US Politics: Manchin Shin Drinks the Blood and Cracks the Bone

[Larry of the Lawn]

14 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Yeah, that's a very accurate and charitable interpretation of what she said.  

 

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I know it isn’t charitable.  I find the imperial Presidency to be a problem whether I like the abuse of executive authority or not.  

If you give the power to the President you like the President you don’t like will have that power.

Yeah.  And at somepoint, if you believe that a democratically elected government is soenthing we should have, the government should be able to function and solve problems. Otherwise it's just rubber-stamping whatever the fuck the status quo is.

edit:. not even "should be able to", but "needs to be able to".  

[IFR]

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Not become a Dictatorship.

I know. You asked should the US be a dictatorship in order to deal with the climate problem. I'm saying it wouldn't be a surprise if the US becomes a dictatorship due to the eventual consequences of climate change.

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Not become a Dictatorship.

Is it a dictatorship of it's a democratically elected position?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

16 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Biden has been completely innefectual.  Not exactly a strong case for the omnipotent executive.  

Because he recognizes and is cognitive of not abusing his power.  He cares about traditions and customs.

Trump does not.  Republicans who pattern after Trump will not.  Don’t hand them a loaded gun.

[Week]

We don't need to globalize or doom-cast every issue.

Climate change is already starting a lot of the issues raised - though more localized to particularly precarious regions to start before spreading globally. Any effort beginning now will only blunt some of the worst effects 20-30 years down the road. From a climate perspective, the cat is out of the bag and congressional dysfunction does not change a whole lot in the short term.

Scot's desire to constrain the Executive is to prevent the continued slide into autocratic rulers. We know that fear, tribalism, and, frankly, white supremacy is controlling one of the two major parties. Allowing such a party control over a fully empowered Executive is extremely dangerous. We've already seen the cruelty of a Trump administration during "good times" (economic expansion, limited burn wars, etc.) -- imagine in four years that immigration truly spikes or water scarcity in the south west hits a critical point. All that you fear -- war over resources, cruelty to immigrants (black and brown people in general, really) will be happening.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Is it a dictatorship of it's a democratically elected position?

If they start jailing political opponents and rigging elections, yes, it would be.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Just now, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because he recognizes and is cognitive of not abusing his power.  He cares about traditions and customs.

Trump does not.  Republicans who pattern after Trump will not.  Don’t hand them a loaded gun.

Well then it sounds like he's not up for the job.  

Your analogy sucks because Trump and the GOP already have a loaded gun that they're using.  If Biden doesn't do the same he's a fucking useless person to have there.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

5 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

 

Yeah.  And at somepoint, if you believe that a democratically elected government is soenthing we should have, the government should be able to function and solve problems. Otherwise it's just rubber-stamping whatever the fuck the status quo is.

edit:. not even "should be able to", but "needs to be able to".  

We have needed a reorganization for more than a century.  I’ve been arguing for that reorganization for more than a decade.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

2 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Well then it sounds like he's not up for the job.  

Your analogy sucks because Trump and the GOP already have a loaded gun that they're using.  If Biden doesn't do the same he's a fucking useless person to have there.

You want Biden to be Trump?

Really?

You really like looking at that abyss don’t you?

[Larry of the Lawn]

6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

We have needed a reorganization for more than a century.  I’ve been arguing for that reorganization for more than a decade.

I don't disagree but unless you solve the problem of a useless legislature I don't know why you'd want that.

 

4 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

You want Biden to be Trump?

Really?

 

If by be Trump you mean waive IP on vaccines, do mask mandates, eliminate some student debt, have a humane immigration policy, stop selling Saudi Arabia weapons, be neighbors with Cuba, stop civil forfeiture, legalize weed, yeah, I'd like him to use the power of his office a little bit.  Drop the age of medicare during the pandemic.  Use whatever defense act to send everyone n-95s and test kits.  

edit: I guess my point is that Trump and co are going to abuse whatever power.  They're going to use powers they may not legally have.  Biden won't even do shit he's allowed to do, or that's a grey area (student debt forgiveness).  Either make some rule changes that you can enforce, or step the fuck up and use every available option to address problems, traditions and byzantine procedural fetishes be damned.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

I don't disagree but unless you solve the problem of a useless legislature I don't know why you'd want that.

 

If by be Trump you mean waive IP on vaccines, do mask mandates, eliminate some student debt, have a humane immigration policy, stop selling Saudi Arabia weapons, be neighbors with Cuba, stop civil forfeiture, legalize weed, yeah, I'd like him to use the power of his office a little bit.  Drop the age of medicare during the pandemic.  Use whatever defense act to send everyone n-95s and test kits.  

If that is within his power I say go for it.  If he legitimately believes that’s beyond his power I respect his show of discretion.

[IFR]

11 minutes ago, Week said:

We don't need to globalize or doom-cast every issue.

Climate change is already starting a lot of the issues raised - though more localized to particularly precarious regions to start before spreading globally. Any effort beginning now will only blunt some of the worst effects 20-30 years down the road. From a climate perspective, the cat is out of the bag and congressional dysfunction does not change a whole lot in the short term.

