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U.S. Politics: Phantom of the Emergency


DMC

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6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I haven’t read the fine print, but I’m not sure if that was a smart move. It gives Trump an opening to paint the Democrats as the ones unwilling to negotiate.

Their best response was 'I welcome the chance to talk to the President about border security just as soon as the government is reopened'. 

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17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I haven’t read the fine print, but I’m not sure if that was a smart move. It gives Trump an opening to paint the Democrats as the ones unwilling to negotiate.

I swear you're like an over-worrying mother with this shutdown.  Trump's oval office address had no impact, nor did him staging a walk out of a meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, but a handful of Blue Dogs turning down lunch is going to?

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3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm not nearly as confident as you are that "people that don't understand marginal tax rates" and "people firmly ensconced within the right wing bubble" overlap perfectly on a Venn diagram. 

It wasn't marginal rates I was talking about, it was the "for people earning more than $10 million a year" part. Most people know they're not ever going to earn anything like that.

3 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

If we're fantasizing about burning the current tax code down to the ground, I think Democrats could steal a march on Republican messaging by having statutory and effective tax rates be the same, and even having negative tax rates for the poorest filers. When Republicans try to complain about Democrats raising taxes, Democrats can say, no we are lowering taxes and simplifying them, we are treating all income the same, and then, as an added non-messaging bonus, would actually be raising more revenue.

Sounds good to me! :) Though I'm not sure negative percentages works, since there'd be an inverse relationship between degree of poverty and amount of aid in the form of negative tax (ie someone with no income will receive zero negative tax not matter what the rate).

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Trump asking the Democrats to lunch signals he is looking for an out over this shutdown. The more Democrats resist, the more it strengthens their hand. I wouldnt worry too much about the optics (a majority of Americans blame Trump for the shutdown, so they have some numbers to play with here). If they can stay on message and point to the bill that was rejected by Trump (against pushback that they are being obstructionist) then they should still have the upper hand.

The only part that worries me about the polls is that Congressional Republicans are not being blamed at all for the shutdown. How do they escape censure (rhetorical question)?

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I haven’t read the fine print, but I’m not sure if that was a smart move. It gives Trump an opening to paint the Democrats as the ones unwilling to negotiate.

Trump went beyond leadership to try to pick off a bunch of rank and file Dems. If they went for lunch, all the reporting would be about how Pelosi can't control her caucus which she very clearly can. It was the right move.

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5 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The only part that worries me about the polls is that Congressional Republicans are not being blamed at all for the shutdown. How do they escape censure (rhetorical question)?

I don't know about every poll, but the CNN one that came out over the weekend didn't have Congressional Republicans as an option - it was Trump, Dem Congress, or both.  The WaPo/ABC poll over the weekend grouped Trump and Congressional Republicans into one choice.

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2 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Its just one poll from CBS/YouGov that has 47/30/3/20 for Trump, Dem Congress, Rep Congress and "all equally" as the 4 options. 

Clearly, all the blame towards the right is being directed at Trump.  That's a good thing, not a bad thing.

3 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Anyone post about 277 page Judge Furman ruling that said adding the citizenship question to the 2020 census was illegal? If not, that's a pretty big win.

Saw it, didn't post.  Don't like how he directly challenged Gorsuch in his opinion.  Historically not a good strategy for a lower-court judge.

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10 minutes ago, DMC said:

Clearly, all the blame towards the right is being directed at Trump.  That's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Saw it, didn't post.  Don't like how he directly challenged Gorsuch in his opinion.  Historically not a good strategy for a lower-court judge.

We will see. If they do overrule it, they're massively hypocritical given they constantly say that statues should be followed.

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6 minutes ago, Mexal said:

We will see. If they do overrule it, they're massively hypocritical given they constantly say that statues should be followed.

hypocritical!?!?! 

FASCISTS??? NEVER!

You're out on a limb on this one, Mr.

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1 minute ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

hypocritical!?!?! 

FASCISTS??? NEVER!

You're out on a limb on this one, Mr.

Yea but it'll set precedent that if you want to avoid written statues, just say you're trying to "cut through the red tape" see State of NY et al vs US Department of Commerce. I think that would create a problem.  

