Vaktathi wrote: Hrm, no there has very much been a strong element of "why should *I* have to pay for *them*" thinking coming out of the GOP on healthcare. Hell, Ron Paul openly said people without insurance in need of care should be left to die and was *applauded* for it on national television.
And to put the icing on the cake, applauded by people claiming to be 'pro-life' to boot.
The people who supported Ron Paul were what we like to consider the fringe of the conservative movement.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
West Virginia had something similar a few weeks back I think.
My mom is actually quitting teaching this year after more than 20 years as an educator, not because she's old or doesn't like it but because her patience has completely run out. She's tired of administration that doesn't support her, of parents who don't take responsibility for their kids, and working 60+ hours a week for a dollar value that if parsed to include all the extra unpaid work she does puts her at under minimum wage. She has seen her class size nearly double in fours years, keeps having to take on more and more administrative duties that have nothing to do with teaching, and now has to deal with requirements for special education students that completely baffle the feth out of me as to what they're supposed to achieve. Her school is going to be screwed next year, cause six of the staff (and there's only like 30 in the whole school so that's 1/5 of the staff) are quitting at the end of this year in frustration.
You can't run an education system without teachers, and we bleed them out so fast now that they either quit or become seat fillers. We get the education you pay for America, and we wonder why so many kids are so damn stupid.
The people who supported Ron Paul were what we like to consider the fringe of the conservative movement.
You might like to consider them the fringe.
But they got him 3rd place in Iowa, 2nd in New Hampshire, got anywhere between 10-30% in various primaries, ended up winning three states, and got a total of 190 delegates before deciding to stop actively campaigning.
whembly wrote: I think both sides are mischaracterizing the extreme wings here...
Then who is the democrat equivalent of Ben "the pyramids were ancient grain silos" Carson, or Rick "butts are fun" Santorum? If you're going to pull the "both sides are bad" act then you have to provide something to support it.
Hillary Clinton. ...natch. Game Over.
For the bonus rounds, don't forget:
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warrens
Nancy Pelosi
Harry Reid
Al 'Freaking' Franken
They're whackadoos that if a more rational democrat takes their place, they will be dominant in future elections.
Seriously, stop arguing from the standpoint that the Democrats in general are the adult in the rooms. There are jackwagons on both aisle.
Just call them out individually without painting the whole party without agency.
Joe Arpaio
Roy Moore
Arthur Jones
Paul Ryan
Mike Pence
Donald Trump
Scott Walker
Sarah Sanders
Mike Flynn
Jared Kushner
Rex Tillerson
Sean Spicer
David Shulkin
Mnuchin
Reince Priebus
Sebastian Gorka
Omarosa Newman
Steve Bannon
Anthony Scaramucci
Hope Hicks
Jeff Sessions
Rick Gates
Paul Manafort
That's like 4 for every one you posted. My point is there are a lot more scumbags on the right than the left because they've allowed their greed by and large to take over (and with Fox's help of course)
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
West Virginia had something similar a few weeks back I think.
My mom is actually quitting teaching this year after more than 20 years as an educator, not because she's old or doesn't like it but because her patience has completely run out. She's tired of administration that doesn't support her, of parents who don't take responsibility for their kids, and working 60+ hours a week for a dollar value that if parsed to include all the extra unpaid work she does puts her at under minimum wage. She has seen her class size nearly double in fours years, keeps having to take on more and more administrative duties that have nothing to do with teaching, and now has to deal with requirements for special education students that completely baffle the feth out of me as to what they're supposed to achieve. Her school is going to be screwed next year, cause six of the staff (and there's only like 30 in the whole school so that's 1/5 of the staff) are quitting at the end of this year in frustration.
You can't run an education system without teachers, and we bleed them out so fast now that they either quit or become seat fillers. We get the education you pay for America, and we wonder why so many kids are so damn stupid.
Dude, your mom is my wife? Because that sure sounds a lot like what my wife goes through. Fortunately, she's paid decently here in Texas, but, yeah, working out how many hours she spends a week on her job, and how much of her own money she spends on the job, and it's not as much as it should be.
I'd just settle for a plan that, were it to make my insurance less useful and affordable (like the ACA did), would actually manage to do something resembling an actual benefit to people who actually can't afford healthcare.
I don't mind the idea of paying more for other people's healthcare, at least to a degree. That's how you get a society. Having that been said, and I haven't talked to a lot of people in that boat, of few people I do know who don't have a good enough job to provide healthcare and make so little that they're supposed to qualify for the benefits, 0 for 3 have actually found it useful or even affordable. I'm not 100% sure why this is, as I'm not an expert on much of the healthcare system.
Beat your tribal drums about it, wave signs, point fingers, and blame the other guy. All I know is that what we had before was pretty gakky, but all my personal observation shows that whatever is going on right now isn't really helping anyone except Aetna and the like.
Dude, your mom is my wife? Because that sure sounds a lot like what my wife goes through. Fortunately, she's paid decently here in Texas, but, yeah, working out how many hours she spends a week on her job, and how much of her own money she spends on the job, and it's not as much as it should be.
But, remember folks, "kids are our future"!
It's one of the greatest ironies friend.
Everyone wants their kid to have a good education but no one wants to pay for it, support it, or take responsibility for it. At least not in any way that's actually productive. US education systems are a wonderful case study in self-destruction.
Look, I know you EMAILS EMAILS EMAILS BENGHAZI EMAILS, but Clinton was a centrist whose entire campaign was built on "hey Bernie voters, I have the same goals as you but let's be realistic about what we can achieve this year". The idea that she's some kind of crazy left-wing extremist is just plan absurd.
Seriously, stop arguing from the standpoint that the Democrats in general are the adult in the rooms.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
West Virginia had something similar a few weeks back I think.
My mom is actually quitting teaching this year after more than 20 years as an educator, not because she's old or doesn't like it but because her patience has completely run out. She's tired of administration that doesn't support her, of parents who don't take responsibility for their kids, and working 60+ hours a week for a dollar value that if parsed to include all the extra unpaid work she does puts her at under minimum wage. She has seen her class size nearly double in fours years, keeps having to take on more and more administrative duties that have nothing to do with teaching, and now has to deal with requirements for special education students that completely baffle the feth out of me as to what they're supposed to achieve. Her school is going to be screwed next year, cause six of the staff (and there's only like 30 in the whole school so that's 1/5 of the staff) are quitting at the end of this year in frustration.
You can't run an education system without teachers, and we bleed them out so fast now that they either quit or become seat fillers. We get the education you pay for America, and we wonder why so many kids are so damn stupid.
Compared to many nations we pay quite a bit more for education than most developed nations: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp. Only Austria, Norway, and Switzerland pay more per student (the U.K. and Belgium come very close). And yet, for that expense we rank fairly low for education among developed nations: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading. Other nations spending far less per student routinely get significantly better education results. When you fall behind nations like Estonia in education despite spending nearly twice as much per student, there's something wrong with your system that merely throwing money at won't help.
Fixing how you BUDGET the money you spend might help, though. So little of that money we spend on education actually makes it into the schools. Far too much of it is siphoned off by highly-paid administrators... who in many districts actually outnumber the teachers, and yet never see a single child in the course of their work.
Compared to many nations we pay quite a bit more for education than most developed nations: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp. Only Austria, Norway, and Switzerland pay more per student (the U.K. and Belgium come very close). And yet, for that expense we rank fairly low for education among developed nations: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading. Other nations spending far less per student routinely get significantly better education results. When you fall behind nations like Estonia in education despite spending nearly twice as much per student, there's something wrong with your system that merely throwing money at won't help.
Fixing how you BUDGET the money you spend might help, though. So little of that money we spend on education actually makes it into the schools. Far too much of it is siphoned off by highly-paid administrators... who in many districts actually outnumber the teachers, and yet never see a single child in the course of their work.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
West Virginia had something similar a few weeks back I think.
My mom is actually quitting teaching this year after more than 20 years as an educator, not because she's old or doesn't like it but because her patience has completely run out. She's tired of administration that doesn't support her, of parents who don't take responsibility for their kids, and working 60+ hours a week for a dollar value that if parsed to include all the extra unpaid work she does puts her at under minimum wage. She has seen her class size nearly double in fours years, keeps having to take on more and more administrative duties that have nothing to do with teaching, and now has to deal with requirements for special education students that completely baffle the feth out of me as to what they're supposed to achieve. Her school is going to be screwed next year, cause six of the staff (and there's only like 30 in the whole school so that's 1/5 of the staff) are quitting at the end of this year in frustration.
You can't run an education system without teachers, and we bleed them out so fast now that they either quit or become seat fillers. We get the education you pay for America, and we wonder why so many kids are so damn stupid.
Compared to many nations we pay quite a bit more for education than most developed nations: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp. Only Austria, Norway, and Switzerland pay more per student (the U.K. and Belgium come very close). And yet, for that expense we rank fairly low for education among developed nations: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading. Other nations spending far less per student routinely get significantly better education results. When you fall behind nations like Estonia in education despite spending nearly twice as much per student, there's something wrong with your system that merely throwing money at won't help.
Fixing how you BUDGET the money you spend might help, though. So little of that money we spend on education actually makes it into the schools. Far too much of it is siphoned off by highly-paid administrators... who in many districts actually outnumber the teachers, and yet never see a single child in the course of their work.
Administrative cost per student in Oklahoma is $3.something. Truly, hat is what is causing all our issues here.
I think blaming any particular point (admins, teachers, facilities) as the core of education failure is flawed. I totally think that the way we're spending money in general is horrible. Personally though my main pet peeve is that citizens themselves don't support education meaningfully. They want it. They want it to be good. But when Billy starts throwing racial slurs at teachers their response is "you must be lying" (true story not joking). Parents need to take responsibility and support the education system for it to work, but I find that they don't. Not all of them, maybe not even most of them, but we've all been in school.
It just takes one kid throwing his feces in class to turn the whole thing into a circus (also a true story). The culture of how we engage education (and I think this extends to law enforcement, and public services in general) needs to change. We don't approach these things productively.
I think from the public, even in conservative Oklahoma, the teachers have a very broad base of support right now. The tax raises have a very broad base of support, and it's amazing that the legislature has absolutely refused to go along with the popular plans. It's going to bite the oil companies in the rear this November I think, if the ballot initiative makes it through and raises their tax to the maximum limit.
But it's amazing that teachers wanting money to buy new textbooks for their kids are selfish and spoiled, but a few weeks ago they wanted to give them all guns to get into shootouts with bad guys.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On the subject of unions and such: the Oklahoma capitol has been in utter disrepair, but the legislature has of course found funding to fix the building (and also to give themselves raises while also being in special session to try to find funding for a $200+ million budget shortfall).
The construction on the building has stopped, because the steel workers refused to cross the picket line of the teachers union.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And in other, Oklahoma related news:
feeder wrote: As an unabashed dirty stinking socialist (and a Canuck to boot, eh?) I can admit I've gone full circle on Bill. When it came out, I was all "it's just a beej" and "she was just a whore looking to score with the leader of the free world".
But now, 20 years later, I've come to learn a lot more about the relationship between power and consent. I've also read Lewinsky's account of things. 1998 Feeder was wrong.
Culture has progressed since 1998. It is basically never okay for a boss to initiate sexual contact with a subordinate. That includes Presidents and interns.
Now here is the correct view. I am in the same boat as you.
Bernie is only left through the (fairly far-right) lens of American politics. If he was Canadian, he'd be a centrist.
Pretty much this, I can't think of one of his policies that isn't already implemented in other modern countries in the world.
Of course this being the US the concept that minorities have rights is still considered "crazy" by a troubling large number of people.
That means nothing. We have many countries where tribes are using the government to slaughter opponents. Just because other countries do it, doesn't make it not crazy.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
Oklahoma’s problem can’t be solved by the Federal Dept of Ed regardless of which administration is in office or who’s running the department. The Dept of Ed can’t come in and nationalize Oklahoma public schools and the amount of Federal funding that can be sent, increased or decreased is determined by Federal law. The people of Oklahoma are the only ones that can fix this. The state government had a $6.9Billion dollar budget for FY2018 and they have $7Billion to spend in FY2019 for a state of 4 million residents and the state govt needs to figure out how to adequately fund the public school system with some of that $7Billion and their constituents need to hold their legislators accountable for getting it done.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
My wife has been out there every day this week. She's a therapist at one of the elementary schools here, so she's supporting the teachers.
The teachers union has been asking for a raise for teachers, support staff, and more importantly adequate funding for the schools themselves. The legislature passed a partial raise for teachers, and no additional funding for schools. And they also don't have the actual funding to pay for the raise, and after raising taxes for the first time in a couple decades to partially fund it, they are already scheduled to repeal some of those taxes before they ever come into effect. So teachers are on strike since Monday. Yesterday the House found out that most teachers only have shuttles available until 3pm, so they scheduled their session to start at 3pm thinking they would just wait for teachers to leave. My wife's school, and many others, simply moved the shuttles around and still ended up filling the capitol.
Yesterday Governor Fallin said that Teachers wanting more funding for schools are "acting like teenagers wanting a better car". So I made my wife a new sign for today:
No
So far our legislature has claimed that teachers have given death threats to them or their staff (Oklahoma City PD and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol did not receive any notification of any threats). The legislators then claimed "outside" agitators from Chicago and Antifa, which surprised no one.
It did result in "Antifa? No, AntiFallin!" signs though, so there's that.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
Oklahoma’s problem can’t be solved by the Federal Dept of Ed regardless of which administration is in office or who’s running the department. The Dept of Ed can’t come in and nationalize Oklahoma public schools and the amount of Federal funding that can be sent, increased or decreased is determined by Federal law. The people of Oklahoma are the only ones that can fix this. The state government had a $6.9Billion dollar budget for FY2018 and they have $7Billion to spend in FY2019 for a state of 4 million residents and the state govt needs to figure out how to adequately fund the public school system with some of that $7Billion and their constituents need to hold their legislators accountable for getting it done.
Feth. That. Right is right, and what's going on in Oklahoma now is. not. right. If the Federal government can throw a bunch of money at hurricane victims, then it damn well can do something to help out a failing school system. But, hey, feth the kids, right?
That's an... odd point of comparison. The government has done rather badly with hurricane victims in the last year. The news cycle is basically on the 'every three months we mention in passing that many of last year victims are still homeless and without aid.'
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
Oklahoma’s problem can’t be solved by the Federal Dept of Ed regardless of which administration is in office or who’s running the department. The Dept of Ed can’t come in and nationalize Oklahoma public schools and the amount of Federal funding that can be sent, increased or decreased is determined by Federal law. The people of Oklahoma are the only ones that can fix this. The state government had a $6.9Billion dollar budget for FY2018 and they have $7Billion to spend in FY2019 for a state of 4 million residents and the state govt needs to figure out how to adequately fund the public school system with some of that $7Billion and their constituents need to hold their legislators accountable for getting it done.
Feth. That.
Right is right, and what's going on in Oklahoma now is. not. right. If the Federal government can throw a bunch of money at hurricane victims, then it damn well can do something to help out a failing school system.
But, hey, feth the kids, right?
When the Federal govt sends money to help victims of natural disasters it requires an act of Congress to authorize the spending. Remember the whole kerfluffle about Ted Cruz wanting flood relief money for Texas even though he was opposed to Superstorm Sandy relief money for the Northeastern states back when that happened? States already get Federal funding for education in compliance with Federal law, we had No Child Left Behind with Bush43 followed by Race to the Top and then Every Studen Succeeds Act under Obama. With the current state of things in Congress I wouldn’t want those 435 people being the ones trying to save my kids but who knows maybe they’ll suddenly become surprisingly competent. Nobody in this thread is saying that the children in Oklahoma shouldn’t get a quality education in their public schools but demanding the illegal federalizations of a state agency just for the sake of doing something isn’t a good answer. I mean really do you think Betsy Devi’s is even capable of improving public education in Oklahoma?
Voss wrote: That's an... odd point of comparison. The government has done rather badly with hurricane victims in the last year. The news cycle is basically on the 'every three months we mention in passing that many of last year victims are still homeless and without aid.'
Then fething pick whatever example you feel works for you, then. All the various earmarks, grants, and other random stuff Congress throws money at. Pick whichever one that will actually tug at your conscience.
whembly wrote: Kinda like how now, the old defenders of Bill Clinton has gone full circle in realizing that his treatment of women may had merits.
No, you've not really followed the argument at all. At the simplest level the Clinton supporters rationalised a bad deed, whereas the Trump supporters are in denial about what Trump's many terrible acts.
On a second level, while there was motivated reasoning with defense of Clinton, as Ouze pointed out, there was a lot more going on (otherwise the opinion on CLinton would have changed soon after his presidency, or even during his second term, like what happened with Bush). Instead it has come much more gradually, as society's gained a better understanding of how power and sexual predation work. If you don't understand this, remember that at the time the centre of the Republican complaint wasn't exploitation of a young girl, but Clinton's infidelity outside of marriage. The Republicans attacking Clinton didn't even get what the issue was.
A meaningful comparison to Clinton would be the late 90s wake up among more left leaning types, who started to realise that despite Clinton's words about social inequality and understanding the poor, he wasn't actually doing a damn thing to help, and his major reforms had actually exacerbated the problem.
Welcome to partisan politics, which is further exacerbated by the internet, 24-hr news cycle and particularly social media.
There's a thing going on right now where the many awful flaws of US conservative politics are being rationalised as greater political and social problems. On pointing out that Paul Ryan is telling another lie, the response from conservatives is that it shows all politicians are bad. We've even seen in this thread - many conservative posters have commented on how all US politics are bad.
It'd be a frustrating, except we saw the exact same dynamic start a year or so after Bush won his second term, and the direct result was the '06 and '08 elections.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
Oklahoma’s problem can’t be solved by the Federal Dept of Ed regardless of which administration is in office or who’s running the department. The Dept of Ed can’t come in and nationalize Oklahoma public schools and the amount of Federal funding that can be sent, increased or decreased is determined by Federal law. The people of Oklahoma are the only ones that can fix this. The state government had a $6.9Billion dollar budget for FY2018 and they have $7Billion to spend in FY2019 for a state of 4 million residents and the state govt needs to figure out how to adequately fund the public school system with some of that $7Billion and their constituents need to hold their legislators accountable for getting it done.
Feth. That.
Right is right, and what's going on in Oklahoma now is. not. right. If the Federal government can throw a bunch of money at hurricane victims, then it damn well can do something to help out a failing school system.
But, hey, feth the kids, right?
When the Federal govt sends money to help victims of natural disasters it requires an act of Congress to authorize the spending. Remember the whole kerfluffle about Ted Cruz wanting flood relief money for Texas even though he was opposed to Superstorm Sandy relief money for the Northeastern states back when that happened? States already get Federal funding for education in compliance with Federal law, we had No Child Left Behind with Bush43 followed by Race to the Top and then Every Studen Succeeds Act under Obama. With the current state of things in Congress I wouldn’t want those 435 people being the ones trying to save my kids but who knows maybe they’ll suddenly become surprisingly competent. Nobody in this thread is saying that the children in Oklahoma shouldn’t get a quality education in their public schools but demanding the illegal federalizations of a state agency just for the sake of doing something isn’t a good answer. I mean really do you think Betsy Devi’s is even capable of improving public education in Oklahoma?
Voss wrote: That's an... odd point of comparison. The government has done rather badly with hurricane victims in the last year. The news cycle is basically on the 'every three months we mention in passing that many of last year victims are still homeless and without aid.'
Then fething pick whatever example you feel works for you, then. All the various earmarks, grants, and other random stuff Congress throws money at. Pick whichever one that will actually tug at your conscience.
I'd rather have a merit based discussion rather than pick an emotional response about who or what is most or least deserving.
d-usa wrote: Are we pretending that there are not people thinking this is just another reason to impeach Trump?
The attempt to build an impeachment case against Trump on campaign finance breaches over the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels is remarkably similar to the attempt to impeach Clinton on perjury for denying an affair with Lewinsky.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Are we pretending that there are not people thinking this is just another reason to impeach Trump?
When talking about Republican crazies it's important not to forget that there are Democrat crazies who are almost as numerous and almost as deluded. Trump could trip on the White House grass and those people would say he was disrespecting the office.
There's a thing on twitter where leftwingers keep posting comparisons with Obama looking handsome and stylish in his trim suits, next to Trump looking fat and goofy in his oversized suits. It's meant to be evidence of... something? That ugly, awkward people are bad, and handsome stylish people are good? I don't know, but it says something because there's no shortage of real, substantial stuff to attack Trump on, but a lot of people choose his ungainly appearance.
d-usa wrote: Are we pretending that there are not people thinking this is just another reason to impeach Trump?
The attempt to build an impeachment case against Trump on campaign finance breaches over the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels is remarkably similar to the attempt to impeach Clinton on perjury for denying an affair with Lewinsky.
Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Voss wrote: That's an... odd point of comparison. The government has done rather badly with hurricane victims in the last year. The news cycle is basically on the 'every three months we mention in passing that many of last year victims are still homeless and without aid.'
d-usa wrote: Are we pretending that there are not people thinking this is just another reason to impeach Trump?
The attempt to build an impeachment case against Trump on campaign finance breaches over the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels is remarkably similar to the attempt to impeach Clinton on perjury for denying an affair with Lewinsky.
Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Actually, lying to the FBI period (regardless of being under oath or not) is a crime, so as long as Mueller gets an interview/chat/whatever with Trump, it's fair game.
d-usa wrote: Are we pretending that there are not people thinking this is just another reason to impeach Trump?
The attempt to build an impeachment case against Trump on campaign finance breaches over the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels is remarkably similar to the attempt to impeach Clinton on perjury for denying an affair with Lewinsky.
Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Actually, lying to the FBI period (regardless of being under oath or not) is a crime, so as long as Mueller gets an interview/chat/whatever with Trump, it's fair game.
One weird thing... as never before has the FBI indicted a sitting President for lying... even then, there are debates that a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted.
What Mueller *can* do is issue a report, which must be released to the public, that makes it clear his “subject” (ie, the President) crossed legal lines... leaving it up to Congress to impeach or the American voters to deny him a 2nd term. Just saw an MSNBC report stating that Mueller's team are planning to wrap this up by June or July. Early fireworks maybe??
However, he can be placed under oath in a special counsel setting and get ding'ed that way. (ala Bill Clinton). Which is why every attorney is probably tearing out their hair everytime Trump signals that he's willing to "talk" to Mueller. Trump is an undisciplined brash fool who'll get himself in trouble in short order.
d-usa wrote: Are we pretending that there are not people thinking this is just another reason to impeach Trump?
The attempt to build an impeachment case against Trump on campaign finance breaches over the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels is remarkably similar to the attempt to impeach Clinton on perjury for denying an affair with Lewinsky.
Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Actually, lying to the FBI period (regardless of being under oath or not) is a crime, so as long as Mueller gets an interview/chat/whatever with Trump, it's fair game.
One weird thing... as never before has the FBI indicted a sitting President for lying... even then, there are debates that a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted.
What Mueller *can* do is issue a report, which must be released to the public, that makes it clear his “subject” (ie, the President) crossed legal lines... leaving it up to Congress to impeach or the American voters to deny him a 2nd term. Just saw an MSNBC report stating that Mueller's team are planning to wrap this up by June or July. Early fireworks maybe??
However, he can be placed under oath in a special counsel setting and get ding'ed that way. (ala Bill Clinton). Which is why every attorney is probably tearing out their hair everytime Trump signals that he's willing to "talk" to Mueller. Trump is an undisciplined brash fool who'll get himself in trouble in short order.
There's a big difference in lying and lying directly to the FBI, especially during an investigation, the best example being Michael Flynn currently I think.
And again, you don't need to be under oath when talking to the FBI for lying to be a crime, from wikipedia: The statute spells out this purpose in subsection 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a), which states:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device[ , ] a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331),[11] imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both....
Also, what do mean "a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted"? A crime is a crime, and the only limit is probably how much embarrassment the US is willing to suffer by indicting a president. The only protection afford appears to be that they cannot be impeached then tried for the same crime. However, they can be impeached for one crime, then tried for another after they have left office.
Grey Templar wrote: Nah, there are just as many. The difference is they are better at disguising their crazyness under a veneer of respectability. The crazyness is evident when you look at what their ultimate policy goals and ideals are. If you want specifics, Bernie Sanders is a straight up leftwing crazypants.
I think Bernie Sanders is a crap candidate with a terrible set of policies, but the fact he's cited as the crazy fringe of the left shows how massively different the two parties are.
As an example - one of the worst things about Sanders is his tendency to twist and manipulate projections to fit his desired policies. Sanders wanted free university, and released a model saying the economic growth would increase to 3.5% because of the increased number of graduates and the advantages of starting your working life with no debt. That 3.5%* growth would cover the cost to government so don't worry about the cost. Some people noted Sanders cost to government was low, it was actually a few hundred billion higher. Not to worry said Sanders, he just released a new model with growth now at 4% so it still paid for the cost. He was obviously just picking whatever growth number would mean the program was paid for.
Thing is, Jeb Bush did the exact same thing. His tax cut was funded by exactly the same method, albeit with 4% growth. When it was pointed out the cost of Jeb's tax cut didn't include people restructuring in to the tax advantaged models, he released new figures with a new growth rate to cover the cost**.
Both Sanders and Jeb Bush are grifters running the exact same con. Promsing something that'd be nice to have, and avoiding any serious conversation about how to pay for it by making up imaginary figures to make it free. But the thing is, Sanders is the far left of his party, in terms of people with responsibility and leadership in the Democrats and the greater left wing, Bernie is as bad as it gets. In contrast, Jeb Bush is the establishment of his party, he's as sensible as it gets, and after him it starts getting crazier.
The most sensible Republicans are as bad as the most ridiculous Democrats. That's the simple reality of US politics right now.
* I can't remember the exact figures. Bernie might have started with 4% and gone to 4.5%. Point is they were very improbably numbers, and there was no serious mechanism by which the proposal would drive such a radical shift in growth rates.
**Maybe the best thing in the whole 2016 debacle, outside of maybe Trump's debate rambling about 'the cyber' and how good Barron is on computers, was when Trump blindsided Bush by having a bigger tax cut funded by an even bigger imaginary growth rate, it might have been 6%. Jeb got really upset about that, how dare you make up an imaginary number bigger than my imaginary number. It took on the feeling of kids in the playground seeing who can say the biggest number. If there had been any more Republican primary debates it was just a matter of time before either Jeb or Trump said their growth rate was going to be infinity plus one.
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ScarletRose wrote: Pretty much this, I can't think of one of his policies that isn't already implemented in other modern countries in the world.
It isn't just about wanting a policy that exists elsewhere in the world. It's about having that policy fit within the existing system and tax base.
For instance, lots of places have free or heavily subsidised university education. Nothing crazy about that. But Sanders policy was to have the state take on tuition payments with no architecture to control university costs, and with an entirely fictional mechanism to fund it.
Crazy isn't just in how far left or right your policy is, crazy is in how much your policy has really been thought through, with its weaknesses and complications properly considered and accounted for.
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Grey Templar wrote: Isn’t compromise the foundation of a functional democracy? Everybody is lamenting that there isn’t enough compromise these days. Yet you now spin this as me trying to hold dying infants hostage. You are better than that Ouze.
You don't get to list random things, then complain other people don't take you up on that deal.
"If you agree to remove all legislation controlling the purchase and sale of fully automatic weapons, then I will dress up like Hamburglar every second Friday between the hours of noon and two. If you don't take the deal then you're not compromising!"
Let me see, as a Canadian, with my wishy-washy Prime Minister Trudeau it makes the contrast with Trump almost scary, no it IS scary.
None of my business I know, I remember being asked prior to his election who would be the next American President?
I had answered "The one they deserve.".
I am SO terribly sorry.
I'm getting the impression that you are sorry for making that statement. If that's true, then please do not be. Trump is absolutely 100% the president we deserve. If anything the last election cycle and the course of this administration has shown Americans are, on average, just kinda nasty people. Politicians may represent the worse end of the citizens that elected them but that still says volumes about the American people. Not only was their widespread support for unjustified hatred, spiteful self-harm, and outright delusion but even more citizens didn't care enough about the country to spare a few hours of their life to vote.
A democracy elects what it deserves... and we did.
This is why I stopped bothering with our PM discussions.
Hillary Clinton is a flawed politician in a lot of ways, I think everyone knows I think she was okayish and nothing more than that - I'm no Hillary booster. But claiming she was crazy is utterly ridiculous. Clinton, for good and for bad, was a centrist campaigner fixated on the nuts and bolts practicality of policy, her defining principal was the one key thing she gave her husband during his term 'the politics of the practical'. But you claimed she was crazy, just to gak on an actual discussion about the real and important differences between the two political parties.
Also the other names you listed were also crappy, dishonest bits of empty name calling. But it was easier just to start with the first one.
Anyhow, how you respond to being called on your effort there, and how everyone else responds really matters if people want to not just have the US politics thread back, but actually make it a useful platform for discussion. Because if you just carry on making obviously junk arguments like that and everyone just accepts it, then it will back to what it was before, playing chess with pigeons. But if you commit to a base level of honesty, to making arguments not just because they work for your team but because there's actually some truth to them, then we might actually start having a meaningful conversation.
LordofHats wrote: You can't run an education system without teachers, and we bleed them out so fast now that they either quit or become seat fillers. We get the education you pay for America, and we wonder why so many kids are so damn stupid.
Paul Krugman has just put up a piece making an interesting point right now about the difference in many states that very closely links to education.
He starts talking about the post war period, where the poorer states steadily caught up to the wealthier states. States that once had large populations of near subsistence level farmers lacking basic facilities like indoor plumbing started to transform, resource extraction and heavy industry brought much higher paying jobs to these states, and they started to catch richer states. As an example, here's Kentucky incomes compared to Massachusetts;
As you can see there was a long period of catch up, then things started to go wrong in the 70s, and they've now been falling for a while. And that's not just a Kentucky thing. Mississippi income reached 70% of Massachusetts, it's now down to 55%. Well, it's the rust belt thing.
What happened was the driver of jobs, particularly higher income jobs started to change. Growing jobs and growing incomes was more about educated workers in service sector jobs. It wasn't an insurmountable, impossible problem, places around the world and in the US have invested in education and transformed their economies. The problem came in places where there was a dominant culture of hostility to education. In those places they've gone looking for other solutions, mostly tax cuts coupled with service cuts, the most harmful of which was the cuts to education. And even now, decades after the problem first showed, most of these places still don't understand where they've gone wrong.
