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


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2 hours 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.

All five conservative justices are members. Among all the gross hypocritical shit in politics, "liberal activist judge" has to be one of most fucking infuriating things that exists.
 

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30 minutes ago, Triskele said:

No, and my post did not suggest that it was.  

Well, the wording so suggested that it was, to me, anyway! :cheers:

After all, even here, posters keep suggesting things aren't as bad as so many of us see it as being, or that somebody among the rethugs will come and save us from themselves and him -- and ourselves as well, I suppose. :dunno:

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3 hours ago, Triskele said:

What I meant by "since Trump" was that I've had that thought since early but the events of recent days like Barr's new powers plus Trumps treason talk is making me wonder to what extent we're getting close to when/how they actually pursue this angle.  So difficult to tell because how many of us even understand the ways in which this sort of stuff could actually be pursued legally.  But the President is actively talking about executing Comey for Treason, and Barr seems to think the POTUS is supposed to be a King.  Terrifying times.  

Monkey, you are forgetting something crucial here:

Trump is not a rational actor.

ALL of Trumps underlings, sooner or later, fall out of favor with Trump.  Barr will be no different.  Remember the fate of his predecessor and consider the large number of top officials who have left the administration under a cloud or hostile tweets. 

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I wonder if Putin wants Trump to destroy Chinese trade.

i notice that that when Republicans can’t find anything to support their positions they casually resort to manufactured alternate facts. Anyone recall all those WMD s found in Iraq? Hillary’s illnesses? Sex pizza parlors? Obama’s birthplace? Nancy Pelosi’ speech altered so that they claim that she is drunk?

I think they are now going after NP, pretending Trump’s juvenile, and even slurred speech is projected onto someone else. They can’t stand a powerful smart woman.

Oh oh, she called us out on the coverup. Quick, Ivan, give us a bs video that Trump supporters with eat up with a helping of gullibility and a mediocre education.

i know a Texan, who naively said something like Hillary can’t be president because of her brain issues...well, she did have pneumonia. Lock her up!

Then there are the trolls who who try to divide Democrats or siphon votes off to a third party. Mostly democrats want the same things, but disagree on strategy, time lines and tactics. Go to Salon and play spot the paid troll with me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Triskele said:

no doubt on the rational actor thing.  And while I surely largely agree with what you pointed out about Trump's underlings I do not think it can be safely assumed with everyone.  Look at Miller still going strong.  And Barr seemed to really know what he was getting into and wanted to get into it unlike a lot of these other folks like Sessions or Matus or Tillerson or what have you.  

before Miller, there was Bannon.  Like Barr, Sessions boasted a reputation for ruthless competence.   Mattis, despite his flaws, was a competent, decorated soldier.  All three, among others, entered their posts with great fanfare and left in disgrace, often after months of feuding.

Trump cannot tolerate others in the spotlight - even his closest allies.  Likewise, he cannot accept restraints on his behavior.  Barr is already challenging Trump on the first point and will likely be at loggerheads with him on the second within the next few months.  Also worth keeping in mind the intel community Trump seeks to investigate knows where *all* the bodies are buried.  Only a matter of time till something there blows up big time in Barr's face.

 

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1 hour ago, Triskele said:

On this deep fake video of Pelosi going around she has now commented saying something like "When I'm drunk, you'll fucking know it."  Quite a boss way to handle it if you ask me. 

Fake News!

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Intelligence Director Dan Coats Puts Barr on Notice Not To Imperil National Security
“Highly sensitive classified information ... if publicly released would put our national security at risk,” Coats said in a statement.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dan-coats-william-barr-trump-intelligence-risk-warning_n_5ce8a6fce4b0512156f19c44

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Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued a warning about national security after President Donald Trump granted Attorney General William Barr broad new powers to declassify intelligence related to the origins of the Russia investigation. 

Coats said in a statement that he is “confident” Barr will follow “standards.” But he also warned that if “highly sensitive classified Information” is released, it “would put our national security at risk.”

Coats also emphasized that the intelligence community will “continue” to share “apolitical intelligence” with the rest of the government.

“I am confident that the Attorney General will work with the [intelligence community] in accordance with the long-established standards to protect highly-sensitive classified information that, if publicly released, would put our national security at risk,” Coats said.

