Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Just saw a story (couldn't find it again) that suggest that a really REALLY good pick would be Sen. Mike Lee.

It would be very hard for his senate colleagues to give him the thumbs-down... however... not sure if Trump would forgive him from trying to organize the a delegate rebellion during the convention.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

More like welcome to politics in general. Being a politician = being a hypocrite and a liar. It is the same in every country. The US isn't worse in that regard.

I want to take offense to this, having held public office, but given how the public in the US treats the rare honest politician, they deserve the hypocrites and liars.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

More like welcome to politics in general. Being a politician = being a hypocrite and a liar. It is the same in every country. The US isn't worse in that regard.

I want to take offense to this, having held public office, but given how the public in the US treats the rare honest politician, they deserve the hypocrites and liars.

The skull man, the skull.

Steelmage99 wrote:
On another note;

It is quite telling how President Trump keeps whining and moaning about capitalism and it's consequences (see the current Harley Davidson debacle).

It appears that he is a dirty Leftist commie.....who knew?

...

He is a reality TV show star and real estate huckster. He knows nothing of business.

 Frazzled wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
On another note;

It is quite telling how President Trump keeps whining and moaning about capitalism and it's consequences (see the current Harley Davidson debacle).

It appears that he is a dirty Leftist commie.....who knew?

...

He is a reality TV show star and real estate huckster. He knows nothing of business.

show business, and is technically a WWE Superstar.

I posted the other day about the one-sided nature of civility, that Trump and his cronies were basically just running a power play, insisting that others should be punished for doing what they themselves did constantly.

The professional jellyfish class led by Paul Ryan of course followed along. He called on Waters to apologise, because apparently it is unacceptable for Waters to suggest people should tell Trump admin officials they’re not welcome, but at the same time Ryan has no problem with Steve King recently promoting a neo-Nazi, because King is a Republican. And of course Ryan would never dream of sanctioning Republican House members who actually committed violence, like Greg Gianforte. Moral outrage among Republicans only goes one way.

But the hypocrisy is even more obvious than that. Trump has directly attacked Waters, and now she’s received death threats, including one man being arrested for the threat he made. But there’s no comment from a single Republican figure about the consequences of Trump’s uncivil behaviour. And after Sanders and Trump both used their official accounts to attack the Red Hen, there has been death threats and protests at the restaurant. There was also a protest, which actually was fine for the most part as it was non-violent, but it did end with a man shouting “MAGA” as he threw poo at the Red Hen. As well being probably the most Trumpian thing I can imagine, that is also a pretty uncivil thing to do and was the direct consequence of the public attacks made by Trump and Sanders through their government accounts.

But while so many people clutch at their pearls because Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant, or becauseWaters said people should tell Trump officials they’re not welcome, the actual violence that goes the other way rates not a single mention.

There is a reason why - the political dynamic right now has settled in to this very weird place where Republicans are not expected to be adults. It’s like a dysfunctional gaming store where the owner has decided there’s nothing he can do about Timmy, the WAAC kid who pushes every rule to the point of cheating, and so the owner just insists everyone else should be nice to that kid and let him abuse the rules to beat you.

This is a very dysfunctional place to be, of course, and the only answer for Democrats is to break the dynamic. Be exactly as uncivil as the Republicans, until Republicans realise there are consequences for their constant bad behaviour. When Timmy takes the min-max assault army and moves each unit an extra inch or so ‘by mistake’, then you sit there and debate every single model moved so his first movement takes up the whole game time for the game, resulting in a draw and costing Timmy his chance of winning the tournament. If the owner scolds you and not Timmy, ignore it. Timmy will learn, maybe not the first time, but he’ll get there eventually.

This isn’t an argument for kicking mendacious halfwitted Press Secretaries out of restaurants, because that kind of thing is pretty meaningless. If it fit the staff’s personal values then good for them, but on a national level it doesn’t mean much. Nor is this really about Trump, who has broken a lot of norms but mostly in petty, meaningless ways that won’t last. My argument is treat politics like the bloodsport Republicans have been treating it as for the last couple of decades. Start breaking norms that really mean something about political power.