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Vulcan wrote: Compared to many nations we pay quite a bit more for education than most developed nations: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp. Only Austria, Norway, and Switzerland pay more per student (the U.K. and Belgium come very close). And yet, for that expense we rank fairly low for education among developed nations: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading. Other nations spending far less per student routinely get significantly better education results. When you fall behind nations like Estonia in education despite spending nearly twice as much per student, there's something wrong with your system that merely throwing money at won't help.
Fixing how you BUDGET the money you spend might help, though. So little of that money we spend on education actually makes it into the schools. Far too much of it is siphoned off by highly-paid administrators... who in many districts actually outnumber the teachers, and yet never see a single child in the course of their work.
You're right that the US spends, on average across the country, more than most countries, but you're a bit off on the rest.
For starters, US the better parts of US results aren't well represented by average performance stats. For lots of reasons, the US puts more resources in to dragging the lowest performing kids up, and more resources in helping the best performing kids really excel. If you look instead at competency rates among the bottom 20% the US does very well, and it also does very well in the highest performing areas. Alongside that, the US also has a stupid amount of school organised extra-curricular activities. Other places these are run outside the school, the effect is they're added to the US total, but not to other countries.
But probably the biggest reason is state and local discrepancies. Most countries have in some form or another a system to spread school funding evenly, so every kid in place gets not exactly the same amount of funding, but something that's always reasonably close. In the US because the funding model is primarily local you get enormous discrepancies - a kid in a real Mississippi backwater might get a fifth of a kid in a NY city public school. The result is a simple marginal return thing - a place spending $5,000/kid in one district and $1,000/kid in another district will get worse results overall than a place spending $3,000/kid in each district.
So no, it isn't about that old 'so many administrators' is an easy, politically safe attack. But it is nothing to do with what's actually going on.
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LordofHats wrote: Personally though my main pet peeve is that citizens themselves don't support education meaningfully. They want it. They want it to be good. But when Billy starts throwing racial slurs at teachers their response is "you must be lying" (true story not joking). Parents need to take responsibility and support the education system for it to work, but I find that they don't. Not all of them, maybe not even most of them, but we've all been in school.
Very good point. That said, it isn't just about supporting the education system, but parents need to be the first and most important educators for their kids. When you read to your kids every night, your kids have a big step up. When you spend time with them on their schoolwork, not just to get them through their homework, but to actually engage with them in what they're learning and expand it beyond the textbook, you're kids will be miles ahead.
Some parents do that. Some parents don't. When you don't, it doesn't matter how much money gets spent on your kid at school, they'll be behind the other kids.
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whembly wrote: Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Okay, I'll explain it with more words. Just it was repeatedly said in the 90s that it wasn't about Clinton having sex, it was about him perjuring himself to cover it up, now we hear people saying that it isn't about Trump having sex, it's about the $130k payment made being a breach of campaign financing laws. In both cases you have a tawdry even that gets everyone's attention, and a technical breach of the law. People push a case forward on the technical breach, but the real drive is about catching someone else having sex, and getting at a political enemy.
I cherry picked that because I thought it was pretty insightful.
If that's me not agreeing with you... then, I don't know what's going on here.
Self-motivated reasoning is a pretty normal thing. It's a bad thing, but its an ordinary part of the process. That's different to denial. Right now a remarkably large share of Republican voters are claiming they don't know if Daniels and Clinton had sex. They hear that Trump's lawyer and bagman Michael Cohen wrote up an NDA for Daniels to not talk about sex with Trump and paid her $130,000, which Cohen now says he did despite Daniels account being a lie, and without the knowledge of Trump. And ridiculously they believe this account, or think it might be true, or they don't even hear about it at all because they've put up walls of ignorance.
That's a very different thing to rationalising. There's limits to rationalising, the arguments will only stretch so far. But when you just straight up pretend facts are different to what they are, or just refuse to learn the pertinent facts, well there's no limit to how far that can take a person, even to the point of pretending Trump is an okay president.
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whembly wrote: What Mueller *can* do is issue a report, which must be released to the public, that makes it clear his “subject” (ie, the President) crossed legal lines...
Which may be released to the public. Mueller submits his report to DoJ. Either the house or the president can choose to release it, but neither has to.
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Wolfblade wrote: Also, what do mean "a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted"? A crime is a crime, and the only limit is probably how much embarrassment the US is willing to suffer by indicting a president. The only protection afford appears to be that they cannot be impeached then tried for the same crime. However, they can be impeached for one crime, then tried for another after they have left office.
It's debatable, but most constitutional scholars will argue that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Like so much in the constitution, the argument is implicit, there's nothing saying it in plain black and white, but in reading through the work in its entirety the intent of the framers was that a president should be impeached and once removed from office, then criminal proceedings could begin, or else criminal charges would have to wait until his presidency concluded.
However, while that's the majority opinion it isn't the only opinion. A minority of constitutional scholars argue there's no such restriction, and when any other elected official can be indicted while in office, you can't just read between the lines to grant that protection to the president.
End of the day, it's never been tested in a court of law, and it probably won't ever be tested, because if you have a criminal conviction against a president you don't want to squander that by losing a precedent on a technical, procedural point of law. It's simply smarter to make the charge known and pressure congress in to impeachment.
Trump having an affair with a porn star is, IMO, literally the least odious thing he's done. That's between him and Melania in my book, and I suspect she might have known a dude who has been married like 5 times and cheated on every single one of them might have a problem with fidelity. The truth is probably literally no1curr.
I don't think anyone serious gets punished for breaking campaign finance law though, no matter how ridiculous it was. I fail to see the whole thing going anywhere except perhaps his lawyer losing his license or something like that.
Ouze wrote: Trump having an affair with a porn star is, IMO, literally the least odious thing he's done. That's between him and Melania in my book, and I suspect she might have known a dude who has been married like 5 times and cheated on every single one of them might have a problem with fidelity. The truth is probably literally no1curr.
I don't think anyone serious gets punished for breaking campaign finance law though, no matter how ridiculous it was. I fail to see the whole thing going anywhere except perhaps his lawyer losing his license or something like that.
Melania certainly went in knowing the deal. I agree it'd be hard for anyone to pretend to be offended on her behalf.
I think the reason no-one serious gets caught breaking campaign finance laws is because everyone serious is normally smart enough to walk through any one of the countless enormous loopholes in the system. Dinesh D'Souza got caught and did federal time because he's an idiot. All it takes to avoid breaches of campaign finance is to be smarter than Dinesh D'Souza, and that's just about everyone on the planet.
But Michael Cohen's position is a bit different, the circumstances were so specific there really wasn't a way to slip through. I mean, Michael Cohen is also an idiot, because he used his own name to create the shell company meant to hide the transaction. The reason you go to Delaware to set up these shell companies is because you don't have to use your real name, and that's how he got caught, but it's also besides the point of the actual financing breach. While Cohen's breach is really technical, it's one that the circumstances meant he couldn't actually avoid it, even if he was clever. If Cohen makes the payment with Trump's knowledge, to Trump's benefit, then it has to be declared. There's really no way to make a payment so directly connected to the president and not declare it.
So its a breach, but is that really the kind of rule that people think is holding the Republic together? When Trump was a candidate, there was a lot of justified concern about attacks on the free press, and about trading US wealth for personal profit, and the terrible things Trump as a candidate and Trump as a president would mean. But no-one was saying 'oh no with Trump as a candidate we may see payments made by Trump affiliates that directly benefit Trump and his campaign that are undeclared'. It's a pretty weird, technical breach of financing laws.
But because they want to get Trump on something, and because people want to keep embarrassing Trump over his weird sex stuff, people pretend the breach is a very serious, grave matter.
It does seem like the severity of the matter with Stormy has been enlarged. But I would say it's a case with hard evidence. Or maybe this is just anti-Trumpers getting a bone thrown into their lap and dancing about it. Hopefully the future will be more revealing on the matter.
I try to avoid posting in this thread unless there is something pertinent to post. I tried to voice opinion in the last one, and it was declared "wrong". But this time, there are fact in dispute.
sebster wrote:In contrast, Jeb Bush is the establishment of his party, he's as sensible as it gets, and after him it starts getting crazier.
The most sensible Republicans are as bad as the most ridiculous Democrats. That's the simple reality of US politics right now.
Jeb Bush and the rest of the Bushes are progressive Republicans. They are as far from the establishment as Ted Cruz is, but in the opposite direction. Jeb Bush was basically two social issues and a donkey away from being a moderate Democrat. NOBODY on the right views Bush as party establishment. They viewed him as more palatable than Trump, which is the only reason they were throwing him in the ring. In the end, Bush's message was far too close to Clinton's message, which shows how left of GOP sentiment he really was.
sebster wrote:Hillary Clinton is a flawed politician in a lot of ways, I think everyone knows I think she was okayish and nothing more than that - I'm no Hillary booster. But claiming she was crazy is utterly ridiculous. Clinton, for good and for bad, was a centrist campaigner fixated on the nuts and bolts practicality of policy, her defining principal was the one key thing she gave her husband during his term 'the politics of the practical'. But you claimed she was crazy, just to gak on an actual discussion about the real and important differences between the two political parties.
I've said it in other forums/media, I'll say it here. Just because the left has moved as a whole further left doesn't redefine the center. The center is still the center. THAT is the crux of the issue. You barely see ANY truly centrist politicians anymore. There are notable exceptions, as the last tightly fought race where you had a centrist Democrat beat a centrist Republican, but it is FAR from the norm. Regardless, left is left. Renaming it because you want to make the other party seem farther shifted does not change the left to center. Never will.
Just Tony wrote: Jeb Bush and the rest of the Bushes are progressive Republicans. They are as far from the establishment as Ted Cruz is, but in the opposite direction.
You don't know what establishment means. It isn't a synonym for the centre of the party, as you've mistakenly assumed. The establishment are, incredibly, the guys who are most established in the system. The guys who have broadest and deepest connections within the party, and to the network of political and moneyed interests surrounding the party. Jeb Bush comes from a family of two former presidents, and the guy raised $100m before the primaries even started. Claiming Jeb Bush isn't establishment is an act of pure political ignorance.
I've said it in other forums/media, I'll say it here. Just because the left has moved as a whole further left doesn't redefine the center. The center is still the center. THAT is the crux of the issue. You barely see ANY truly centrist politicians anymore. There are notable exceptions, as the last tightly fought race where you had a centrist Democrat beat a centrist Republican, but it is FAR from the norm. Regardless, left is left. Renaming it because you want to make the other party seem farther shifted does not change the left to center. Never will.
Claiming the Democrats have moved, while leaving quiet any mention of a Republican move, is a dishonest framing and one that also has some real factual issues. But I'll leave that alone because it's utterly irrelevant to the question of Clinton's positioning.
It's a mistake, and to be fair you're far from the first to make it, to think the centre is defined just taking the far left, drawing a line to far right, and then plonking a spot in the middle and calling that the center. An approach that simple results in the center moving any time either fringe decides to get a little more or a little less radical.
Instead, the center is an approach to forming policy not based on ideology or factional loyalty, but based on an analysis of the facts, with an expectation that almost all the time the preferred solution will be found within the bounds of moderate proposals held by the two sides. This describes Clinton's approach exactly. Now, given her preferred option fell left of centre most of the time then 'center left' can be used, but that's got its own issues as well. But however we slice and dice those fine degrees, the reality remains that whembly's attempt to call Clinton a political whackadoo equivalent to Ben Carson or Rick Santorum was absolutely ridiculous nonsense.
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A Town Called Malus wrote: The left hasn't moved much further left, the right has moved miles further to the right.
The left hadn't, but there were signs of it coming in 2016. Clinton's failure to identify this and throw it a bone or two is basically the opening that Sanders came crashing through. Then Trump won and the left has begun a radicalisation that's still nothing like what Republicans did from roughly 1996 to 2016, but there's every sign they're going to start catching up. There will be 2020 primary candidates talking about universal healthcare as a must, it might even be a majority of the field. Gun control is being discussed openly, actual proposals are being discussed without any regard for how it might upset the gun rights movement. Democrats are now talking about spending priorities without feeling like it needs to come attached with a list of offsetting spending reductions or tax increases, as if they have to be the only adults who talk about how stuff actually gets paid for.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
My wife has been out there every day this week. She's a therapist at one of the elementary schools here, so she's supporting the teachers.
The teachers union has been asking for a raise for teachers, support staff, and more importantly adequate funding for the schools themselves. The legislature passed a partial raise for teachers, and no additional funding for schools. And they also don't have the actual funding to pay for the raise, and after raising taxes for the first time in a couple decades to partially fund it, they are already scheduled to repeal some of those taxes before they ever come into effect. So teachers are on strike since Monday. Yesterday the House found out that most teachers only have shuttles available until 3pm, so they scheduled their session to start at 3pm thinking they would just wait for teachers to leave. My wife's school, and many others, simply moved the shuttles around and still ended up filling the capitol.
Yesterday Governor Fallin said that Teachers wanting more funding for schools are "acting like teenagers wanting a better car". So I made my wife a new sign for today:
So far our legislature has claimed that teachers have given death threats to them or their staff (Oklahoma City PD and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol did not receive any notification of any threats). The legislators then claimed "outside" agitators from Chicago and Antifa, which surprised no one.
It did result in "Antifa? No, AntiFallin!" signs though, so there's that.
It's a mistake, and to be fair you're far from the first to make it, to think the centre is defined just taking the far left, drawing a line to far right, and then plonking a spot in the middle and calling that the center. An approach that simple results in the center moving any time either fringe decides to get a little more or a little less radical.
Instead, the center is an approach to forming policy not based on ideology or factional loyalty, but based on an analysis of the facts, with an expectation that almost all the time the preferred solution will be found within the bounds of moderate proposals held by the two sides. This describes Clinton's approach exactly. Now, given her preferred option fell left of centre most of the time then 'center left' can be used, but that's got its own issues as well. But however we slice and dice those fine degrees, the reality remains that whembly's attempt to call Clinton a political whackadoo equivalent to Ben Carson or Rick Santorum was absolutely ridiculous nonsense.
Not quite, the center has an ideological basis itself. It's the ideology of the status quo that we take for granted and dont see as an ideology because of that.
My apologies if the website is not considered a reliable one, I've personally never heard of Alternet before. But the article is full of links to the videos, tweets, etc., which are the sources for much of the material.
My wife isn't even a teacher, she's considered support staff. She is a therapist for a program that keeps grade school kids from getting kicked out of school, and 10 kids spend half a day in her classroom (really a therapy room) for group therapy and training and then they spend half a day in a regular classroom while she works with the other 10 kids.
Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
My wife has been out there every day this week. She's a therapist at one of the elementary schools here, so she's supporting the teachers.
The teachers union has been asking for a raise for teachers, support staff, and more importantly adequate funding for the schools themselves. The legislature passed a partial raise for teachers, and no additional funding for schools. And they also don't have the actual funding to pay for the raise, and after raising taxes for the first time in a couple decades to partially fund it, they are already scheduled to repeal some of those taxes before they ever come into effect. So teachers are on strike since Monday. Yesterday the House found out that most teachers only have shuttles available until 3pm, so they scheduled their session to start at 3pm thinking they would just wait for teachers to leave. My wife's school, and many others, simply moved the shuttles around and still ended up filling the capitol.
Yesterday Governor Fallin said that Teachers wanting more funding for schools are "acting like teenagers wanting a better car". So I made my wife a new sign for today:
So far our legislature has claimed that teachers have given death threats to them or their staff (Oklahoma City PD and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol did not receive any notification of any threats). The legislators then claimed "outside" agitators from Chicago and Antifa, which surprised no one.
It did result in "Antifa? No, AntiFallin!" signs though, so there's that.
Just Tony wrote: Jeb Bush and the rest of the Bushes are progressive Republicans. They are as far from the establishment as Ted Cruz is, but in the opposite direction.
You don't know what establishment means. It isn't a synonym for the centre of the party, as you've mistakenly assumed. The establishment are, incredibly, the guys who are most established in the system. The guys who have broadest and deepest connections within the party, and to the network of political and moneyed interests surrounding the party. Jeb Bush comes from a family of two former presidents, and the guy raised $100m before the primaries even started. Claiming Jeb Bush isn't establishment is an act of pure political ignorance.
I've said it in other forums/media, I'll say it here. Just because the left has moved as a whole further left doesn't redefine the center. The center is still the center. THAT is the crux of the issue. You barely see ANY truly centrist politicians anymore. There are notable exceptions, as the last tightly fought race where you had a centrist Democrat beat a centrist Republican, but it is FAR from the norm. Regardless, left is left. Renaming it because you want to make the other party seem farther shifted does not change the left to center. Never will.
Claiming the Democrats have moved, while leaving quiet any mention of a Republican move, is a dishonest framing and one that also has some real factual issues. But I'll leave that alone because it's utterly irrelevant to the question of Clinton's positioning.
It's a mistake, and to be fair you're far from the first to make it, to think the centre is defined just taking the far left, drawing a line to far right, and then plonking a spot in the middle and calling that the center. An approach that simple results in the center moving any time either fringe decides to get a little more or a little less radical.
Instead, the center is an approach to forming policy not based on ideology or factional loyalty, but based on an analysis of the facts, with an expectation that almost all the time the preferred solution will be found within the bounds of moderate proposals held by the two sides. This describes Clinton's approach exactly. Now, given her preferred option fell left of centre most of the time then 'center left' can be used, but that's got its own issues as well. But however we slice and dice those fine degrees, the reality remains that whembly's attempt to call Clinton a political whackadoo equivalent to Ben Carson or Rick Santorum was absolutely ridiculous nonsense.
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A Town Called Malus wrote: The left hasn't moved much further left, the right has moved miles further to the right.
The left hadn't, but there were signs of it coming in 2016. Clinton's failure to identify this and throw it a bone or two is basically the opening that Sanders came crashing through. Then Trump won and the left has begun a radicalisation that's still nothing like what Republicans did from roughly 1996 to 2016, but there's every sign they're going to start catching up. There will be 2020 primary candidates talking about universal healthcare as a must, it might even be a majority of the field. Gun control is being discussed openly, actual proposals are being discussed without any regard for how it might upset the gun rights movement. Democrats are now talking about spending priorities without feeling like it needs to come attached with a list of offsetting spending reductions or tax increases, as if they have to be the only adults who talk about how stuff actually gets paid for.
Before we go and act like Republicans were the only ones becoming more radical in their views pre-2016 lets at least look at a study from a 3rd party source, and i think that a PEW study is about as independent as it gets.
Based on the graph near the top of the page it seems like the median Democrat and median Republican were fairly close in their views, but between 4994 and 2004 the views between the medians were shifting with the democrats as a whole shifting farther left. When the study was finished in 2014 both parties were far more extreme in their views compared to 2014 with slightly more Democrats to the left of median Republican (94%) compared to Republicans that were right of the median Democrat (92%). In conclusion, both parties have become more extreme and it started far before 2016. In one way that the Republicans have become more extreme than the Democrats though is their view on the other party. Based on the study above 36% of Republicans believe that the Democrats are a threat to the nation compared to 27% the other way around. I think that mainly comes from echo chambers which conservatives are probably more likely to be prey to due to their predisposition to be more wary of new ideas compared to liberals.
DrGiggles wrote: Before we go and act like Republicans were the only ones becoming more radical in their views pre-2016 lets at least look at a study from a 3rd party source, and i think that a PEW study is about as independent as it gets.
Based on the graph near the top of the page it seems like the median Democrat and median Republican were fairly close in their views, but between 4994 and 2004 the views between the medians were shifting with the democrats as a whole shifting farther left. When the study was finished in 2014 both parties were far more extreme in their views compared to 2014 with slightly more Democrats to the left of median Republican (94%) compared to Republicans that were right of the median Democrat (92%). In conclusion, both parties have become more extreme and it started far before 2016. In one way that the Republicans have become more extreme than the Democrats though is their view on the other party. Based on the study above 36% of Republicans believe that the Democrats are a threat to the nation compared to 27% the other way around. I think that mainly comes from echo chambers which conservatives are probably more likely to be prey to due to their predisposition to be more wary of new ideas compared to liberals.
Polarization is not radicalization. Your link shows that the two parties are farther from each other, but it doesn't show how far each side is from a theoretical center. IOW, these two situations give exactly the same numbers (using Republican, Democrat, Center)
R---------------C---------------D
R---------------------------C---D
And both would show the same increase in polarization compared to this:
R----C----D
or
R--C------D
Because those numbers in the article are removing the reference point, and all they show you is this:
R------------------------------D
It's clearly more polarized than this:
R--------D
But without the reference point you can't tell the difference between both parties moving an equal distance away from the center and one party staying where it is while the other party goes off the deep end. Obviously that's something you can't quantify the same way, but you can sure look at where the parties compare to other countries. And when we do that we see that the democrats mostly line up with centrist positions in other "western" democracies. It's really hard to make a case for the democrats being off the deep end extremists when they'd be a pretty centrist party if you moved them just across the border into Canada. The republican party, on the other hand, has gone very far to the right, to the point that major republican figures from previous generations are saying "I don't recognize this party anymore". The mainstream platform of the party is embracing far-right policies on economics, climate change, Christian theocracy, etc, that range from questionable to blatantly against facts. Their primary debates in 2016 had their mainstream candidates competing to see who could advocate the most extreme border security option, while civil engineers said "WTF no, building a wall is not realistic" and practically excommunicating the one candidate who said "I hate illegal immigration, but we need realistic solutions". And the fringe of the party now welcomes in raving lunatics like Ben "the pyramids were ancient grain silos" Carson or Rick "gay sex act" Santorum, while even Alex ing Jones is being treated like he has something to say. Put this dumpster fire of a party in any similar country and they'd be fringe extremists at best.
It is worth considering the positions of Democrat and Republican supporter relative to the population as whole including non-aligned voters, or indepednents or floating voteres, whatever you llike to call them. After all, there are far many more of these people that there are registered party members.
In this respect, society as a whole has moved to the left, for example on gun control, immigration, LGBT rights, and so on. Thus from a relative point of view, it's Republicans who have moved to the right.
whembly wrote: Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Okay, I'll explain it with more words. Just it was repeatedly said in the 90s that it wasn't about Clinton having sex, it was about him perjuring himself to cover it up, now we hear people saying that it isn't about Trump having sex, it's about the $130k payment made being a breach of campaign financing laws. In both cases you have a tawdry even that gets everyone's attention, and a technical breach of the law. People push a case forward on the technical breach, but the real drive is about catching someone else having sex, and getting at a political enemy.
Okay... very good point.
I cherry picked that because I thought it was pretty insightful.
If that's me not agreeing with you... then, I don't know what's going on here.
Self-motivated reasoning is a pretty normal thing. It's a bad thing, but its an ordinary part of the process. That's different to denial. Right now a remarkably large share of Republican voters are claiming they don't know if Daniels and Clinton had sex. They hear that Trump's lawyer and bagman Michael Cohen wrote up an NDA for Daniels to not talk about sex with Trump and paid her $130,000, which Cohen now says he did despite Daniels account being a lie, and without the knowledge of Trump. And ridiculously they believe this account, or think it might be true, or they don't even hear about it at all because they've put up walls of ignorance.
That's a very different thing to rationalising. There's limits to rationalising, the arguments will only stretch so far. But when you just straight up pretend facts are different to what they are, or just refuse to learn the pertinent facts, well there's no limit to how far that can take a person, even to the point of pretending Trump is an okay president.
My read is that the Trump supporters do believe he did have sex with Daniels and simply choose to not care. (my grandpa laughs at this remembering the adoration JFK got for his philandering)That's different than denial.
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whembly wrote: What Mueller *can* do is issue a report, which must be released to the public, that makes it clear his “subject” (ie, the President) crossed legal lines...
Which may be released to the public. Mueller submits his report to DoJ. Either the house or the president can choose to release it, but neither has to.
...I did some research and you may be right... I thought the special counsel regulation required public disclosure... but I can't find where I read that.
That would be very disturbing if the DOJ doesn't publish it.
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Wolfblade wrote: Also, what do mean "a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted"? A crime is a crime, and the only limit is probably how much embarrassment the US is willing to suffer by indicting a president. The only protection afford appears to be that they cannot be impeached then tried for the same crime. However, they can be impeached for one crime, then tried for another after they have left office.
It's debatable, but most constitutional scholars will argue that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Like so much in the constitution, the argument is implicit, there's nothing saying it in plain black and white, but in reading through the work in its entirety the intent of the framers was that a president should be impeached and once removed from office, then criminal proceedings could begin, or else criminal charges would have to wait until his presidency concluded.
However, while that's the majority opinion it isn't the only opinion. A minority of constitutional scholars argue there's no such restriction, and when any other elected official can be indicted while in office, you can't just read between the lines to grant that protection to the president.
End of the day, it's never been tested in a court of law, and it probably won't ever be tested, because if you have a criminal conviction against a president you don't want to squander that by losing a precedent on a technical, procedural point of law. It's simply smarter to make the charge known and pressure congress in to impeachment.
To be fair, Trump has really liked other people that got the boot too. Pruitt's right hand person who has been with him through everything he's done for years resigned today unexpectedly, and he's facing multiple different scandals.
Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
It's a mistake, and to be fair you're far from the first to make it, to think the centre is defined just taking the far left, drawing a line to far right, and then plonking a spot in the middle and calling that the center. An approach that simple results in the center moving any time either fringe decides to get a little more or a little less radical.
Instead, the center is an approach to forming policy not based on ideology or factional loyalty, but based on an analysis of the facts, with an expectation that almost all the time the preferred solution will be found within the bounds of moderate proposals held by the two sides. This describes Clinton's approach exactly. Now, given her preferred option fell left of centre most of the time then 'center left' can be used, but that's got its own issues as well. But however we slice and dice those fine degrees, the reality remains that whembly's attempt to call Clinton a political whackadoo equivalent to Ben Carson or Rick Santorum was absolutely ridiculous nonsense.
Not quite, the center has an ideological basis itself. It's the ideology of the status quo that we take for granted and dont see as an ideology because of that.
Yes, the idea that "The Center" is the most rational, reasonable and well-educated faction is masturbatory nonsense. It's the kind of thing that only appeals to people who have watched too much of The West Wing. Never mind that attempting to form policy "not based on ideology" is pointless because it inevitably results in policy without goals. If a decision on how things should be ordered doesn't have a vision of a better society behind it then any changes will be meaningless. Talk about nihilism.
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
As for an exact number I don't know. However the White House has always had high turnover in staff throughout its history. Historically it definitely hasn't attracted this much media attention. The bigger story though I think is the abnormally public and embarrassing turnover of high level positions like in the State Department. That is not normal as far as I know.
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
Trump just thinks he's on the Apprentice: White House Edition. Its not good tv if nobody gets kicked to the curb on a weekly basis.
To be fair, can most of those positions left unfulfilled actually be worse than the people he puts in? Some of them are just incredible
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
Trump just thinks he's on the Apprentice: White House Edition. Its not good tv if nobody gets kicked to the curb on a weekly basis.
To be fair, can most of those positions left unfulfilled actually be worse than the people he puts in? Some of them are just incredible
Trump has unquestionably proven himself the best reality TV star in human history by an immense margin. I say this non-jokingly. He has turned the Presidency of the United States into reality TV for all intents and purposes. It's been really fun to watch.
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
Trump just thinks he's on the Apprentice: White House Edition. Its not good tv if nobody gets kicked to the curb on a weekly basis.
To be fair, can most of those positions left unfulfilled actually be worse than the people he puts in? Some of them are just incredible
Trump has unquestionably proven himself the best reality TV star in human history by an immense margin. I say this non-jokingly. He has turned the Presidency of the United States into reality TV for all intents and purposes. It's been really fun to watch.
Yeah that certainly isn't a joke! Although fun wouldn't be the word I'd pick. More horrified, but unable to look away.
This move is more interesting as economic sanctions seems to hurt the Russian people more than the oligarchs. Putin obviously relies on the political support of the oligarchs to keep power, and the oligarchs need free access to the security of Western banking and trade institutions to keep their fortunes. This is what we should've been doing all along as Putin can't really reciprocate this.
This move is more interesting as economic sanctions seems to hurt the Russian people more than the oligarchs. Putin obviously relies on the political support of the oligarchs to keep power, and the oligarchs need free access to the security of Western banking and trade institutions to keep their fortunes. This is what we should've been doing all along as Putin can't really reciprocate this.
Well there was the Magnitsky Act in 2012 that took a step in that direction. Although what the US can do against Russian oligarchs is limited anyway, as they prefer to avoid the US in the first place. You need the EU and UK on board.
Also:
Moscow’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said the “atmosphere in Washington is poison.”
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
Trump just thinks he's on the Apprentice: White House Edition. Its not good tv if nobody gets kicked to the curb on a weekly basis.
To be fair, can most of those positions left unfulfilled actually be worse than the people he puts in? Some of them are just incredible
Trump has unquestionably proven himself the best reality TV star in human history by an immense margin. I say this non-jokingly. He has turned the Presidency of the United States into reality TV for all intents and purposes. It's been really fun to watch.
Yeah that certainly isn't a joke! Although fun wouldn't be the word I'd pick. More horrified, but unable to look away.
This move is more interesting as economic sanctions seems to hurt the Russian people more than the oligarchs. Putin obviously relies on the political support of the oligarchs to keep power, and the oligarchs need free access to the security of Western banking and trade institutions to keep their fortunes. This is what we should've been doing all along as Putin can't really reciprocate this.
Well there was the Magnitsky Act in 2012 that took a step in that direction. Although what the US can do against Russian oligarchs is limited anyway, as they prefer to avoid the US in the first place. You need the EU and UK on board.
True... but, we gotta do something eh?
Also:
Moscow’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, said the “atmosphere in Washington is poison.”
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
Oklahoma’s problem can’t be solved by the Federal Dept of Ed regardless of which administration is in office or who’s running the department. The Dept of Ed can’t come in and nationalize Oklahoma public schools and the amount of Federal funding that can be sent, increased or decreased is determined by Federal law. The people of Oklahoma are the only ones that can fix this. The state government had a $6.9Billion dollar budget for FY2018 and they have $7Billion to spend in FY2019 for a state of 4 million residents and the state govt needs to figure out how to adequately fund the public school system with some of that $7Billion and their constituents need to hold their legislators accountable for getting it done.
Feth. That.
Right is right, and what's going on in Oklahoma now is. not. right. If the Federal government can throw a bunch of money at hurricane victims, then it damn well can do something to help out a failing school system.
But, hey, feth the kids, right?
