I think one of the routinely amazing things about Trump is the absolute incompetence of his lawyers.
American Politics thread: No Nazis Allowed
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@Medical:
About the tweet, I find it strange that some politicians and celebrities have people write tweets for them. If I had an account tied to my name, I wouldn't want anyone making tweets or statuses from it except me. I wouldn't trust someone else that much to represent my own thoughts and feelings.
Ironically, this is the one thing Trump actually does - his tweets are decidedly him, so much so that I don't believe anyone could capture his essence. Plus he seems like the guy would demand he himself writes it.
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It speaks volumes that Trump clearly doesn't get good mob lawyers.
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Ugh, this new tax bill is also going to fuck over public schools and move money to private schools.
If this thing goes through the next two steps its just going to duck things over for decades to come, even if we get a full House and Senate reversal and try to undo it within the next two years.
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Ugh, this new tax bill is also going to fuck over public schools and move money to private schools.
The mechanism was that it like… doesn't separate certain state taxes from federal ones? So it makes taxing to fund stuff like public schools less desirable for states to push? Is my understanding in the ballpark?
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At least the religious university where half the GOP establishment graduated is getting extra subsidies.
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@Monkey:
The mechanism was that it like… doesn't separate certain state taxes from federal ones? So it makes taxing to fund stuff like public schools less desirable for states to push? Is my understanding in the ballpark?
As I understand it, previously income that paid for local schools via state and local taxes wasn't taxed by the local government. This bill ends that, but DOES provide tax breaks for private schools. Basically defunding public schools to pay for private ones. Its straight up war on education.
In the TAX plan they also put in
-an abortion law reclassifying life at conception
-a clause to drill for oil in Alaska' wildlife preserve
-pulled the ACA mandate which will cost 13 million their insurance -
From what I've seen for average people who support this bill, they seem oblivious on the bill hurting them and more revelling in the delight of poor people being given a major blow to their lives. That their exists an idea that their should not exist a lower class, and middle class people need to help the elites destroy them as a civic duty to get rid of any and all hand outs or welfare to eliminate enabling. That removing all funding from poor people will trigger a fight or flight response that will strengthen society as a whole. This is now a society that doesn't mind being screwed over, as long as those worse off get screwed even harder.
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Huckabee: Mueller’s investigation needs to be investigated after FBI agent fired
I'd like to point out that Huckabee wants an investigation of an investigation. Somewhere, The Onion loses another potential headline.
Christie's gambling fight heads to the Supreme Court
I'd also like to point out that Chris Christie's last hurrah seems to be legalizing sport betting, which requires a Supreme Court case. So, while many may worry about civil rights or gerrymandering in the coming months, Chris decides that sports betting is his top priority. I guess we all have our priorities… :getlost:
However, I do on some level hope this helps New Jersey recover from this stupid tax plan. We finally got a Democratic governor with a few progressive ideas, and now the GOP congress is going to ruin our economy. I feel cheated, as do many others I assume.
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Longread takedown of Ben Shapiro, the principled conservative: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher
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Ugh, this new tax bill is also going to fuck over public schools and move money to private schools.
Isn't the deal that private schools are able to do their own thing because they don't receive government funding? Doesn't being funded by the government really begin to negate their status as "private"?
This is my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong.
My understanding is that they only want to be private in their curriculum and ability to discriminate. Happy to take money from the government, but will slam the door in the government's face if they're held to the standards that public schools are.
And this slimy administration is the perfect storm of corruption to allow this happen.
Again, I could be very ignorant on this subject, do correct me if I'm wrong.
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The Kansas City Star presents this Watergate column by Art Buchwald without comment.
Indeed, what about
BenghaziemailsChappaquiddick? -
Longread takedown of Ben Shapiro, the principled conservative: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher
Ooff. That was a bit too much of a Shapiro Spoonful for me. Never liked the guy, he's incredibly obnoxious, his religious stances on homosexuality, transgenderism etc are ridiculous, he's just generally a prick.