Because of Mitch McConnell’s obvious rejection of democratic norms in 2016, there is about to be a Supreme Court with five strong conservatives in complete control, with Chief Roberts acting as the swing vote who will find the balance between ‘strongly conservative’ and ‘cartoonishly reactionary’. That can’t be stopped, because it will be in place before November. But in 2020 there will likely be a new Democratic president, and they will likely have a strong Democratic majority in the senate. And there is no rule anywhere saying the Supreme Court must be limited to 9 justices. So appoint  two new justices with strong left leanings. And each time McConnell or his equally horrible replacement complains, appoint another two. Don’t stop until Republicans admit everything they have done in the last couple of decades has been dangerously undemocratic. And then appount a couple more justices because feth McConnell.

Then you go and split California in to seven states, and you crack and pack the boundaries so Republicans get one safe red states, while Democrats get four, with maybe a couple of purple ones if you can’t quite make them blue. Tell any lies you want to pretend it is being done for anything other than increasing Democratic power in the senate, but absolutely do it just to increase Democratic power in the senate.

After the 2018 and 2020 elections Democrats will be in something of a high point. Not just federally but also across the various state legislatures. Republicans had something similar after their big results in the 2010 mid-terms – they retook the House but more than that they took control in a lot of state governorships and legislatures. 2010 was the census year, and that gave Republicans the chance to redraw districts, and of course they gerrymandered the hell out of every place they controlled. They gerrymandered Pennsylvania so bad that when Dems won a majority of the House votes in 2012 they still ended up with less than a third of the seats. Democrats will have a lot of power after 2020, and that will be a census year, so they will have their own chance to redraw the electorates to pack and crack in all the ways that Republicans did, which the Republican controlled Supreme Court has since largely approved. And when Republicans whinge about this, Democrats should first laugh, then laugh some more, and then finally offer Republicans a deal – a new voting rights act which prohibits gerrymandering, applies universal automatic voter registration, and makes illegal any restriction on voting rights without a clear, documented need.

Timmy has been cheating for years now. Trying to be nice to Timmy in the hope he’ll show some basic decency in return hasn’t worked. It’s time to push the rules just as bad as Timmy did, and keep doing it until Timmy learns there’s consequences for treating democracy as nothing more than a ruleset to be exploited.

Nah seb.

Democrats and Republican have been in this blood sport for a loooooooooong time. Trump is the result of that battle.

Continuous series of "tit for tat" whenever which sides has the majority.

Regarding packing the court. Good luck getting a bill to pass both houses, overcoming filibusters and a President to sign it.

I do think Democrats will regain the House majority, but the Senate is out of their reach in 2018. So... maybe things won't be batgak insane and passed bills will be more moderated.

 whembly wrote:
Nah seb.

Democrats and Republican have been in this blood sport for a loooooooooong time. Trump is the result of that battle.

Continuous series of "tit for tat" whenever which sides has the majority.

You get to believe that silliness because you've never seen Democrats act like Republicans. That's the point. Teaching you what actually happens when the other side decides to fight like you already do.

Regarding packing the court. Good luck getting a bill to pass both houses, overcoming filibusters and a President to sign it.

That's not a real restaint. If Dems want to do this and they have the 50+1 senate votes to do it, then they will almost certainly hold the house, so passing a new bill to overcome the current limit would be trivial.

I do think Democrats will regain the House majority, but the Senate is out of their reach in 2018. So... maybe things won't be batgak insane and passed bills will be more moderated.

It's absolute nonsense to think the current insanity is due to anything but the inherent insanity of the modern Republican party. It is you, once again, finding a way to move blame from anything and everything but your team.

 djones520 wrote:
Alcohol and booze bought at your corner store doesn't fund terrorism world wide.

Recreational marijuana smokers make the choice to do that.

Legalize it, regulate it, then fine, I'm on board. But to continue to purchase it while its still illegal goes beyond thumbing your nose at authorities. It helps prop up the cartels in Mexico, as well as the potential the funds are reaching all the way back to organizations like the Taliban. That's the point where folks are deciding that their "innocent" high is more important then peoples lives.

It is absolutely stupid to think that most pot users get their marijuana from cartels, given that smuggling marijuana out of legalized states is cheaper, safer, and higher quality. Nobody buys brick weed that has been stepped on 10 times and has more seeds than a persimmon. People want that bright green stuff that smells like a skunks butthole and has names like Alaskan Thunderfeth(Real name) and Maui Wowie.

