Jump to content

U.S. Politics: 22 Trillion Problems But An Unsecured Border Ain’t One


Mr. Chatywin et al.

Recommended Posts

Every Day Is a New Low in Trump's White House
The president steps over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he encounters them. Everyone in America saw it when he fired my boss. But I saw it firsthand time and time again.

ANDREW G. MCCABE

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/02/andrew-mccabe-fbi-book-excerpt-the-threat/582748/

Quote

In this moment, I felt the way I’d felt in 1998, in a case involving the Russian Mafia, when I sent a man I’ll call Big Felix in to meet with a Mafia boss named Dimitri Gufield. The same kind of thing was happening here, in the Oval Office. Dimitri had wanted Felix to endorse his protection scheme. This is a dangerous business, and it’s a bad neighborhood, and you know, if you want, I can protect you from that. If you want my protection. I can protect you. Do you want my protection? The president and his men were trying to work me the way a criminal brigade would operate.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

 

I'm not disputing either of those things. I'm still a bit bothered seeing pundits fall over themselves to interview the 'Big Names' and hope and pray Beto runs because he's cool.

I don't see why; Beto currently polls ahead of Gabbard by a large margin, and I believe he's right up there with Gillibrand. And he's making some big news with his rallies in opposition to Trump. 

It's also almost two years until the election and over 15 months until the nomination, so the media focusing on others instead of the ones who are running but who are doing newsworthy things seems totally reasonable to me. It's not like Gillibrand is doing anything of note, and I would imagine Gabbard wants to slink back into her shitty hole. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is nuts.

I've been searching around trying to get an idea of what the whip count will be in the Senate for the upcoming joint resolution.

Democrats need 4 votes, assuming that they can keep Manchin in line (which I think they'll be able to on this one - he just won re-election after all). 

There are at least 5 to 7 vulnerable Republican incumbents in 2020: McSally, Ernst, Perdue (maybe), Collins, Cornyn (maybe), Tillis and Gardner. 

In addition, there are 2 retiring in 2020: Alexander and Roberts, who are most likely looking more towards concerns about their legacy rather than political concerns; they're also both on the more moderate-ish end of the Republican spectrum.

Cornyn has come out pretty strongly against the declaration, but he's leadership so will probably end up backing it. Among others who have come out against the declaration are Collins, Blunt, Thune, and Romney. Thune will be the one doing the whipping, so expect him to oppose the resolution also. Then there is also Murkowski, who leans more moderate-ish.

Leaving out Cornyn, Thune and Perdue (because whether he faces a serious threat in 2020 is conditional), that leaves at least 10 Republican Senators who could potentially back the resolution. Then you have Lee and Paul, who are unpredictable, but whose rhetoric tends toward opposing executive overreach. 

And that's just a quick count on my part...there could be others who come out in favor of the resolution in order to avoid setting a precedent for a Democratic president in the future.

McConnell announced the emergency declaration before the White House did, which means he was giving Republicans as much advance notice as possible...which means that he agreed to back an emergency declaration without knowing whether he could whip enough opposition to defeat the House's resolution...which means that Trump basically told McConnell that he'd refuse to sign the appropriations bill unless McConnell agreed to back the emergency declaration. 

Holy shit! This is some prime-time political theater!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's interesting. If you think like the GOP might be that the Democrats will almost never actually control the senate AND POTUS at the same time, it might make sense for them to allow it and set the precedent and let it happen. They'll give some BS answers about how this is the Dems fault for not compromising enough and they're forced into it, and will decry  Dems trying it later (and presumably block it later when they get control of the House). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Gertrude said:

 

I'm not disputing either of those things. I'm still a bit bothered seeing pundits fall over themselves to interview the 'Big Names' and hope and pray Beto runs because he's cool.

It's still early though. Gillibrand has the NYC media to help her in time if she does something attention worthy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

This is nuts.

I've been searching around trying to get an idea of what the whip count will be in the Senate for the upcoming joint resolution.

Democrats need 4 votes, assuming that they can keep Manchin in line (which I think they'll be able to on this one - he just won re-election after all). 

There are at least 5 to 7 vulnerable Republican incumbents in 2020: McSally, Ernst, Perdue (maybe), Collins, Cornyn (maybe), Tillis and Gardner. 