That said… (nitpicks)
The author of the takedown starts of strong, but he dips slightly in the quality of his criticism towards the latter-middle part of the piece. For a 'takedown', I'd rather not have the author derail into general left v right discussions (such as the whether capitalism has value or not, and whether it differs from corporatism... that's a valid distinction to make dude! :wassat:) , should just focus on the truly damning bits instead.
It does pick up again at the end, after the one meh paragraph... and I'm glad to say that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Shapiro get bashed around a bit, kids got an ego problem and is seemingly terrified of pre-marital sex. Poor soul.
I do wish it had been a 'flawless takedown' like Milo's was... but alas, you can't expect perfection everytime. I'll be content with what I got.
Can I get my Sargon of Akkad takedown piece now? Man lives in a bubble where everyone left of him is a commie, would quite like to see it popped.:ninja:
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Feinstein: Senate building obstruction case against Trump:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/feinstein-senate-building-obstruction-case-against-trump/ar-BBG6WmLThis seems like good news right? If they can see that Trump cheated in getting his win in the 2016 elections, does that mean Hillary would replace him? Hopefully, this investigation that show the truth about it. It is most likely Trump had done this, so he could be president; since with how he acted towards the investigation into all of this.
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This seems like good news right? If they can see that Trump cheated in getting his win in the 2016 elections, does that mean Hillary would replace him?
No. In a legit democratic society we'd go "holey crap our elections are tainted, we need a redo! Put everything on hold!" But since out presidential elections take two years to do and midterms are around the corner, and we're already a year into this nightmare and he has full republican support, no such thing.
The president will be removed, and the Vice President will replace him In the event that both are culpable, Speaker of the House and then down the line. Doesn't matter that the elections were false, we don't really have anything set up for this except to remove the current guy.
It's possible if this had happened in November last year maybe something could have stopped or changed it, but…
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No. In a legit democratic society we'd go "holey crap our elections are tainted, we need a redo! Put everything on hold!" But since out presidential elections take two years to do and midterms are around the corner, and we're already a year into this nightmare and he has full republican support, no such thing.
The president will be removed, and the Vice President will replace him In the event that both are culpable, Speaker of the House and then down the line. Doesn't matter that the elections were false, we don't really have anything set up for this except to remove the current guy.
It's possible if this had happened in November last year maybe something could have stopped or changed it, but…
Do we know if Orrin Hatch is in on the whole rigging thing?
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No. In a legit democratic society we'd go "holey crap our elections are tainted, we need a redo! Put everything on hold!" But since out presidential elections take two years to do and midterms are around the corner, and we're already a year into this nightmare and he has full republican support, no such thing.
The president will be removed, and the Vice President will replace him In the event that both are culpable, Speaker of the House and then down the line. Doesn't matter that the elections were false, we don't really have anything set up for this except to remove the current guy.
It's possible if this had happened in November last year maybe something could have stopped or changed it, but…
Ah, I see. Well, thanks for explaining that to me. If Trump does get removed, the others are a tiny, tiny bit better, but still terrible. I think honestly the Democrats will win in 2018 for Congress, I am making sure I'm voting next year! (I could not vote this year because of car troubles.)
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Isn't the deal that private schools are able to do their own thing because they don't receive government funding? Doesn't being funded by the government really begin to negate their status as "private"?
This is my understanding, please correct me if I'm wrong.
My understanding is that they only want to be private in their curriculum and ability to discriminate. Happy to take money from the government, but will slam the door in the government's face if they're held to the standards that public schools are.
And this slimy administration is the perfect storm of corruption to allow this happen.
Again, I could be very ignorant on this subject, do correct me if I'm wrong.
Private schools are also extra able to short change teachers in terms of worker's rights and pay.
You'd think private schools with their (sometimes) semi-prestige would also be places that pay teacher's better than most public school districts do.
Except actually no, no they rarely do lol. It's the whole lie to the Republican supply side thing in a nutshell.
When companies can pay employees less, and have less of them to save money, they will do so nine times out of ten. No matter how much they should technically be able to easily handle such things better than the public sphere. -
Longread takedown of Ben Shapiro, the principled conservative: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher
Nice cathartic article to read, the guy's a slimeball and the end of the article says it all. He's just a vocally aggressive person who's careless with his "facts and statistics". The more I see him debate the more he convinces me that he doesn't actually know how to debate.