Seriously, just a dumb argument.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Nah seb.

Democrats and Republican have been in this blood sport for a loooooooooong time. Trump is the result of that battle.

Continuous series of "tit for tat" whenever which sides has the majority.

You get to believe that silliness because you've never seen Democrats act like Republicans. That's the point. Teaching you what actually happens when the other side decides to fight like you already do.

I'm sorry... wut?

You just hand-waved bad acts that Democrats have done. o.O

Mitch the Cocaine taught democrats the reprecussion of nuking the filibuster for lower courts and political appointee on the Gorsuch pick.

That's just one example.

Regarding packing the court. Good luck getting a bill to pass both houses, overcoming filibusters and a President to sign it.

That's not a real restaint. If Dems want to do this and they have the 50+1 senate votes to do it, then they will almost certainly hold the house, so passing a new bill to overcome the current limit would be trivial.

True, but that requires full-on nuking the filibuster... period. And you complain that its only Republican breaking the social norm?

Nah man.

Tit-for-tat.

I do think Democrats will regain the House majority, but the Senate is out of their reach in 2018. So... maybe things won't be batgak insane and passed bills will be more moderated.

It's absolute nonsense to think the current insanity is due to anything but the inherent insanity of the modern Republican party. It is you, once again, finding a way to move blame from anything and everything but your team.

And it is you finding ways to move blame form anything and everything but *your* team.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Nah seb.

Democrats and Republican have been in this blood sport for a loooooooooong time. Trump is the result of that battle.

Continuous series of "tit for tat" whenever which sides has the majority.

You get to believe that silliness because you've never seen Democrats act like Republicans. That's the point. Teaching you what actually happens when the other side decides to fight like you already do.

Regarding packing the court. Good luck getting a bill to pass both houses, overcoming filibusters and a President to sign it.

That's not a real restaint. If Dems want to do this and they have the 50+1 senate votes to do it, then they will almost certainly hold the house, so passing a new bill to overcome the current limit would be trivial.

I do think Democrats will regain the House majority, but the Senate is out of their reach in 2018. So... maybe things won't be batgak insane and passed bills will be more moderated.

It's absolute nonsense to think the current insanity is due to anything but the inherent insanity of the modern Republican party. It is you, once again, finding a way to move blame from anything and everything but your team.

Honestly Seb I know and respect your patience for illogical arguments but at some point if Whembly is so insistent on ignoring reality you should probably move along the lines you detailed above and ignore him. If someone wants to engage in discussion with no semblance of good faith then (to a certain extent) responding to them at all is giving their statements more validity than they deserve. If someone posts an argument so irrational that it's a literal delusion then show them that such a statement is not part of the conversation.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Nah seb.

Democrats and Republican have been in this blood sport for a loooooooooong time. Trump is the result of that battle.

Continuous series of "tit for tat" whenever which sides has the majority.

You get to believe that silliness because you've never seen Democrats act like Republicans. That's the point. Teaching you what actually happens when the other side decides to fight like you already do.

Regarding packing the court. Good luck getting a bill to pass both houses, overcoming filibusters and a President to sign it.

That's not a real restaint. If Dems want to do this and they have the 50+1 senate votes to do it, then they will almost certainly hold the house, so passing a new bill to overcome the current limit would be trivial.

I do think Democrats will regain the House majority, but the Senate is out of their reach in 2018. So... maybe things won't be batgak insane and passed bills will be more moderated.

It's absolute nonsense to think the current insanity is due to anything but the inherent insanity of the modern Republican party. It is you, once again, finding a way to move blame from anything and everything but your team.

Honestly Seb I know and respect your patience for illogical arguments but at some point if Whembly is so insistent on ignoring reality you should probably move along the lines you detailed above and ignore him. If someone wants to engage in discussion with no semblance of good faith then (to a certain extent) responding to them at all is giving their statements more validity than they deserve. If someone posts an argument so irrational that it's a literal delusion then show them that such a statement is not part of the conversation.

Ignoring reality my hairy ass. Just because I have differences in opinion...doesn't mean I'm arguing in bad faith.

Democrats have played hardball in these high stakes fights for years....YEARS! After the Reid nuclear option, what'd you expect the GOP to do when they regained control of the Senate? "Oh, here you go, lets restore the filibuster now that YOU are the minority party... is that OK? Wants some tea with that too?"

