U.S. Politics: You Didn't Think It Would Be So Easy, Did You?

[ThinkerX]

maybe I need to light a fire under certain posters here, as this really should have been posted.  Supreme Court orders a stay on electoral redraws in two states.  However, given the way the last election went, it might not do the Republicans much good...

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/u-s-supreme-court-blocks-redrawing-of-ohio-michigan-electoral-maps/ar-AABRJWR?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR3jwI6s4wkdgqm_A3bIK1zQZ2cJD1i-uilHumYBohTWy_8yRXj2eTH6g1c

 

WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked lower court rulings that had ordered Republican legislators in Michigan and Ohio to redraw U.S. congressional maps ahead of the 2020 elections after finding that the current districts were designed to illegally diminish the power of Democratic voters.

The justices granted requests from Republican lawmakers in both states to stay those decisions. The lower courts found that the electoral maps had been drawn to entrench the majority party in power, a practice known as partisan gerrymandering, in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

 

[Jaxom 1974]

Does Mayor Pete look a little like Tony Blair?  Is that just me?  Maybe it's he looks a little like Michael Sheen playing Tony Blair...

[KingintheNorth4]

11 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Does Mayor Pete look a little like Tony Blair?  Is that just me?  Maybe it's he looks a little like Michael Sheen playing Tony Blair...

To me, he looks like your typical substitute teacher.

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Trump's constant chaos allows important stories to get over looked. Tran's rights have taken a beating this week:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-administration-releases-plan-to-let-health-care-providers-refuse-to-treat-transgender-people.html

You do not have to worry, Ivanka and Kushner are closet Democrats. They will do something about this. It is known.

[Martell Spy]

3 minutes ago, Triskele said:

On a more serious note, one of my darkest thoughts since Trump was that Trump would one day put Obama in prison just cause.  Or Clinton, or someone.  I told myself that I was probably being too alarmist, but is something like that not so unimaginable now?  Trump sure doesn't seem like the type that wouldn't want to go after his political enemies.

If your name is Comey or McCabe how afraid are you right now?  

I've had similar thoughts. You kind of know our country has ended once Trump puts someone in prison. The problem is it is already too late by that point. It is difficult to separate the faux authoritarian Trump bullshit from the serious threats to our democracy. 

There are all sorts of concerning things going on. Which one will end us? Or will it be the John Roberts court assault on voting rights that instead ends us in ten to 20 years? I am obviously hoping for the latter, so at least I have some years left.

Some things going on under Trump's watch:

*He is sending 1500 troops to the Middle East to face off against Iran.

*He is pressing the armed forces to use a ND private contractor company to build the wall, which is owned by a prominent Republican donor with ties to various Trump allies.

*He is using emergency powers to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. 

Why not just have Trump use emergency powers for everything, and we can get rid of Congress completely? Why not just give any member of the Trump family the ability to kill anyone or seize the wealth of any American they want to? You know they want it.

 

[Jace, Extat]

8 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

I've had similar thoughts. You kind of know our country has ended once Trump puts someone in prison. The problem is it is already too late by that point. It is difficult to separate the faux authoritarian Trump bullshit from the serious threats to our democracy. 

There are all sorts of concerning things going on. Which one will end us? Or will it be the John Roberts court assault on voting rights that instead ends us in ten to 20 years? I am obviously hoping for the latter, so at least I have some years left.

Some things going on under Trump's watch:

*He is sending 1500 troops to the Middle East to face off against Iran.

*He is pressing the armed forces to use a ND private contractor company to build the wall, which is owned by a prominent Republican donor with ties to various Trump allies.

*He is using emergency powers to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. 

Why not just have Trump use emergency powers for everything, and we can get rid of Congress completely? Why not just give any member of the Trump family the ability to kill anyone or seize the wealth of any American they want to? You know they want it.

 

 

Artists' rendering:

 

Is it too late to get Ian McDiarmid for the position? He does bring a certain level of gravitas and then... enthusiasm for the job.

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

On a more serious note, one of my darkest thoughts since Trump was that Trump would one day put Obama in prison just cause.  Or Clinton, or someone.  I told myself that I was probably being too alarmist, but is something like that not so unimaginable now?  Trump sure doesn't seem like the type that wouldn't want to go after his political enemies.

If your name is Comey or McCabe how afraid are you right now?  

Comey and Clinton close enough?

 

I still see plenty of confident right-wing commentary predicting prison for Obama and Clinton.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/us/politics/president-trump-justice-department.html

 

WASHINGTON — President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, nah said:

If Dick Cheney, Colon Powel, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, etc. haven't been prosecuted, I don't see Obama going down anytime soon. Ditto Comey, too many powerful friends, especially compared to Trump. It would never fly.

you (mistakenly) assume those doing the arresting and prosecuting have any interest in legal norms.  Thus far, we've been saved by two things:

 

1 - Trump is lazy

2 - Team Trump is monumentally incompetent, and those with a measure of competence are too much into self preservation to break the norms.

 

[DMC]

5 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Maybe it's he looks a little like Michael Sheen playing Tony Blair...

I'm just still pissed off at Michael Sheen's significant others.

Dude started a family with Kate Beckinsale, one of those insanely attractive people most everybody never gets to even come close to having the opportunity to hit on.  And then that ends.  Years later, he becomes involved with Sarah Silverman, a comedian I've had a crush on since, I don't know, I was 12 probably.  It's just not fair, that guy.  Mumbles.

2 hours ago, nah said:

Dude, you can go back to Washington and you still wouldn't have a sample size large enough to make that kind of determination.

