in the Atlantic about something I had been thinking about; namely how association with Trump sullies everyone. In some cases this is how they always were and being with him just revealed it to us; in other cases they have been dragged into the mud due to their association. Its kinda fun to go through the rogue's gallery and see who falls in what bucket. For instance, Susan Collins would be in the latter, and Rudy Giuliani in the former. Not sure where Butters would be.....

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9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Robert B. Casey, 112 S.Ct 2791, 120 L.Ed 2nd 674, 60 USLW 4795 (1992).

So you're saying Stare Decisis matters NOW because of a ruling from 26 years ago. 

Just curious - how many of the current conservative justices were on the court 26 years ago? The answer may surprise you. 

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16 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

So you're saying Stare Decisis matters NOW because of a ruling from 26 years ago. 

Just curious - how many of the current conservative justices were on the court 26 years ago? The answer may surprise you. 

It is a citation showing that the SCOTUS reaffirmed Stare Decisis.  The SCOTUS, including two Conservatives, just rejected an opportunity to set aside the decision I cited.

But, for your edification, here’s a 2015 opinion upholding Stare Decisis: Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 135 S.Ct. 2401, 192 L.Ed. 463, 83 USLW 4531.

:)

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1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It is a citation showing that the SCOTUS reaffirmed Stare Decisis.  The SCOTUS, including two Conservatives, just rejected an opportunity to set aside the decision I cited.

Sure! And how does that show that Stare Decisis matters to them? As said elsewhere, there are a whole lot of reasons why Roberts and Kavanaugh may not want to try for that one right now. 

Put it another way: Roberts overturned the central parts of the Voter Rights' Act because, simply, he didn't think it was important any more. That is in direct and absurd contradiction to Stare Decisis (VRA has had a lot of cases against it over the years), but he was cool that time. He was cool with it with Citizens United as well. What makes you think it matters NOW?

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