Seriously?

I mean, its really something else that ya'll talk as if the GOP stonewalling of Garland came out of nowhere. In fact, it was richly earned “response” for decades of unilateral Democratic escalations and power grabs.

Should the GOP ignore the Borking in that1987 floor speech by Sen. Ted Kennedy?

What about the "high tech lynching" of Clarence Thomas?

Early on in Dubya's tenure, Democrats flatly filibuster much of his picks, particularly Miguel Estrada. They filibustered him for years, ultimately resulting in his decision to withdraw his name from consideration. Furthermore, Dubya nominated 11 (at least) appellate court nominees. Two of them, as a gesture of bipartisanship, were liberals. Shortly afterwards, Democrats took control of the Senate(someone changed to caucus with Democrats), the *new* Judiciary Committee did not return the favor, refusing to give hearings to any of the conservative nominees while moving the liberal ones forward. See here? That was the Democratic party exercising their "Advise and Consent" as they deemed fit...as it was their prerogative. Not far from what Mitch M done in refusing Garland a vote.

It wasn't until after the GOP regained the Senate in 2004, that the GOP saber rattled about invoking the "nuclear option." It was an open threat because of the continued filibuster of democrats. That fear led that bipartisan group of Senators, seven from each party, to forge the 'Gang of 14' compromise.

That Gang of 14 lasted until Obama's first term... because, the Democrats couldn't abide by the GOP blocking some of the Obama's pick, EVEN THOUGH in Obama's first term had more of his nominations confirmed than that of Bush's first term. It was too much for them, so Harry Reid & Democrats nuked the filibuster for non-Scotus picks...

The purpose of the 2013 Reid Rule power grab is to stack as many liberal jurists in the lower courts, and it worked really, really well. When Obama entered office, just one of the 13 circuit courts of appeals had a liberal majority. When he left office, that number ended up to nine.

I hope people who applauded Reid's action's reconsider how dumb nuking the filibuster like that. That gave Cocaine Mitch the cover he needed to nuke the SCOTUS filibuster for Gorsuch. That also allowed Trump an easier path to nominate his cabinet. I hope you feel it was worth it.

Personally, I thank Harry Reid for being dumb enough to nuke it as it paved the way for stronger GOP control.

Tit-for-tat.

Now the GOP isn't blameless... as they have definitely has inflamed tensions at various stages along the way, often through various forms of retaliation. Over the years, the dumbfethery we've seen is just mindnumbly ridiculous.

However, seb, you talk as if the Democrats didn't fight dirty until recently... which is laughable on its face. With respect to Senate norms and tradition, the GOP were left with no choice engage in the same skullduggery employed by democrats..not the other way around.

The end result, frankly, is the eventual deletions of the filibuster rules in all things. The Senate will just be a glorified House of Representative passing bills along with simple majority and the minority party being truly neutered. I certainly don't like the way it's going... but, me changing my votes to Democrats would go against everything else I believe in... so, it's a non-starter. My best path forward is to actually engage the GOP party locally and hopefully I can change enough minds to get some action.

 whembly wrote:
but, me changing my votes to Democrats would go against everything else I believe in... so, it's a non-starter.

I am genuinely curious. What do you believe in that makes Democrats so unpalatable?

Please, don't make it a list of what you believe Democrats would hypothetically do (as we all know that one side is completely incapable of representing the other side honestly - irrespective of party).
Make it a list of your beliefs that inform your political association, please.

 whembly wrote:
Just saw a story (couldn't find it again) that suggest that a really REALLY good pick would be Sen. Mike Lee.

It would be very hard for his senate colleagues to give him the thumbs-down... however... not sure if Trump would forgive him from trying to organize the a delegate rebellion during the convention.

being one of his constituents...can we not?

 whembly wrote:
Seriously?

Well... yeah. If one party starts to unravel and break the tools of democracy, and the other side once in power do nothing to fix them and instead just break them harder and faster, then where does it stop?

I have to explain this constantly to 12 year olds on the school playground who seem to think that this is time that the punch they land will be the one that ends the argument forever, rather than just escalating the conflict, but depressingly it's just part of the human condition to react to being wronged with any sort of retribution rather than conciliation.