In addition, there are 2 retiring in 2020: Alexander and Roberts, who are most likely looking more towards concerns about their legacy rather than political concerns; they're also both on the more moderate-ish end of the Republican spectrum.

Cornyn has come out pretty strongly against the declaration, but he's leadership so will probably end up backing it. Among others who have come out against the declaration are Collins, Blunt, Thune, and Romney. Thune will be the one doing the whipping, so expect him to oppose the resolution also. Then there is also Murkowski, who leans more moderate-ish.

Leaving out Cornyn, Thune and Perdue (because whether he faces a serious threat in 2020 is conditional), that leaves at least 10 Republican Senators who could potentially back the resolution. Then you have Lee and Paul, who are unpredictable, but whose rhetoric tends toward opposing executive overreach. 

And that's just a quick count on my part...there could be others who come out in favor of the resolution in order to avoid setting a precedent for a Democratic president in the future.

McConnell announced the emergency declaration before the White House did, which means he was giving Republicans as much advance notice as possible...which means that he agreed to back an emergency declaration without knowing whether he could whip enough opposition to defeat the House's resolution...which means that Trump basically told McConnell that he'd refuse to sign the appropriations bill unless McConnell agreed to back the emergency declaration. 

Holy shit! This is some prime-time political theater!

Dude. Just stop.

Why do you people keep doing this to yourselves?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Dude. Just stop.

Why do you people keep doing this to yourselves?

Yeah, it doesn't matter if it passes the Senate or not. Trump will veto it and that will be it. Then Democrats have to find someone with standing and the courts will put this on hold for a long time. 

It's insane that Republicans are willing to set this precedent over such a small issue. They will regret this one day if the courts rule in Trump's favor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Yeah, it doesn't matter if it passes the Senate or not. Trump will veto it and that will be it. Then Democrats have to find someone with standing and the courts will put this on hold for a long time. 

It's insane that Republicans are willing to set this precedent over such a small issue. They will regret this one day if the courts rule in Trump's favor.

Actually if you assume that these long awaited 'Moderate' Republicans have a scrap of intelligence to go along with their positions, their activities after the failed repeal of the ACA are perfectly logical.

Republic's dead bro. Get what you can or want out of it while you're in a position to do so, and appeasing the petulant child at the top is a prerequisite for maintaining influence.

This is a staple of every failed governmental system in human history.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Actually if you assume that these long awaited 'Moderate' Republicans have a scrap of intelligence to go along with their positions, their activities after the failed repeal of the ACA are perfectly logical.

Republic's dead bro. Get what you can or want out of it while you're in a position to do so, and appeasing the petulant child at the top is a prerequisite for maintaining influence.

This is a staple of every failed governmental system in human history.

Jace is smhart and wise and powerful and Jace. 

Also, can't resist:

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, a lot of the 'short sighted' things matter only if you think that there is going to be some form of bipartisan government in the future. If you don't think that for whatever reason things start seeming entirely rational.

Now I'm not convinced that's the case - I think it's about 50/50 at this point - but to paraphrase Gillum, I think that is what most GOP think. Either they're dominionists, or they're planning on securing elections in nondemocratic ways, or they're thinking that the US will effectively collapse for other reasons. But that's what they're banking on. They're banking on taking out a whole lot of debt and not being around to pay. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, a lot of the 'short sighted' things matter only if you think that there is going to be some form of bipartisan government in the future. If you don't think that for whatever reason things start seeming entirely rational.

Now I'm not convinced that's the case - I think it's about 50/50 at this point - but to paraphrase Gillum, I think that is what most GOP think. Either they're dominionists, or they're planning on securing elections in nondemocratic ways, or they're thinking that the US will effectively collapse for other reasons. But that's what they're banking on. They're banking on taking out a whole lot of debt and not being around to pay. 