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I share Ty’s misgivings. The Dems are winning the blame game, but their motivations here are prevention of what they see as waste and ideological error (the Wall) and fear of establishing a precedent for Trump using shut downs to get w/e he wants. But the waste factor is a diminishing return. If/when the cost of the shutdown supersedes the expected cost of the wall, or at least whatever portion they refuse to fund, that position becomes increasingly fragile. Whereas Trump doesn’t care about how the effects others aside from it’s effect on his image, and there he seems to think a show of strength > all else. And while some of the GOP do care about the effects of the shutdown, that’s offset by the ‘all government is bad’ brigade AND those who think the Wall is what is best for the country. 

In this Trump’s narcissism actually might help his resolve, provided Fox et al don’t flip on him. As far as the very real fear of precedent, that’s often where the Dems historically fail, and part of that is the repeated pattern of Dems thinking that biting the bullet and doing ‘what’s best for the country’ will ultimately play well for them and paint the GOP as selfish/idealogical, but that fundamentally misunderstands the US priorizatuon of ‘winning’ over other factors regardless of the circumstances and the correlation with strength/weakness. It’s a sad truth that the GOP has always understood this more.

For instance Kavanaugh, where it was generally assumed that the GOP was faced with the choice of winning the appointment and losing public support, but no, predictably Trump’s popularity soared after pulling out the ‘win’ against...his own side, whose fear of bad or was literally the only obstacle. And, also predictably, a few weeks later it became a non-factor. But somehow this never stops the Dems from thinking this time will be the time when they get rewarded for losing on principle. 

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11 minutes ago, Mexal said:

We will see. If they do overrule it, they're massively hypocritical given they constantly say that statues should be followed.

The problem with statues is they always stay in one place, so following them is so boring.

but if birnham statues get on the move? hoo boy, what a march that will be! 

Treguna, Mekoides, Tracorum, Statis, Dee

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1 minute ago, lokisnow said:

The problem with statues is they always stay in one place, so following them is so boring.

but if birnham statues get on the move? hoo boy, what a march that will be! 

Treguna, Mekoides, Tracorum, Statis, Dee

Blah. I deserved that.

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24 minutes ago, Mexal said:

We will see. If they do overrule it, they're massively hypocritical given they constantly say that statues should be followed.

My point was calling out SCOTUS in such a way - basically arguing they have no justification for overturning his decision - is a great strategy to piss them off, and in the process motivate SCOTUS to overturn his decision.  If conservative justices are worried about looking massively hypocritical, they chose the wrong career path.

13 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

I share Ty’s misgivings. [snip]

This sounds a lot more like an argument for the Dems to hold the line than sharing Ty's concerns that Trump can somehow turn the tables on the Dems regarding the blame game and/or that the Dems will eventually need to offer Trump some face-saving gesture to resolve the shutdown.

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3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Their best response was 'I welcome the chance to talk to the President about border security just as soon as the government is reopened'. 

In a vacuum, sure, but that can only work for so long.

3 hours ago, DMC said:

I swear you're like an over-worrying mother with this shutdown.  Trump's oval office address had no impact, nor did him staging a walk out of a meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, but a handful of Blue Dogs turning down lunch is going to?

It's a small thing, but those accumulate. And good god man, we're Democrats.  Don't you know our default position is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory? 

2 hours ago, Mexal said:

Trump went beyond leadership to try to pick off a bunch of rank and file Dems. If they went for lunch, all the reporting would be about how Pelosi can't control her caucus which she very clearly can. It was the right move.

Aaaaaaaand that's why you read the article.... Because of the phrasing, I took it to mean that Pelosi plus some rank and file members turned down the President. 

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

This sounds a lot more like an argument for the Dems to hold the line than sharing Ty's concerns that Trump can somehow turn the tables on the Dems regarding the blame game and/or that the Dems will eventually need to offer Trump some face-saving gesture to resolve the shutdown.

I doubt Trump can completely flip the situation on the Dems, he's too unpopular for that, but he could pull them down into the muck with him like he did with Clinton. And if that happens and the shutdown drags out for a very long time, the Dems will blink.  

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Aaaaaaaand that's why you read the article.... Because of the phrasing, I took it to mean that Pelosi plus some rank and file members turned down the President. 

Nah, it was specifically targeting new dems in districts that Trump won in 2016, many part of a 'blue dog' caucus. It's kind of a smartish move! It worked with Manchin before. 

But they either couldn't show up or turned him down, leaving the lunch to Republicans only, and showing exactly how much power and unity Pelosi actually has. I'm honestly hugely pleasantly surprised; I wasn't as in to politics when she was speaker in 2006-2010, and her as minority speaker wasn't that impressive, but so far she has shown entirely to be the right person for the job. 

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