When the Federal govt sends money to help victims of natural disasters it requires an act of Congress to authorize the spending. Remember the whole kerfluffle about Ted Cruz wanting flood relief money for Texas even though he was opposed to Superstorm Sandy relief money for the Northeastern states back when that happened? States already get Federal funding for education in compliance with Federal law, we had No Child Left Behind with Bush43 followed by Race to the Top and then Every Studen Succeeds Act under Obama. With the current state of things in Congress I wouldn’t want those 435 people being the ones trying to save my kids but who knows maybe they’ll suddenly become surprisingly competent. Nobody in this thread is saying that the children in Oklahoma shouldn’t get a quality education in their public schools but demanding the illegal federalizations of a state agency just for the sake of doing something isn’t a good answer. I mean really do you think Betsy Devi’s is even capable of improving public education in Oklahoma?
DO NOT put words in my mouth.
Fair enough. I apologize for inserting my own scenario into your argument.
The point remains that this isn't a problem for the Federal government to solve. This is an Oklahoma problem that Oklahoma has to solve. The Federal Dept of Ed can only help state public schools via the procedures established by Federal law. Congress could authorize additional Federal assistance but that's highly unlikely to happen. This isn't a natural disaster that couldn't be avoided this is a situation that was created by the state government and their constituency. All of the state legislators that wrote up the budget for the past decades had to be elected and run for re-election, same for the governors that signed off on the budgets, all of the school children have parents/relatives that can vote, the teachers can all vote, this situation didn't happen overnight.
Oklahoma has a $7Billion state budget. I don't know how much it would cost to make sure all the students in the public school system had decent textbooks but I'm confident it's a lot less than $7Billion. I'm also confident that if you or I went through the OK budget we'd be able to cut enough spending elsewhere to free up the money needed for textbooks. $7,000,000,000 is a lot of money. Of course you and I don't have to run for re-election to the Oklahoma state legislature so we aren't beholden to the constituency behind every dollar that helps create this budget problems. It's not OK (pun intended) for the Oklahoma govt to take the easy lazy way out and not spent money on public education and then ask Congress to bail them out by gifting them the additional revenue needed. There are plenty of school districts that need help, Newark, Camden and Atlantic City all had long suffering failing public schools throughout the 30 years I lived in NJ. Michigan has school systems that are struggling mightily as well. Congress isn't going to send state school systems bail out money every time one of them makes the news.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
My wife has been out there every day this week. She's a therapist at one of the elementary schools here, so she's supporting the teachers.
The teachers union has been asking for a raise for teachers, support staff, and more importantly adequate funding for the schools themselves. The legislature passed a partial raise for teachers, and no additional funding for schools. And they also don't have the actual funding to pay for the raise, and after raising taxes for the first time in a couple decades to partially fund it, they are already scheduled to repeal some of those taxes before they ever come into effect. So teachers are on strike since Monday. Yesterday the House found out that most teachers only have shuttles available until 3pm, so they scheduled their session to start at 3pm thinking they would just wait for teachers to leave. My wife's school, and many others, simply moved the shuttles around and still ended up filling the capitol.
Yesterday Governor Fallin said that Teachers wanting more funding for schools are "acting like teenagers wanting a better car". So I made my wife a new sign for today:
So far our legislature has claimed that teachers have given death threats to them or their staff (Oklahoma City PD and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol did not receive any notification of any threats). The legislators then claimed "outside" agitators from Chicago and Antifa, which surprised no one.
It did result in "Antifa? No, AntiFallin!" signs though, so there's that.
ulgurstasta wrote: Not quite, the center has an ideological basis itself. It's the ideology of the status quo that we take for granted and dont see as an ideology because of that.
Fair point, I guess my explanation wasn't as tight as it should have been. The act of selecting all policy options from within the range of moderate left to moderate right is underpinned by an assumption that that's the only place where correct policies can be found. Which is a kind of ideology.
Instead of saying 'not based on ideology' I should have said something along the lines of 'instead of specific left wing or right ideology, instead there is an (often unstated, subconscious) ideology that the correct answer lies at some point between the moderate opinions of the left and right.
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d-usa wrote: Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
Did the Republican tax bill end up excluding those expenses as an allowable deduction for teachers?
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DrGiggles wrote: Before we go and act like Republicans were the only ones becoming more radical in their views pre-2016 lets at least look at a study from a 3rd party source, and i think that a PEW study is about as independent as it gets.
Based on the graph near the top of the page it seems like the median Democrat and median Republican were fairly close in their views, but between 4994 and 2004 the views between the medians were shifting with the democrats as a whole shifting farther left.
The graph near the top of the page is for the general population, it isn't the Democratic leadership, and isn't the people who vote for either party.
Go about a third of the page down the graph and you'll see the real dynamic at play, with this graph;
The group that always votes, in a number dwarfing any other group has been the consistently conservative. Because of their outsized impact on the ballot box, these voters dictate what Republican politicians must say and do if they want to stay in power. They are the reason Republican politics have shifted its centre of gravity in to the fringe.
Vaktathi wrote: To be fair, Trump has really liked other people that got the boot too. Pruitt's right hand person who has been with him through everything he's done for years resigned today unexpectedly, and he's facing multiple different scandals.
I know picking stupid crap off some random on twitter is kind of cheating, but I'm doing it anyway.
I did it because I don't think anyone could claim this kind of thing is a one off. Admittedly this one is funnier than most, but logic break at its centre is something I see daily, I assume its the same for others. This is the world we live in now. Faced with the challenge of trying to make some sense of conservative politics in the Trump era, a hell of a lot of conservatives have taken the rather interesting approach of just not caring one bit that they make no sense, that everything they say contradicts everything else.
whembly wrote: My read is that the Trump supporters do believe he did have sex with Daniels and simply choose to not care. (my grandpa laughs at this remembering the adoration JFK got for his philandering)That's different than denial.
44% of Republicans believe Daniel's allegations of an affair are not credible. That's 44% of the base that elected the president who are engaged in an act of pure denialism.
That would be very disturbing if the DOJ doesn't publish it.
Something will be released. It's a question of whether it will be redacted to conceal any substantiation of serious breaches.
Impeachment is a political process very dependent on the public mood, and the public mood is largely controlled by what the executive and congress choose to let the public know.
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Vaktathi wrote: To be fair, Trump has really liked other people that got the boot too. Pruitt's right hand person who has been with him through everything he's done for years resigned today unexpectedly, and he's facing multiple different scandals.
True, Trump likes people until they start producing negative headlines. However, Mnuchin is still there and seems as safe as ever, and his travel was outrageous, but he loyally spouts the Trump line and doesn't get in the way of any Trump policies. Admittedly Pruitt has a lot more problems than just that, but he is dismantling EPA regs just as Trump wants.
And so while Pruitt has this list of high profile, extremely wasteful expenditures, that might not be enough by itself. And while a lot of people want Pruitt gone because he is so obviously in deep with industry, that's not a negative for Trump.
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LordofHats wrote: As for an exact number I don't know. However the White House has always had high turnover in staff throughout its history. Historically it definitely hasn't attracted this much media attention. The bigger story though I think is the abnormally public and embarrassing turnover of high level positions like in the State Department. That is not normal as far as I know.
You're right that the Whitehouse always has high turnover, but Trump is miles past the norm. In his first year Trump's turnover was 34%, the next highest in any presidency since records were kept was Reagan, with 17%. The next highest was Clinton with 11%.
But I agree the raw numbers of turnover aren't the real story, what's more remarkable is the turnover among key, non-partisan positions. These positions are being vacated at incredible rates, and not being filled. People credit Tillerson for opposing Trump on some important stuff, but at the same time Tillerson waged an incredible war on his own department, stripping out thousands of necessary positions.
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whembly wrote: This move is more interesting as economic sanctions seems to hurt the Russian people more than the oligarchs. Putin obviously relies on the political support of the oligarchs to keep power, and the oligarchs need free access to the security of Western banking and trade institutions to keep their fortunes. This is what we should've been doing all along as Putin can't really reciprocate this.
I understand they're targeted sanctions, so more asset freezes and restrictions on trade with companies owned by specific Putin cronies. So it doesn't really impact the Russian people at all - very little wealth trickles down from these companies to the Russian people.
tneva82 wrote: So Trump is accelerating trade war even more it seems.
US imposes tariffs to China. China responds in kind. US says China is playing unfair. US imposes even more tariffs. ...
Guess China replies in kind followed again by US statement how China is being unfair with their tariffs
Where's my pop corn?
At this point the tariffs are only threats. Particularly this latest $100bn figure, just the day before Trump was claiming the tariffs weren't certain, it depended on negotiations with the Chinese. Then a day after Trump throws out a new set of tariffs that are exactly double the Chinese response. Trump is throwing out big threats to try and intimidate people in to accepting a worse deal. It's a silly technique loved by people like Trump who think negotiations are all about big showy psychological tricks and not, you know, ensuring you understand the real value of things being negotiated, and making sure you never expose yourself to financial or political pressure to close the deal.
Trump is picking a fight with actual adults who know how trade actually works, and who value the trade negotiating teams they've built over decades. Did anyone notice the products in the Chinese list of tariffs - it was goods like pork, grains and steel products - all stuff produced in Trump country. The Chinese know what they're doing. Trump is walking in to a situation where he's politically committed to producing some kind of win, but is now facing a situation where if he doesn't make a deal the Chinese response he invited is going to slaughter him among his key voting areas.
Trump is walking in to a slaughter. Trump said winning a trade war is easy, and I didn't believe him, but he might have been right. The Chinese are making it look very easy.
If I remember correctly, Trump's 'Art Of The Deal' more or less summarised as promise whatever it takes to get the other side to agree, you can always screw them over and not deliver it later. Can only go well.
Fair point, I guess my explanation wasn't as tight as it should have been. The act of selecting all policy options from within the range of moderate left to moderate right is underpinned by an assumption that that's the only place where correct policies can be found. Which is a kind of ideology.
Instead of saying 'not based on ideology' I should have said something along the lines of 'instead of specific left wing or right ideology, instead there is an (often unstated, subconscious) ideology that the correct answer lies at some point between the moderate opinions of the left and right.
Which is a vapid approach to politics.
First of all, socialism and fascism are objectively opposite ideologies with entirely incompatible world views. I don't mean that they just couldn't possible agree with what things should be like, I mean that they can't possibly agree with what things are like. Their understandings of what society is and how it works are incompatible. Attempting to triangulate something that is inbetween them is... a strange endevaour to say the least. What's the mid point between wanting the weak to die and holding every human to have a worth without needing to justify their existence? What is the "moderate" versions of those positions? That the weak shouldn't maybe die, exactly, but that they don't deserve the same freedom as the strong? That people might not have an innate worth, exactly, but that there's a cap on how cruelly you're allowed to treat them? And what's the midpoint between those?
This centrism contains nothing. It's the weakest possible ideology because it doesn't actually believe in anything. All they do is nervously follow Data and Trends. That's why Clinton failed. That's why the Democratic Party is in freefall. That's why the Republican Party has been able to bully them for decades and that's why they're so threatened by an actual left attempting to form. They have no beliefs and no desires other than to be paper pushers. Their ability to win votes by pointing at the Republicans and scream about how much worse they are hinges on their ability to quash any alternatives, and that is going to only get harder and harder from here on out.
d-usa wrote: Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
Did the Republican tax bill end up excluding those expenses as an allowable deduction for teachers?
Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers.
https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
d-usa wrote: Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
Did the Republican tax bill end up excluding those expenses as an allowable deduction for teachers?
Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers.
https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
It's also set up to phase out those tax breaks for non corporations, while removing itemization. Overall it's a massive loss for anyone who isn't a major business owner (like Trump, weird right?)
d-usa wrote: Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
Did the Republican tax bill end up excluding those expenses as an allowable deduction for teachers?
Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers.
https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
It's also set up to phase out those tax breaks for non corporations, while removing itemization. Overall it's a massive loss for anyone who isn't a major business owner (like Trump, weird right?)
It's a big improvement for me. $24k is a bigger deduction than we ever got from itemizing and with our kids added in we're getting a $30k deduction next year which will be the largest deduction we've ever had. The bulk of our itemized deductions were always mortgage interest and property taxes but those were never close to $24k. I suppose if we had a really expensive house and a much greater property tax rate the tax changes wouldn't benefit us but our family is unlikely to ever be in that situation.
d-usa wrote: Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
Did the Republican tax bill end up excluding those expenses as an allowable deduction for teachers?
Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers.
https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
It's also set up to phase out those tax breaks for non corporations, while removing itemization. Overall it's a massive loss for anyone who isn't a major business owner (like Trump, weird right?)
It's a big improvement for me. $24k is a bigger deduction than we ever got from itemizing and with our kids added in we're getting a $30k deduction next year which will be the largest deduction we've ever had. The bulk of our itemized deductions were always mortgage interest and property taxes but those were never close to $24k. I suppose if we had a really expensive house and a much greater property tax rate the tax changes wouldn't benefit us but our family is unlikely to ever be in that situation.
And again, all of that is set to phase out/expire over the next 10 years. It might be good for you now, but a few years from now and it'll be much much worse.
d-usa wrote: Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
Did the Republican tax bill end up excluding those expenses as an allowable deduction for teachers?
Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers.
https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
It's also set up to phase out those tax breaks for non corporations, while removing itemization. Overall it's a massive loss for anyone who isn't a major business owner (like Trump, weird right?)
It's a big improvement for me. $24k is a bigger deduction than we ever got from itemizing and with our kids added in we're getting a $30k deduction next year which will be the largest deduction we've ever had. The bulk of our itemized deductions were always mortgage interest and property taxes but those were never close to $24k. I suppose if we had a really expensive house and a much greater property tax rate the tax changes wouldn't benefit us but our family is unlikely to ever be in that situation.
And again, all of that is set to phase out/expire over the next 10 years. It might be good for you now, but a few years from now and it'll be much much worse.
Well sure but that contingent on the next two presidential administrations and five sessions of Congress to not implement any new tax plans or changes. I don't think that's particularly likely.
Plus it *really* feths over those of us who live in high-tax states and aren't rich. But I'm sure that extra like $1500 or something that the US government can tax from my minimum wage job is really going to help the economy and fix the massive holes in our budget caused by cutting taxes on the wealthy. Oh wait, most economic growth is caused by people spending money not hording it, and the poorer you are the greater percentage of your money you spend. Well how about that...
Fair point, I guess my explanation wasn't as tight as it should have been. The act of selecting all policy options from within the range of moderate left to moderate right is underpinned by an assumption that that's the only place where correct policies can be found. Which is a kind of ideology.
Instead of saying 'not based on ideology' I should have said something along the lines of 'instead of specific left wing or right ideology, instead there is an (often unstated, subconscious) ideology that the correct answer lies at some point between the moderate opinions of the left and right.
Which is a vapid approach to politics.
First of all, socialism and fascism are objectively opposite ideologies with entirely incompatible world views. I don't mean that they just couldn't possible agree with what things should be like, I mean that they can't possibly agree with what things are like. Their understandings of what society is and how it works are incompatible. Attempting to triangulate something that is inbetween them is... a strange endevaour to say the least. What's the mid point between wanting the weak to die and holding every human to have a worth without needing to justify their existence? What is the "moderate" versions of those positions? That the weak shouldn't maybe die, exactly, but that they don't deserve the same freedom as the strong? That people might not have an innate worth, exactly, but that there's a cap on how cruelly you're allowed to treat them? And what's the midpoint between those?
This centrism contains nothing. It's the weakest possible ideology because it doesn't actually believe in anything. All they do is nervously follow Data and Trends. That's why Clinton failed. That's why the Democratic Party is in freefall. That's why the Republican Party has been able to bully them for decades and that's why they're so threatened by an actual left attempting to form. They have no beliefs and no desires other than to be paper pushers. Their ability to win votes by pointing at the Republicans and scream about how much worse they are hinges on their ability to quash any alternatives, and that is going to only get harder and harder from here on out.
How do you figure that socialism and fascism are wholly diametrically opposed ideologies? Most of Europe and the US have forms of government and economies that include both fascist and socialist attributes. Socialism is an economic model where the State controls a larger share of manners of production than a free market wherein the State uses those resources to exert social and demographic control over the population. Fascism is an economic system in which the State apparatus has grown to such a size that it can dictate market outcomes through regulation and influence and allow the elites/oligarchs/1%ers/etc. who benefitted under capitalism to collude with the State to maintain their status and market control.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Plus it *really* feths over those of us who live in high-tax states and aren't rich. But I'm sure that extra like $1500 or something that the US government can tax from my minimum wage job is really going to help the economy and fix the massive holes in our budget caused by cutting taxes on the wealthy. Oh wait, most economic growth is caused by people spending money not hording it, and the poorer you are the greater percentage of your money you spend. Well how about that...
Shh. . . . we can't go burstin' the trickle-downers bubbles here.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Plus it *really* feths over those of us who live in high-tax states and aren't rich. But I'm sure that extra like $1500 or something that the US government can tax from my minimum wage job is really going to help the economy and fix the massive holes in our budget caused by cutting taxes on the wealthy. Oh wait, most economic growth is caused by people spending money not hording it, and the poorer you are the greater percentage of your money you spend. Well how about that...
If you're single and working a minimum wage job how are you claiming over $12,000 in itemized deductions? Back when I was working minimum wage I took the standard deduction because I didn't own property so I had no mortgage interest or property tax to deduct, I wasn't making a lot of charitable donations because I didn't have a lot of money to give, and my minimum wage job wasn't forcing me to spend business expenses. With a $12k standard deduction single filers working minimum wage jobs should be paying less Federal income tax not more.
d-usa wrote: Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
Did the Republican tax bill end up excluding those expenses as an allowable deduction for teachers?
Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers.
https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
It's also set up to phase out those tax breaks for non corporations, while removing itemization. Overall it's a massive loss for anyone who isn't a major business owner (like Trump, weird right?)
It's a big improvement for me. $24k is a bigger deduction than we ever got from itemizing and with our kids added in we're getting a $30k deduction next year which will be the largest deduction we've ever had. The bulk of our itemized deductions were always mortgage interest and property taxes but those were never close to $24k. I suppose if we had a really expensive house and a much greater property tax rate the tax changes wouldn't benefit us but our family is unlikely to ever be in that situation.
And again, all of that is set to phase out/expire over the next 10 years. It might be good for you now, but a few years from now and it'll be much much worse.
Well sure but that contingent on the next two presidential administrations and five sessions of Congress to not implement any new tax plans or changes. I don't think that's particularly likely.
The last time they massively changed the tax system was 31 years ago.
Fair point, I guess my explanation wasn't as tight as it should have been. The act of selecting all policy options from within the range of moderate left to moderate right is underpinned by an assumption that that's the only place where correct policies can be found. Which is a kind of ideology.
Instead of saying 'not based on ideology' I should have said something along the lines of 'instead of specific left wing or right ideology, instead there is an (often unstated, subconscious) ideology that the correct answer lies at some point between the moderate opinions of the left and right.
Which is a vapid approach to politics.
First of all, socialism and fascism are objectively opposite ideologies with entirely incompatible world views. I don't mean that they just couldn't possible agree with what things should be like, I mean that they can't possibly agree with what things are like. Their understandings of what society is and how it works are incompatible. Attempting to triangulate something that is inbetween them is... a strange endevaour to say the least. What's the mid point between wanting the weak to die and holding every human to have a worth without needing to justify their existence? What is the "moderate" versions of those positions? That the weak shouldn't maybe die, exactly, but that they don't deserve the same freedom as the strong? That people might not have an innate worth, exactly, but that there's a cap on how cruelly you're allowed to treat them? And what's the midpoint between those?
This centrism contains nothing. It's the weakest possible ideology because it doesn't actually believe in anything. All they do is nervously follow Data and Trends. That's why Clinton failed. That's why the Democratic Party is in freefall. That's why the Republican Party has been able to bully them for decades and that's why they're so threatened by an actual left attempting to form. They have no beliefs and no desires other than to be paper pushers. Their ability to win votes by pointing at the Republicans and scream about how much worse they are hinges on their ability to quash any alternatives, and that is going to only get harder and harder from here on out.
How do you figure that socialism and fascism are wholly diametrically opposed ideologies? Most of Europe and the US have forms of government and economies that include both fascist and socialist attributes. Socialism is an economic model where the State controls a larger share of manners of production than a free market wherein the State uses those resources to exert social and demographic control over the population. Fascism is an economic system in which the State apparatus has grown to such a size that it can dictate market outcomes through regulation and influence and allow the elites/oligarchs/1%ers/etc. who benefitted under capitalism to collude with the State to maintain their status and market control.
How did you even get to that idea of fascism as an economic system? Fascism is a political ideology in which economy is subservient to nationalism. Exploitation of the national population is not in the interest of fascism because it wants its own nationality/population to live as well as possible, with social welfare schemes (this is partly where the ridiculous notions come from that.. uhm.. certain 'extreme' parts of fascism were actually socialist if you catch my drift), not protect the 1% at all cost. Fascism as an ideology is actually opposed to capitalism because it breeds weakness. What a fascist economy wants is autarky, which if anything is not in the interest of the 1% in the US. If anything the American 1%is the type of rich people fascism absolutely loathed even though they had to put up with such people.
What your describing has been around far longer than fascism. What fascist attributes do we have?
Co'tor Shas wrote: Plus it *really* feths over those of us who live in high-tax states and aren't rich. But I'm sure that extra like $1500 or something that the US government can tax from my minimum wage job is really going to help the economy and fix the massive holes in our budget caused by cutting taxes on the wealthy. Oh wait, most economic growth is caused by people spending money not hording it, and the poorer you are the greater percentage of your money you spend. Well how about that...
If you're single and working a minimum wage job how are you claiming over $12,000 in itemized deductions? Back when I was working minimum wage I took the standard deduction because I didn't own property so I had no mortgage interest or property tax to deduct, I wasn't making a lot of charitable donations because I didn't have a lot of money to give, and my minimum wage job wasn't forcing me to spend business expenses. With a $12k standard deduction single filers working minimum wage jobs should be paying less Federal income tax not more.
As I still live with my parents while I'm going to college, my taxes are filed with them (I don't make enough to have to do it indipendanty). Or my father doesn't know what he's doing, that could very well be the case.
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
Trump just thinks he's on the Apprentice: White House Edition. Its not good tv if nobody gets kicked to the curb on a weekly basis.
To be fair, can most of those positions left unfulfilled actually be worse than the people he puts in? Some of them are just incredible
Trump has unquestionably proven himself the best reality TV star in human history by an immense margin. I say this non-jokingly. He has turned the Presidency of the United States into reality TV for all intents and purposes. It's been really fun to watch.
Yeah that certainly isn't a joke! Although fun wouldn't be the word I'd pick. More horrified, but unable to look away.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Plus it *really* feths over those of us who live in high-tax states and aren't rich. But I'm sure that extra like $1500 or something that the US government can tax from my minimum wage job is really going to help the economy and fix the massive holes in our budget caused by cutting taxes on the wealthy. Oh wait, most economic growth is caused by people spending money not hording it, and the poorer you are the greater percentage of your money you spend. Well how about that...
If you're single and working a minimum wage job how are you claiming over $12,000 in itemized deductions? Back when I was working minimum wage I took the standard deduction because I didn't own property so I had no mortgage interest or property tax to deduct, I wasn't making a lot of charitable donations because I didn't have a lot of money to give, and my minimum wage job wasn't forcing me to spend business expenses. With a $12k standard deduction single filers working minimum wage jobs should be paying less Federal income tax not more.
As I still live with my parents while I'm going to college, my taxes are filed with them (I don't make enough to have to do it indipendanty). Or my father doesn't know what he's doing, that could very well be the case.
If you're still a dependent and not filing your own return then yeah the tax bill isn't going to change anything for you. If you were filing your own return it would be difficult for you to file more than $12k in Itemized Deductions without being a homeowner.
Co'tor Shas wrote: Plus it *really* feths over those of us who live in high-tax states and aren't rich. But I'm sure that extra like $1500 or something that the US government can tax from my minimum wage job is really going to help the economy and fix the massive holes in our budget caused by cutting taxes on the wealthy. Oh wait, most economic growth is caused by people spending money not hording it, and the poorer you are the greater percentage of your money you spend. Well how about that...
If you're single and working a minimum wage job how are you claiming over $12,000 in itemized deductions? Back when I was working minimum wage I took the standard deduction because I didn't own property so I had no mortgage interest or property tax to deduct, I wasn't making a lot of charitable donations because I didn't have a lot of money to give, and my minimum wage job wasn't forcing me to spend business expenses. With a $12k standard deduction single filers working minimum wage jobs should be paying less Federal income tax not more.
As I still live with my parents while I'm going to college, my taxes are filed with them (I don't make enough to have to do it indipendanty). Or my father doesn't know what he's doing, that could very well be the case.
If you're still a dependent and not filing your own return then yeah the tax bill isn't going to change anything for you. If you were filing your own return it would be difficult for you to file more than $12k in Itemized Deductions without being a homeowner.
Not to mention that limit on state and local taxes is 10,000 for next year, which no offense to Co'Tor he isn't making enough money on minimum wage to be paying more than 10k in state and local taxes. Not to mention the fact that he probably isn't itemizing anyway.
Also while many of the provisions are set to expire with the tax reform bill, tax provisions that are set to expire are often just renewed by congress right before they expire. Sometimes they are even renewed during the middle of the tax season. This happens almost every year.
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
Trump just thinks he's on the Apprentice: White House Edition. Its not good tv if nobody gets kicked to the curb on a weekly basis.
To be fair, can most of those positions left unfulfilled actually be worse than the people he puts in? Some of them are just incredible
Trump has unquestionably proven himself the best reality TV star in human history by an immense margin. I say this non-jokingly. He has turned the Presidency of the United States into reality TV for all intents and purposes. It's been really fun to watch.
Yeah that certainly isn't a joke! Although fun wouldn't be the word I'd pick. More horrified, but unable to look away.
Hey now, that's funny because nobody else got hurt Not when a single person gets to drag 300-1000 million of its own citizens and allies with it
That highlights a perspective problem that's gotten us into the current political climate; separate sides. US citizens keep thinking in terms of 'them hurting us' when really, the whole country is the guy jumping into the cactus. A harm to any part of a society is a harm to the whole, and unfortunately humans are just really, really bad at understanding that. You see it all the time with wealthy elites screwing over the poor, oblivious to how that impact ultimately leaves them worse off in all respects save the extremely short term. Similar things happen when bigoted groups attack some minority, ignoring how that's essentially a hand attacking it's own little finger for being too small.
Pharmaceutical companies gave at least $116 million to patient advocacy groups in a single year, reveals a new database logging 12,000 donations from large publicly traded drugmakers to such organizations.
Even as these patient groups grow in number and political influence, their funding and their relationships to drugmakers are little understood. Unlike payments to doctors and lobbying expenses, companies do not have to report payments to the groups.
The database, called “Pre$cription for Power,” shows that donations to patient advocacy groups tallied for 2015 — the most recent full year in which documents required by the Internal Revenue Service were available — dwarfed the total amount the companies spent on federal lobbying. The 14 companies that contributed $116 million to patient advocacy groups reported only about $63 million in lobbying activities that same year.
Though their primary missions are to focus attention on the needs of patients with a particular disease — such as arthritis, heart disease or various cancers — some groups effectively supplement the work lobbyists perform, providing patients to testify on Capitol Hill and organizing letter-writing and social media campaigns that are beneficial to pharmaceutical companies.
Six drugmakers, the data show, contributed a million dollars or more to individual groups that represent patients who rely on their drugs. The database identifies over 1,200 patient groups. Of those, 594 accepted money from the drugmakers in the database.
The financial ties are troubling if they cause even one patient group to act in a way that’s “not fully representing the interest of its constituents,” said Matthew McCoy, a medical ethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania who co-authored a 2017 study about patient advocacy groups’ influence and transparency.
Notably, such groups have been silent or slow to complain about high or escalating prices, a prime concern of patients.
continues through the link.
Bristol-Myers Squibb provides a stark example of how patient groups are valued. In 2015, it spent more than $20.5 million on patient groups, compared with $2.9 million on federal lobbying and less than $1 million on major trade associations, according to public records and company disclosures. The company said its decisions regarding lobbying and contributions to patient groups are “unrelated.”
The company said its decisions regarding lobbying and contributions to patient groups are “unrelated.”
Oklahoma's Teacher Walkout continues on Monday. The Senate is slowly passing some bills, although right now they are not really adding that much funding. They are mostly just replacing revenue that was already repealed after being raised just over a week ago.
If the House would pass the Capital Gains bill that has already been passed by the Senate, this would most likely be over. But so far they have not even allowed debate on this bill.
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
Trump just thinks he's on the Apprentice: White House Edition. Its not good tv if nobody gets kicked to the curb on a weekly basis.
To be fair, can most of those positions left unfulfilled actually be worse than the people he puts in? Some of them are just incredible
Trump has unquestionably proven himself the best reality TV star in human history by an immense margin. I say this non-jokingly. He has turned the Presidency of the United States into reality TV for all intents and purposes. It's been really fun to watch.
Yeah that certainly isn't a joke! Although fun wouldn't be the word I'd pick. More horrified, but unable to look away.
Hey now, that's funny because nobody else got hurt Not when a single person gets to drag 300-1000 million of its own citizens and allies with it
That highlights a perspective problem that's gotten us into the current political climate; separate sides. US citizens keep thinking in terms of 'them hurting us' when really, the whole country is the guy jumping into the cactus. A harm to any part of a society is a harm to the whole, and unfortunately humans are just really, really bad at understanding that. You see it all the time with wealthy elites screwing over the poor, oblivious to how that impact ultimately leaves them worse off in all respects save the extremely short term. Similar things happen when bigoted groups attack some minority, ignoring how that's essentially a hand attacking it's own little finger for being too small.
It’s hard to keep the populace well educated when we keep replacing great movies with inferior remakes.
d-usa wrote: Oklahoma's Teacher Walkout continues on Monday. The Senate is slowly passing some bills, although right now they are not really adding that much funding. They are mostly just replacing revenue that was already repealed after being raised just over a week ago.
If the House would pass the Capital Gains bill that has already been passed by the Senate, this would most likely be over. But so far they have not even allowed debate on this bill.
pass recreational pot with taxes going to schools
/s...sorta
Medicinal pot is on the ballot in a couple months. It’s Oklahoma, but even before this I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it passed. With this on people’s mind in a few months? Who knows.