Uh, yeah, actually you potentially could, depending on the question/breakdown.  Particularly if you included reelections in the sample.  Are you familiar with statistical power? 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, nah said:

If Dick Cheney, Colon Powel, Donald Rumsfeld, Henry Kissinger, etc. haven't been prosecuted, I don't see Obama going down anytime soon. Ditto Comey, too many powerful friends, especially compared to Trump. It would never fly.

Well, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, and Cheney do not travel much for a reason.  As for "Colon Powel," he's pretty in the clear, except all those damn colons he's got to take care of : 

[polishgenius]

6 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

Does Mayor Pete look a little like Tony Blair?  Is that just me?  Maybe it's he looks a little like Michael Sheen playing Tony Blair...

They both look like The Smiler from Transpetropolitan, as does Beto.

[JGP]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Well, Kissinger, Rumsfeld, and Cheney do not travel much for a reason.  As for "Colon Powel," he's pretty in the clear, except all those damn colons he's got to take care of : 

I'd love to know how that's possible, frankly. His address to the UN in 2003 was riddled with, if not outright lies, egregious exaggerations. 

The man was Secretary of fucking State,

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

I'd love to know how that's possible, frankly. His address to the UN in 2003 was riddled with, if not outright lies, egregious exaggerations. 

The man was Secretary of fucking State,

So, what?  You want the Hague to bring him in for lying to the UN?  How big you want those dungeons?

[Zorral]

16 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Ocasio-Cortez did not have anything to do with the settlement agreement between Gilead and Teva that allows a single generic from Teva to be allowed on the market a year ahead of schedule.  Teva will have a period of exclusivity, 6 months, where it will be the only generic on the market.  Generally, in this situation, the price drop is modest, maybe around 20%.  After this period is up though, other generics can enter and their should be a substantial drop in price.  The period of exclusivity awarded to Teva is to encourage generics to challenge big pharma patents.  The settlement agreement between Gilead and Teva was entered into in 2014, well before Ocasio-Cortez began her career.

The reason these settlements happen between big pharma and generics is because of the risk to big pharma that they will lose a challenge to their patents, which can cost them many years of patent term and tens of billions in profits.  To reduce or eliminate that risk, they instead come to a settlement agreement with the generic, who also eliminates the risk of losing their challenge and getting nothing.

This type of litigation and settlement with generics is standard in the pharma industry.  At one point, big pharma was paying generics tens of millions to hundreds of millions just to stay off the market.  Due to antitrust enforcement actions over the past several years, they've scaled it back a bit and are instead entering these types of agreements to shorten patent term by the minimal amount they can get away with, where they can argue that consumers are better off than before (but potentially not as much if the case actually went to trial).

Drug pricing in the US is broken, so I'm glad she is bringing it up.  But she had nothing to do with Gilead giving up a year of the patent.

So you don't believe that she requesting a meeting with the CEO, speaking out about this major issue within our total joke of health care in many venues and many places, had nothing to do with Gilead suddenly removing the patent protection a year earlier than they were required to do.  

Yes, let us by all means, denigrate and dismiss everything these women are actually DOING as our elected officials, charged with our public welfare.  That's a whole lot of words devoted to dismissal.

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, Triskele said:

On a more serious note, one of my darkest thoughts since Trump was that Trump would one day put Obama in prison just cause.  Or Clinton, or someone.  I told myself that I was probably being too alarmist, but is something like that not so unimaginable now?  Trump sure doesn't seem like the type that wouldn't want to go after his political enemies.

If your name is Comey or McCabe how afraid are you right now?  

This has just now entered your thoughts?  After he campaigned leading hate rallies howling "Lock her up!"?

The first time he did that I was sure Hillary better have some non-extradition bolt-holes ready, and a private plane on 24/7 standbye.

It's time to lock up these people who are blatantly breaking the laws right now by blowing off subpoenas. Including the 'reality' tv demon.

 

[DanteGabriel]

10 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

you (mistakenly) assume those doing the arresting and prosecuting have any interest in legal norms.  Thus far, we've been saved by two things:

 

1 - Trump is lazy

2 - Team Trump is monumentally incompetent, and those with a measure of competence are too much into self preservation to break the norms.

 

And by principled federal judges, though of course they're feverishly stocking the judiciary with Federalist Society test tube lawyers, like Kavanaugh.

I bet we see that Sandmann kid smirking from a federal bench in fifteen or twenty years.

[Zorral]

23 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

And by principled federal judges, though of course they're feverishly stocking the judiciary with Federalist Society test tube lawyers, like Kavanaugh.

I bet we see that Sandmann kid smirking from a federal bench in fifteen or twenty years.

As stupid and ignorant as he and his thugs are, they're firmly in power and have all the levers of power firmly in their hands, and they have no compunction about pulling them.  The only hold-back, as far as I can tell, is waiting until he feels entirely safe from retaliation.  He wants, and always has, long before he even ran for POTUS, to have anyone who challenges him, whom he perceives as a threat, or makes fun of him, or anything he doesn't like, arrested.  He's always tried to do that with anyone who challenges his own criminal and ugly behaviors. 

[JGP]

10 hours ago, DMC said:

So, what?  You want the Hague to bring him in for lying to the UN?  How big you want those dungeons?

lol

Justice for all the innocent Iraqi dead would be nice, however unlikely, but Powell doesn't get a pass from me is all I'm saying, you cranky fuck.   

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Justice for all the innocent Iraqi dead would be nice, however unlikely, but Powell doesn't get a pass from me is all I'm saying, you cranky fuck.  

Ha!  Fair enough.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 hours ago, Triskele said:

What the fuck did I do?  

You got Frisky, Trisky!