Steelmage99 wrote:

 whembly wrote:
but, me changing my votes to Democrats would go against everything else I believe in... so, it's a non-starter.

I am genuinely curious. What do you believe in that makes Democrats so unpalatable?

Please, don't make it a list of what you believe Democrats would hypothetically do (as we all know that one side is completely incapable of representing the other side honestly - irrespective of party).
Make it a list of your beliefs that inform your political association, please.

Whembly believes in voting for Republicans. That is why he is going to vote for Republicans in the mid-terms, even though they have now turned one hundred and eighty degrees on many of their supposed values such as fiscal responsibility (huge deficit increasing tax cut), free trade (engaging in damaging trade wars with major trading partners), etc.

He didn't vote for Trump but you better believe he will damn sure vote for the people who support Trump and refuse to check his power.

 sebster wrote:
I posted the other day about the one-sided nature of civility, .

be ready for 2020 when the Dems run with : " America's Chance to Apologize to Her " and run Hilary again.



...assuming she's been let out of whichever prison she's been locked up in by then of course.

 Riquende wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Seriously?

Well... yeah. If one party starts to unravel and break the tools of democracy, and the other side once in power do nothing to fix them and instead just break them harder and faster, then where does it stop?

I have to explain this constantly to 12 year olds on the school playground who seem to think that this is time that the punch they land will be the one that ends the argument forever, rather than just escalating the conflict, but depressingly it's just part of the human condition to react to being wronged with any sort of retribution rather than conciliation.

I agree, but I can understand people starting to despair and get frustrated. There's just no indication that conciliation or attempts to reach out or compromise will be treated as anything other than a sign of weakness by an opposition driven by pure cynicism and spite. Even comparing this to the years of Reagan or Bush Jr, it's hard to escape the feeling that something deep in the American system of government has irrepairably broken--or maybe it broke a long time ago, and Trump is just the rot finally coming to light.

Essentially we have moved to a Parliamentary mentality driven by the media industry that makes money on division, but are still in a republican form of government.

Do you not think that the fact that Republicans have an opposite opinion to the majority on a range of social and political issues might have some bearing on the division of mdoern America?

Ask the Democrats. Independent s are the majority now and both are extremes.

Does the majority include independents?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
For example, abortion.

According to Pew research, 40% of Americans are anti-abortion rights, and 57% are in favour.

http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

It doesn't really matter what a majority of Americans want. All that matters is what a majority of the party's voters want.

 Frazzled wrote:
Ask the Democrats. Independent s are the majority now and both are extremes.

Just going to point out that you called a milquetoast, boring, centre-right party “extreme”. I know extreme, and the Democrats are not it.

Republican government has outstayed its welcome, why don’t we try democratic confederationalism for a few years? We have the perfect national structure for it. Just pass a law that states that every act of the Federal congress must be accompanied by a referendum. That way the people who the current pack of bourgeois hacks claim to represent actually have a say.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
It doesn't really matter what a majority of Americans want. All that matters is what a majority of the party's voters want.

In what sense do you mean?

Are you suggesting that people who aren't party affiliated read news reports and get radicalised?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
It doesn't really matter what a majority of Americans want. All that matters is what a majority of the party's voters want.

All goes back to the massive amount of gerrymandering that republicans did in the early 2010s, even though the republicans have less voters, are on the opposite sides of most issues, take terrible and racists stances they still have power because they set it up that way.

An interesting thing I read...

If you are wondering what happened to civility, it wss labeled 'Political Correctness' and said to be a bad thing.

We all know republicans will never admit or even realize their hypocrisy. They’re the party of christians after all. And christians wrote the book on hypocrisy!

EDIT: The above statement is unacceptable on Dakka Dakka. - Manchu

But the insistence that the democratic party is a shining paragon of virtue and morality beyond reproach is either naive or disingenuous.

You’re all arguing about different sides of the same coin.

 Mrs. Esterhouse wrote:
You’re all arguing about different sides of the same coin.

Sounds like both sides are equally bad, so it doesn't matter who you vote for, or if you vote at all.

What an fresh, novel and not at all shallow sentiment that in no way could ever backfire.

Meh. If you feel these people are fit to rule over you, keep voting them in. The lesser of two evils is still evil.