 

 

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So, who would be the recipients of the farmer welfare you ask? None other than the Republican Senator worth over 3 million dollars, as of 2015. 

 

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with an estimated net worth of $3,336,536 in 2015.

https://www.opensecrets.org/personal-finances/net-worth?cid=N00001758

 

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GOP senator applies for farm aid, but maintains support for Trump’s trade war with China
Sen. Chuck Grassley owns a farm in his home state of Iowa, and like many of the farmers he represents, plans to apply for tariff relief.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/25/18639904/gop-senator-chuck-grassley-farm-aid-trump-trade-war-china

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Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, will apply for financial assistance offered by the Trump administration as part of the latest bailout package for farmers hurt by the White House’s ongoing tariff war with China.

Grassley’s spokesperson, Michael Zona, told The Des Moines Register’s Stephen Gruber-Miller that the senator “receives no special treatment,” and that he is merely participating in programs for which he is legally eligible.

“As a family farmer who experiences the same processes with the federal government after downturns like other farmers in Iowa, Sen. Grassley brings firsthand knowledge and experience on behalf of agriculture and rural America to the policymaking tables in Washington,” Zona said.

Grassley co-owns a 750 acre farm with this son, on which the men grow corn and soybeans. When he previously applied for the first round of tariff aid programs in October, Grassley indicated that would split the money with his son.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Zorral said:

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.

No, the settlement had nothing to do Ocasio-Cortez.  I wrote my "long" post because I was giving you the benefit of the doubt of making a incorrect assumption in good faith, so I provided an explanation of how the pharma and generic industry worked, and then provided you with a citation to a news article that shows that Gilead and Teva settled the Truvada litigation in 2014.  Again, the NBCNews article I cited said the following:

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"Gilead reached an agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals in 2014 to allow the early launch of a generic version of Truvada into the market in 2020, a year earlier than required," wrote Douglas Brooks, Gilead's executive director for community engagement, in an email shared with NBC News by the advocacy group PrEP4All.

How clearer can it be that Ocasio-Cortez wasn't responsible for this settlement?  At this point, it's clear that my assumption that your initial post was made in good faith was incorrect.  You obviously have no interest in the truth, and even tried to imply that I'm anti-woman.  I guess you're the far left version of Trump.  

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I see from Facebook (thanks to a boarder) that Trump’s war on China is destroying the goldfish sellers in the US, who just can’t pass on 25% price increases.

Goldfish should be bred and raised in the USA! No foreign goldfish!

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1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I see from Facebook (thanks to a boarder) that Trump’s war on China is destroying the goldfish sellers in the US, who just can’t pass on 25% price increases.

Goldfish should be bred and raised in the USA! No foreign goldfish!

For about four years, we had a pond in our yard, and kept goldfish in there. We started with five the first summer. Next spring, there were at least thirty fish in the pond. We had the pond supply people clean the pond and take all but five (they were the same people that sold us the fish but said they wouldn't be resold, they'd just live in the ponds at their store, which were extensive). This cycle repeated every year.

If only I'd known, I could have been part of the patriotic goldfish resistance.

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10 hours ago, Mudguard said:

 I guess you're the far left version of Trump.  

If that is so, you're a two legged version of a jack russell terrier -- so cute and doggedly single-track. :laugh: :cheers: 

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4 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

For about four years, we had a pond in our yard, and kept goldfish in there. We started with five the first summer. Next spring, there were at least thirty fish in the pond. We had the pond supply people clean the pond and take all but five (they were the same people that sold us the fish but said they wouldn't be resold, they'd just live in the ponds at their store, which were extensive). This cycle repeated every year.

If only I'd known, I could have been part of the patriotic goldfish resistance.

I think we've stumbled on the main driver of Trumps trade wars.He's just trying to stop the universe being over run by goldfish.

What a hero!!

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Ever since the Green New Deal was introduced, I've seen articles to the effect was that it is not enough. They seem to have become more common in the past month or so. For example:

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You never would know from these encomiums that the Green New Deal cannot stave off calamity by keeping the planet from warming 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures, the threshold endorsed by most scientists. That’s because, like the 1930s New Deal and the 1960s space program, the Green New Deal is focused on the United States.