Oh look, the election security task force has been gutted.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-dhs-guts-task-forces-protecting-elections-from-foreign-meddling

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As usual, I think a lot of folks here are ascribing too monolithic, concrete plans to a group of very disorganized and disparate actors. There's no grand plan among Republican senators, they're each just trying to thread the needle to stay in power until Trump's gone and then continue on their merry way of deregulation and tax breaks. They face a huge number of collective action problems, lack the courage to do anything about them, and are basically just muddling by. They don't want Trump to declare a national emergency, they know what the long-term effects would be, but they don't want to be the ones to stop him either. And right now they also don't want to antagonize him too much before the appropriations bill is signed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yeah, it doesn't matter if it passes the Senate or not. Trump will veto it and that will be it. Then Democrats have to find someone with standing and the courts will put this on hold for a long time. 

It's insane that Republicans are willing to set this precedent over such a small issue. They will regret this one day if the courts rule in Trump's favor.

Democrats already have standing.  Republicans in Congress sued Obama in 2015 to block him from re-appropriating funds in order to make payments to insurers under the ACA and they were ruled to have standing.

And a veto doesn't end it. It just prolongs the process and ensures it is covered endlessly in the press as Democrats try to override the veto. Plus it fractures an already shaky Republican coalition.

Trump doesn't know it yet, but this was a bigger miscalculation on his part than the shutdown.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Fez said:

As usual, I think a lot of folks here are ascribing too monolithic, concrete plans to a group of very disorganized and disparate actors. There's no grand plan among Republican senators, they're each just trying to thread the needle to stay in power until Trump's gone and then continue on their merry way of deregulation and tax breaks. They face a huge number of collective action problems, lack the courage to do anything about them, and are basically just muddling by. They don't want Trump to declare a national emergency, they know what the long-term effects would be, but they don't want to be the ones to stop him either. And right now they also don't want to antagonize him too much before the appropriations bill is signed.

Not to mention that in the showdowns over ACA repeal, tax cuts and the Kavanaugh vote, Republicans had the luxury of holding both chambers of Congress and were facing an historically favorable Senate map in the 2018 elections. Neither of those luxuries apply now. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I know it's way too early to say for sure, but right now Harris looks like the person to beat for the nomination.  She has a strong resume, she's youngish, she consistently walks the line between being tough and being charismatic, and she showed political acumen by not shrinking away from her record as a prosecutor.  I've no doubt a few people on the left won't like a prosecutor being the nominee, but I doubt it could possibly dampen enthusiasm for her in the general.  The only real downside I'm seeing is that she's from California, and while that isn't ideal, it's hardly a crippling deficiency.  She's had to navigate some bruising Democratic primaries in the past too. 

I don't actually dispute your overall point that she's looking the strongest, but

10 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Perhaps they should be reminded that a liberal icon, or used to be a liberal icon,  at least, that was a former prosecutor was Earl Warren. He was also a Republican, back in the day, when there was somewhat sane ones.

I think it would be a mistake to dismiss the people that have an issue with her history as though its just ideological objection from middle class white liberals or that sort. The people I've seen that have an issue are predominantly members of marginalised communities that have been on the receiving end of the practices she is defending. It's a genuine push back against harm they have seen done. I'm not saying that means you can't support her, just don't view it as anything other than sincere and genuine.

3 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Republic's dead bro. Get what you can or want out of it while you're in a position to do so, and appeasing the petulant child at the top is a prerequisite for maintaining influence.

 

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Yeah, a lot of the 'short sighted' things matter only if you think that there is going to be some form of bipartisan government in the future. If you don't think that for whatever reason things start seeming entirely rational.

I haven't seen anyone point this out yet, but it seems like things are getting to the point where the risk of assassination is part of the consideration for any Republicans that might consider "betraying" their own side. The emotion that surrounds betrayal tends to burn brighter and that would be up there for the sort of thing that would trigger an escalation, and I imagine the threat posed by extremists towards the other side is monitored more closely than the threat to their own side.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

People who wear denim to the symphony or opera.

Well I can't get too judgy there - at least they're going to symphonies or operas.

12 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I know it's way too early to say for sure, but right now Harris looks like the person to beat for the nomination. 

Yeah I don't think anyone's reached "person to beat" status just yet, but like I said she's clearly had the most successful rollout of any candidate - and it isn't even close.  Warren seems perpetually dogged by the Native American thing, and while it's way too early to pronounce her DOA, she's gonna be close to it if/when Bernie announces.  It's gonna take her a lot of resolve to survive - like John McCain in 2007 flying coach level resolve.  No way she could have known how quickly and detailed the staff thing was gonna come out, but Klobuchar should have known she'd eventually have to address it and should have gotten out in front of it.  