The last set of ballot initiatives on the Oklahoma ballot turned out to have very surprising results. Oklahoma went for Trump of course and everybody considers it deep red. But the ballot initiatives in 2016 ended up:
- voting down “right to farm”
- changed various drug crimes from felony to misdemeanor
- allocated money saved from not locking these people up to drug treatment
- voted against a repeal of the restriction to spend state funds on religion
- approved the sale of full strength beer and liquor at all stores
The only state question that turned out as I expected was “the death penalty will always be constitutional”.
d-usa wrote: Medicinal pot is on the ballot in a couple months. It’s Oklahoma, but even before this I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it passed. With this on people’s mind in a few months? Who knows.
The last set of ballot initiatives on the Oklahoma ballot turned out to have very surprising results. Oklahoma went for Trump of course and everybody considers it deep red. But the ballot initiatives in 2016 ended up:
- voting down “right to farm”
- changed various drug crimes from felony to misdemeanor
- allocated money saved from not locking these people up to drug treatment
- voted against a repeal of the restriction to spend state funds on religion
- approved the sale of full strength beer and liquor at all stores
The only state question that turned out as I expected was “the death penalty will always be constitutional”.
Those 5 initiatives look like a good start. Excuse my ignorance of what's happening in OK, but what impact will the Capital Gains have on the teacher's strike?
Repealing the Capital Gains tax exemption would raise about $100 million in funding for the state.
Together with asking for a veto of the repeal of the hotel tax, it's the final two sticking points for resolving the walkout. They are not asking for all of the funding to go to education, because they realize all of the agencies have been hit by the revenue failures over the past years.
The legislature passed a tax raise a couple weeks ago, but then the house instantly repealed $50 million of that funding by repealing the hotel tax. They passed two additional funding bills this week (gambling and internet sales tax) for $40 million. So the legislature is presenting it as a "we just gave you money a few weeks ago, and now we are giving you $40 million more" deal, when it really is a "we just gave you partial funding a few weeks ago, and we only repealed $10 million of that funding" deal.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Unrelated, but not surprising to any Oklahoman:
So in regards to the acronym I'm split on if I want to support SEPA--Swamp Environment Protection Agency, which maintains the identity of the original EPA acronym better but lacks the concise approach of Swamp Protection Agency. The latter has the added benefit of being SPA which is ironic from several angles.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I think its because his core supporters are those people who are so afraid of change and long for the 1950s where everything was "perfect" and men like Trump were more accepted. Plus he does have the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis on his side as well and I doubt they will be leaving him anytime soon.
Hell I would said that last group has become way more emboldened because of Trump, at a play about Anne Frank at a college nearby mine they had a dude in a don't tread on me hat stand up and give a Nazi salute to the actors playing the Nazis in the middle of the performance.
The GOP, and more so it's base, doesn't seem to understand just how deep a pit it is digging for itself. They've become the party of old white people, a demographic that is going to increasingly shrink as time goes on. They've utterly poisoned their image for the vast majority of millenials, and are now doubling down by their disregard and opposition to the student anti-gun movement. They are the party of climate change denial in the century where it is going to hit and hit hard. Every weather disaster will be a giant sign saying 'LOOK WHAT WE SAID WASN'T A PROBLEM'. They've cut taxes on the wealthy just in time for the next economic downturn to reignite a lot of hatred & resentment against them. I could go on, but I think the point is clear. Granted the party can change positions on these things, but their current success is riding on how many voters still see them as the party of Reagan from 30 years ago.
Some GOP congressmen seem to see what's going on, but that so many of them don't, or think it's isolated to Trump, surprises me. I can already see that when Trump is out he will be made the scape goat of 'well the bad stuff is gone with him' and the GOP establishment will be very confused as to why they can't win elections anymore.
Somewhat of a tangent but IMO elderly Americans need to be careful for similar reasons. I can see the start of some serious resentment building among younger generations and the US is heading for a major buget crisis. All that talk about how millenials just need to pull up their bootstraps could bite hard if social security & medicaid get cut and the response to elderly outrage is 'pull up your bootstraps'.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price...
Seems to me that he shouldn't have telegraphed the world that he wanted US forces out of Syria...
whembly wrote: Whut now? Someone's not following the script...
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price...
Seems to me that he shouldn't have telegraphed the world that he wanted US forces out of Syria...
Does the telegraphing really matter though? Trump changes his mind every morning he gets out of bed it seems. There was NATO bad, now good. Kim bad, now he wants to talk. Xi great, China now bad. I don't think any rational country could predict how to act based on what Trump says. Besides by now the Kurds are being pushed into the arms of Assad by Turkey. There is almost no one left to back even if Trump wanted to be tougher on Assad. It would appear the chemical attacks were quite 'safe' to carry out. Realistically there was little Trump could do even if he wanted to. The moment to intervene was in 2011, but war weariness and other factors didn't provide the support for an an intervention.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I've come to realise something. You can say whatever you like about Trump as a politician / human being, but you can't deny he's an amazing storyteller. Before the election and afterwards, his narrative has been unwavering, energising and has an impenetrable internal logic, telling his supporters exactly what they needed / wanted to hear.
Realism, retcons and plot holes are very much non-issues to the audience when a story is romantic, thrilling, or engaging enough.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I think that at least some of those supporters are still on the trump train because they're doing damage to the federal goverment's reputation and ability to function. Republicans at the end of the day are for smaller government, state rights, and isolationism.And there's a non-insignificant portion of the US that just straight up distrusts and hates any authority that isn't directly related to them. So in their mind, anything that makes people also distrusts and hates the government is a "good" thing.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I think its because his core supporters are those people who are so afraid of change and long for the 1950s where everything was "perfect" and men like Trump were more accepted. Plus he does have the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis on his side as well and I doubt they will be leaving him anytime soon.
Hell I would said that last group has become way more emboldened because of Trump, at a play about Anne Frank at a college nearby mine they had a dude in a don't tread on me hat stand up and give a Nazi salute to the actors playing the Nazis in the middle of the performance.
Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I don't necessarily think Pruitt getting kicked out is a lock. I think as EPA head he is doing exactly as Trump wanted him to do, which is to keep it totally de-fanged.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I've come to realise something. You can say whatever you like about Trump as a politician / human being, but you can't deny he's an amazing storyteller. Before the election and afterwards, his narrative has been unwavering, energising and has an impenetrable internal logic, telling his supporters exactly what they needed / wanted to hear.
Realism, retcons and plot holes are very much non-issues to the audience when a story is romantic, thrilling, or engaging enough.
He's performing to an audience. To quote myself:
NinthMusketeer wrote: Trump has unquestionably proven himself the best reality TV star in human history by an immense margin. I say this non-jokingly. He has turned the Presidency of the United States into reality TV for all intents and purposes. It's been really fun to watch.
Frazzled wrote:Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
From what I read about his demographic it's white in general (including rich white voters who some would describe as the coastal elite types) and not specifically the white working class that voted for him, as in he didn't win because of some shift in voting pattern that led to the working and/or poor voting for him over anybody else.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Frazzled wrote:Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
From what I read about his demographic it's white in general (including rich white voters who some would describe as the coastal elite types) and not specifically the white working class that voted for him, as in he didn't win because of some shift in voting pattern that led to the working and/or poor voting for him over anybody else.
True that. I thinking the working class are a big portion of the hard core supporters though. The wealthy are just using it as a cover to do a little of the old rape and pillage...
Frazzled wrote:Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
From what I read about his demographic it's white in general (including rich white voters who some would describe as the coastal elite types) and not specifically the white working class that voted for him, as in he didn't win because of some shift in voting pattern that led to the working and/or poor voting for him over anybody else.
No one really knows for sure... some say working class pulled trump... some say that the white voters voted like a bloc... while other said many stayed home believe HRC would win in a landslide. Maybe it's a mix-mash of all of that...
However, the simplest answer was that HRC lost because of HRC.
Frazzled wrote:Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
From what I read about his demographic it's white in general (including rich white voters who some would describe as the coastal elite types) and not specifically the white working class that voted for him, as in he didn't win because of some shift in voting pattern that led to the working and/or poor voting for him over anybody else.
No one really knows for sure... some say working class pulled trump... some say that the white voters voted like a bloc... while other said many stayed home believe HRC would win in a landslide. Maybe it's a mix-mash of all of that...
However, the simplest answer was that HRC lost because of HRC.
Trump won white voters by a margin almost identical to that of Mitt Romney, who lost the popular vote to Barack Obama in 2012. (Trump appears likely to lose the popular vote, which would make him only the fifth elected president to do so and still win office.) White non-Hispanic voters preferred Trump over Clinton by 21 percentage points (58% to 37%), according to the exit poll conducted by Edison Research for the National Election Pool. Romney won whites by 20 percentage points in 2012 (59% to 39%).
However, although Trump fared little better among blacks and Hispanics than Romney did four years ago, Hillary Clinton did not run as strongly among these core Democratic groups as Obama did in 2012. Clinton held an 80-point advantage among blacks (88% to 8%) compared with Obama’s 87-point edge four years ago (93% to 6%). In 2008, Obama had a 91-point advantage among blacks.
In the 2016 election, a wide gap in presidential preferences emerged between those with and without a college degree. College graduates backed Clinton by a 9-point margin (52%-43%), while those without a college degree backed Trump 52%-44%. This is by far the widest gap in support among college graduates and non-college graduates in exit polls dating back to 1980. For example, in 2012, there was hardly any difference between the two groups: College graduates backed Obama over Romney by 50%-48%, and those without a college degree also supported Obama 51%-47%.
Among whites, Trump won an overwhelming share of those without a college degree; and among white college graduates – a group that many identified as key for a potential Clinton victory – Trump outperformed Clinton by a narrow 4-point margin.
Trump’s margin among whites without a college degree is the largest among any candidate in exit polls since 1980. Two-thirds (67%) of non-college whites backed Trump, compared with just 28% who supported Clinton, resulting in a 39-point advantage for Trump among this group. In 2012 and 2008, non-college whites also preferred the Republican over the Democratic candidate but by less one-sided margins (61%-36% and 58%-40%, respectively).
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I think its because his core supporters are those people who are so afraid of change and long for the 1950s where everything was "perfect" and men like Trump were more accepted. Plus he does have the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis on his side as well and I doubt they will be leaving him anytime soon.
Hell I would said that last group has become way more emboldened because of Trump, at a play about Anne Frank at a college nearby mine they had a dude in a don't tread on me hat stand up and give a Nazi salute to the actors playing the Nazis in the middle of the performance.
Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
Even if we hold that as true (which I would debate strongly in some ways and agree with in others), here's what I don't get though...Trump doesn't appear to either once the window dressing is gone.
Yeah, we've heard a lot of talk about the border. The border however isn't why a 58 year old factory worker can't get work in most cases. We hear a lot about foreign trade and jobs going overseas. In large part this has been overblown and, when it hasn't, those jobs aren't ever coming back here anyway because they'll be automated or phased out entirely. Trade war with China? Well, pretty much anyone in the world of economics is going to tell you that nobody is going to win that with the targets Trump is going after and it's going to be bad for *everyone*. I'm not seeing any policies that are going to ultimately make life better for that group. Having just finished our own trade show at work, talking with our suppliers and the contractors who form our customer base, almost all of which (including myself) fall into that "white working class" label, nobody was excited about any of that. Almost every major policy Trump is behind seems tailor made to economically screw the "white working class", particularly in the long run.
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Then why did the flow reverse under Obama? The number of illegal persons actually dropped while he was in office.
It's probably better to just leave that statement be. There's so much wrong with it I don't even know where to start.
On an unrelated note, I was thinking about the various government confirmation hearings still ongoing. While there's plenty to fault the Trump administration for on that front is anyone else still dissapointed the Dems are being obstructionist? I know it's easy for them and has the 'they started it!' angle, but seriously...
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Then why did the flow reverse under Obama? The number of illegal persons actually dropped while he was in office.
It's probably better to just leave that statement be. There's so much wrong with it I don't even know where to start.
On an unrelated note, I was thinking about the various government confirmation hearings still ongoing. While there's plenty to fault the Trump administration for on that front is anyone else still dissapointed the Dems are being obstructionist? I know it's easy for them and has the 'they started it!' angle, but seriously...
It’s always sad when the Parties put zero sum partisanship ahead of actually governing the country. Just like it’s sad when Congress allows the President to amass more unconstitutional authority when the same Party has a majority and the Preaodency while the minority Party objects to an imperial preaodency and then when the roles are reversed the former objecting minority Party that’s now in charge gladly let’s the President amass more power and have Congress abdicate more of its authority.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Tell me, just how many illegal immigrants work at high-paying jobs everyone wants, as opposed to the number of them crummy minimum-wage jobs or farm labor that Americans refuse to do?
But if this is a problem for you, there's a simple solution. Contact your federal representatives and tell them to QUICKLY - while they have a majority - make it a felony to employ an undocumented worker in any manner whatsoever, with a fine equal to the entire income of the person, business, or agency doing so. If employing illegals means bankruptcy, no one will do it. No jobs, no illegals.
Now of course we both know Congress won't do it; there's too much corporate profit being made from using illegal workers making less than minimum wage....
d-usa wrote: If the Dems get 51 seats in the Senate, is anyone really going to be surprised if no SCOTUS seats get filled until 2021?
The Republicans set the precedent on that so no I wouldn't be surprised, though I wonder if any posters on this forum will go the hypocritical route and complain about it while they were cheering the turtle and co.
Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
While I loathe the fact that Sessions is running the DoJ and would like to see him replaced Pruitt really would only be a marginal upgrade at best. The manner in which Trump finds new ways to drag the Republican Party to new lows is downright impressive. Terrible for the country but amazing how he continually embarrasses the GOP and somehow gets them to go along with it and like it.
Right?
Like...I get that people hated Hillary. I wasn't a fan of Hillary. I get that some people were initially mesmerized by Trump in the primaries (he did put on a great show in the primary debates when Fox News came right out the gate swinging hard at him) and thought he'd be a great wrecking party against "the establishment". I get all that, I thought they were foolish then but I get it. But for people to *still* be on board, after it has turned into exactly the shitshow they were warned it would turn into? That they see *nothing* wrong with how this is going? This does not inspire great confidence
I've still got the over/under on Pruitt as next Friday.
I think its because his core supporters are those people who are so afraid of change and long for the 1950s where everything was "perfect" and men like Trump were more accepted. Plus he does have the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis on his side as well and I doubt they will be leaving him anytime soon.
Hell I would said that last group has become way more emboldened because of Trump, at a play about Anne Frank at a college nearby mine they had a dude in a don't tread on me hat stand up and give a Nazi salute to the actors playing the Nazis in the middle of the performance.
Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
Even if we hold that as true (which I would debate strongly in some ways and agree with in others), here's what I don't get though...Trump doesn't appear to either once the window dressing is gone.
Yeah, we've heard a lot of talk about the border. The border however isn't why a 58 year old factory worker can't get work in most cases. We hear a lot about foreign trade and jobs going overseas. In large part this has been overblown and, when it hasn't, those jobs aren't ever coming back here anyway because they'll be automated or phased out entirely. Trade war with China? Well, pretty much anyone in the world of economics is going to tell you that nobody is going to win that with the targets Trump is going after and it's going to be bad for *everyone*. I'm not seeing any policies that are going to ultimately make life better for that group. Having just finished our own trade show at work, talking with our suppliers and the contractors who form our customer base, almost all of which (including myself) fall into that "white working class" label, nobody was excited about any of that. Almost every major policy Trump is behind seems tailor made to economically screw the "white working class", particularly in the long run.
According to the most recent Gallop approval poll Trump has a 39% approval rating which is the lowest on record for the 5th quarter of a first term. Trumps approval breaks down as 85% of Republicans approve of Trump 33% of Independents and 8% of Democrats. That Republican/Democrat split has been pretty consistent throughout his term. When his term started Trump had 42% and 13% approval from Independents and Democrats respectively but they’ve never been that high since, staying in the 30s for Independents and single digits for Democrats with Republican support in the mid 80s. Aside from having an (R) next to his name I’m not sure why 85% of Republicans would think Trump is doing a great job.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
Tell me, just how many illegal immigrants work at high-paying jobs everyone wants, as opposed to the number of them crummy minimum-wage jobs or farm labor that Americans refuse to do?
But if this is a problem for you, there's a simple solution. Contact your federal representatives and tell them to QUICKLY - while they have a majority - make it a felony to employ an undocumented worker in any manner whatsoever, with a fine equal to the entire income of the person, business, or agency doing so. If employing illegals means bankruptcy, no one will do it. No jobs, no illegals.
Now of course we both know Congress won't do it; there's too much corporate profit being made from using illegal workers making less than minimum wage....
Employers save a significant amount by using illegal labor even when they pay them fair market wages. There are a lot of illegals working in the construction industry because Federal labor laws put the labor burden in that industry at 35-40%. That means illegal workers are 35-40% less expensive even when they are paid the same hourly wage as illegal workers. The attraction of illegal labor is the savings from avoiding paying benefits and payroll tax not from low wages. Low wages will get you low quality work and low quality work won’t let you stay in business.
First of all, socialism and fascism are objectively opposite ideologies with entirely incompatible world views. I don't mean that they just couldn't possible agree with what things should be like, I mean that they can't possibly agree with what things are like. Their understandings of what society is and how it works are incompatible. Attempting to triangulate something that is inbetween them is... a strange endevaour to say the least.
I wrote, clearly and simply, "selecting all policy options from within the range of moderate left to moderate right". In response to this you said that process was bad because it was impossible to reconcile fascism and socialism. Whether you think fascism and socialism both exist within the range of moderate left to moderate right, or whether you didn't bother to read the single sentence describing the thing you wanted to rant against can be debated, but the answer doesn't matter. What matters is that your posts completely missed the point.
This centrism contains nothing. It's the weakest possible ideology because it doesn't actually believe in anything. All they do is nervously follow Data and Trends. That's why Clinton failed.
You've confused the general concept of centrism with a specific application. This is a common and generally fatal mistake to make in political analysis.
So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
That's why the Democratic Party is in freefall.
This claim is wildly ignorant of political results in the last 18 months.
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Prestor Jon wrote: Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers.
https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
Yeah, and while I find having having such a large single cut to be far too crude a way to manage income assessment, I come from the point of view of an accountant who's been trained in and worked in tax. For people who are really intimidated by the tax system I see the benefits of this much simpler single claim.
The bigger problem here is the increased standard deduction sunsets, like most other personal tax cuts in the bill. Which means come 2025 most people will suddenly find themselves much worse off than they were before this bill.
On an unrelated note, I was thinking about the various government confirmation hearings still ongoing. While there's plenty to fault the Trump administration for on that front is anyone else still dissapointed the Dems are being obstructionist? I know it's easy for them and has the 'they started it!' angle, but seriously...
...and around, around it goes.
Frankly, I'd have them change the filibuster rule to require the Senator to be on the floor talking... but, that's too archaic or something.
Prestor Jon wrote: How do you figure that socialism and fascism are wholly diametrically opposed ideologies?
One of the primary drives of the rise of pre-war fascism was as a response to socialism.
I think you're making the mistake that many Americans make, particularly libertarian leaning Americans, that tend to see everything through the lens of individual and property rights. Sure, in that light both socialism and fascism are similar in their levels of government interference, but in many parts of the world individual and property rights were far from the primary considerations. In those parts of the world the conflict between progressivism and conservativism, between equality and hierarchy, between internationalism and nationalism, and so on were essential to the political conflict.
Take all that with a grain of salt, because there's more definitions of fascism than the number of actual fascists, and the actual fascists themselves weren't really given to abstract, political analysis of how all the stuff they shouted about angrily all fit together in a coherent whole. And also remember as well not to think of Nazi Germany, which was a much messier application of fascism, but instead think of Spain or Italy.
Anyhow, there was a lot with Rosebuddy's post, but the idea of socialism and fascism being in opposition wasn't really one of the problems.
*And in this context conservatism relates to the preservation of the old, heirarchical social structures of the aristocratic world, not the modern, American meaning.
Prestor Jon wrote: Yes but the tax bill also increased the standard deduction, child tax credit and created a $500 per person deduction for families without children. So a couple filing jointly will get a $24,000 standard deduction plus either a $2,000 deduction per child or a $500 per person deduction. One intent of the bill seems to be to make taking the standard deduction the best option for a large majority of the filers. https://taxfoundation.org/conference-report-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/
Yeah, and while I find having having such a large single cut to be far too crude a way to manage income assessment, I come from the point of view of an accountant who's been trained in and worked in tax. For people who are really intimidated by the tax system I see the benefits of this much simpler single claim.
The bigger problem here is the increased standard deduction sunsets, like most other personal tax cuts in the bill. Which means come 2025 most people will suddenly find themselves much worse off than they were before this bill.
...eh... it'll be made permanent or extended before then.
I think the whole "small crumbs" or "repeal the tax cut" the Democratic leaders are championing now is a big mistake.
No matter how altruistic people are... most of them don't like having their taxes raised.
Edit: The increase in standard deductions won't be realized till next year... however, with the tax witholdings adjusted last February, my take home pay increase is not insignificant... could afford a nice brand new car payment. Or a foregworld spending spree.
Blood Hawk wrote: Also while many of the provisions are set to expire with the tax reform bill, tax provisions that are set to expire are often just renewed by congress right before they expire. Sometimes they are even renewed during the middle of the tax season. This happens almost every year.
This is true, but this bill was passed as a purely partisan bill, against very large protests. And the structure of the bill was to permanently lock in place the least popular elements that gave the lion's share of the benefits to the very rich, while leaving in place sunset clauses for the parts that benefit middle and lower income earners.
The fight is already laid out - Republicans will look to extend or make permanent the allowances, and when they face opposition they'll claim Democrats are trying to raise taxes on the poor and middle class. Democrats will say they support extending or making permanent the allowances, but only if the high income and corporate tax cuts are wholly or partially restored, and when they face opposition they'll claim Republicans are letting the low and middle income tax cuts sunset to protect the high income earners.
This is the exact same fight that played out over the Bush tax cuts, except that time both high and low income taxes were sunsetting. This time the high income cuts were made permanent, so Republicans think they've got a stronger tactical advantage in keeping them out of the debate. It's probably true, up to a point.
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Tannhauser42 wrote: And yet, one article I read suggested that Trump was protecting Pruitt in order to use him as a replacement for Sessions.
Whatever happens to Pruitt now, Trump would be mad to use him to replace Sessions. Firing Sessions would already be playing with fire and risking a constitutional crisis, the last thing you want to do in that situation is make your replacement someone who was already known for his own abuses of power.
Thing is, all this stuff coming out in public all at once makes it clear someone is leaking this stuff with a purpose in mind. My first, more conspiratorial thought was it was done by the IC to stop the plan to have Pruitt replace Sessions as AG - the IC wanting to ensure Mueller finishes his work. But that was a really speculative thought that just popped in to my head with nothing to back it up.
The leaks coming from Kelly is much more mundane, but a lot more likely to be true. But whoever the leaker or leakers were, one effect is Trump needs to find another person to replace Sessions, because trying to use Pruitt now would be making a hard job near impossible.
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Elemental wrote: I've come to realise something. You can say whatever you like about Trump as a politician / human being, but you can't deny he's an amazing storyteller. Before the election and afterwards, his narrative has been unwavering, energising and has an impenetrable internal logic, telling his supporters exactly what they needed / wanted to hear.
Realism, retcons and plot holes are very much non-issues to the audience when a story is romantic, thrilling, or engaging enough.
It is amazing how charismatic and forceful a story teller can be, when he is untroubled by facts or conscience.
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Frazzled wrote: Many of his supporters have been abandoned by both parties. Literally no party gives a flying feth about the white working class any more. That's why they are loyal.
Frazzled wrote: Horse gak. They are for open borders, importing millions to take their jobs and representation.
And these two posts, and the move from one to the next, is the very core of the issue. It always starts with no-one having concern for the white working class, but when that's challenged the issue shifts to immigration.
Democrats keep answering the first challenge on economic grounds. Democrats are for higher minimum wages, protecting medicaid/medicare and social security, and for shifting the tax burden back to the rich. That's stuff will directly benefit the white working class on economic terms.
But that goes nowhere, because right now the concerns of the white working class, at least the white working class that Trump has won in large numbers, their concerns are nothing to do with economics. They'll claim they oppose immigration on economic grounds, but that's not slightly true. Immigration positively impacts growth and wages, something that's been proven time and again and is intuitively obvious to anyone really trying to think about it. The cause of decline of incomes among the white working class is due to the redistribution of wealth towards the top, and the massive drop in the number of jobs in manual labour and their rates of pay.
This is something we know to be true, because when we look at support for Trump and control for ethnicity and education to focus in on the white working class, we see something interesting - support for Trump goes up as income goes up. The highschool grad who owns the building company is a lot more likely to support Trump than his highschool grad apprentice. Movements around economic anxiety don't see support increase as income increases.
On seeing this a lot of people have concluded that it must instead be all about racism, but that's not really true either. Well, not racism in the sense of hating someone with a different skin colour. But in the sense of status, of feeling like a majority in your own country, that's the way that race drives the Trump thing. People don't have to hate people of another race or culture to not panic when they realise their own group won't be a majority in their country any more. That's why immigration is such a factor - note that areas that showed the biggest swings to Trump included the areas that are just now experiencing their first major inflows of immigrants.
It is about immigration, but it is a reaction against the cultural and social changes of immigration, not the imaginary economic threat. And these are genuine impacts that deserve to be debated, but aren't because any debate touching on race in the US is so toxic that genuine debate never happens.
Realising this should help people realise why the claim that Democrats have abandoned the white working class is repeated by so many, and is something Democrats have made no inroads against despite their many economic policies. Because the feeling of abandonment is not about economics at all.
Democrats should realise this, and recognise that to a large extent, wooing back those voters is fundamentally impossible to reconcile with their idea of a multicultural nation. It doesn't mean give up on the economic messaging as it will some voters on the margins, but the party can win strong majorities by activating other groups to vote, it shouldn't depress those votes chasing voters that aren't coming back.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: On an unrelated note, I was thinking about the various government confirmation hearings still ongoing. While there's plenty to fault the Trump administration for on that front is anyone else still dissapointed the Dems are being obstructionist? I know it's easy for them and has the 'they started it!' angle, but seriously...
With the end of filibuster Republicans you can confirm with 50 + the VP. The Republicans can do it by themselves. Now its true that Democrats are responding to the Republican strategy of 2013 to 2014 of go-slow, using procedural tricks to make each appointment process take as long as possible. That's not cool, and as you say it isn't justified because Republicans did it first.
But that's far from the only thing going on. Both parties are using holds to delay appointments, and extract concessions from the Whitehouse to allow appointments to pass through. Grassley has probably issued more holds than anyone. Gardner is a one man operation holding up DoJ appointments to keep Sessions marijuana policies in check. So it isn't just Democrats.
But the biggest cause of the low rate of appointments is Trump. He doesn't show much interest in filling these jobs at all. The White House office charged with recruiting talent has less than a third of the staff it had under previous presidents, and it's headed by a college drop out with convictions for fraudulent checks and drink driving. As a result the rate of appointees is slowed to a trickle, and many coming through are hopelessly unqualified and rejected in a bi-partisan fashion. The judicial appointee who was caught up making repeated errors on basic procedural matters until he admitted he'd never actually been in a court in a professional sense comes to mind.
The reason for this is pretty obvious. In a broad sense Trump is small government, but more than that the guy is deeply lazy. Building a culture that attracts excellence, then has recruitment staff actively draw elite performers in, and then ushers them through the political battleground of Washington is is really hard to do. Way more work than Trump can even conceive of.
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whembly wrote: ...eh... it'll be made permanent or extended before then.
I think the whole "small crumbs" or "repeal the tax cut" the Democratic leaders are championing now is a big mistake.
No matter how altruistic people are... most of them don't like having their taxes raised.
You're so buried in Republican talking points you don't even realise when you've failed to see the issue outside of their framing. Democrats talking about repealing the tax cut aren't talking about taking away the little bit given to the working class and middle class. They're talking about restoring corporate rates, high income rates, and all the little allowances that only suited the very rich (like the private plane deduction), and using that to boost to low and middle class cuts to being something actually real.
Oh, by the way, remember when we debated this stuff by pm and I said the tax cut would pass, and then in 2018 Republicans would return to pretending to care about the deficit to push cuts to social security and medicare? You said you weren't sure if the tax cut would pass, and refused to consider that within 12 months of blowing up the deficit the Republicans would return to claiming it was an issue to drive cuts. At some point you need to admit I know the Republican party a lot better than you do.
sebster wrote: I wrote, clearly and simply, "selecting all policy options from within the range of moderate left to moderate right". In response to this you said that process was bad because it was impossible to reconcile fascism and socialism. Whether you think fascism and socialism both exist within the range of moderate left to moderate right, or whether you didn't bother to read the single sentence describing the thing you wanted to rant against can be debated, but the answer doesn't matter. What matters is that your posts completely missed the point.
Thinking you can mix and match from leftist and rightist policy in a technocratic attempt to reconcile two ideologies that are irreconcileable is doomed to fail. Watering them down into "moderate" versions (whatever that means, being as how moderation only exists within context) doesn't help any because either both your moderate versions remain fundamentally left-wing and fundamentally right-wing or one of them is compromised away from being itself and you end up with a left and a weak left or a right and a weak right.
So, in the US, centrists think they're being better than anyone else by picking the "moderate" positions between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party when all they're doing is waffling between fascism-leaning liberalism and less-open fascists.
sebster wrote: So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education. That isn't to say that they are stupid and that they lack some kind of class consciousness or that they can't see that the two parties offered are uninterested in solving real problems. It just means that they're open to, say, decades of capitalist propaganda saying that the two existing parties are the absolute poles of real political thought. Never mind that growing amounts of people need rapid change to be able to survive. There's nothing inherently good about doing something slowly. Ask the peoople in Flint how long they want to wait for water that isn't poison.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Many of his supporters think they have been abandoned by both parties. Democrats are at least trying to serve all Americans, even if they're bad at it.
The democrats, just like the republicans, are serving the interest of their donors. They just have different PR strategies.
I think stating that both the democrats and republicans are moving on fascism because they are more towards right wing politics is completely ridiculous. There are more political ideologies on the right than just fascism. Neither party is even approaching fascism. Its more a weird mix between libertarian urges and protectionism/almost mercantilistic policies by the Trump admin.
sebster wrote: So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education. That isn't to say that they are stupid and that they lack some kind of class consciousness or that they can't see that the two parties offered are uninterested in solving real problems. It just means that they're open to, say, decades of capitalist propaganda saying that the two existing parties are the absolute poles of real political thought. Never mind that growing amounts of people need rapid change to be able to survive. There's nothing inherently good about doing something slowly. Ask the peoople in Flint how long they want to wait for water that isn't poison.