Ugh. While there's been countless things to be pissed about by the past year's politics, the constant, horrible, unprofessional rhetoric from the likes of Shapiro and (especially) Trump has been particularly infuriating.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Speaking of slimeballs, Grassley thinks the rich deserve a break in estate taxes for investing, and because everyone else spends money on booze and women.
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Longread takedown of Ben Shapiro, the principled conservative: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/12/the-cool-kids-philosopher
Hoo Boy was that ever a juicy takedown.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
It does pick up again at the end, after the one meh paragraph… and I'm glad to say that I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Shapiro get bashed around a bit, kids got an ego problem and is seemingly terrified of pre-marital sex. Poor soul.
I do wish it had been a 'flawless takedown' like Milo's was... but alas, you can't expect perfection everytime. I'll be content with what I got.
Can I get my Sargon of Akkad takedown piece now? Man lives in a bubble where everyone left of him is a commie, would quite like to see it popped.:ninja:
I have a document on my google drive where some dude dissect everything Sargon said on his appearance on Theneedledrop podcast. Sargon is comparatively much more mild on there than he usually is. I can’t find it when I google though.
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I have a document on my google drive where some dude dissect everything Sargon said on his appearance on Theneedledrop podcast. Sargon is comparatively much more mild on there than he usually is. I can’t find it when I google though.
Ah, that's not really as interesting though. I'd like to see a Dr. Layman style takedown of him, like what Dr. did for Armoured Skeptic. Something where his opinions are just completely trashed, his viewpoints exposed as trash, etc. Problem is he's often treading on eggshells, so he rarely says anything he can't back up with some sort of evidence… even if the validity of the evidence itself might be problematic. Usually it's just a question of portraying a false narrative and lying by omission though, and that's a lot harder to prove than Shapiro's nonsense.
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Today in the grand Nixon RP: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."
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Trump is really running up that speed run scoreboard.
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Dowd comes across as a man who knows his career is pretty much destroyed and is desperately clinging to that last shred of it as long as he can.
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Trump backs Roy Moore, says Republicans 'need' his vote: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/trump-backs-roy-moore-republicans-vote-article-1.3676105
Yeah… supporting a rapist/child molester/sexual assaulter... -sigh-
Oh, and this:
A CBS poll released this weekend found that the contest was tied among registered voters, but Moore led 49% to 43% among likely voters.
The same poll reported more than 70% of likely Republican voters think that the allegations against Moore are false.
Seriously…. despite there being a shitload of evidence against Moore, yet they think it is false, like what the hell? >.>
Or maybe that 70% are white males that molested or sexual assaulted young girls too >.>
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Or maybe that 70% are white males that molested or sexual assaulted young girls too >.>
White? Fo sho.
Male? Well, not all 70%. But one need only look at the statements made by Roy Moore's horrible wife (or the comments section of…anything, anywhere) to know that internalized misogyny in womenfolk is a real thing.
That have assaulted young girls? Hopefully not! ...But at the very least, they come from the generation that sees no problem with the Weinstein/Rose/Lauers of the world and think feminism is a dirty word.
In short,
BugsBunnySawingOffAlabama.gif -
Trump backs Roy Moore, says Republicans 'need' his vote: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/trump-backs-roy-moore-republicans-vote-article-1.3676105
Yeah… supporting a rapist/child molester/sexual assaulter... -sigh-
Are you honestly surprised? Of course sexual assault doesn't phase a man who bragged about it on tape.
Trump is trash. Trash supports trash.
Although I think this comes more down to Trump appeasing the Religious Right beast, who supported his election all of the way.
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The Senate GOP Accidentally Killed Some of Its Donors’ Favorite Tax Breaks
The GOP had originally intended to abolish the AMT. But on Friday, with the clock running out — and money running short — Senate Republicans put the AMT back into their bill. Unfortunately for McConnell, they forgot to lower the AMT after doing so.
