Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

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zaratustra
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby zaratustra » Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:54 pm

Sharkey wrote:Not to be a prick, but Barbuda has less than two thousand people on it. It sucks and relief is required, but the total population would fit in a concert hall.


On the other hand, they're unlikely to be able to reach any concert halls.

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Thad
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Thad » Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:21 am

Coates has an article up referring to Trump as The First White President. I have a feeling people are going to be talking about this one for awhile.

Trump truly is something new—the first president whose entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black president. And so it will not suffice to say that Trump is a white man like all the others who rose to become president. He must be called by his rightful honorific—America’s first white president.


There's a hell of a lot more to chew on in there. A key theme is that, for all that the conventional wisdom holds that Trump won because of working-class whites, working-class white voters didn't support him at a higher rate than white people at other socioeconomic levels. The white working class has, for at least the past 200 years, consistently sought common cause with non-working-class white people rather than non-white working-class people.

It's damning stuff. I'm still a firm believer that economic populism is an important part of the path forward for the Democratic Party -- but I'm also deeply disturbed that a lot of people who agree with that premise accompany it with "and we need to stop with the identity politics." That's a baffling false choice. I don't see any path forward that doesn't involve both.

--

Meanwhile...boy, this has been a weird week for trying to figure out what's going on in Trump's head. He seems to have played right into Schumer and Pelosi's hands on the debt ceiling, and he's all over the map on DACA -- as if even a shameless racist such as himself realizes that deporting a bunch of people who've lived here their whole lives because their parents broke the law is not a good look. He sent an underling out to announce his plan, keeps pushing the line that he's doing it because he thinks that's what the law requires and not because he personally wants to, and is talking about the need for Congress to fix it as if it's something he actually wants to happen. Christ knows just because Trump says something today doesn't mean he'll act on it tomorrow or ever, but I feel like his behavior this week is even more inconsistent and unfathomable than usual.

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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Newbie » Fri Sep 08, 2017 3:30 am

The takes I was reading suggest he went with the democrat plan under the expectation that this would clear the way for tax reform, or at the very least because he was impatient with the debt ceiling and wasn't interested in dwelling on it. Whatever the case, yeah, it definitely muddied the already chocolaty waters.
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Thad » Fri Sep 08, 2017 10:31 am

Also yesterday Junior testified to Congress. He was there for five hours but the gist seems to be "I did not collude, I just met with people who I believed were agents of a foreign government to get dirt on a political opponent to use during an election."

And then,


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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Mongrel » Fri Sep 08, 2017 1:02 pm



So the Dems plan to fuck with the GOP has turned out to be "Flatter Trump"?

This might just be genius.
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Yoji » Wed Sep 13, 2017 8:27 pm

So, does anyone know what the hell's up with Steve Bannon's shirts? I never noticed, but he apparently wears multiple dress shirts at the same time.

I'm pretty sure I'd be pilloried if I tried wearing something like that to Thanksgiving dinner, nevermind an interview on national TV.
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sei
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby sei » Wed Sep 13, 2017 9:09 pm

Could be a dickie.

Or could be that the cold-blooded have to layer up.

The video has a crew neck t-shirt, too, though.
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Thad » Sat Sep 16, 2017 1:09 pm

Mueller gets a warrant to investigate fraudulent Facebook accounts.

The Facebook warrant "means that Mueller has concluded that specific foreign individuals committed a crime by making a 'contribution' in connection with an election," Mariotti wrote on Saturday.

"It also means that he has evidence of that crime that convinced a federal magistrate judge of two things: first, that there was good reason to believe that the foreign individual committed the crime. Second, that evidence of the crime existed on Facebook."

That has implications for Trump and his associates, too, Mariotti said.

"It is a crime to know that a crime is taking place and to help it succeed. That's aiding and abetting. If any Trump associate knew about the foreign contributions that Mueller's search warrant focused on and helped that effort in a tangible way, they could be charged."

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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby François » Sat Sep 16, 2017 2:15 pm

As thrilling as it is to hear about every new step in Mueller's investigations, to me it always ends up feeling like going after Al Capone for tax evasion. It's working, but in a moral/ethical sense, the Russian collusion bullshit is practically the least bad thing on Trump's rap sheet.

Also, there's the implied notion that the noose is tightening on his crew in large part because they've been bumbling cretins every step of the way. They won't get in trouble because they did something wrong, they'll get in trouble for doing something wrong in a hopelessly clumsy manner. God help the USA when the next shithead who attempts to steal an election has the good sense not to surround himself with overconfident morons.

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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Thad » Sat Sep 16, 2017 2:31 pm

François wrote:As thrilling as it is to hear about every new step in Mueller's investigations, to me it always ends up feeling like going after Al Capone for tax evasion. It's working, but in a moral/ethical sense, the Russian collusion bullshit is practically the least bad thing on Trump's rap sheet.