What people need and what they want are two different things. People may need rapid change, but people are generally resistant to change. Unless it is something they can see immediately benefits them personally people generally like change to be slow, or not at all. This does not just apply to politics but to many areas of life.
Rosebuddy wrote: The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education.
"Don't agree with my left-wing politics" and "not educated" are not the same thing. A lot of people in the US do in fact believe in centrism for the sake of centrism, not just because they haven't been educated enough to understand that your positions are the indisputable truth.
This whole time I thought I was a center-left guy because that's about where my beliefs lay, not because I was too ignorant to know that's actually the level of fascism I am comfortable with.
sebster wrote: So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education. That isn't to say that they are stupid and that they lack some kind of class consciousness or that they can't see that the two parties offered are uninterested in solving real problems. It just means that they're open to, say, decades of capitalist propaganda saying that the two existing parties are the absolute poles of real political thought. Never mind that growing amounts of people need rapid change to be able to survive. There's nothing inherently good about doing something slowly. Ask the peoople in Flint how long they want to wait for water that isn't poison.
What people need and what they want are two different things. People may need rapid change, but people are generally resistant to change. Unless it is something they can see immediately benefits them personally people generally like change to be slow, or not at all. This does not just apply to politics but to many areas of life.
This is something that was very visible during the last election, and something that is still visible as well. Take coal as an example:
The reality is that coal jobs have been hit by a large variety of factors: automation, cheap natural gas, global regulations on emissions. Even if we get an administration that is anti-regulation, every business in the United States knows that administrations alternate back and forth and that regulations will come and go. So the majority of corporations will continue to do business as if regulations still exist, because it's cheaper than pretending that they will never return and then struggle with compliance every time the administration changes.
One candidate acknowledged that those jobs are gone, and offered policies that allow workers to be retrained in other fields in order to gain employment and have careers, and policies that support workers that are unable to work.
One candidate acknowledged that those jobs are gone, stated that they can somehow force those businesses to ignore the fact that their competition is cheaper, and somehow bring jobs that have been gone for a decade back to rural communities. That candidate also ran with the support of the political party in favor of abandoning the safety nets that protect the workers hurt by coal jobs that are never coming back.
The "I don't want to learn a new skill, I want my old job back and pretend the global economic changes that caused these jobs to leave never happened to begin with" crowd was the winner.
What I never understood, beyond why anyone would possibly think those coal mining jobs would ever come back regardless of who wins the presidency, is why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers. For some reason the 18k people in a dying industry garner substantially more respect and political attention than the 3.7 million fast food workers who had the audacity to demand the wage growth americans got shafted out of over the last 2 decades.
See my post about the Ballot Questions in Oklahoma.
We also had a House senate seat flip from Red to Blue, resulting in a lesbian senator winning a seat in a district Trump won by 40 points.
In Oklahoma.
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Ouze wrote: What I never understood, beyond why anyone would possibly think those coal mining jobs would ever come back regardless of who wins the presidency, is why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers. For some reason the 18k people in a dying industry garner substantially more respect and political attention than the 3.7 million fast food workers who had the audacity to demand the wage growth americans got shafted out of over the last 2 decades.
Probably because they are not minimum wage jobs. So they are seen as "better".
Of course the reason they are not minimum wage jobs is that they have a long history of actions by unions and labor groups standing up for workers and their safety, which is also seen in other manufacturing industries like steel and automotive.
But the same folks who look at these jobs as the kind of jobs we need more off, are also often the same folks who are against the unions who made those jobs the kind of jobs people want.
Ouze wrote: This whole time I thought I was a center-left guy because that's about where my beliefs lay, not because I was too ignorant to know that's actually the level of fascism I am comfortable with.
I think center left would edge more closely to how comfortable you're with the level of Stalinism
Ouze wrote: why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers.
Same kind of cultural reason that we’re supposed to worship a guy who drove an army truck in Germany for 3 years but it’s ok to gak all over educators that are bringing up our kids and actually affecting the future of our country.
Ouze wrote: This whole time I thought I was a center-left guy because that's about where my beliefs lay, not because I was too ignorant to know that's actually the level of fascism I am comfortable with.
I think center left would edge more closely to how comfortable you're with the level of Stalinism
In my defense, I am too ignorant to understand the distinction
Rosebuddy wrote: Thinking you can mix and match from leftist and rightist policy in a technocratic attempt to reconcile two ideologies that are irreconcileable is doomed to fail.
On having your hopeless comprehension fail explained to you, you respond by just ignoring it and going off on one of your standard rants. Don't waste my time with this nonsense.
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Steve steveson wrote: What people need and what they want are two different things. People may need rapid change, but people are generally resistant to change. Unless it is something they can see immediately benefits them personally people generally like change to be slow, or not at all. This does not just apply to politics but to many areas of life.
The primary motivation for a lot of people is fear of loss. Lots of talk about changing this or that sounds to most people like just a bunch of politician talk, they'll either ignore it or only hear the bad bits. This makes any kind of real change incredibly hard, and almost always very unpopular when it happens. Policy that people took to the streets to protest against one decade will be the policy they will take to the streets to protect a decade later.
It's kind of dysfunctional, but it is what it is. And it is why reform tends to be small, incremental changes, typically from the center of political discourse.
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Ouze wrote: What I never understood, beyond why anyone would possibly think those coal mining jobs would ever come back regardless of who wins the presidency, is why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers. For some reason the 18k people in a dying industry garner substantially more respect and political attention than the 3.7 million fast food workers who had the audacity to demand the wage growth americans got shafted out of over the last 2 decades.
More than 350,000 people work in solar energy. Coal and oil combined had less than half of that. But as you say those coal jobs are seen as essential, and so important to the nation, somehow or other.
I read an interesting bit about fast food work a while ago. It made the point that people deam of the old manufactuing jobs and want them to return. But the assembly line worker was doing nothing that different to the fast food worker assembling a burger. And for a lot of history the assembly line worker was just as poorly paid and looked down upon as the fast food worker is today. It's just that over time the assembly worker unionised, and won better pay and better respect for his work. I'm not much of a union guy but that argument made an impact on me.
Ouze wrote: This whole time I thought I was a center-left guy because that's about where my beliefs lay, not because I was too ignorant to know that's actually the level of fascism I am comfortable with.
You're one hard hit on the head away from being an enter-centrist in relaxed-fit-waist fascism with fuzzy fascist slippers.
sebster wrote: So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education. That isn't to say that they are stupid and that they lack some kind of class consciousness or that they can't see that the two parties offered are uninterested in solving real problems. It just means that they're open to, say, decades of capitalist propaganda saying that the two existing parties are the absolute poles of real political thought. Never mind that growing amounts of people need rapid change to be able to survive. There's nothing inherently good about doing something slowly. Ask the peoople in Flint how long they want to wait for water that isn't poison.
What people need and what they want are two different things. People may need rapid change, but people are generally resistant to change. Unless it is something they can see immediately benefits them personally people generally like change to be slow, or not at all. This does not just apply to politics but to many areas of life.
This is something that was very visible during the last election, and something that is still visible as well. Take coal as an example:
The reality is that coal jobs have been hit by a large variety of factors: automation, cheap natural gas, global regulations on emissions. Even if we get an administration that is anti-regulation, every business in the United States knows that administrations alternate back and forth and that regulations will come and go. So the majority of corporations will continue to do business as if regulations still exist, because it's cheaper than pretending that they will never return and then struggle with compliance every time the administration changes.
One candidate acknowledged that those jobs are gone, and offered policies that allow workers to be retrained in other fields in order to gain employment and have careers, and policies that support workers that are unable to work.
One candidate acknowledged that those jobs are gone, stated that they can somehow force those businesses to ignore the fact that their competition is cheaper, and somehow bring jobs that have been gone for a decade back to rural communities. That candidate also ran with the support of the political party in favor of abandoning the safety nets that protect the workers hurt by coal jobs that are never coming back.
The "I don't want to learn a new skill, I want my old job back and pretend the global economic changes that caused these jobs to leave never happened to begin with" crowd was the winner.
The areas in question were already promised retraining programs under prior administrations that fell woefully short.
And honestly she hadn’t even tried to market it to those areas either, most of her campaigning was to run up the scoreboard in areas she was already winning.
Granted, the odds of anything passing in the current Congress was already nil.
Our governor, some state legislators, and some gubernatorial candidates spend most of the weekend talking about how the teachers are loosing the support of the public,how they need to accept that there will be no more funding, that the budget is done, and that the capital gains tax exemption will not be touched.
Over the weekend, poll after poll showed a strong support for the walkout. Our conservative state paper ran a poll that showed an over 80% support for the walkout to continue. A group of teachers and supporters have marched from Tulsa to Oklahoma City. The crowd at the capitol is bigger than it has been last week. My wife is down there and says the energy seems to be stronger than last week.
So there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, and the legislature is currently at the unpopular end of public opinion.
The areas in question were already promised retraining programs under prior administrations that fell woefully short.
History:
Trade Adjustment Assistance consists of four programs authorized under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and defined further under the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. § 2341 et seq) (Trade Act). The original idea for a trade compensation program goes back to 1939.[1] Later, it was proposed by President John F. Kennedy as part of the total package to open up free trade. President Kennedy said: "When considerations of national policy make it desirable to avoid higher tariffs, those injured by that competition should not be required to bear the full brunt of the impact. Rather, the burden of economic adjustment should be borne in part by the Federal Government.
...
The TAA has recently suffered several amendments. In 2009, the TAA program was expanded by the Trade and Globalization Adjustment Assistance Act (TGAAA) of 2009, which was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. These benefits were extended through February 2011 by the Omnibus Trade Act of 2010. After that, the program reverted to the pre-expansion provisions under the TAARA of 2002. In October 2011, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act (TAAEA) of 2011 was signed into law, reinstating most of the benefits included in the TGAAA of 2009. The TAA is authorized through December 31, 2014 but with some modifications. The TAA will operate under its current provisions through December 31, 2013. For the additional year until its expiration on December 31, 2014, the TAA is set to operate under the eligibility and benefit levels established by the TAARA of 2002.
So...
A) The administration can only do so much with a program that needs authorization and funding from congress.
B) One can look at what party is in favor of this particular program, and which party isn't.
And if we say that this particular program isn't very effective, do we then not propose any other program? Or should we abandon retraining programs completely?
sebster wrote: So start again, this time don't worry about kicking off on one of your boilerplate rants. Instead just think through the issue with no thought about what you'll post, just do it so you can get some understanding of what's going on. Start with an appreciation that a lot of people, arguably a large political majority, actually prefer moderate reform, for change to be slow and upheaval to be minimised. From there, you should be able to realise that centrism exists not just as political expedience used by some, but because it represents the default assumption of a very large portion of the electorate.
The great mass of people in the US are not ideologically devoted centrists, they just lack political education. That isn't to say that they are stupid and that they lack some kind of class consciousness or that they can't see that the two parties offered are uninterested in solving real problems. It just means that they're open to, say, decades of capitalist propaganda saying that the two existing parties are the absolute poles of real political thought. Never mind that growing amounts of people need rapid change to be able to survive. There's nothing inherently good about doing something slowly. Ask the peoople in Flint how long they want to wait for water that isn't poison.
What people need and what they want are two different things. People may need rapid change, but people are generally resistant to change. Unless it is something they can see immediately benefits them personally people generally like change to be slow, or not at all. This does not just apply to politics but to many areas of life.
This is something that was very visible during the last election, and something that is still visible as well. Take coal as an example:
The reality is that coal jobs have been hit by a large variety of factors: automation, cheap natural gas, global regulations on emissions. Even if we get an administration that is anti-regulation, every business in the United States knows that administrations alternate back and forth and that regulations will come and go. So the majority of corporations will continue to do business as if regulations still exist, because it's cheaper than pretending that they will never return and then struggle with compliance every time the administration changes.
One candidate acknowledged that those jobs are gone, and offered policies that allow workers to be retrained in other fields in order to gain employment and have careers, and policies that support workers that are unable to work.
One candidate acknowledged that those jobs are gone, stated that they can somehow force those businesses to ignore the fact that their competition is cheaper, and somehow bring jobs that have been gone for a decade back to rural communities. That candidate also ran with the support of the political party in favor of abandoning the safety nets that protect the workers hurt by coal jobs that are never coming back.
The "I don't want to learn a new skill, I want my old job back and pretend the global economic changes that caused these jobs to leave never happened to begin with" crowd was the winner.
Those workers won't be retrained. That's politician nonsense. When older workers lose their jobs, they almost never get something comparable.
d-usa wrote: And sometimes, jobs just go away and never come back.
Is it the government's job to make sure you always got your union job available to you?
It is if enough voters say it is.
We'll just avoid going down the rabbit hole of guns then
Edit:
And even if it is the government's job to make sure you always have your coal job, how is that supposed to happen?
Should the government slap a "coal equalization fee" on all Natural Gas, until it is no longer cheaper than coal?
Should the government pass a constitutional amendment against all future environmental regulations to ensure that no law affecting coal will ever get passed?
Because even in the age of Trump and Pruitt, no utilities are going to invest in coal as long as natural gas is cheaper and because they know that as soon as there is a shift in the political winds the new plants will need expensive upgrades to become compliant. Unlike politicians, most companies KNOW that climate change is real and that these regulations will be coming down the pipe at some point. So they will always build today with future compliance in mind.
d-usa wrote: And sometimes, jobs just go away and never come back.
Is it the government's job to make sure you always got your union job available to you?
The irony of people asking for the government to intrude less on their lives while rigging the economy so they get their jobs back.
I forget the exact wording but Seb once said something that I think is really accurate: "A large number of Americans would rather fight to get back jobs that are already gone then fight to improve the jobs they already have."
d-usa wrote: And sometimes, jobs just go away and never come back.
Is it the government's job to make sure you always got your union job available to you?
The irony of people asking for the government to intrude less on their lives while rigging the economy so they get their jobs back.
I forget the exact wording but Seb once said something that I think is really accurate: "A large number of Americans would rather fight to get back jobs that are already gone then fight to improve the jobs they already have."
By and large, we have become firmly entrenched in our own "bootstrap" ethos:
Handouts and government assistance programs are for poor people, who are to lazy to work and who would rather abuse the welfare system than earn a living themselves. We don't need this kind of help because we are not poor, we are all just future small business owners who will be independently wealthy and self-sustaining as soon as we just pull on those bootstraps a little harder.
Hell, my in-laws are the perfect example of this mindset: 4 different sets of grandchildren would be at my mother-in-laws house for her to babysit. My mother-in-law got her house approved as an in-home childcare, and the government would pay her the going rate for daycare in order to babysit her own grandkids. For the July 4th holiday the families would pool together their SNAP cards to buy the food for the cookout with friends and extended family invited. A couple people collect social security for disability, and then a couple more would collect unemployment at any given point in time. All of them spend every opportunity to bitch about liberal welfare programs and how we need more conservatives to kick those welfare queens to the curb and stop this mooching at the government's tit.
So go figure crap like that out.
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Frazzled wrote: Answer the question. What do all those displaced workers do?
Well, some of them are old and will need earlier retirement. Some of them might need their income subsidized because other jobs without a union history pay less than what they are used to.
Some of them might decide to move somewhere where their skill is still useful and needed.
Some of them might have to go back to school and get new training.
And some of them will go "feth every other worker who isn't me, I want mine" and vote for policies that hurt the country as a whole and go against their own interest.
Frazzled wrote: Answer the question. What do all those displaced workers do?
You are implying that they are shift less and good for nothings who can't reinvent themselves and doomed to a jobless feature here fraz
Given that many of those area's that coal was in don't have exactly much in the way of jobs or job availability.. What are those displaced workers going to do?
Frazzled wrote: Answer the question. What do all those displaced workers do?
You are implying that they are shift less and good for nothings who can't reinvent themselves and doomed to a jobless feature here fraz
Given that many of those area's that coal was in don't have exactly much in the way of jobs or job availability.. What are those displaced workers going to do?
Do what every other person in the United States who has a skill that isn't in particular demand in that geographical area is expected to do:
Either get a job that is something different, get a different skill, and/or move to an area where your skill is needed.
Right then! Having lived in one of those towns for a while I can certainly mention the issues with such.
A different job: Many jobs in those sorts of towns tend to end up being service level jobs either working in a gas station, Walmart sort of supercenter or local variety, or a variety of other local area's that are trying to get by either as a craftsman. The issue with the last bit is that in many such towns there's already major competition with those that are already established and many times there's not much point in going further out with it.
Different skill: Same as the first, you can get all you want but most of the time you'll be getting low level jobs regardless of how good a degree and education you may have. If you are lucky you may be able to get an apprenticeship at a local shop for something major but in most cases you'll be out of luck
Moving: You already live in an area where you are struggling to make funds meet.. The issue is now you have to make money and somehow achieve enough to exit out and still have funds to move along with money to buy/rent in another city and have enough that you can potentially find a job in an area before your fund runs out and you end up on the streets.
At it's core many of these towns practically rely on people helping each other because there's really not much else. There's no people coming in and there's no jobs coming in to help refresh the population but you don't tend to have the money to be able to relocate either. So you're stuck in said dead end area just hoping that something will come along. You can say "Get a job elsewhere" but the reality is there's many barriers to achieving such.
At it's core many of these towns practically rely on people helping each other because there's really not much else. There's no people coming in and there's no jobs coming in to help refresh the population but you don't tend to have the money to be able to relocate either. So you're stuck in said dead end area just hoping that something will come along. You can say "Get a job elsewhere" but the reality is there's many barriers to achieving such.
So you can vote for policies that pretend that none of that is a problem and that we can magically make those jobs reappear.
Or you can vote for policies that acknowledge everything you said and offer assistance with training, offer assistance with relocation, and/or offer policies to encourage communities and businesses to work together and diversify the economies in that city.
Oklahoma City is a giant town, so it's by no means fair to compare it to many of the rural communities that are struggling out there, but we learned that lesson and applied it.
During the O&G crash in the 1980s, Oklahoma City (and really Oklahoma as a whole) was hit hard. The city crashed along with the oil companies, and it took the city decades to recover. While the city recovered, they started to actively recruit other businesses and companies in sectors far removed from O&G. Energy is still big business in Oklahoma City, but now also have an active finance sector, health sector, manufacturing, actively helping Tinker Air Force base grow to help it survive alignment after alignment. As a result, we really did very well during the last oil crash (and the recession as a whole before then) and our unemployment rates were well below national averages.
The areas in question were already promised retraining programs under prior administrations that fell woefully short.
History:
Trade Adjustment Assistance consists of four programs authorized under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and defined further under the Trade Act of 1974 (19 U.S.C. § 2341 et seq) (Trade Act). The original idea for a trade compensation program goes back to 1939.[1] Later, it was proposed by President John F. Kennedy as part of the total package to open up free trade. President Kennedy said: "When considerations of national policy make it desirable to avoid higher tariffs, those injured by that competition should not be required to bear the full brunt of the impact. Rather, the burden of economic adjustment should be borne in part by the Federal Government.
...
The TAA has recently suffered several amendments. In 2009, the TAA program was expanded by the Trade and Globalization Adjustment Assistance Act (TGAAA) of 2009, which was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. These benefits were extended through February 2011 by the Omnibus Trade Act of 2010. After that, the program reverted to the pre-expansion provisions under the TAARA of 2002. In October 2011, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Extension Act (TAAEA) of 2011 was signed into law, reinstating most of the benefits included in the TGAAA of 2009. The TAA is authorized through December 31, 2014 but with some modifications. The TAA will operate under its current provisions through December 31, 2013. For the additional year until its expiration on December 31, 2014, the TAA is set to operate under the eligibility and benefit levels established by the TAARA of 2002.
So...
A) The administration can only do so much with a program that needs authorization and funding from congress.
B) One can look at what party is in favor of this particular program, and which party isn't.
And if we say that this particular program isn't very effective, do we then not propose any other program? Or should we abandon retraining programs completely?
To clarify my position, and when you have a candidate stating “oh, we’ll just retrain you and then everybody can have a well paying job,” It shouldn’t be a surprise that her message gets rejected in an area that was already promised this multiple times (including under the candiate’s spouse’s administration) when no concrete plan is sold to the voters in question.
And honestly I agree, Republicans would have torpedoed any bill that was submitted that’d actually help. Given how poorly Democrats do at messaging I’d expect that even if she had won and tried to enact the plan, the failure would have been bad enough where any remaining blues in those areas would have been replaced by red in the midterms.
At it's core many of these towns practically rely on people helping each other because there's really not much else. There's no people coming in and there's no jobs coming in to help refresh the population but you don't tend to have the money to be able to relocate either. So you're stuck in said dead end area just hoping that something will come along. You can say "Get a job elsewhere" but the reality is there's many barriers to achieving such.
So you can vote for policies that pretend that none of that is a problem and that we can magically make those jobs reappear.
Or you can vote for policies that acknowledge everything you said and offer assistance with training, offer assistance with relocation, and/or offer policies to encourage communities and businesses to work together and diversify the economies in that city.
Oklahoma City is a giant town, so it's by no means fair to compare it to many of the rural communities that are struggling out there, but we learned that lesson and applied it.
During the O&G crash in the 1980s, Oklahoma City (and really Oklahoma as a whole) was hit hard. The city crashed along with the oil companies, and it took the city decades to recover. While the city recovered, they started to actively recruit other businesses and companies in sectors far removed from O&G. Energy is still big business in Oklahoma City, but now also have an active finance sector, health sector, manufacturing, actively helping Tinker Air Force base grow to help it survive alignment after alignment. As a result, we really did very well during the last oil crash (and the recession as a whole before then) and our unemployment rates were well below national averages.
Having actually seen some of those programs it's a mixed bag.. You get some that are actually well enough off but provide only jobs that tend to be outside the town to begin with.. But at the same they have a very specific number of people they can do this with and honestly they don't help the issues of the town in general.. At the rate most of these tend to work you might as well start figuring out how to dismantle the town and get everyone elsewhere.
The others I've seen are preparing you to work at Wal-Mart which isn't.. exactly something anyone wants to end up for. And given the size of many of those small rural towns they really cannot go the way of Oklahoma city because they honestly don't have anything comparable to the size and/or infrastructure already in place. So while that's an interesting anecdote, it doesn't apply to places that quite literally survived and thrived only because of one specific industry with no other massive infrastructure.
It doesn't help that many policies on the matter of retraining and relocation have been promised and failed on other accounts that I've seen.
To clarify my position, and when you have a candidate stating “oh, we’ll just retrain you and then everybody can have a well paying job,” It shouldn’t be a surprise that her message gets rejected in an area that was already promised this multiple times (including under the candiate’s spouse’s administration) when no concrete plan is sold to the voters in question.
And honestly I agree, Republicans would have torpedoed any bill that was submitted that’d actually help. Given how poorly Democrats do at messaging I’d expect that even if she had won and tried to enact the plan, the failure would have been bad enough where any remaining blues in those areas would have been replaced by red in the midterms.
One of the sad realities in politics is that we expect our candidates to have big elaborate plans with all kinds of fleshed out details to fix all these problems, but also fail to acknowledge that it's really not their job to come up with all those details and that they will likely never be able to actually do even a fraction of what they said they would do.
Realistically, "we will help workers affected by the changing economy and loss of certain sectors of our industry" is probably as detailed of a plan as we should honestly expect, same as "we will make those jobs come back". There is no way any POTUS is going to get more in depth than that, because any plan will have to come up through a highly-partisan legislative environment and be something that can be stomached by all 50 states before it ever gets to the executive branch where it can be finished and put into practice.
We want actual "plans" and details from our candidates, but we should all know that it's never going to happen under our current political system. If we had a parliamentary system we could have a unified message of "vote for Blue/Red Party, and we will push Plan X, and President Blue/Red will enact our plan we pass". But we don't have that system and with our separation of powers each branch has their own agenda even if they share colors. So even if the agree on a basic plan, the details will be all over the place.
I've been lucky enough that I've never been unemployed throughout my adult life. I'd like to think though, if I was, that I'd not vote for a comforting lie over a hard reality.
Today in the news, I heard that some French people born in the United States of America have to pay their taxes to the USA, even if they never even worked there. They went in France 50 years ago, and have to pay taxes.
I am curious to know more about that. You have to pay your taxes even abroad ? That seems to be a great idea to avoid tax optimization
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Having actually seen some of those programs it's a mixed bag.. You get some that are actually well enough off but provide only jobs that tend to be outside the town to begin with.. But at the same they have a very specific number of people they can do this with and honestly they don't help the issues of the town in general.. At the rate most of these tend to work you might as well start figuring out how to dismantle the town and get everyone elsewhere.
The others I've seen are preparing you to work at Wal-Mart which isn't.. exactly something anyone wants to end up for. And given the size of many of those small rural towns they really cannot go the way of Oklahoma city because they honestly don't have anything comparable to the size and/or infrastructure already in place. So while that's an interesting anecdote, it doesn't apply to places that quite literally survived and thrived only because of one specific industry with no other massive infrastructure.
It doesn't help that many policies on the matter of retraining and relocation have been promised and failed on other accounts that I've seen.
Yeah, Oklahoma City is huge and is very lucky to have done such a good job. It really is a different story for towns where quite frequently the jobs showed up first, and then the town developed around that industry to support it before the industry went away.
And the truth is, sometimes it would probably be better for everyone involved to just take that town out behind the barn and shoot it and get everybody to move on and call it a day.
But really, what politician is going to run on that platform? I'm not pretending it's a plan that I like either, people have spend their entire lives in those towns. There is a certain pride to be the Xth generation of your family in this place. There is a certain pride to be the Xth generation [industry] worker in your family, doing the job that your father did, and your grandfather, and your uncles, and your brothers. My family has a strong history of working in corrections, and I can tell you that my father had a certain pride in his voice when I transferred to the prison system. Almost my entire family has also served in uniform, and it meant a lot to my father when I commissioned and it means a lot to me to be one more person who will represent my family and our history every time I put on that uniform.
Towns like that, and jobs like that, are about more than just the economy, and numbers, and training programs, and helping people move away. There is history attached to those jobs and those towns. Families have their entire identity attached to doing that particular job, in that particular industry, in that particular town.
But that doesn't change the reality that these jobs are gone, and they won't be coming back, and that those towns are dying a slow and painful death and that there is nothing we can do to save them. But even if we can't save them, we can acknowledge the painful process for all those involved rather than just focusing on the clinical sterile process of proposing programs to help them. Even if you have good intention, it's easy to speak in a way that takes what little dignity people feel away.
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godardc wrote: Today in the news, I heard that some French people born in the United States of America have to pay their taxes to the USA, even if they never even worked there. They went in France 50 years ago, and have to pay taxes. I am curious to know more about that. You have to pay your taxes even abroad ? That seems to be a great idea to avoid tax optimization
Yeah, dual citizens have to pay in both countries. There are exemptions to income amounts and stuff like that, and I don't know the details. My brother lives in Germany and has to file in the US every year and pays $0.
Even if you have good intention, it's easy to speak in a way that takes what little dignity people feel away.
I agree with much of what you said there but this is the biggest thing I've seen.. You kept saying "They vote for policies that end up hurting them" simply because they are getting promised something that sounds nice without being insulting
When I've seen the democrats speak of these area's it's always in that same elitist tone with that same constant insult of being nothing of worth except to fly over to the more "progressive and better cities". Insulting them and their way of life and with such a derisive tone (that's constantly been sprinkled throughout this thread as well) that it makes it hard to swallow anything. It doesn't help that many policies from them seem to have failed to account for them as well. When all you hear from this party is constant derision and the only reason they seem to want to help you is out of misplaced pity.. Why would you want to take that?
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Right then! Having lived in one of those towns for a while I can certainly mention the issues with such.
A different job: Many jobs in those sorts of towns tend to end up being service level jobs either working in a gas station, Walmart sort of supercenter or local variety, or a variety of other local area's that are trying to get by either as a craftsman. The issue with the last bit is that in many such towns there's already major competition with those that are already established and many times there's not much point in going further out with it.
Different skill: Same as the first, you can get all you want but most of the time you'll be getting low level jobs regardless of how good a degree and education you may have. If you are lucky you may be able to get an apprenticeship at a local shop for something major but in most cases you'll be out of luck
Moving: You already live in an area where you are struggling to make funds meet.. The issue is now you have to make money and somehow achieve enough to exit out and still have funds to move along with money to buy/rent in another city and have enough that you can potentially find a job in an area before your fund runs out and you end up on the streets.
At it's core many of these towns practically rely on people helping each other because there's really not much else. There's no people coming in and there's no jobs coming in to help refresh the population but you don't tend to have the money to be able to relocate either. So you're stuck in said dead end area just hoping that something will come along. You can say "Get a job elsewhere" but the reality is there's many barriers to achieving such.
Guess they're screwed then. Because all of those things you shot down can all potentially work, trying to bring back obselete jobs certainly won't. Which raises the question of if people like you even want things to work out or would rather make excuses for people mooching off welfare.
Even if you have good intention, it's easy to speak in a way that takes what little dignity people feel away.
I agree with much of what you said there but this is the biggest thing I've seen.. You kept saying "They vote for policies that end up hurting them" simply because they are getting promised something that sounds nice without being insulting
When I've seen the democrats speak of these area's it's always in that same elitist tone with that same constant insult of being nothing of worth except to fly over to the more "progressive and better cities". Insulting them and their way of life and with such a derisive tone (that's constantly been sprinkled throughout this thread as well) that it makes it hard to swallow anything. It doesn't help that many policies from them seem to have failed to account for them as well. When all you hear from this party is constant derision and the only reason they seem to want to help you is out of misplaced pity.. Why would you want to take that?
This is entirely accurate. HRC isn't disliked because of her policies, it's because she's an arrogant, toxic person who looks down on those she's trying to help. Evidence says she would do a good job because she is reasonably skilled at government but we are left with the sense she is doing it to 'win' by proving how good a job she can do as opposed to any genuine care for the American people. And I don't blame anyone for disliking her because of that. But I still think a vote against Hillary was idiocy because Trump is those negative qualities magnified plus being massively incompetent plus being mentally disabled.
NinthMusketeer wrote: [Guess they're screwed then. Because all of those things you shot down can all potentially work, trying to bring back obselete jobs certainly won't. Which raises the question of if people like you even want things to work out or would rather make excuses for people mooching off welfare.