Booker, Gillibrand, and Castro didn't make any errors that I can think of, but they also didn't do anything to stand out and gain momentum - and it's incumbent on them to do so to stand out in such a crowded race (especially Gillibrand and Castro).  Meanwhile, Harris used her book and MLK day to prolong coverage of her rollout, used the advantageous part of her Bay area base to have a huge announcement event, and even felt comfortable enough to hold her own town hall - which helped further prolong her coverage.  All demonstrate adept political strategy and planning that no other candidate has shown (I guess Beto with the dueling rallies this week but he kinda got lucky with that).  And her one flub - kinda sorta saying we should abolish private health insurance during that town hall - smartly erred to the left, so she can always walk that back to the center if she makes it to the general.

Can't believe Harris is already beating Sanders in that Emerson Iowa poll that came out a couple weeks ago.  I did not expect her to get this much traction so quickly.  No one's ever won anything a year out from Iowa, but candidates can lose during this time, and she's off to a great start.

5 hours ago, Maithanet said:

It's a mess all right.  I really thought people had talked Trump down from this cliff, and instead he was just going to use executive actions to move money to the wall.

I don't think it's too surprising, and based on Trump's M.O. it's always seemed the most likely outcome.  While it did seem like there'd be a new report of someone (oftentimes McConnell himself) warning Trump not to declare an emergency every other day over the past few weeks, Trump would still go out and promptly threaten to do so at basically any opportunity.  Plus his consistent tweets undermining and criticizing the congressional negotiations.

Anyway, I don't think what happens in Congress now is too interesting at all.  Really the most interesting part about it is the resolution will be a test of McConnell's leadership.  He intentionally did not whip the caucus in the shutdown vote(s) three weeks ago, but he clearly will be doing so now.  The 7 GOP Senators that voted to end the shutdown then are gonna have a tough time spinning now standing by the president, but of course anything's possible with the Republican constituency.  Regardless, Trump will veto it even if it passes the Senate and that will be that.  I think it's more likely the resolution passes the Senate, but from what I've heard this evening I think some are underestimating the GOP caucus' ability to stay united - and McConnell's whipping ability.  I'd put the odds at, like, 60/40 right now that the resolution passes.

The only two things really left to be interested in are (1) how exactly Trump actually uses the powers and diverts funding to the wall (and of course how much) and (2) how SCOTUS will vote on the court challenge.  2 somewhat depends on 1.  And while we should know most of 1 very soon, it'll probably be quite a while before we know 2.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Triskele said:

It could also mean idealistic young people of all stripes that know next to nothing about the social security trust fund, debates about trickle down economics, what the Supreme Court is, what the nuclear triad is, etc...

Gotcha, thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Triskele said:

But I think that Beto possibly has some kind of liftoff potential not dissimilar from Obama.  

And Beto, at least from what I know so far, is such a tabula rasa which I think we've learned in recent years might be more of an advantage than we might've liked to admit.  

I think Harris has similar potential in both cases (which are kind of correlated) - she's already demonstrated an excellent liftoff (let alone potential), and other than the prosecutor stuff she's pretty close on the tabula rasa thing too.  I think if Beto took the bull by the horns when his hype was at it's height a month or two ago this could've been the case, but the glean has already started to wear off.  Maybe he was smart to wait to announce and has something planned I'm not aware of though, who knows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Triskele said:

Doing some MSNBC'ing to my shame right now (just knocking cable news in general), and O'Donnell just suggested that he thinks there's a sign that Bernie will not run after but it was subtle enough that no one should read too much into it. 

I thought it was interesting he voted for the spending deal today (along with Klobuchar and Brown), while Harris, Booker, Gillibrand, and Warren all voted against it.  One of those does not fit with the others.  Hm...

As for running against Cornyn, I wouldn't risk that if I was him.  That's almost certainly gonna be more difficult than beating Cruz, and if he loses another Senate race his national ambitions are probably killed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...