Scot's desire to constrain the Executive is to prevent the continued slide into autocratic rulers. We know that fear, tribalism, and, frankly, white supremacy is controlling one of the two major parties. Allowing such a party control over a fully empowered Executive is extremely dangerous. We've already seen the cruelty of a Trump administration during "good times" (economic expansion, limited burn wars, etc.) -- imagine in four years that immigration truly spikes or water scarcity in the south west hits a critical point. All that you fear -- war over resources, cruelty to immigrants (black and brown people in general, really) will be happening.

The cat isn't simply out of the bag. There is a range of what this means. 2.6 degrees C vs 4.2 degrees C depict two wildly different worlds. We are at the very least going to have a 2.6 degree C world. We may yet experience much worse.

You are very right that allowing a party full control is extremely dangerous. Sitting on our hands as we are with the current limited control or will to act is also extremely dangerous, and yet that's the course we're going.

I mean, this discussion is fun because it gives some insight into why we are where we are now. But we are going to continue not acting and we will enjoy the consequences of our dysfunctional government. 

[Week]

2 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

If by be Trump you mean waive IP on vaccines, do mask mandates, eliminate some student debt, have a humane immigration policy, stop selling Saudi Arabia weapons, be neighbors with Cuba, stop civil forfeiture, legalize weed, yeah, I'd like him to use the power of his office a little bit.  Drop the age of medicare during the pandemic.  Use whatever defense act to send everyone n-95s and test kits.  

I'd like to see all this as well. I'm not sure that it significantly moves the needle in terms of long-term global trends and would still leave the risk of the next Executive undoing nearly all of it.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If that is within his power I say go for it.  If he legitimately believes that’s beyond his power I respect his show of discretion.

I'd say that discretion is cowardice. 

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.  

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

57 minutes ago, Week said:

I'd like to see all this as well. I'm not sure that it significantly moves the needle in terms of long-term global trends and would still leave the risk of the next Executive undoing nearly all of it.

Yeah, that's certainly a possibility.  But with global warming stuff, even a temporary pause on shit helps, Biden hasn't done anything there in a meaningful way.  Student loan debt too, even if it's challenged on court, can you really unring that bell?  Who is going to pay a debt that was legally absolved?  Not me.  

But in the meantime it seems completely foolish not to use every option your opposition has available until it's not possible. 

eta:like, if your opponent is doing all this stuff and you don't at least dial it back, you're just enabling, tacitly endorsing, while refusing to take advantage of, this behavior.  If Trump is going to trash the EPA when he's in office, or make cruelty the point re:immigration, and Biden does nothing, that's bad too.  It's does matter in the long term, because you're either ceding these policies to people with no scruples, or you're fighting them when and how you can.  What we have now is a complete abdication by the "good guys".  The ones we were told we had to elect to stop fascism, who aren't doing anything to stop fascism.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

And now for something completely different.  There was an amazing Tax Court case released yesterday wherein a hundred millionaire asset manager prevailed on deducting losses related to his miniature donkey breeding venture (rather than having them disallowed as hobby losses).  The official found facts were that it was clear that he had no passion for the animals and therefore had a profit motive, in part because of his statements on the stand that he found the donkeys "quite ugly, actually."  He started the business for his daughter, a person of "limited income" and planned to hand it over to him once it was profitable and the donkeys were small enough......Huff v. Comm'r. (The jokes write themselves)

[Larry of the Lawn]

6 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

And now for something completely different.  There was an amazing Tax Court case released yesterday wherein a hundred millionaire asset manager prevailed on deducting losses related to his miniature donkey breeding venture (rather than having them disallowed as hobby losses).  The official found facts were that it was clear that he had no passion for the animals and therefore had a profit motive, in part because of his statements on the stand that he found the donkeys "quite ugly, actually."  He started the business for his daughter, a person of "limited income" and planned to hand it over to him once it was profitable and the donkeys were small enough......Huff v. Comm'r. (The jokes write themselves)

Lol.  Simply amazing.   Wha I'm gathering from this is that love is a disqualifier for tax deductions?

Also... dying over "once the donkeys were small enough".  

era: Like, that's the lynchpin of a business proposal lol.  Yes.

and any journalist that missed out on using "hobby horse" needs to resign.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Random good stuff we're not allowed to have:

There should be national legislation to require all employee salaries to be publicly available.  Or at least a available in house to other employees.

This doesn't affect me at all directly, but it seems like a no-brainer.  I dunno.  Maybe the general population hates themselves enough that this is a nonstarter.

[Gorn]

17 minutes ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Random good stuff we're not allowed to have:

There should be national legislation to require all employee salaries to be publicly available.  Or at least a available in house to other employees.

This doesn't affect me at all directly, but it seems like a no-brainer.  I dunno.  Maybe the general population hates themselves enough that this is a nonstarter.

Way too many people want to hide their salaries from their family and friends, so you're right, this would be a nonstarter. Some of them want to pretend they make more than they actually do, others want to pretend they earn less.

[Larry of the Lawn]

6 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Way too many people want to hide their salaries from their family and friends, so you're right, this would be a nonstarter. Some of them want to pretend they make more than they actually do, others want to pretend they earn less.

I'm sure you're right, but cannot imagine wanting to hide that either way from family or friends.