This is a big problem. The Senate bill brings the normal corporate rate down to 20 percent — while leaving the alternative minimum rate at … 20 percent. The legislation would still allow corporations to claim a wide variety of tax credits and deductions — it just renders all them completely worthless. Companies can either take no deductions, and pay a 20 percent rate — or take lots of deductions … and pay a 20 percent rate.
McConell might have accidentally screwed some of his donors.
Also, this really isn't that surprising that a rushed bill is full of mistakes. I just love who the victims might be, in this case.
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Supreme Court decided that Trump's """"travel"""" ban can go into full effect. Only Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented.
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US confirmed as joke country lol
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Today in the grand Nixon RP: "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."
I can't wait for the inevitable "I AM THE SENATE", only minus the sick lightsaber spin flip.
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Supreme Court decided that Trump's """"travel"""" ban can go into full effect. Only Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented.
"I have never heard of 'undue burden', stop putting words in my mouth" - Anthony Kennedy
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@Spencer:
Mueller says Manafort has already violated the terms of his bail agreement & ghostwrote an op-ed on his Ukraine work with someone US intelligence assesses has ties to Russian intelligence.
@Garrett:
NEW from Bob Mueller: Manafort was conspiring as recently as last week with a likely Russian intelligence asset: https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4321216/Manafort-Doj-Bail-20171204.pdf …
Manafort's in trouble again. This seems like it'll just mess up his appeal for his house arrest.
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Thank god every day that evil is as stupid as good.
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Supreme Court decided that Trump's """"travel"""" ban can go into full effect. Only Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented.
Fucking hell. God. >_>
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@CCC:
White? Fo sho.
Male? Well, not all 70%. But one need only look at the statements made by Roy Moore's horrible wife (or the comments section of…anything, anywhere) to know that internalized misogyny in womenfolk is a real thing.
That have assaulted young girls? Hopefully not! ...But at the very least, they come from the generation that sees no problem with the Weinstein/Rose/Lauers of the world and think feminism is a dirty word.
In short,
BugsBunnySawingOffAlabama.gifAh, okay. I got a little carried away there, especially the last part. Yeah but still most of Alabama needs to change how they see things in the world.
Who are Weinstein, Rose, and Lauers by the way? I don't really know who there are.
Are you honestly surprised? Of course sexual assault doesn't phase a man who bragged about it on tape.
Trump is trash. Trash supports trash.
Although I think this comes more down to Trump appeasing the Religious Right beast, who supported his election all of the way.
Ah >.<
The hard part is those who support Trump or Moore are in denial despite all the evidence with all the victims. Yeah, when I argued with people on Facebook about it, they were like there was not enough "hard evidence", and that "anyone can say anything", etc. I kept pointing out that the number of victims is a good amount of evidence, but the discussion went back and forth. Sigh -_-
The Senate GOP Accidentally Killed Some of Its Donors’ Favorite Tax Breaks
McConell might have accidentally screwed some of his donors.
Also, this really isn't that surprising that a rushed bill is full of mistakes. I just love who the victims might be, in this case.
Oh, wow o:
Well, then, so there is a change that this bill will be canceled right? Since the Republican Party screwed up with their donors?
Supreme Court decided that Trump's """"travel"""" ban can go into full effect. Only Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented.
Wow….. :(
I can't believe that even some of the Democrats in the Supreme Court voted for this even....
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@Monkey:
Thank god every day that evil is as stupid as good.
Speaking of which
https://www.avclub.com/msnbc-cuts-ties-with-sam-seder-after-giving-in-to-alt-1820993790/amp
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Woman shares new evidence of relationship with Roy Moore when she was 17
Delray Beach, Fla. — Debbie Wesson Gibson was in her attic hauling out boxes of Christmas decorations last week when she noticed a storage bin she said she had forgotten about. Inside was a scrapbook from her senior year of high school, and taped to a page titled “Those Who Inspire” was a graduation card.
“Happy graduation Debbie,” it read in slanted cursive handwriting. “I wanted to give you this card myself. I know that you’ll be a success in anything you do. Roy.”