"People like you" The insulting and condescending tone is not really needed at all. Also "Mooching off welfare" comes back to my thoughts on people looking down on such people and you've managed to prove my point on that account while ignoring everything else I've said on the matter.
I want things to work! Why would I want people to suffer in area's that are increasingly becoming problems for the people to live in it. To think that I'm making excuses for people while pointing out the issues with such programs because nobody really seems to give a damn about the people that live in them.
In other news, not strictly US politics but I found this article on the gender wage gap interesting (it's NYT but non-politically written so reasonably reliable). Of particular note is the similarity between US and Scandinavian countries despite very different policies.
From my perspective it raises the long term concern of simply de-motivation to have kids at all. We already know that couples with kids are less happy on average, and with information like the above coming available in addition to the already significant financial burden I wonder if people will more frequently ignore instinct and avoid kids entirely. But then with automation being what it is maybe that isn't a bad trend at all.
feeder wrote: I've been lucky enough that I've never been unemployed throughout my adult life. I'd like to think though, if I was, that I'd not vote for a comforting lie over a hard reality.
You would be wrong. Your vision changes when you can't feed you kids.
When I've seen the democrats speak of these area's it's always in that same elitist tone with that same constant insult of being nothing of worth except to fly over to the more "progressive and better cities".
Can you provide a single quote from a democrat that echoes this "elitist tone"?
NinthMusketeer wrote: [Guess they're screwed then. Because all of those things you shot down can all potentially work, trying to bring back obselete jobs certainly won't. Which raises the question of if people like you even want things to work out or would rather make excuses for people mooching off welfare.
"People like you" The insulting and condescending tone is not really needed at all. Also "Mooching off welfare" comes back to my thoughts on people looking down on such people and you've managed to prove my point on that account while ignoring everything else I've said on the matter.
I want things to work! Why would I want people to suffer in area's that are increasingly becoming problems for the people to live in it. To think that I'm making excuses for people while pointing out the issues with such programs because nobody really seems to give a damn about the people that live in them.
It's more that you complained about a situation, people offered solutions, and you shot them down. It reads as a simple refusal to help oneself so you can see why that generates a negative attitude. Doubly so when these are the same people bemoaning how lazy my generation (millenials) is. So yeah, I do resent the attitude you are expressing. 'Treat others the way you want to be treated' cuts both ways; I am returning the lack of sympathy that these people are demonstrating they want to be treated with.
That said you are right I shouldn't have said 'people like you' and phrased it as 'people with your opinion' instead.
When I've seen the democrats speak of these area's it's always in that same elitist tone with that same constant insult of being nothing of worth except to fly over to the more "progressive and better cities".
Can you provide a single quote from a democrat that echoes this "elitist tone"?
Really? I mean such quotes are readily available, many of them from HRC.
feeder wrote: I've been lucky enough that I've never been unemployed throughout my adult life. I'd like to think though, if I was, that I'd not vote for a comforting lie over a hard reality.
You would be wrong. Your vision changes when you can't feed you kids.
Your vision changes from supporting something that has worked poorly to something that won't work at all? That's entirely selfish; giving up on trying to help your kids for the comfort of thinking you did.
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Frazzled wrote: Cling to their Bibles and their guns? Just a whole bunch of deplorables?
Pretending that deplorables has anything to do with people wanting to keep industry in their town alive is the same as pretending that Republicans want to cut welfare because of rapists and murderers from Mexico.
NinthMusketeer wrote: [Guess they're screwed then. Because all of those things you shot down can all potentially work, trying to bring back obselete jobs certainly won't. Which raises the question of if people like you even want things to work out or would rather make excuses for people mooching off welfare.
"People like you" The insulting and condescending tone is not really needed at all. Also "Mooching off welfare" comes back to my thoughts on people looking down on such people and you've managed to prove my point on that account while ignoring everything else I've said on the matter.
I want things to work! Why would I want people to suffer in area's that are increasingly becoming problems for the people to live in it. To think that I'm making excuses for people while pointing out the issues with such programs because nobody really seems to give a damn about the people that live in them.
It's more that you complained about a situation, people offered solutions, and you shot them down. It reads as a simple refusal to help oneself so you can see why that generates a negative attitude. Doubly so when these are the same people bemoaning how lazy my generation (millenials) is. So yeah, I do resent the attitude you are expressing. 'Treat others the way you want to be treated' cuts both ways; I am returning the lack of sympathy that these people are demonstrating they want to be treated with.
That said you are right I shouldn't have said 'people like you' and phrased it as 'people with your opinion' instead.
Shot them down? I mentioned how they worked and how they didn't work. You can clearly say "Do this and that for instant success!" but reality tends to have an effect when things are put into actual practice. Bemoaning that I simply "complained" when it seems like you skimmed over what I said as I clearly was discussing what happened with each and why not all of them are directly feasible without full help, and given what you are saying here it sounds more like you are using me as a target for people you clearly dislike rather then actually arguing with me in good faith.
And returning the lack of sympathy to me who has not expressed any such views.. Well, good luck with that then.
Ouze wrote: why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers.
Same kind of cultural reason that we’re supposed to worship a guy who drove an army truck in Germany for 3 years but it’s ok to gak all over educators that are bringing up our kids and actually affecting the future of our country.
Great solution to that, EVERY public sector employee makes $40,000-50,000 a year. No exceptions. Teachers. DMV workers. The President and every member of Congress. All across the board. OR drop all their pay to the level of teachers.
Ouze wrote: why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers.
Same kind of cultural reason that we’re supposed to worship a guy who drove an army truck in Germany for 3 years but it’s ok to gak all over educators that are bringing up our kids and actually affecting the future of our country.
Great solution to that, EVERY public sector employee makes $40,000-50,000 a year. No exceptions. Teachers. DMV workers. The President and every member of Congress. All across the board. OR drop all their pay to the level of teachers.
You'd have to adjust the income for areas with a higher cost of living. Also, beyond pay there is enough of a status gap or respect gap between educators and certain other civil servants to affect recruitment and retention rates.
Ouze wrote: why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers.
Same kind of cultural reason that we’re supposed to worship a guy who drove an army truck in Germany for 3 years but it’s ok to gak all over educators that are bringing up our kids and actually affecting the future of our country.
Great solution to that, EVERY public sector employee makes $40,000-50,000 a year. No exceptions. Teachers. DMV workers. The President and every member of Congress. All across the board. OR drop all their pay to the level of teachers.
That idea is so stupid, even Trump wouldn't try to push it through.
Ouze wrote: why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers.
Same kind of cultural reason that we’re supposed to worship a guy who drove an army truck in Germany for 3 years but it’s ok to gak all over educators that are bringing up our kids and actually affecting the future of our country.
Great solution to that, EVERY public sector employee makes $40,000-50,000 a year. No exceptions. Teachers. DMV workers. The President and every member of Congress. All across the board. OR drop all their pay to the level of teachers.
Are you aware that the median salary required to own a home in the San Francisco bay area is $170,000 a year?
Ouze wrote: why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers.
Same kind of cultural reason that we’re supposed to worship a guy who drove an army truck in Germany for 3 years but it’s ok to gak all over educators that are bringing up our kids and actually affecting the future of our country.
Great solution to that, EVERY public sector employee makes $40,000-50,000 a year. No exceptions. Teachers. DMV workers. The President and every member of Congress. All across the board. OR drop all their pay to the level of teachers.
Are you aware that the median salary required to own a home in the San Francisco bay area is $170,000 a year?
Well, clearly the Nuclear Physicist, Cardiac Surgeon, Accountant, and the Janitor can all house together to pool their $40,000-50,000 in order to make rent.
godardc wrote: Today in the news, I heard that some French people born in the United States of America have to pay their taxes to the USA, even if they never even worked there. They went in France 50 years ago, and have to pay taxes.
I am curious to know more about that. You have to pay your taxes even abroad ? That seems to be a great idea to avoid tax optimization
Yeah, dual citizens have to pay in both countries. There are exemptions to income amounts and stuff like that, and I don't know the details. My brother lives in Germany and has to file in the US every year and pays $0.
Dual citizens ? What if you, a true American boy, went to France (I guess you only have the US nationality ?) ? Would you pay your taxes to your country, too ?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Trump is those negative qualities magnified plus being massively incompetent plus being mentally disabled.
Oh man...Can't you get over it ? You lost. You LOST, okay ? I mean, it has been more than a year, get over it. Just, accept it, he is your president for the next 7 years, you can't and won't change it.
Dual citizens ? What if you, a true American boy, went to France (I guess you only have the US nationality ?) ? Would you pay your taxes to your country, too ?
All US citizens are subject to US taxes at all times.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Trump is those negative qualities magnified plus being massively incompetent plus being mentally disabled.
Oh man...Can't you get over it ? You lost. You LOST, okay ? I mean, it has been more than a year, get over it. Just, accept it, he is your president for the next 7 years, you can't and won't change it.
Someone can be both POTUS for however many years someone ends up being POTUS, and be incompetent at the same time.
godardc wrote: Today in the news, I heard that some French people born in the United States of America have to pay their taxes to the USA, even if they never even worked there. They went in France 50 years ago, and have to pay taxes.
I am curious to know more about that. You have to pay your taxes even abroad ? That seems to be a great idea to avoid tax optimization
Yeah, dual citizens have to pay in both countries. There are exemptions to income amounts and stuff like that, and I don't know the details. My brother lives in Germany and has to file in the US every year and pays $0.
Dual citizens ? What if you, a true American boy, went to France (I guess you only have the US nationality ?) ? Would you pay your taxes to your country, too ?
If you are a US citizen and you take a job in a foreign country you still have to file your taxes. When I worked overseas I still filed a return. I didn't have to pay any Federal income tax because my wages didn't exceed the taxation threshold but US citizens are still responsible to file returns even if the work overseas.
If you are a US citizen and you take a job in a foreign country you still have to file your taxes. When I worked overseas I still filed a return. I didn't have to pay any Federal income tax because my wages didn't exceed the taxation threshold but US citizens are still responsible to file returns even if the work overseas.
And I think that there is sometimes confusion about the issue when people think about double taxation. The US taxes only the income above a certain threshold, and then I think there is the option of using your foreign taxes as a credit against the taxes you owe in the US (so if taxes are higher in the foreign country you can subtract the taxes paid to them from the taxes you owe to the US...I think).
But just like living in the US, even if you end up owing $0 to the IRS you still need to file the tax record to show that you owe $0.
If you are a US citizen and you take a job in a foreign country you still have to file your taxes. When I worked overseas I still filed a return. I didn't have to pay any Federal income tax because my wages didn't exceed the taxation threshold but US citizens are still responsible to file returns even if the work overseas.
And I think that there is sometimes confusion about the issue when people think about double taxation. The US taxes only the income above a certain threshold, and then I think there is the option of using your foreign taxes as a credit against the taxes you owe in the US (so if taxes are higher in the foreign country you can subtract the taxes paid to them from the taxes you owe to the US...I think).
But just like living in the US, even if you end up owing $0 to the IRS you still need to file the tax record to show that you owe $0.
If you are a US citizen/green card holder/etc. working abroad and you earn more than the filing threshold, $10,400 for single filers, you have to file a return, but the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion is $102,100 so you only have to actually pay taxes on the amount you earn above $102,100. If you earn over the FEIE you still get to take deductions so unless you have a very large income you won't be paying much in US taxes.
I mean, it makes sense. I've been blamed for gak girlfriends have dreamt I've done before.
Granted, none of those things have wound up in front of a jury...
Susan Ryan, a spokeswoman for Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said the defense is "working hard to try this case in the media by attacking the credibility of the victim and the investigation." Ryan said the defense "cherry-picked bits and pieces" of Friday's deposition and said "there is nothing substantially new about the victim's testimony in the deposition, including the fact that the video camera had malfunctioned."
I swear to, well, somebody else's god, I hate this state.
It's a big improvement for me. $24k is a bigger deduction than we ever got from itemizing and with our kids added in we're getting a $30k deduction next year which will be the largest deduction we've ever had. The bulk of our itemized deductions were always mortgage interest and property taxes but those were never close to $24k.
I believe you misunderstand the tax changes. First off, your kids don't get you any deduction. You only get the $24k. However, you are losing $8.1k of exemptions. So really, it's a hair under $16k now. Basically if you could itemize before and you can't now, you're likely losing deductions. It really wasn't that big of a change ($1,600 in reality) and the amount is going up slower due to inflation than it was before.
Plus you're losing the ability to itemize any form of work related expense. We had to radically restructure what we were doing to avoid being screwed by the new tax law. I do taxes for one of my jobs and the new tax law is a giant middle finger to the middle class. I've explained it that way to several of my clients
It's a big improvement for me. $24k is a bigger deduction than we ever got from itemizing and with our kids added in we're getting a $30k deduction next year which will be the largest deduction we've ever had. The bulk of our itemized deductions were always mortgage interest and property taxes but those were never close to $24k.
I believe you misunderstand the tax changes. First off, your kids don't get you any deduction. You only get the $24k. However, you are losing $8.1k of exemptions. So really, it's a hair under $16k now. Basically if you could itemize before and you can't now, you're likely losing deductions. It really wasn't that big of a change ($1,600 in reality) and the amount is going up slower due to inflation than it was before.
Plus you're losing the ability to itemize any form of work related expense. We had to radically restructure what we were doing to avoid being screwed by the new tax law. I do taxes for one of my jobs and the new tax law is a giant middle finger to the middle class. I've explained it that way to several of my clients
I mean can you name a time in recent memory that the republicans have not given the middle finger to the middle class? With the deregulations of the banks under Wubya to the deregulating of the banks again under Trump to name a few
BaronIveagh wrote: Hey, anyone want to talk about the war with Syria that Trump is now mulling over?
Sorry, is that the one that the warmonger is advising him on, and is totally being deliberated with complete attention and no distractions from, say, Trump's longtime lawyer's office being raided by the FBI?
NinthMusketeer wrote: Trump is those negative qualities magnified plus being massively incompetent plus being mentally disabled.
Oh man...Can't you get over it ? You lost. You LOST, okay ? I mean, it has been more than a year, get over it. Just, accept it, he is your president for the next 7 years, you can't and won't change it.
This is both missing the point and a really bad attempt at trying to deflect my argument. The only reason to deflect like that is because you can't defend your position, so unless you provide one the line of discussion is already over.
NinthMusketeer wrote: [Guess they're screwed then. Because all of those things you shot down can all potentially work, trying to bring back obselete jobs certainly won't. Which raises the question of if people like you even want things to work out or would rather make excuses for people mooching off welfare.
"People like you" The insulting and condescending tone is not really needed at all. Also "Mooching off welfare" comes back to my thoughts on people looking down on such people and you've managed to prove my point on that account while ignoring everything else I've said on the matter.
I want things to work! Why would I want people to suffer in area's that are increasingly becoming problems for the people to live in it. To think that I'm making excuses for people while pointing out the issues with such programs because nobody really seems to give a damn about the people that live in them.
It's more that you complained about a situation, people offered solutions, and you shot them down. It reads as a simple refusal to help oneself so you can see why that generates a negative attitude. Doubly so when these are the same people bemoaning how lazy my generation (millenials) is. So yeah, I do resent the attitude you are expressing. 'Treat others the way you want to be treated' cuts both ways; I am returning the lack of sympathy that these people are demonstrating they want to be treated with.
That said you are right I shouldn't have said 'people like you' and phrased it as 'people with your opinion' instead.
Shot them down? I mentioned how they worked and how they didn't work. You can clearly say "Do this and that for instant success!" but reality tends to have an effect when things are put into actual practice. Bemoaning that I simply "complained" when it seems like you skimmed over what I said as I clearly was discussing what happened with each and why not all of them are directly feasible without full help, and given what you are saying here it sounds more like you are using me as a target for people you clearly dislike rather then actually arguing with me in good faith.
And returning the lack of sympathy to me who has not expressed any such views.. Well, good luck with that then.
You are making a dishonest argument based off misrepresenting the discussion.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Right then! Having lived in one of those towns for a while I can certainly mention the issues with such.
A different job: Many jobs in those sorts of towns tend to end up being service level jobs either working in a gas station, Walmart sort of supercenter or local variety, or a variety of other local area's that are trying to get by either as a craftsman. The issue with the last bit is that in many such towns there's already major competition with those that are already established and many times there's not much point in going further out with it.
Different skill: Same as the first, you can get all you want but most of the time you'll be getting low level jobs regardless of how good a degree and education you may have. If you are lucky you may be able to get an apprenticeship at a local shop for something major but in most cases you'll be out of luck
Moving: You already live in an area where you are struggling to make funds meet.. The issue is now you have to make money and somehow achieve enough to exit out and still have funds to move along with money to buy/rent in another city and have enough that you can potentially find a job in an area before your fund runs out and you end up on the streets.
At it's core many of these towns practically rely on people helping each other because there's really not much else. There's no people coming in and there's no jobs coming in to help refresh the population but you don't tend to have the money to be able to relocate either. So you're stuck in said dead end area just hoping that something will come along. You can say "Get a job elsewhere" but the reality is there's many barriers to achieving such.
It's a big improvement for me. $24k is a bigger deduction than we ever got from itemizing and with our kids added in we're getting a $30k deduction next year which will be the largest deduction we've ever had. The bulk of our itemized deductions were always mortgage interest and property taxes but those were never close to $24k.
I believe you misunderstand the tax changes. First off, your kids don't get you any deduction. You only get the $24k. However, you are losing $8.1k of exemptions. So really, it's a hair under $16k now. Basically if you could itemize before and you can't now, you're likely losing deductions. It really wasn't that big of a change ($1,600 in reality) and the amount is going up slower due to inflation than it was before.
Plus you're losing the ability to itemize any form of work related expense. We had to radically restructure what we were doing to avoid being screwed by the new tax law. I do taxes for one of my jobs and the new tax law is a giant middle finger to the middle class. I've explained it that way to several of my clients
Our kids don’t get us an itemized deduction they get us the child tax credit that is doubling from $1k/child to $2k/child. That’s why I wrote “and with our kids added in” because the tax bill is also doubling the child tax credit (and creating a $500 deduction for no child dependents).
Our mortgage interest, property tax, state income tax and charity donations are already less than the $12.7k standard deductions how am I losing anything when the standard deduction goes up to $24k?
The avg income is $45k how is a “middle class” family affording over $24k annually in mortgage interest, state taxes, charitable donations and work expenses? I guess my family is farther from being middle class than I thought.
So with this precedent when can we expect the US attorney and FBI raids on Perkins Coie or the law firms handling the highly suspect (RICO and/or Logan Act anyone?) matters of the Clinton Foundation?
Shall I hold my breath? ...or is it some animals are more equal than others?
EDIT: well to be honest...the crimes Cohen is reportedly being investigated for are bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He provided the probable cause for that out of his own damn mouth in public...such that, he wouldn't shut up.
d-usa wrote: And sometimes, jobs just go away and never come back.
Is it the government's job to make sure you always got your union job available to you?
It is if enough voters say it is.
THE EBIL SOCIALIZIM!!!!!!!111!!1!1!1! Let the invisible hand of the free market fix everything! Government interference with business is always wrong!
See how stupid that sounds? It sounds just as dumb when it's said in support of conservative policies too.
Regardless of the side I'm pretty sure the thread is better off with posts like this. This is the kind of thing that got the last one closed. I understand these things can be infuriating and I've certainly made my own toxic comments in the past, but something like this just undermines any legitimacy to the argument you are trying to make.
So with this precedent when can we expect the US attorney and FBI raids on Perkins Coie or the law firms handling the highly suspect (RICO and/or Logan Act anyone?) matters of the Clinton Foundation?
Shall I hold my breath? ...or is it some animals are more equal than others?
I'm not sure of the exact details of the search warrants obviously, but I'd like to point out you're pulling the ol' "whataboutism" tactic, and that clinton has been investigated more than a few times.
(and while we're on the subject of emails, the Trumps were caught doing the exact same thing, and yet I don't see any outrage over that from you)
So with this precedent when can we expect the US attorney and FBI raids on Perkins Coie or the law firms handling the highly suspect (RICO and/or Logan Act anyone?) matters of the Clinton Foundation?
Shall I hold my breath? ...or is it some animals are more equal than others?
I'm not sure of the exact details of the search warrants obviously, but I'd like to point out you're pulling the ol' "whataboutism" tactic, and that clinton has been investigated more than a few times.
Well... if you think they were all above board, then nothing I can say would convince you.
(and while we're on the subject of emails, the Trumps were caught doing the exact same thing, and yet I don't see any outrage over that from you)
THROW THE BOOK AT 'EM!
Seriously, I'd yammer at that had US Poltics forum weren't Lord Voldemort'ed at the time.
So with this precedent when can we expect the US attorney and FBI raids on Perkins Coie or the law firms handling the highly suspect (RICO and/or Logan Act anyone?) matters of the Clinton Foundation?
Shall I hold my breath? ...or is it some animals are more equal than others?
I'm not sure of the exact details of the search warrants obviously, but I'd like to point out you're pulling the ol' "whataboutism" tactic, and that clinton has been investigated more than a few times.
Well... if you think they were all above board, then nothing I can say would convince you.
(and while we're on the subject of emails, the Trumps were caught doing the exact same thing, and yet I don't see any outrage over that from you)
THROW THE BOOK AT 'EM!
Seriously, I'd yammer at that had US Poltics forum weren't Lord Voldemort'ed at the time.
I'm no fan of Clinton, I do doubt that EVERYTHING was totally above board 100% of the time, if after something like 19 investigations (not sure where I heard that, so take it with a grain of salt I guess), and they haven't found anything I seriously doubt any number of raids would find anything.
So with this precedent when can we expect the US attorney and FBI raids on Perkins Coie or the law firms handling the highly suspect (RICO and/or Logan Act anyone?) matters of the Clinton Foundation?
Shall I hold my breath? ...or is it some animals are more equal than others?
EDIT: well to be honest...the crimes Cohen is reportedly being investigated for are bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He provided the probable cause for that out of his own damn mouth in public...such that, he wouldn't shut up.
What precedent? The issue with Stormy Daniels is simple, did the money she was paid by Trump/his people come from his campaign funds? If the money came from campaign funds then that was an illegal act. The best way for the .gov to trace the money is to seize the books and correspondence from Trump’s staff and legal team that pertains to Daniels and track the money and decision making process.
I don’t see how Daniels leads to an impeachable offense for Trump unless there’s evidence that Trump knew/directed that campaign funds were used. Being a philanderer isn’t a crime and the Republicans have been embracing and making excuses for “family values” hypocrites in their ranks for as long as I’ve been alive, it’s sad and embarrassing but I’m numb to the outrage of it.
If there was a similar possible crime hanging over HRC or TCF I’d want it investigated too but I can’t think of one at the moment.
Well, it's an attach on the country as a whole though!
Also, quick "I am not a lawyer" question:
Attorney-client communication is privileged, but that privilege can not be used to hide the commission of a crime if I am thinking the right way. You can "hide" a crime if someone tells their attorney "yes, I did it, now get me off" or something like that. If I send an email like that to my lawyer, it's protected communication and can't be used against me. But I can't email my lawyer and tell him "hey, help me break this law", and then try to hide that information behind attorney-client privilege. So "help me get away with this crime" is okay, but "help me commit this crime" is not, do I have that roughly correct?
I also think that judges are usually VERY touchy about getting even remotely close to any warrant that even remotely has the possibility about violating attorney-client privilege. So if a judge singed off on a warrant to raid an attorneys communication records, I would think that there was a pretty smokey gun somewhere.
So with this precedent when can we expect the US attorney and FBI raids on Perkins Coie or the law firms handling the highly suspect (RICO and/or Logan Act anyone?) matters of the Clinton Foundation?
Shall I hold my breath? ...or is it some animals are more equal than others?
EDIT: well to be honest...the crimes Cohen is reportedly being investigated for are bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He provided the probable cause for that out of his own damn mouth in public...such that, he wouldn't shut up.
What precedent? The issue with Stormy Daniels is simple, did the money she was paid by Trump/his people come from his campaign funds? If the money came from campaign funds then that was an illegal act. The best way for the .gov to trace the money is to seize the books and correspondence from Trump’s staff and legal team that pertains to Daniels and track the money and decision making process.
I don’t see how Daniels leads to an impeachable offense for Trump unless there’s evidence that Trump knew/directed that campaign funds were used. Being a philanderer isn’t a crime and the Republicans have been embracing and making excuses for “family values” hypocrites in their ranks for as long as I’ve been alive, it’s sad and embarrassing but I’m numb to the outrage of it.
If there was a similar possible crime hanging over HRC or TCF I’d want it investigated too but I can’t think of one at the moment.
The precedent being that the NY FBI office raided a sitting President's personal lawyer over attorney-client privileged documents.
The FBI *had* to get several prior authorizations from Federal Magistrate and either approval from DOJ, or invoked existing regulations. The bar is REALLY high to go after this... meaning, they have something specifically that a judge signed off to do this.
If all this is kosher... Cohen is fethed.
My point is simply this: They better have the goods on Cohen. If they don't... woah momma, buckle your seatbelts.
It's a big improvement for me. $24k is a bigger deduction than we ever got from itemizing and with our kids added in we're getting a $30k deduction next year which will be the largest deduction we've ever had. The bulk of our itemized deductions were always mortgage interest and property taxes but those were never close to $24k.
I believe you misunderstand the tax changes. First off, your kids don't get you any deduction. You only get the $24k. However, you are losing $8.1k of exemptions. So really, it's a hair under $16k now. Basically if you could itemize before and you can't now, you're likely losing deductions. It really wasn't that big of a change ($1,600 in reality) and the amount is going up slower due to inflation than it was before.
Plus you're losing the ability to itemize any form of work related expense. We had to radically restructure what we were doing to avoid being screwed by the new tax law. I do taxes for one of my jobs and the new tax law is a giant middle finger to the middle class. I've explained it that way to several of my clients
Our kids don’t get us an itemized deduction they get us the child tax credit that is doubling from $1k/child to $2k/child. That’s why I wrote “and with our kids added in” because the tax bill is also doubling the child tax credit (and creating a $500 deduction for no child dependents).
You do not get ANY deductions for having kids any more. Child tax credit is a credit not a deduction. Completely different animals that do completely different things. (It's better in most cases, but you're still misunderstanding it).
Our mortgage interest, property tax, state income tax and charity donations are already less than the $12.7k standard deductions how am I losing anything when the standard deduction goes up to $24k?
You're actually able to deduct less money from your income. Before you had 12.7k standard deduction plus 16.2k in exemptions for a total of 28.9k in deductions. Now you only get 24k in deductions.
The avg income is $45k how is a “middle class” family affording over $24k annually in mortgage interest, state taxes, charitable donations and work expenses? I guess my family is farther from being middle class than I thought.
You are loosing when before you could deduct anything over $12.7k AND take advantage of exemptions (This year is $4,050 per person in the household). In other words, if your itemized deductions are at least $16k you will be taxed on more income than you were before assuming you are married. If you were single, anything over $8k in itemized deductions and you're taxed on more income.
Granted, there's a lot of moving parts and most people are better off then before, the middle class (People with mortgages and especially non-reimbursed work related expenses) are less well off compared to others or even sometimes worse off than before. Depends on where you live and the taxes there. I know if I had the same exact situation and filed the same exact way next year as I did this year, I would owe more taxes. I've had several clients that were in the same boat.
Add in that the deduction is going up slower than it was before and the new benefits are expiring as part of a deceptive way to 'pay' for the tax cuts. The people complaining about the national debt and the deficit raised spending while cutting revenue. There's an issue there.
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d-usa wrote: Well, it's an attach on the country as a whole though!
Also, quick "I am not a lawyer" question:
Attorney-client communication is privileged, but that privilege can not be used to hide the commission of a crime if I am thinking the right way. You can "hide" a crime if someone tells their attorney "yes, I did it, now get me off" or something like that. If I send an email like that to my lawyer, it's protected communication and can't be used against me. But I can't email my lawyer and tell him "hey, help me break this law", and then try to hide that information behind attorney-client privilege. So "help me get away with this crime" is okay, but "help me commit this crime" is not, do I have that roughly correct?
I also think that judges are usually VERY touchy about getting even remotely close to any warrant that even remotely has the possibility about violating attorney-client privilege. So if a judge singed off on a warrant to raid an attorneys communication records, I would think that there was a pretty smokey gun somewhere.
I believe that a lawyer cannot knowingly allow anyone to lie on the stand. So if you tell the attorney you did the crime, they cannot call you as a witness and have you lie about not doing it.
The attorney general for the Souther District of New York has raided the offices of the president's personal lawyer over a breach of campaign finance laws. The act is entirely seperate to Mueller's investigation of the Russia scandal, but despite this everyone, including the president, has lost their collective gak. The Republican party acted within 5 minutes of the raid's announcement to take down the site which listed Cohen's as deputy chairman of the RNC's finance committee.
Think about how this whole thing would have played out in a political environment with no investigation in to Trump/Russia. It would be legal trouble for one of Trump's bagmen, and a few cycles of negative news.
Then imagine if the Trump/Russia investigated existed, but it had gone nowhere and people inside Washington knew there was nothing to it. People wouldn't even connect the two things. No-one will ever see an FBI raid and panic and say 'oh no what if this has documents that relate back to that false charge being investigated by entirely different people'. So it'd be the same as above, some negative news cycles and nothing more.
But the reaction to this raid has been nothing like that, because despite what a lot of people claim on tv they all know Trump/Russia is real. Because the real thought is 'oh no, this will likely produce evidence in that very real crime that we've been dishonestly claiming isn't real'. So if you go and look at all the people who are freaking out about this and saying Mueller should be fired, what you are looking at is people who know at the bottom of Trump/Russia are some serious crimes and their reaction has been to lobby to end Mueller's investigation before those crimes are uncovered.
Remember that when everything finally comes to the surface. They knew, and they used their places in the media to try and prevent it being revealed.
nobody wrote: And honestly she hadn’t even tried to market it to those areas either, most of her campaigning was to run up the scoreboard in areas she was already winning.
Yeah, that was one of the weirder complaints I've seen about Clinton's campaign, that she focused on running up big margins in urban areas to offset rural areas. It's a really weird complaint to make against Clinton, because it was the exact same strategy that Obama used successfully.
Granted, the odds of anything passing in the current Congress was already nil.
Pennsylvania is a swing district that includes marginal seats held by both parties. No way in hell either party would stand in the way of special funds going there. Washington is in a logjam, but essential porkbarrel to competitive areas would still get through.