Yet the United States is currently responsible for only 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and that share is declining as pollution from the developing world rises. So while radical cuts to U.S. emissions — which are the largest per capita after a few Persian Gulf nations and Australia — are necessary, they’re insufficient. Every other rich country also needs to make similar cuts, immediately. The developed nations with large emissions (Saudi Arabia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Britain and others) can afford their own Green New Deals; perhaps they can be persuaded to do their parts, if we do.

But developing nations — such as India, Pakistan, Ecuador and Malaysia — aren’t going to unilaterally constrain their own economies. If carbon-based energy sources help them compete in the global marketplace, that’s what they’ll use — unless, economists say, they get financial help to develop sustainably, with industrialization powered by renewable energy instead of oil, gas and coal. And there’s only one place they can get that help: from wealthy countries like ours. Giving them cash needs to be part of any Green New Deal.

On the one hand, the point regarding the global nature of the problem is perfectly true: even if the Green New Deal were somehow implemented in the US as proposed (this is obviously not happening), its impact on global CO2 emissions would be fairly small. On the other hand, if there is one thing almost guaranteed to be unpalatable to the American electorate, it's handing over large amounts of money to third world countries.

The most obvious way out is to make non-carbon based alternatives cheaper than fossil fuels without any subsidies, but the Green New Deal does not explicitly list this as a major goal and the environmentalists criticizing it barely mention it. Fortunately, between the Chinese and Elon Musk et al, it might happen anyway.

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In Trump's America, former members of his staff can refuse congressional subpoenas, but brown people have to produce papers to prove they can exist in the space they occupy, and black people can be shot without consequence if a police officer feels scared, even if he's just scared because they're black.  Make America continue to suck white ass.

 

Eta: and now doctors can refuse transpeople medical care.  

If humans survive another few hundred years this period is going to be the real Dark Ages.

 

Saw a twitter response by AOC to Soledad O'Brian that pointed out this absurd injustice.

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45 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Ever since the Green New Deal was introduced, I've seen articles to the effect was that it is not enough. They seem to have become more common in the past month or so. For example:

On the one hand, the point regarding the global nature of the problem is perfectly true: even if the Green New Deal were somehow implemented in the US as proposed (this is obviously not happening), its impact on global CO2 emissions would be fairly small. On the other hand, if there is one thing almost guaranteed to be unpalatable to the American electorate, it's handing over large amounts of money to third world countries.

The most obvious way out is to make non-carbon based alternatives cheaper than fossil fuels without any subsidies, but the Green New Deal does not explicitly list this as a major goal and the environmentalists criticizing it barely mention it. Fortunately, between the Chinese and Elon Musk et al, it might happen anyway.

bullshit rationalization and fear mongering, doing nothing because somewhere someone might also be doing nothing is a stupid way to think about and enact policy. 

We shouldn't do heart surgery because some countries don't do heart surgery! Think of the old people!

And most of those other countries are kilometers ahead of the united states on climate policy anyway. 

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25 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

bullshit rationalization and fear mongering, doing nothing because somewhere someone might also be doing nothing is a stupid way to think about and enact policy. 

We shouldn't do heart surgery because some countries don't do heart surgery! Think of the old people!

And most of those other countries are kilometers ahead of the united states on climate policy anyway. 

Not to mention, you know, US backing out of Paris Accordsand Kyoto Protocol.  It's not like the rest of the world isn't on board, or couldn't be encouraged to do so.  Hilariously sad that we're willing to go to war because of oil or stupid shit but we won't even try to spend money to cut emissions in the developing world.  It's like there's a bunch of drowning people and instead of holding onto the life raft, we're cutting the anchor loose and trying to bash everyone else over the head with it while we sink.

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32 minutes ago, Triskele said:

And I'll reiterate another key point about thinking about climate change:

Every little bit does help because a six degree increase is so much worse than a three degree increase.  We have to avoid the mentality that if we're going to fail that avoid the famous 2 degree increase that we therefor just give up entirely.   

But the question is not whether to do something or to give up entirely; it's about what exactly to do. The various solutions proposed so far are mostly redistributing a great deal of wealth from one set of people to another with only marginal changes in greenhouse gas emissions.

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