The inscription, Gibson said, was written by Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican nominee for U.S. Senate who in recent days has repeatedly denied the accounts of five women who told The Washington Post that he pursued them when they were teenagers and he was an assistant district attorney in his 30s. Since those allegations were published last month, four more women have come forward to allege that Moore made unwanted sexual advances. The accounts in The Post included those of Leigh Corfman, who said she was 14 when Moore touched her sexually, and Gibson, who said that she publicly dated Moore when she was 17 and he was 34, a relationship she said she “wore like a badge of honor” until she began reevaluating it in light of the accounts of other women, and now, Moore’s own denials.
Shortly after the allegations first surfaced, Moore said in a radio interview with Sean Hannity that he did not know Corfman, but that he remembered Gibson as well as Gloria Thacker Deason, who had told The Post that she dated Moore when she was 18. He called each one “a good girl,” and said that he did not remember dating them.
But at two campaign events in recent days, Moore has backtracked.
At a Nov. 27 campaign event in the north Alabama town of Henagar, Moore said, “The allegations are completely false. They are malicious. Specifically, I do not know any of these women.”
At a Nov. 29 rally at a church in the south Alabama town of Theodore, Moore said, “Let me state once again: I do not know any of these women, did not date any of these women and have not engaged in any sexual misconduct with anyone.”
Gibson said that after finding the scrapbook, she was not sure whether to make it public given the threats she received after publication of the original story. Then she heard what Moore said last week, she said, and contacted The Post.
“He called me a liar,” said Gibson, who says she not only openly dated Moore when she was 17 but later joined him in passing out fliers during his campaign for circuit court judge in 1982 and exchanged Christmas cards with him over the years. “Roy Moore made an egregious mistake to attack that one thing — my integrity.”
I haven't had a chance to look into the Travel Ban thing in detail, but I saw it noted elsewhere that the Supreme Court only voted to let the ban go into effect while the appeals to combat it are still working their way through the courts vs having it blocked until then.
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Who are Weinstein, Rose, and Lauers by the way? I don't really know who there are.
Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, and Matt Lauer are three powerful white men in the American entertainment industry (among what feels like 7,000 others) who were recently brought down/fired for various episodes of sexual misconduct/assault against women, usually in the workplace where uneven power dynamics made their actions even more egregious.
Their careers are effectively over, which raises the question: why are entertainers being held to higher standards than politicians like Roy Moore and Al Franken?
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Supreme Court decided that Trump's """"travel"""" ban can go into full effect. Only Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissented.
Gee, Thank you SO much Mr. President for not doing ANYTHING to prevent another situation like Las Vegas, one of the deadliest shooting in the country's history, but instead trying your best to make sure that my 80-year old grandmother or anyone else in my extended family will never be able to visit me again. Thanks so FUCKING much.
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@CCC:
Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose, and Matt Lauer are three powerful white men in the American entertainment industry (among what feels like 7,000 others) who were recently brought down/fired for various episodes of sexual misconduct/assault against women, usually in the workplace where uneven power dynamics made their actions even more egregious.
Their careers are effectively over, which raises the question: why are entertainers being held to higher standards than politicians like Roy Moore and Al Franken?
I mean… in Weinstein’s case (not sure about the other two) it’s a matter of severity of the crime. Moore and Franken, by comparison, did zilch. And yes, I know you’ll say “moore’s victims were underage”, but frankly kissing and touching a (consenting) fourteen year old breasts isn’t as bad as 100+ rape or assault or other sexual act allegations. Hell, Franken only barely breached any laws, he was mostly just... a pervy sore loser. Touching her breasts through multiple layers of clothing while she sleeps is scummy and not funny, but is only a minor case of sexual assault, I highly doubt it’s be successfully prosecutable. Like, really really really minor. Same for kissing a woman when its not clear if she’s up for it. Bad... but not “massage me naked bad because I’m a powerful exec and your job’s on the line”.
Very obviously there is also the fact that executives and actors are not beholden to the oublic at large, but rather to their bosses (or partner shareholders). And since the aim is money and not policy when it comes to hollywood, anyone that’s accused is dropped without aecond though, as they become box office kryptonite. Politicians are beholden to voters... and the party lines and tribalism are so strictly drawn that voters are likely to side with “their guy” if only out of spite for the other side, no matter how wrong their actions (within reason).