Frazzled wrote: Those workers won't be retrained. That's politician nonsense. When older workers lose their jobs, they almost never get something comparable.
In the space of two posts Frazzled goes from arguing that retraining programs are politician's nonsense that can't help, to claiming that politicians will save free market jobs if enough voters say they should.
This is pure, shameless nonsense.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: When I've seen the democrats speak of these area's it's always in that same elitist tone with that same constant insult of being nothing of worth except to fly over to the more "progressive and better cities". Insulting them and their way of life and with such a derisive tone (that's constantly been sprinkled throughout this thread as well) that it makes it hard to swallow anything. It doesn't help that many policies from them seem to have failed to account for them as well. When all you hear from this party is constant derision and the only reason they seem to want to help you is out of misplaced pity.. Why would you want to take that?
I agree there are issues with Democratic messaging, and especially with Clinton's. However at the same time that Democrats need to consider working on those issues, a large number of voters need to take a really deep look in to how they make their political decisions. When a chucklewit can stand on a podium bragging that 'the uneducated love me' and that doesn't make people write him off as arrogant, and brag about his great wealth and business success, it becomes clear the issue isn't really about arrogance at all.
It's about feelings of inferiorty. One key thing about Trump is no-one ever listened to him and got the impression they were dumber than him. Clinton would give that impression often. That's what voters reacted against, it wasn't Clinton's arrogance, it was how she made them feel like maybe they personally didn't have all the answers.
The last year or so of purebred stupidity in Washington should maybe cause people to re-consider whether picking the candidate who's intelligence isn't threatening is a sound way to decide one's vote.
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Frazzled wrote: Cling to their Bibles and their guns? Just a whole bunch of deplorables?
And here's more of the delusion. Here's what Obama said,
"But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress, uh, when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in, in, Pennsylvania, a lot, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced 'em. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate, and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to their guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or ... uh, anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
So here was a politician saying that because successive administrations from both parties had failed, the voters responded. And people like Frazzled took the conservative misquote, believed that lie entirely, and then bring it up again 8 years later as 'evidence' of Democratic arrogance.
Meanwhile this guy is currently working in Trump's cabinet, but no-one is worried about arrogance or elitism there;
BaronIveagh wrote: Hey, anyone want to talk about the war with Syria that Trump is now mulling over?
I think you should probably start a new thread for that TBH. The ban on US politics never applied to international US politics, only domestic US politics; so it would seem keeping them compartmentalized would be good bookkeeping.
Additionally both US politics and Syria tend to general large numbers of posts in bursts as events unfold so you'd see them drowning each other out.
You read junk and embarrass yourself repeating it here. She has testified she saw a flash through the blindfold, after which he threatened her. None of that was retracted or thrown in to doubt. The big shocking bit of pretend news you've reposted here is that when asked if she saw the camera after the event, she said she wasn't sure, she thought she had, but it might have been in a dream after the event. That's it.
Of course Greitens' lawyer took that bit out of context to mislead the public, and of course the liars in the conservative media rushed to print stories repeating that crap, and of course you believed it.
BaronIveagh wrote: Hey, anyone want to talk about the war with Syria that Trump is now mulling over?
I think you should probably start a new thread for that TBH. The ban on US politics never applied to international US politics, only domestic US politics; so it would seem keeping them compartmentalized would be good bookkeeping.
Additionally both US politics and Syria tend to general large numbers of posts in bursts as events unfold so you'd see them drowning each other out.
my 2 cents, anyway.
Approved. Last thing we need in this thread is the pro-Russian posters locking horns with others in here and adding to the tensions. US pols is touchy enough as js
whembly wrote: EDIT: well to be honest...the crimes Cohen is reportedly being investigated for are bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He provided the probable cause for that out of his own damn mouth in public...such that, he wouldn't shut up.
It's good you added this edit. Because Cohen being in clear breach of the law is exactly why this is treated differently.
There are two key things to keep in mind with all matters relating to Trump and his associates;
1) These people have no moral boundaries. 2) They are not smart people.
If you think I'm being dismissive, especially about a lawyer who surely must be a little bit smart, just remember Michael Cohen went to the hassle of getting a Delaware shell company, because Delaware's extremely lax regs means it is a great place to set up shell companies to hide your money movements, but after going through that, Cohen put his own name on the board of directors. He could have used an alias and none of this would have been discovered, but Cohen is an idiot, because all of Trump's people are idiots.
The only time I've been wrong about Trump and his associate's behavior so far is when I assumed they had limits, or would be smart enough to assess the long term risk wouldn't be worth the short term gain. I don't make that mistake anymore.
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Prestor Jon wrote: I don’t see how Daniels leads to an impeachable offense for Trump unless there’s evidence that Trump knew/directed that campaign funds were used. Being a philanderer isn’t a crime and the Republicans have been embracing and making excuses for “family values” hypocrites in their ranks for as long as I’ve been alive, it’s sad and embarrassing but I’m numb to the outrage of it.
Which is why the FBI was given a warrant to raid Cohen's office, to locate any correspondence showing Trump knew. And it might exist. On the one hand, these are some real idiots with almost no idea about covering the tracks of their crimes; "If it's what you say, I love it. Especially later in the summer." On the other hand, Trump isn't one for using email much himself, so at best you'll have a Trump aide talking about Trump approving, or organising payment or something.
But of course, that's not what this freak out is about at all. Because at worst Trump is found guilty of a technical breach of campaign laws. Democrats aren't going to push for impeachment based on something that minor, they'd never get near the necessary votes in the senate, and more than that I think they'd rather run against Trump in 2020 than have him impeached on something so minor.
But this morning there was a huge freak out by Trump & Friends. Remember this raid wasn't even by Mueller, but Trump's first words to the press this morning, unprompted, was an extended rant against Mueller and his investigation. There's a big reason for that - the FBI now has the emails and records of one of Trump's longtime bagmen. Remember the late campaign news about the FBI maybe having some more of Clinton's emails, it didn't turn out to be anything, but it was found not through investigation of Clinton, but the FBI investigation into Wiener's wiener. Once the FBI has a warrant to investigate one crime, then discovery of evidence of any other crime is a big deal.
Then remember Michael Cohen was identified very early on as a key player in the Trump campaigns contacts with Russia. That's what this is about. That's what got and his friends worked up.
I wonder what the end-game for the Mueller investigation is actually going to be.
1.) Impeachment is not going to happen. No matter how badly the GOP gets rocked in the midterms - and that's far from a given since the Dems can always be counted on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - there is no way they are going to get the numbers needed.
2.) Although this is a grey area, I don't think a sitting president can be indicted, criminally.
3.) The most likely outcome, I think, is Mueller is going to be fired. I think some of Trump's inner circle, beyond what has happened already, will be indicted in New York State when there is jurisdiction, which puts them beyond the reach of a pardon.
Perhaps Trump won't be impeached, but how many crimes will be linked to how many top GOP members? How much of the party is dirty, and how much sunshine can they survive? Perhaps the endgames is to make being an accessory to corruption seem like a losing strategy.
I don't think it's going to reach into the larger GOP at all. Those guys all kind of hate Trump and wanted Jeb! instead, and then there was a frantic anyone-but-Trump push when Jeb! flamed out.
Ouze wrote: I wonder what the end-game for the Mueller investigation is actually going to be.
1.) Impeachment is not going to happen. No matter how badly the GOP gets rocked in the midterms - and that's far from a given since the Dems can always be counted on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - there is no way they are going to get the numbers needed.
2.) Although this is a grey area, I don't think a sitting president can be indicted, criminally.
3.) The most likely outcome, I think, is Mueller is going to be fired. I think some of Trump's inner circle, beyond what has happened already, will be indicted in New York State when there is jurisdiction, which puts them beyond the reach of a pardon.
What do you guys think?
I think likely Trump will be presented with the evidence behind the scenes and come down with an illness. If that doesn't happen, I do think that impeachment is a possibility. They will only come out with the evidence if it is overwhelming enough to get even the republicans on board. It really depends on how far down the rabbit hole things really go.
I'm about 70-30 in favor of Mueller not getting fired. There are enough Republican congressmen who are (rightfully) stating that the investigation needs to be allowed to complete that I think Trump would be wary of firing Mueller. Not so much because he thinks its a bad idea but because its always a popularity contest to him. But then, Trump is Trump.
IF he does fire Mueller then gak will hit the fan. Leaving congressional action aside there would be mass protests and riots. Trump property would probably be targeted and the whole thing will graduate from mere gakshow to gakstorm.
Would Trump give up though. He's pretty much a man that believes in the offense being the best defense. Surprisingly he's been pretty quiet on this topic.
If anyone is wondering how big of a deal today's raid was, here's how Tucker Carlson chose to cover it on his show tonight.
And yes, that is real. You can tell the really big stories when FOX News goes from making up lies claiming actually Hillary Clinton did it, to instead just pretending it isn't happening.
Ouze wrote: I wonder what the end-game for the Mueller investigation is actually going to be.
1.) Impeachment is not going to happen. No matter how badly the GOP gets rocked in the midterms - and that's far from a given since the Dems can always be counted on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - there is no way they are going to get the numbers needed.
2.) Although this is a grey area, I don't think a sitting president can be indicted, criminally.
3.) The most likely outcome, I think, is Mueller is going to be fired. I think some of Trump's inner circle, beyond what has happened already, will be indicted in New York State when there is jurisdiction, which puts them beyond the reach of a pardon.
What do you guys think?
1) a) Impeachment isn't impossible. Much like Nixon, when the news just gets worse and worse every day, there comes a point where congressmen have to accept the president needs to go. But like Nixon, when it reaches that point it will almost certainly be resolved with GOP leaders meeting with Trump and telling him they will impeach if he doesn't resign. I'm not saying that will happen. I don't even think it is more likely than not, because these are very partisan times and a lot of the evidence appears to be flipped witnesses and similar things that sufficiently partisan people can deny. But it is a possibility, if Mueller's case is overwhelming.
1) b) There is also a question on how hard Democrats will push for impeachment. There is no person in the United States that Democrats want to run against in 2020 more than Trump. Republican policy has helped a lot, but Trump is a major reason for the blue wave.
2) I agree indictment won't happen. If they have a case strong enough to charge a sitting president, its not a case they'll waste by risking a loss on an obscure legal matter.
3) I'm less sure of this. Firing Mueller makes Trump's guilt certain in the mind of anyone who isn't a rabid partisan. That would make it political suicide for Republicans in congress to carry on pretending everything is fine. I think this is the balancing act that's kept Mueller's investigation still going so far. I think the best option for Trump & Republicans is to deny, distract and discredit from the sidelines, then when Mueller tables his report Republicans control the release, if they still hold the House. They can stop any really damning findings reaching the public, at least long enough for it to minimise the electoral impact (post 2020).
NinthMusketeer wrote: [Guess they're screwed then. Because all of those things you shot down can all potentially work, trying to bring back obselete jobs certainly won't. Which raises the question of if people like you even want things to work out or would rather make excuses for people mooching off welfare.
"People like you" The insulting and condescending tone is not really needed at all. Also "Mooching off welfare" comes back to my thoughts on people looking down on such people and you've managed to prove my point on that account while ignoring everything else I've said on the matter.
I want things to work! Why would I want people to suffer in area's that are increasingly becoming problems for the people to live in it. To think that I'm making excuses for people while pointing out the issues with such programs because nobody really seems to give a damn about the people that live in them.
It's more that you complained about a situation, people offered solutions, and you shot them down. It reads as a simple refusal to help oneself so you can see why that generates a negative attitude. Doubly so when these are the same people bemoaning how lazy my generation (millenials) is. So yeah, I do resent the attitude you are expressing. 'Treat others the way you want to be treated' cuts both ways; I am returning the lack of sympathy that these people are demonstrating they want to be treated with.
That said you are right I shouldn't have said 'people like you' and phrased it as 'people with your opinion' instead.
Shot them down? I mentioned how they worked and how they didn't work. You can clearly say "Do this and that for instant success!" but reality tends to have an effect when things are put into actual practice. Bemoaning that I simply "complained" when it seems like you skimmed over what I said as I clearly was discussing what happened with each and why not all of them are directly feasible without full help, and given what you are saying here it sounds more like you are using me as a target for people you clearly dislike rather then actually arguing with me in good faith.
And returning the lack of sympathy to me who has not expressed any such views.. Well, good luck with that then.
You are making a dishonest argument based off misrepresenting the discussion.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Right then! Having lived in one of those towns for a while I can certainly mention the issues with such.
A different job: Many jobs in those sorts of towns tend to end up being service level jobs either working in a gas station, Walmart sort of supercenter or local variety, or a variety of other local area's that are trying to get by either as a craftsman. The issue with the last bit is that in many such towns there's already major competition with those that are already established and many times there's not much point in going further out with it.
Different skill: Same as the first, you can get all you want but most of the time you'll be getting low level jobs regardless of how good a degree and education you may have. If you are lucky you may be able to get an apprenticeship at a local shop for something major but in most cases you'll be out of luck
Moving: You already live in an area where you are struggling to make funds meet.. The issue is now you have to make money and somehow achieve enough to exit out and still have funds to move along with money to buy/rent in another city and have enough that you can potentially find a job in an area before your fund runs out and you end up on the streets.
At it's core many of these towns practically rely on people helping each other because there's really not much else. There's no people coming in and there's no jobs coming in to help refresh the population but you don't tend to have the money to be able to relocate either. So you're stuck in said dead end area just hoping that something will come along. You can say "Get a job elsewhere" but the reality is there's many barriers to achieving such.
It seems you may have missed where I was talking about programs with D-Usa given that he basically just said at the time "These people need to get a new job, new training, or leave" which is what i was discussing during that. Many of the problems is that the programs need to be far more structured and overall provide better help to the people.. But they never seem to fix the towns issues because in general there's still no jobs at the locations these people are retrained for. So the skilled labor will end up leaving in the end, potentially making the towns situation worse. So in general this whole situation is far more complicated when it comes to the various issues when it comes to the towns in general.
ZebioLizard2 wrote: Having actually seen some of those programs it's a mixed bag.. You get some that are actually well enough off but provide only jobs that tend to be outside the town to begin with.. But at the same they have a very specific number of people they can do this with and honestly they don't help the issues of the town in general.. At the rate most of these tend to work you might as well start figuring out how to dismantle the town and get everyone elsewhere.
The others I've seen are preparing you to work at Wal-Mart which isn't.. exactly something anyone wants to end up for. And given the size of many of those small rural towns they really cannot go the way of Oklahoma city because they honestly don't have anything comparable to the size and/or infrastructure already in place. So while that's an interesting anecdote, it doesn't apply to places that quite literally survived and thrived only because of one specific industry with no other massive infrastructure.
It doesn't help that many policies on the matter of retraining and relocation have been promised and failed on other accounts that I've seen.
Ouze wrote: I don't think it's going to reach into the larger GOP at all. Those guys all kind of hate Trump and wanted Jeb! instead, and then there was a frantic anyone-but-Trump push when Jeb! flamed out.
Nunes has actively covered for Trump through manipulating the House Intel committee. Ryan has received multiple, substantiated complaints of Nunes behaviour, and done nothing. During the campaign McConnell, along with other party leaders, received an intel briefing during the election about the investigation in to Trump - McConnell responded by saying if any of it was made public he would make the whole thing a partisan issue.
And of course, Pence has spent this whole time claiming he didn't know about what was that happening, but it's already been proven he lied about at least a few instances, and of course he was the guy that Manafort hand picked for the VP position. That might have been just an astute piece of politics (he really helped bring in the evangelicals), but at this point who knows.
Now, if nothing really damning about Trump is ever found, then probably none of the above matters. But consider how those will look in an environment where it is proven that Trump worked with Russia, or something similar. Not saying it will happen, but a lot of stuff that's happened that's looks suss will look absolutely appalling in an environment where Trump is known and proven to be clearly guilty.
Ouze wrote: I don't think it's going to reach into the larger GOP at all. Those guys all kind of hate Trump and wanted Jeb! instead, and then there was a frantic anyone-but-Trump push when Jeb! flamed out.
This is why IMO impeachment is a possibility. The party wants an R in the white house and will take Trump over a D, but not at the expense of going down with the sinking ship. If the case against Trump gets bad enough his usefulness ends and they'll turn on him to try to salvage their re-election chances.
Peregrine wrote: This is why IMO impeachment is a possibility. The party wants an R in the white house and will take Trump over a D, but not at the expense of going down with the sinking ship. If the case against Trump gets bad enough his usefulness ends and they'll turn on him to try to salvage their re-election chances.
Giving up Trump may be a way for Republicans to end the investigation and avoid it spreading out and dragging in more and more people on the fringes of whatever it was that happened. Its important to remember how much the party got Trumpified after he won the nomination, and then even more after he won the general. Today's raid wasn't just a raid of Trump's lawyer, it was also a raid of the Deputy Chair of the Republican National Finance Committee.
Then note that the first guy to be sentenced in this investigation was Alex van der Zwaan, he was convicted of lying to the FBI, but he was in that position because he started out doing some professional work for Manafort* which put him in a compromising position. How many people in the greater Republican machine would be similarly compromised by work done with Trump, Manafort, Cohen etc during the 2016 campaign? How many people in Republican inner circles would be comfortable sitting in front of the FBI to answer questions about the timing of Kushner's loan request from Qatar, and US approval of the Saudi blockade?
It could be at some point Republicans decide giving up Trump and is pretty cheap compared risking the investigation becoming a blackhole.
Of course, that's all speculation dependent on what Mueller finds. But it gives another possibility for how Republicans might shift loyalty very quickly.
* Also he's married to the daughter of a Russian oligarch, he wasn't a guy out of nowhere, but still.
Ouze wrote: why coal miners are treated with such reverence, and yet it's socially acceptable to mock fast food workers as losers.
Same kind of cultural reason that we’re supposed to worship a guy who drove an army truck in Germany for 3 years but it’s ok to gak all over educators that are bringing up our kids and actually affecting the future of our country.
Great solution to that, EVERY public sector employee makes $40,000-50,000 a year. No exceptions. Teachers. DMV workers. The President and every member of Congress. All across the board. OR drop all their pay to the level of teachers.
Are you aware that the median salary required to own a home in the San Francisco bay area is $170,000 a year?
Well, clearly the Nuclear Physicist, Cardiac Surgeon, Accountant, and the Janitor can all house together to pool their $40,000-50,000 in order to make rent.
And how many of those occupations are public sector? I realize that you feel this overwhelming urge to twist Rule #1 into a pretzel while shilling your beliefs, but I at least thought you had some reading comprehension skills.
Now, take those skills and look up some of the ridiculous government employee salaries. You know, the ones paid for by the same taxes as the teachers? Well, maybe not federal money. Fair point. Federalize the teachers' jobs. Make them federal employees.
The point I was trying to make, that I really should have written an in depth book to explain the subtleties of, is that we seem to have no problem with our legislators making 6-7 figures a year while our teachers barely exceed minimum wage. We don't need to increase government spending to increase teachers' salaries, pay the government employees that make 6-7 figures a year less.
Nuclear Physicist, Cardiac Surgeon, Accountant and Janitor are all government jobs. Those people could all be employed in the public sector somewhere. Cutting one persons wage to pay another makes no sense at all, unless you can point to a government employee that makes way beyond the market rate? Making every government employee pay the same makes no sense at all, unless you are a communist country (and no, I'm not making one of those hyperbolic communist references, it is literally the only place that has flat wages, and even then they end up very quickly having to incentivise).
If you have flat wages you end up having some jobs impossible to fill. How many medical officers will be willing to work for the department of veteran affairs for $40000?
Given the quality of care I receive at the VA, I'd say $40,000 is overpaid.
However, I get the point. It was bad to discount those jobs, but it seemed like the worst example to throw in as public sector. Those four jobs are available in the public AND private sector, which is why I was discounting it.
Once again, however, all one needs to do is look at the pay for congresspersons, and for thrills look up how many of them are still running their private law practices and what they make. We definitely have an issue with our budget, and educators seem to be the worst place to spend light.
There are also teachers in the private sector. Lots and lots of them. When you take in to account trainers in companies there are probably more private sector teachers than public sector.
So am I to assume that everyone would be completely opposed to privatizing all teaching jobs? Because we're fresh out of realistic options at this point. State governments don't want to pay teachers a fair wage, from what I see, and if we're going to pay for our children's education anyway, might as well skip that unnecessary government step.
No but seriously, on the night that the FBI raided the office of the President's long time personal lawyer, a man who is also the Deputy Chair of the Republican National Finance Committee, Tucker Carlson didn't have time for that story, because he needed to talk about panda sex.
Just Tony wrote: The point I was trying to make, that I really should have written an in depth book to explain the subtleties of, is that we seem to have no problem with our legislators making 6-7 figures a year while our teachers barely exceed minimum wage. We don't need to increase government spending to increase teachers' salaries, pay the government employees that make 6-7 figures a year less.
You've looked at this 100% the wrong around. Government pay scales are very flat - they're fairly close to the private sector at the starting levels, even higher for some types of work, but they don't rise anywhere near as quickly as the private sector. A state governor will be overseeing a budget of several billion dollars, and getting paid maybe $140k. Do you think there's a CEO operating a billion dollar company anywhere on the planet that isn't getting more than ten times that governor?
And sure, the governor is only one example, but its throughout high end jobs. When health administrators and civil engineers and lawyers shift from the private to the public sector, they're taking a pay cut. They run surveys constantly, the reason people in high end jobs move to government - work life balance, stability & service. The reason they go from public to private - more pay.
There's money to be saved in public sector budgets. I know, it was until fairly recently what I did for a living. But the savings are found in cutting admin, reforming processes, and by asking if specific services are really so important they are worth borrowing money for. It isn't found in cutting the salaries of high level management and specialist skillsets.
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Just Tony wrote: So am I to assume that everyone would be completely opposed to privatizing all teaching jobs? Because we're fresh out of realistic options at this point. State governments don't want to pay teachers a fair wage, from what I see, and if we're going to pay for our children's education anyway, might as well skip that unnecessary government step.
Voters can put pressure on the people they elect to change it. What's wrong with people paying more tax or funding taken from other places? It does not have to be a direct "We will pay X people less to pay teachers more" but "We will cut X budget and move it to education". That seems the realistic and sensible option, for democracy to work the way it should.
There's money to be saved in public sector budgets. I know, it was until fairly recently what I did for a living. But the savings are found in cutting admin, reforming processes, and by asking if specific services are really so important they are worth borrowing money for. It isn't found in cutting the salaries of high level management and specialist skillsets.
I'm guessing the issue is the same the world over though with that. It will cost money to save money. You have to spend money right now to save 10 times the amount in future, but you can't get that starting money now, and no one wants to pay it in the public sector.
As much as it might be unpopular I think the US could easily cut back on military spending to pay for a raise for teachers. I mean, our spending is something like the next 7 biggest countries combined iirc.
(I.e. I think we could skip the next aircraft carrier or the fleet of b21 stealth bombers)
sebster wrote: No but seriously, on the night that the FBI raided the office of the President's long time personal lawyer, a man who is also the Deputy Chair of the Republican National Finance Committee, Tucker Carlson didn't have time for that story, because he needed to talk about panda sex.
Its Carlson digging deep. Fox News learned that Daniels found out about Cohen's fetish for pandas. Now obviously Trump couldn't let his good friend get blackmailed, who knows what he might say? So generous as he is, he allowed Cohen to pay off Daniels to keep quiet about the pandas (who may or may not have been FBI plants by Obama in the first place). I'm still missing Clinton, but its almost going full circle
If stuff turns up, and the Dems come up ahead in the midterms, I can see the GOP come on board with impeachment. If they do, it won’t happen until after January 2019. The GOP wants Pence, and by not impeaching until Trump hits 2 years +1 day Pence will remain eligible for 2 more Terms of his own. So nothing will happen that would take 4 years away from Pence, but I can see the GOP cutting their losses and placing their bets on 10 years of Pence.
d-usa wrote: I’m sticking to my previous impeachment theory:
If stuff turns up, and the Dems come up ahead in the midterms, I can see the GOP come on board with impeachment. If they do, it won’t happen until after January 2019. The GOP wants Pence, and by not impeaching until Trump hits 2 years +1 day Pence will remain eligible for 2 more Terms of his own. So nothing will happen that would take 4 years away from Pence, but I can see the GOP cutting their losses and placing their bets on 10 years of Pence.
Doesn't that only work with the assumption that the Republican base will fall back in line and vote for a generic Republican candidate - which was soundly shattered with the 2016 election? It's not as though Pence has any sort of positive history that he could run on aside from hanging onto Trump's coattails, and by 2020 that might leave his hands politically radioactive.
If Trump himself becomes so much of a liability that the Dems sweep in the midterms, I would expect the GOP to cut their losses and chalk it up as a one-time fluke and try their hands at repairing their brand (like they say they will do after ever defeat) and going with the establishment option in Pence.
d-usa wrote: I’m sticking to my previous impeachment theory:
If stuff turns up, and the Dems come up ahead in the midterms, I can see the GOP come on board with impeachment. If they do, it won’t happen until after January 2019. The GOP wants Pence, and by not impeaching until Trump hits 2 years +1 day Pence will remain eligible for 2 more Terms of his own. So nothing will happen that would take 4 years away from Pence, but I can see the GOP cutting their losses and placing their bets on 10 years of Pence.
Do they really want Pence? I mean, his popularity numbers aren't exactly impressing anyone and the whole "Jesus hates you, now give me a tax cut" thing doesn't seem like the best way to try to appeal to anyone outside the rabid Trump fans (IOW, the people they need to win back to have any hope of keeping power). And that's before we add any guilt by association factor from being the vice president to someone who makes Nixon look scandal-free, assuming the various speculation turns into proof of impeachable offenses. I just don't see anything about him that would be so irreplaceable that keeping him eligible for 10 years is a priority.
d-usa wrote: I’m sticking to my previous impeachment theory:
If stuff turns up, and the Dems come up ahead in the midterms, I can see the GOP come on board with impeachment. If they do, it won’t happen until after January 2019. The GOP wants Pence, and by not impeaching until Trump hits 2 years +1 day Pence will remain eligible for 2 more Terms of his own. So nothing will happen that would take 4 years away from Pence, but I can see the GOP cutting their losses and placing their bets on 10 years of Pence.
Do they really want Pence? I mean, his popularity numbers aren't exactly impressing anyone and the whole "Jesus hates you, now give me a tax cut" thing doesn't seem like the best way to try to appeal to anyone outside the rabid Trump fans (IOW, the people they need to win back to have any hope of keeping power). And that's before we add any guilt by association factor from being the vice president to someone who makes Nixon look scandal-free, assuming the various speculation turns into proof of impeachable offenses. I just don't see anything about him that would be so irreplaceable that keeping him eligible for 10 years is a priority.
That's all great, but are you really thinking like a GOP strategist here?
d-usa wrote: That's all great, but are you really thinking like a GOP strategist here?
Yes, and that's my point. Obviously I personally hate Pence and would never vote for him, because he's the opposite of me on pretty much every issue. But what I can't see is why the republican party would love him so much that exploiting a technicality in the rules is essential to keep him for 10 years, after he has been damaged by association with an impeached president. He's just a generic white Christian man who votes reliably for tax cuts for the rich, hardly a rare and priceless asset. Nothing about him appeals to anyone outside of the base, the people who are going to vote R no matter whose name is next to that R.
sebster wrote: No but seriously, on the night that the FBI raided the office of the President's long time personal lawyer, a man who is also the Deputy Chair of the Republican National Finance Committee, Tucker Carlson didn't have time for that story, because he needed to talk about panda sex.
I'm still wondering what genius at Fox News decided that it was worth paying Tucker Carlson a salary after he flamed out on CNN when John Stewart went on his show and humiliated him so bad on national evening television it got Carlson's show cancelled. That segment alone should have been enough to kill any job prospects.
d-usa wrote: That's all great, but are you really thinking like a GOP strategist here?
Yes, and that's my point. Obviously I personally hate Pence and would never vote for him, because he's the opposite of me on pretty much every issue. But what I can't see is why the republican party would love him so much that exploiting a technicality in the rules is essential to keep him for 10 years, after he has been damaged by association with an impeached president.
Because:
He's just a generic white Christian man who votes reliably for tax cuts for the rich
And he's anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-immigration, etc etc etc. Just your typical generic (but reliable) GOP candidate.
Nothing about him appeals to anyone outside of the base, the people who are going to vote R no matter whose name is next to that R.
They've always been all about that base, 'bout that base, no treble.
nobody wrote: And honestly she hadn’t even tried to market it to those areas either, most of her campaigning was to run up the scoreboard in areas she was already winning.
Yeah, that was one of the weirder complaints I've seen about Clinton's campaign, that she focused on running up big margins in urban areas to offset rural areas. It's a really weird complaint to make against Clinton, because it was the exact same strategy that Obama used successfully.
Granted, the odds of anything passing in the current Congress was already nil.
Pennsylvania is a swing district that includes marginal seats held by both parties. No way in hell either party would stand in the way of special funds going there. Washington is in a logjam, but essential porkbarrel to competitive areas would still get through.
Obama did make smaller venue stops, but I was more referring to skipping campaign stops in those states (number of Wisconsin stops after the primary? 0).
And no, Republicans are very happy with blocking funds for their own voters while relying on othering, bibles, and guns to keep them in check. Paul Ryan got a reputation as a granny starver for a reason.
But the whole point about "generic white Christian man who reliably votes for tax cuts for the rich" is that they're generic. If one particular option doesn't work out there are plenty more lined up and waiting. Nothing about Pence is exceptional enough to go out of their way to give him eligibility for 10 years, especially in a situation where Trump is about to be impeached and make Pence look really bad for being associated with him too closely. Dump Pence, find a random governor or senator or whatever with no unfortunate Trump ties to be the "generic white Christian man who reliably votes for tax cuts for the rich" candidate. Delaying impeachment, making the entire party look bad in the process, to preserve a candidate who is entirely replaceable would be insanity.
d-usa wrote: If Trump himself becomes so much of a liability that the Dems sweep in the midterms, I would expect the GOP to cut their losses and chalk it up as a one-time fluke and try their hands at repairing their brand (like they say they will do after ever defeat) and going with the establishment option in Pence.
The problem for the GOP is that there are large elements of the base that have formed a bonafide cult of personality around Trump. I forget which GOP Congressman said it, but he described how it's gotten 'tribal'. That when you show up for an event, they don't even care much about issues. The only thing they want to know is whether you support Trump or not. And the GOP can't afford to have parts of their base sit out elections, at least not at a national level and not at many state levels.