He's certainly done things that are worse ethically, but as a matter of law I'm not sure he's done worse than colluding with a foreign power to spy on political opponents and influence an election and then fire the director of the FBI for investigating it.

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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Thad » Wed Sep 20, 2017 11:11 am

Like Other ACA Repeal Bills, Cassidy-Graham Plan Would Add Millions to Uninsured, Destabilize Individual Market

In releasing a revised version of their legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Senators Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham, along with co-sponsors Dean Heller and Ron Johnson, claimed that their bill isn’t a “partisan” approach and doesn’t include “draconian cuts.” In reality, however, the Cassidy-Graham bill would have the same harmful consequences as those prior bills. It would cause many millions of people to lose coverage, radically restructure and deeply cut Medicaid, eliminate or weaken protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and increase out-of-pocket costs for individual market consumers.


Let's see...Cassidy, Graham, Heller, Johnson...yep, sounds nonpartisan to me!

McCain's been saying "I'll talk to Governor Ducey before I decide." Well, Ducey's come out in favor of Graham-Cassidy, so McCain's probably onboard.

I don't think Murkowski or Collins has weighed in yet, but given their consistent opposition to repeal, I think we can probably expect them as Nays. Rand Paul has said he won't vote for it (for predictable Rand Paul reasons), so there's a good chance the survival of the ACA depends on Rand Paul keeping his word about something.

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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Mongrel » Wed Sep 20, 2017 12:40 pm

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This isn't real, but I laughed anyway.
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Thad » Fri Sep 22, 2017 11:09 am

Kimmel has, once again, come out swinging on healthcare.



Result is predictable: "That late night TV host is unqualified to discuss healthcare," say people who insist that a reality TV host is qualified to be President. Kimmel responds.



I haven't seen last night's yet, but here's the monologue and an interview with Franken:



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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Thad » Sat Sep 23, 2017 12:29 pm

McCain has come out against the healthcare bill, so it's probably doomed. It's still not too late for them to pull a fast one; keep your eyes open and it might still be a good idea to call your senators, especially if you're in Maine or Alaska. (Maybe Kentucky, but Paul's probably not going to be convinced by "please don't take away people's healthcare"; he's more a "please take away more people's healthcare" kind of guy.)

Trump is, of course, planning to undermine it through executive action. He's already greatly decreased the advertising budget for the enrollment period, and now we've got this:



An HHS spokesperson told Slate that these are routine maintenance outages. You know how web servers need to be offline for 12 hours every week for maintenance, right? Google and Facebook do it all the time.

...you know, if Twitter were inaccessible for 12 hours every week, a think a lot of people would be much happier.

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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Friday » Sat Sep 23, 2017 1:36 pm

Just watched all the Kimmel vids, good stuff.

What stood out to me the most was Franken's repub friend who said "there are ten reasons to vote no on this bill, but one to vote yes, and that's that we promised to repeal Obamacare."

This coming from what Franken describes as a "good guy, friend of his."

That really does sum it up, doesn't it? It's not about anything other than "my side is going to tear down what your side did."

Not that this is news to anyone, but I mean. If someone Franken describes as decent thinks that way, thinks that it's worth it to kill people in order to score political points, knows he's killing people but objectively decides that scoring political points is better, then what the fuck chance do we have?
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Friday » Sat Sep 23, 2017 1:38 pm

Okay, let me be clear. I need to be clear on this point.

Imagine a man with a gun. The gun is pointed at a million people.

"I can fire this gun. A million people will die," says the man. "That's bad."

"But..." he continues. "I said I would repeal Obamacare, and by shooting this gun at these million people, that will be accomplished."

He then fires the gun.
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Mothra » Sat Sep 23, 2017 3:07 pm

It's like he has a remote with a big red button on it, and pressing the red button will flatline millions of people in the crowd in front of him. "Well, we knew it was a terrible idea at the start, but we never actually thought this button would find its way into these hands. It's just a bad bake all around." He then presses the button.

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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Yoji » Sat Sep 23, 2017 5:06 pm

Personally, these creatures showed their hand after the Sandy Hook shooting. Twenty kids killed, a clear majority of the country cried for action, and they side with the guns. Like, it's pretty clear they only care about us when they need us.

I mean, I remember something like 87 percent of people nationwide called for universal background checks. 87! You couldn't get that many people to agree on what color the fucking sky is.
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Friday » Sat Sep 23, 2017 5:28 pm

I get what you're saying, but I draw a line between gun control bullshit and signing a bill that you know is shit, that you know will kill and cripple people, and you just throw up your hands and say "yeah but Obamacare."

I really, again, need to be clear. This man, this "decent" man, is signing a bill that he is 100% aware will kill at the very least thousands if not millions of people over a period of X years.

Not potentially.

Not potentially kill.

Kill.

Because he wants to destroy Obamacare.
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Re: Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?

Postby Mongrel » Sat Sep 23, 2017 6:50 pm

I suppose it all sounds pretty banal to him.
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