It would be interesting to see the american public’s reaction to a major politician allegedly engaging in serious sexual abuse of some sort. Closest you have right now is Trump’s various rape claims etc, but he doesn’t exactly conform to normal politician rules, so he’s a really bad case study.
Edit: if you quote me don’t expect quick replies I’m busy all of tomorrow...
Edit 2: I feel like I did a poor job of properly expressing the full extent of moore’s alleged actions... partly because I can’t remember them all that well. Feel free to correct me on that point if I mischaracterised what he did or undermined the gravity of his actions.. It’s oversight not maliciousness. The main point really is that Moore’s actions pale compared to Weinstein’s, as long as that point sticks I’m not too concerned if the exactities of moore’s behaviour aren’t portrayed 100% accurately.
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with the clock running out
Uggh. There was no clock running out, no timetable. This wasn't a humanitarian crisis or a terrorist attack that needed immediate response, this was a damn tax bill. The last time we changed taxes 30 years ago, it took THREE YEARS of debate instead of zero minutes.
The only "clock running out" is that Trump is about to be prosecuted and they have like 8 other big things they need to do before the government shuts down… and in another week or two they can't push this bullshit through without an actual 60 votes.
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Edit: if you quote me don’t expect quick replies I’m busy all of tomorrow…
It was a rhetorical question.
Though the correct answer is tribalism.
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@CCC:
It was a rhetorical question.
Though the correct answer is tribalism.
Lol anything to keep me from writing the essay I actually have to write by wednesday… Also I quite enjoy dissecting the public’s reaction to things. Call it my version of entertainment (especially since I’m in a different county and can laugh at yours from the sidelines)
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Oh, wow o:
Well, then, so there is a change that this bill will be canceled right? Since the Republican Party screwed up with their donors?
I don't want to pretend to be an expert. I think they can resolve these issues, but the article makes a point about what kind of trainwreck this bill is. It needs to meet the reconciliation requirement (or Byrd rule) to avoid increasing the deficient, so I think the they'll need to make sure the math is actually correct before then finish this. If the bill doesn't pass the Byrd rule, then I'm pretty sure it fails.
Speaking of math, this mistake opens the possibility that even if they pass this law that it won't accomplish what the GOP wants. So, as bittersweet as it is, the GOP can still fail while probably ruining the economy. I'd like to imagine a scenario where the GOP ruins their reputation with their voters AND donors at once. It's a dream for after the worse-case scenario happens.
Also, between this tax plan and the "travel ban," still being somewhat up in the air, though seemingly hopeless, I like the notion that these things aren't over yet. The ban is still being appealed, and the Congress still has steps left to go. There are people still fighting, and it's good to remember that–cause the GOP and their donors sure as hell do. This is a constant fight, and I wish more people acknowledged this instead of forgetting to vote every season.
Uggh. There was no clock running out, no timetable. This wasn't a humanitarian crisis or a terrorist attack that needed immediate response, this was a damn tax bill. The last time we changed taxes 30 years ago, it took THREE YEARS of debate instead of zero minutes.
The only "clock running out" is that Trump is about to be prosecuted and they have like 8 other big things they need to do before the government shuts down… and in another week or two they can't push this bullshit through without an actual 60 votes.
…I don't disagree. I hope it all falls apart on them.
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At the rate things are going I half expect any evidence that could impeach the president to be ignored by the supreme court and any and all future voting is abolished for an indefinite period.
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The RNC is back to actively supporting mallrat Roy Moore: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-rnc-resumes-funding-roy-moore
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The RNC is back to actively supporting mallrat Roy Moore: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-rnc-resumes-funding-roy-moore
…how do the Republicans think they'll come out ahead with this? Even if they get one more vote in the senate, all of them will be associated with an accused pedophile in an election year. I get them being evil and all, but I don't get the strategy.
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They've looked at Alabama poll numbers and it looks like he'll win despite the scandal, so its okay to support him now. It's not THAT bad to their base apparently. Most of whom don't believe it anyway.