So no, I really don't expect that the Republicans in Congress will turn on Trump, at least not so long as FOX and other personalities continue whipping Trump's supporters into a frenzy. And why would they stop? I thought differently about all of this 12 months ago, just because politicians tend to behave in self-interested ways. But I'm increasingly convinced that they see less future for themselves if they turn on Trump. Dumping him and installing Pence would be a rational move, but the base isn't behaving rationally.
Despite what Graham and some others have said, if Trump moves to fire Mueller, I believe almost all of the GOP in Congress will either be sweeping or lifting the rug. Honestly, do we have even a single piece of evidence to suggest otherwise?
Vaktathi wrote: I'm still wondering what genius at Fox News decided that it was worth paying Tucker Carlson a salary after he flamed out on CNN when John Stewart went on his show and humiliated him so bad on national evening television it got Carlson's show cancelled. That segment alone should have been enough to kill any job prospects.
Yeah, I think some people just shouldn't get a second chance - Sean Spicer comes to mind. I think it would be reasonable for him to slide back into those bushes and remain forever unhireable.
Peregrine wrote: But the whole point about "generic white Christian man who reliably votes for tax cuts for the rich" is that they're generic. If one particular option doesn't work out there are plenty more lined up and waiting. Nothing about Pence is exceptional enough to go out of their way to give him eligibility for 10 years, especially in a situation where Trump is about to be impeached and make Pence look really bad for being associated with him too closely. Dump Pence, find a random governor or senator or whatever with no unfortunate Trump ties to be the "generic white Christian man who reliably votes for tax cuts for the rich" candidate. Delaying impeachment, making the entire party look bad in the process, to preserve a candidate who is entirely replaceable would be insanity.
It's not delaying much, considering that there is zero for him to be impeached over at this time anyway. If something shows up, and if there are hearings, and/or if the democrats take over the house (and maybe the Senate), then you might have the possibility of impeachment. But nothing is happening until any of those things happen. So by the time some of those things might happen, it will be close to January anyway, if they even happen at all.
And at that point the GOP will still have the numbers in the Senate anyway to prevent the removal of Trump if, and only if, the House votes to impeach to begin with. So unless the GOP wants to impeach Trump, he's not getting impeached because there is no way that the Democrats end up with 67 Senate seats.
So if something comes up, either some real impeachable dirt on Trump or a Democratic wave so big that the GOP just can't ignore it (with the Democrats having every opportunity to piss it away in the next 7 months), the GOP then has to make a choice:
A) Keep on defending Trump, hope he doesn't drag the party down much more in 2 years, and run him against the Democratic Candidate while hoping that he doesn't cause an increased turnout among Democrats affecting the ballot on all levels in a year where redistricting is on the line.
B) Keep on defending Trump, fight a dirty primary, and almost guarantee that you will end up losing in 2020 no matter which GOP candidate wins.
C) Sacrifice Trump, elevate Pence, and count on the fact that voters don't remember gak in 2 years while you rebuild your establishment GOP brand.
I'm not saying C is a great option, but it's probably the best option they have. And if they get rid of Trump, they won't do it in a way that would take a 4 year term away from Pence.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Meanwhile, absolutely everyone is shocked that the tax cuts are not paying for themselves:
Vaktathi wrote: I'm still wondering what genius at Fox News decided that it was worth paying Tucker Carlson a salary after he flamed out on CNN when John Stewart went on his show and humiliated him so bad on national evening television it got Carlson's show cancelled. That segment alone should have been enough to kill any job prospects.
Yeah, I think some people just shouldn't get a second chance - Sean Spicer comes to mind. I think it would be reasonable for him to slide back into those bushes and remain forever unhireable.
Oh man, between him and Sanders, I'm not sure which is worse, and I'm not sure which one I have less respect for, both seem determined to ruin their personal credibility and standing in the most dramatic fashion possible for someone who obviously isn't going to reciprocate. Like...even for people who share the same views, these are not competent people.
d-usa wrote: And if they get rid of Trump, they won't do it in a way that would take a 4 year term away from Pence.
But this is what I don't get. Why does it matter if Pence loses a 4-year term? I suppose incumbent advantage is a thing, if he gets elected in the first place despite being a weak candidate, but I'm not seeing any meaningful difference between 6 years of Pence followed by Pence trying to loophole his way to 10 and 6 years of Pence followed by the next generic white Christian who reliably votes for tax cuts for the rich. The only reason anyone (outside of the hardcore zealots) wants to see him as president is the fact that he's next in line and can't be worse than what we have now. If Pence had to run a primary campaign against his fellow republicans there wouldn't be anything to set him apart from the endless sea of generic white Christians and their identical tax plans.
What I would expect is option D: sacrifice Trump, allow Pence to stay on the condition that he gracefully decides to pursue alternative career options after his brief term is up, and run someone with no Trump ties in 2020 on a platform of "we're sorry Trump hijacked our party, but we cleaned him out". Pence is just damaged goods at that point and brings nothing to the table compared to the alternative 2020 candidates.
BaronIveagh wrote: Hey, anyone want to talk about the war with Syria that Trump is now mulling over?
He'll bend over for Putin soon enough. The US simply doesn't have the local backing to make a victory in Syria even if Russia wasn't involved. Moreover, Russia's citizens are interested in them pursuing the war (to prove their countries strength) - America's citizens will just punish Trump for it. That's not even getting to the fact that Trump was an isolationist even when he was a Democrat.
Russia has sensed that America has mostly lost it's collective will to fight foreign wars and is looking to take the spot of global regime builder. It's not going to back down because of a couple punitive drone strikes. Trump will blow up something Syrian, pretend it's a deterrent, and continue reducing force numbers there.
Radio 4 had a US ex-military or security person the other day.
He said what needs to happen is for the USA to make a small coalition. Naming no names it needs to include say the UK, France and Israel, as these countries have regional interests and heritagae, and useful bases. Then build up a significant air force in the area.
Then warn Russia you are going to wipe out Assad's air force, so they need to get their guys out of the target areas.
Then wipe out Assad's air force, including all the airfields, aircraft, refuelling facilities, bomb dumps and maintenance facilities.
I dare say the USA plus France, UK and Israel must have the wherewithall to do this, if the political will could be found. I doubt that Russia actually has the capability to prevent it, without entering into a direct power to power battle over Syria.
It's true that the West lost the best chance to intervene effectively in Syria due to vacillation during the Obama presidency. Crying and wringing our hands about that won't improve the situation now. Neither will doing nothing, or piddling about with a cruise missile strike.
So with this precedent when can we expect the US attorney and FBI raids on Perkins Coie or the law firms handling the highly suspect (RICO and/or Logan Act anyone?) matters of the Clinton Foundation?
Shall I hold my breath? ...or is it some animals are more equal than others?
EDIT: well to be honest...the crimes Cohen is reportedly being investigated for are bank fraud and campaign finance violations. He provided the probable cause for that out of his own damn mouth in public...such that, he wouldn't shut up.
What precedent? The issue with Stormy Daniels is simple, did the money she was paid by Trump/his people come from his campaign funds? If the money came from campaign funds then that was an illegal act. The best way for the .gov to trace the money is to seize the books and correspondence from Trump’s staff and legal team that pertains to Daniels and track the money and decision making process.
I don’t see how Daniels leads to an impeachable offense for Trump unless there’s evidence that Trump knew/directed that campaign funds were used. Being a philanderer isn’t a crime and the Republicans have been embracing and making excuses for “family values” hypocrites in their ranks for as long as I’ve been alive, it’s sad and embarrassing but I’m numb to the outrage of it.
If there was a similar possible crime hanging over HRC or TCF I’d want it investigated too but I can’t think of one at the moment.
The precedent being that the NY FBI office raided a sitting President's personal lawyer over attorney-client privileged documents.
The FBI *had* to get several prior authorizations from Federal Magistrate and either approval from DOJ, or invoked existing regulations. The bar is REALLY high to go after this... meaning, they have something specifically that a judge signed off to do this.
If all this is kosher... Cohen is fethed.
My point is simply this: They better have the goods on Cohen. If they don't... woah momma, buckle your seatbelts.
EDIT: what 'D' said.
If the FBI did a no knock in NYC, you can bet your grannie's ass they have met the requirements for a warrant.
Cohen is screwed. Now we see if he rolls on Trump. Trump defending him when it was His appointee(a devotee of Guiliani which means he is hard core) who pursued the warrant is foolhardy.
You read junk and embarrass yourself repeating it here. She has testified she saw a flash through the blindfold, after which he threatened her. None of that was retracted or thrown in to doubt. The big shocking bit of pretend news you've reposted here is that when asked if she saw the camera after the event, she said she wasn't sure, she thought she had, but it might have been in a dream after the event. That's it.
Of course Greitens' lawyer took that bit out of context to mislead the public, and of course the liars in the conservative media rushed to print stories repeating that crap, and of course you believed it.
No... I've read the whole thing... ITS IN MY FREAKING HOMETOWN LIBERALPAPER.
My point is that this is a huge mess. The prosecutor withheldthat part of the testimony as that part is just recently been made aware.
She did in fact say during the deposition that she can't be sure Greitens did the very thing he's being indicted for, and in fact may have only "dreamed" it.
What hasn't changed was that the woman claimed that on multiple occasions that he photographed her without her consent and threatened to release the image if she told anyone about their relationship.
It's a trainwreck for multiple reasons dude... can't you see that?
Dial back the sanctimony seb... jeez, it's reaction like this that gets this thread locked down.
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Ouze wrote: If Trump gets impeached I can't see any way possible Pence remains a viable candidate. I think he's irrevocably tainted by association.
Was Gore tainted from Clinton's impeachment? I don't really recall...
Kilkrazy wrote: Radio 4 had a US ex-military or security person the other day.
He said what needs to happen is for the USA to make a small coalition. Naming no names it needs to include say the UK, France and Israel, as these countries have regional interests and heritagae, and useful bases. Then build up a significant air force in the area.
Then warn Russia you are going to wipe out Assad's air force, so they need to get their guys out of the target areas.
Then wipe out Assad's air force, including all the airfields, aircraft, refuelling facilities, bomb dumps and maintenance facilities.
I dare say the USA plus France, UK and Israel must have the wherewithall to do this, if the political will could be found. I doubt that Russia actually has the capability to prevent it, without entering into a direct power to power battle over Syria.
It's true that the West lost the best chance to intervene effectively in Syria due to vacillation during the Obama presidency. Crying and wringing our hands about that won't improve the situation now. Neither will doing nothing, or piddling about with a cruise missile strike.
Russia will put modern air defense systems around key targets to help their ally Assad. How many planes and pilots do the countries in the coalition want to lose to make a futile political gesture that won't stop the civil war in Syria? There's a reason that Trump launched missiles at that airfield instead of sending planes. Nobody wants to take casualties for the sake of hurting Assad. Nobody wants to take him out either. A coalition that topples Assad then becomes responsible for the chaotic power vacuum that is created and nobody wants to invest the lives, time and money needed to rebuild Syria. Trump will likely launch some more cruise missiles to create a distraction for a news cycle, not much else will change.
Kilkrazy wrote: Radio 4 had a US ex-military or security person the other day.
He said what needs to happen is for the USA to make a small coalition. Naming no names it needs to include say the UK, France and Israel, as these countries have regional interests and heritagae, and useful bases. Then build up a significant air force in the area.
Then warn Russia you are going to wipe out Assad's air force, so they need to get their guys out of the target areas.
Then wipe out Assad's air force, including all the airfields, aircraft, refuelling facilities, bomb dumps and maintenance facilities.
I dare say the USA plus France, UK and Israel must have the wherewithall to do this, if the political will could be found. I doubt that Russia actually has the capability to prevent it, without entering into a direct power to power battle over Syria.
It's true that the West lost the best chance to intervene effectively in Syria due to vacillation during the Obama presidency. Crying and wringing our hands about that won't improve the situation now. Neither will doing nothing, or piddling about with a cruise missile strike.
Russia will put modern air defense systems around key targets to help their ally Assad. How many planes and pilots do the countries in the coalition want to lose to make a futile political gesture that won't stop the civil war in Syria? There's a reason that Trump launched missiles at that airfield instead of sending planes. Nobody wants to take casualties for the sake of hurting Assad. Nobody wants to take him out either. A coalition that topples Assad then becomes responsible for the chaotic power vacuum that is created and nobody wants to invest the lives, time and money needed to rebuild Syria. Trump will likely launch some more cruise missiles to create a distraction for a news cycle, not much else will change.
Do you mean Russian troops operating Russian material? Or Russian will sell or donate some AA gear to Syrian forces. Because Russian and Coalition forces shooting directly at each other is not how proxy wars are fought.
Kilkrazy wrote: Radio 4 had a US ex-military or security person the other day.
He said what needs to happen is for the USA to make a small coalition. Naming no names it needs to include say the UK, France and Israel, as these countries have regional interests and heritagae, and useful bases. Then build up a significant air force in the area.
Then warn Russia you are going to wipe out Assad's air force, so they need to get their guys out of the target areas.
Then wipe out Assad's air force, including all the airfields, aircraft, refuelling facilities, bomb dumps and maintenance facilities.
I dare say the USA plus France, UK and Israel must have the wherewithall to do this, if the political will could be found. I doubt that Russia actually has the capability to prevent it, without entering into a direct power to power battle over Syria.
It's true that the West lost the best chance to intervene effectively in Syria due to vacillation during the Obama presidency. Crying and wringing our hands about that won't improve the situation now. Neither will doing nothing, or piddling about with a cruise missile strike.
Russia will put modern air defense systems around key targets to help their ally Assad. How many planes and pilots do the countries in the coalition want to lose to make a futile political gesture that won't stop the civil war in Syria? There's a reason that Trump launched missiles at that airfield instead of sending planes. Nobody wants to take casualties for the sake of hurting Assad. Nobody wants to take him out either. A coalition that topples Assad then becomes responsible for the chaotic power vacuum that is created and nobody wants to invest the lives, time and money needed to rebuild Syria. Trump will likely launch some more cruise missiles to create a distraction for a news cycle, not much else will change.
Do you mean Russian troops operating Russian material? Or Russian will sell or donate some AA gear to Syrian forces. Because Russian and Coalition forces shooting directly at each other is not how proxy wars are fought.
Russia already gave Syria Russian operated S-400 missile batteries back in 2015. Which is the most modern Russia sells them. It doesn't seem to have stopped the Israelis. As I said in the ISIS thread:
Any war would require some serious nation building. Imagine the extent of damage that could be done to the overall region if the US just barges in, pushes the Assad regime to the point of implosion and just leaves? It would only make it a worse hell hole. Last time there wasn't a clear power in Syria we got IS and look where that crazy train ended up going. I still support intervention but its going to be so much harder today to do right. I don't doubt the competency of the US military to win, I very much question the civilian administration's ability to finish it.
Trump going to war against Assad needs a nation building plan. Otherwise you would leave a massive power vacuum on the border of a NATO ally and Iraq. Worst of all, not finishing it properly would allow Assad and or Putin a chance to try and get back in it and feth over civilians for another few years, because none of the rebels have the power left to win. There is no power now that can just take over from Assad. Not engaging in nation building after toppling Assad is going to result in Somalian circumstances.
Just throwing a few bombs around isn't going to help anyone besides Trump putting on a show.
Honestly I don't even know the proper place to post this but here we go.
Trump bombed Russia's ally in a country where Russia is directly supporting their ally.
The US military obliterated a group of Russian 'mercenaries', much like the ones fighting around Donetsk airport back in the day.
I can't for the life of me, remember a time when any of this would have been considered. We are really living in different times.
The US and Soviet Union had a healthy respect for one another, despite all the games they played. I don't think that is going to be the case with the US and Russia in the foreseeable future. I think things are going to go gradually downhill.
Is Trump at that phase of his 'Art of the Deal' where he got what he wanted from Putin and is now just going to walk away from his part of the bargain?
KTG17 wrote: The US military obliterated a group of Russian 'mercenaries', much like the ones fighting around Donetsk airport back in the day.
Man I remember when I read about that, I was thinking some gak is about to go down. And then.... nothing? Super weird. I don't really understand the motivation behind the attack, and why they were so readily abandoned.
KTG17 wrote: Honestly I don't even know the proper place to post this but here we go.
Trump bombed Russia's ally in a country where Russia is directly supporting their ally.
The US military obliterated a group of Russian 'mercenaries', much like the ones fighting around Donetsk airport back in the day.
I can't for the life of me, remember a time when any of this would have been considered. We are really living in different times.
The US and Soviet Union had a healthy respect for one another, despite all the games they played. I don't think that is going to be the case with the US and Russia in the foreseeable future. I think things are going to go gradually downhill.
increasingly, as Seb put it in the Russia poisoning thread, I am suspecting we may be dealing with people on all sides who just arent actually very good at their jobs.
The current US administration is its own form of circus, while the Kremlin stages its own display, and a lot of actors are on relatively long leashes and blunder into stupid mistakes because theyre not coordinating through centralized channels and are led by people who are far more into politics and causes than being professional at what they do.
Properly coordinated professional forces dont blunder into well supported entrenched and prepared positions held by a global superpower.
KTG17 wrote: Honestly I don't even know the proper place to post this but here we go.
Trump bombed Russia's ally in a country where Russia is directly supporting their ally.
The US military obliterated a group of Russian 'mercenaries', much like the ones fighting around Donetsk airport back in the day.
I can't for the life of me, remember a time when any of this would have been considered. We are really living in different times.
The US and Soviet Union had a healthy respect for one another, despite all the games they played. I don't think that is going to be the case with the US and Russia in the foreseeable future. I think things are going to go gradually downhill.
I don't want to depress you, but you might want to read up on Africa in the 1980s. Hell, watch 'Siege of Jadotville'. The Russians have a long history of using mercenaries for their expertise and built-in deniability. The US tends to find small 'acceptable' rebel groups and supply them with weapons and training. Then they shoot the hell out of each other.
KTG17 wrote: Honestly I don't even know the proper place to post this but here we go.
Trump bombed Russia's ally in a country where Russia is directly supporting their ally.
The US military obliterated a group of Russian 'mercenaries', much like the ones fighting around Donetsk airport back in the day.
I can't for the life of me, remember a time when any of this would have been considered. We are really living in different times.
The US and Soviet Union had a healthy respect for one another, despite all the games they played. I don't think that is going to be the case with the US and Russia in the foreseeable future. I think things are going to go gradually downhill.
increasingly, as Seb put it in the Russia poisoning thread, I am suspecting we may be dealing with people on all sides who just arent actually very good at their jobs.
The current US administration is its own form of circus, while the Kremlin stages its own display, and a lot of actors are on relatively long leashes and blunder into stupid mistakes because theyre not coordinating through centralized channels and are led by people who are far more into politics and causes than being professional at what they do.
Properly coordinated professional forces dont blunder into well supported entrenched and prepared positions held by a global superpower.
I definitely think that that Wagner mercenaries getting blasted was just a Russian screw up. The Wagner Group is, more or less, part of the Russian war machine. They're fully equipped with armor, and were a big part of the force that invaded Ukraine. (Along with soldiers who were "on vacation," according to Putin.) Russia uses them so they can have thinly veiled plausible deniability for whatever they do. They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up."
Russia said "We don't know them. We have no idea what's going on. Go head."
The theory running around that makes most sense to me is that Russia had no idea Americans were embedded with the Kurds at this position and gave the orders to hit them. When we contacted them to tell them they were about to get lit up, Russia had to let the attack carry on and disown the guys as doing otherwise would unquestionably establish that they are actually pulling the strings with Wagner. There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
KTG17 wrote: Honestly I don't even know the proper place to post this but here we go.
Trump bombed Russia's ally in a country where Russia is directly supporting their ally.
The US military obliterated a group of Russian 'mercenaries', much like the ones fighting around Donetsk airport back in the day.
I can't for the life of me, remember a time when any of this would have been considered. We are really living in different times.
The US and Soviet Union had a healthy respect for one another, despite all the games they played. I don't think that is going to be the case with the US and Russia in the foreseeable future. I think things are going to go gradually downhill.
I don't want to depress you, but you might want to read up on Africa in the 1980s. Hell, watch 'Siege of Jadotville'. The Russians have a long history of using mercenaries for their expertise and built-in deniability. The US tends to find small 'acceptable' rebel groups and supply them with weapons and training. Then they shoot the hell out of each other.
Right, but neither side actually shot at each other or in close proximity of each other since the Korean War. Bumped boats, spooked one another in the air, but this is different.
Siege of Jadotville was between the Irish and I thought were Belgian and French mercenaries.
KTG17 wrote: Honestly I don't even know the proper place to post this but here we go.
Trump bombed Russia's ally in a country where Russia is directly supporting their ally.
The US military obliterated a group of Russian 'mercenaries', much like the ones fighting around Donetsk airport back in the day.
I can't for the life of me, remember a time when any of this would have been considered. We are really living in different times.
The US and Soviet Union had a healthy respect for one another, despite all the games they played. I don't think that is going to be the case with the US and Russia in the foreseeable future. I think things are going to go gradually downhill.
Soviets died in the Vietnam War in small numbers in the North. Korea comes to mind as well. It happens rarely but it does happen. And that's only what we now know about.
As for the mercenaries. Its likely they actually might have been private contractors hired by Moscow to help out the Assad regime. Its certainly not on the scale of Ukraine.
I don't think its historically bad, Russia really isn't going to have open war over Assad. There is too little to gain in an area far outside reasonable force projection levels, with Turkey sitting firmly in between as a NATO member. It's not nearly as tense as Ukraine.
Prestor Jon wrote: They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up. . . There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
This is my point though. They knew they were Russian troops (call them whatever else you want) and blowing them up was an option. I can't believe Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush, or Obama would have green lit this. I am not even sure Reagan would have. Someone would have called the ambassador, or called Moscow directly.
Prestor Jon wrote: They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up. . . There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
This is my point though. They knew they were Russian troops (call them whatever else you want) and blowing them up was an option. I can't believe Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush, or Obama would have green lit this. I am not even sure Reagan would have. Someone would have called the ambassador, or called Moscow directly.
TBF the relationship between US and Russia was very different under each of those Presidents, while under Reagan it was still the Soviet Union.
Prestor Jon wrote: They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up. . . There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
This is my point though. They knew they were Russian troops (call them whatever else you want) and blowing them up was an option. I can't believe Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush, or Obama would have green lit this. I am not even sure Reagan would have. Someone would have called the ambassador, or called Moscow directly.
TBF the relationship between US and Russia was very different under each of those Presidents, while under Reagan it was still the Soviet Union.
Hey, at least Trump hasn't called Russia the Evil Empire yet, can't be all that bad
Prestor Jon wrote: They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up. . . There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
This is my point though. They knew they were Russian troops (call them whatever else you want) and blowing them up was an option. I can't believe Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush, or Obama would have green lit this. I am not even sure Reagan would have. Someone would have called the ambassador, or called Moscow directly.
We didn't have a choice. We had US troops embedded with Kurds who were about to be attacked by the Wagner forces (Russian mercenaries). We told Russia to call off the attack or we'd be force to annihilate those forces before they could attack our troops, Russia feigned ignorance so we lit them up. If we had done nothing those forces would have rolled up onto the Kurds and could have potentially killed some or all of the US troops there. Russia could have averted the skirmish from happening but they would have had to have acknowledged that the Russian govt had the ability to control the Wagner forces in Syria but since that wasn't a tenable political position to take they denied it and Wagner paid for it. I don't think any previous president/administration would have let Russian mercenaries kill US troops.
Prestor Jon wrote: They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up. . . There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
This is my point though. They knew they were Russian troops (call them whatever else you want) and blowing them up was an option. Ima would have green lit this.
To be fair what other option do you have? Say for example this happened to some other US ally and Russians started wandering in and Russia goes "whoops, ain't us" a la the little green men. Do you just not do anything?
To be fair what other option do you have? Say for example this happened to some other US ally and Russians started wandering in and Russia goes "whoops, ain't us" a la the little green men. Do you just not do anything?
No, you obliterate them and I am glad that it happened.
Its different from being "No, we do not have soviet pilots in North Korea" to "Yes they are Russians but not under our command." They are still Russians, and they are very much under their command, even if Russia denies it. Russia HQ approves that they are there, equips them, and gets them to do some dirty work the 'regulars' can't be seen doing. They are Putin's tool, and we basically crushed it.
I don't think I've ever seen the US military act so swiftly against Russian interests on a military level, and with overwhelming force. It wasn't like we fired a few warning shots.
Actually the President can have a war for up to 30 days before he needs Congressional Approval.
Ouze wrote: I wonder what the end-game for the Mueller investigation is actually going to be.
1.) Impeachment is not going to happen. No matter how badly the GOP gets rocked in the midterms - and that's far from a given since the Dems can always be counted on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - there is no way they are going to get the numbers needed.
2.) Although this is a grey area, I don't think a sitting president can be indicted, criminally.
3.) The most likely outcome, I think, is Mueller is going to be fired. I think some of Trump's inner circle, beyond what has happened already, will be indicted in New York State when there is jurisdiction, which puts them beyond the reach of a pardon.
What do you guys think?
1) This will largely depend on if he fires Mueller. If he does pull the trigger there, he's looking at Impeachment. From both sides, supposedly. Also recall that his Emoluments Clause trial is now going forward. so expect some very interesting legal gymnastics to come out of this.
2) Correct, however, upon Impeachment, he can then be tried criminally without it being Double Jeopardy (Article 1, Section 3: "Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.")
3) Incorrect, even if tried in New York state courts, the President could still pardon them.
Prestor Jon wrote: They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up. . . There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
This is my point though. They knew they were Russian troops (call them whatever else you want) and blowing them up was an option. Ima would have green lit this.
To be fair what other option do you have? Say for example this happened to some other US ally and Russians started wandering in and Russia goes "whoops, ain't us" a la the little green men. Do you just not do anything?
Every time I search for this incident, I find that it can't be confirmed, no sources, etc.
I read 15 russian dead, too
Do you have anything more ? Any source ? I am curious about this !
Prestor Jon wrote: They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up. . . There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
This is my point though. They knew they were Russian troops (call them whatever else you want) and blowing them up was an option. Ima would have green lit this.
To be fair what other option do you have? Say for example this happened to some other US ally and Russians started wandering in and Russia goes "whoops, ain't us" a la the little green men. Do you just not do anything?
Every time I search for this incident, I find that it can't be confirmed, no sources, etc.
I read 15 russian dead, too
Do you have anything more ? Any source ? I am curious about this !
The Wagner incident? Yeah man that was all over the news, couple hundred died (both Syrian and Russian)
Actually the President can have a war for up to 30 days before he needs Congressional Approval.
Yeah... but, has President's adhered to that in the past?
I don't recall Obama getting approval for those "low-level" excursion in the ME...
My point, is Trump can get massive cover in either direction if he'd ask Congress to approve military actions.
Ouze wrote: I wonder what the end-game for the Mueller investigation is actually going to be.
1.) Impeachment is not going to happen. No matter how badly the GOP gets rocked in the midterms - and that's far from a given since the Dems can always be counted on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - there is no way they are going to get the numbers needed.
3.) The most likely outcome, I think, is Mueller is going to be fired. I think some of Trump's inner circle, beyond what has happened already, will be indicted in New York State when there is jurisdiction, which puts them beyond the reach of a pardon.
What do you guys think?
1) This will largely depend on if he fires Mueller. If he does pull the trigger there, he's looking at Impeachment. From both sides, supposedly. Also recall that his Emoluments Clause trial is now going forward. so expect some very interesting legal gymnastics to come out of this.
I think he'd be impeached in the House with GOP help... but, won't get the 60th Senate vote to remove him.
As for the Emoluments Clause... it hasn't really been tested... hence the case. I don't think it applies here for Trump.
2) Correct, however, upon Impeachment, he can then be tried criminally without it being Double Jeopardy (Article 1, Section 3: "Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.")
Yup. As impeachment is a political process... not a legal/criminal one.
3) Incorrect, even if tried in New York state courts, the President could still pardon them.
I don't think that's right... President's Pardon power is plenary in federal jurisdiction. I don't think that applies to the states. (I did quick google to confirm... but couldn't find anything supporting my point. Do you have a resource that states presidents can pardon state conviction? Or maybe I'm getting criminal stuff mixed up with civil stuff... )
Just Tony wrote: So am I to assume that everyone would be completely opposed to privatizing all teaching jobs? Because we're fresh out of realistic options at this point.
Are we? Cutting military spending by 25% and closing the myriad tax loopholes exploited by corporations would outpace the money saved by slashing public sector wages by a pretty massive amount.
I'm not against the notion that some public sector figures are overpaid, I just don't care because the amount of money we're wasting by overpaying those people is peanuts compared to the money we're lining the pockets of Lockheed Martin et all with.
Prestor Jon wrote: They amassed outside of a Kurdish position that had US SF embedded with them. They attacked said position and got merked (pun intended). We spotted them building up, and contacted Russia and said "Your boys are about to royally screw up. . . There won't be any real fallout or escalation from that skirmish because Russia can't admit that they knew about it so they have to continue to feign ignorance and not react to it.
This is my point though. They knew they were Russian troops (call them whatever else you want) and blowing them up was an option. Ima would have green lit this.
To be fair what other option do you have? Say for example this happened to some other US ally and Russians started wandering in and Russia goes "whoops, ain't us" a la the little green men. Do you just not do anything?
Every time I search for this incident, I find that it can't be confirmed, no sources, etc.
I read 15 russian dead, too
Do you have anything more ? Any source ? I am curious about this !
The Wagner incident? Yeah man that was all over the news, couple hundred died (both Syrian and Russian)
Yes, this ! I think French press wasn't as interested as yours in this, I can understand this, but it is pretty huge !
sebster wrote: No but seriously, on the night that the FBI raided the office of the President's long time personal lawyer, a man who is also the Deputy Chair of the Republican National Finance Committee, Tucker Carlson didn't have time for that story, because he needed to talk about panda sex.
I'm still wondering what genius at Fox News decided that it was worth paying Tucker Carlson a salary after he flamed out on CNN when John Stewart went on his show and humiliated him so bad on national evening television it got Carlson's show cancelled. That segment alone should have been enough to kill any job prospects.
You made me go to Youtube to look that up. . . I for some reason thought that Crossfire had ended sometime in the early 90s after Frank Zappa did much the same thing to the host/guest at that time
