General US Politics

[Lord Raven]

10 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

it lead to George Bush crashing the economy in the Great Recession as recently as 2007-2008, and yet people still conveniently forget. It doesn't work.

I thought this was more due to negligence in addressing the low interest rates in housing from the Clinton administration.

Even though that's another fuck-up of the Bush administration, which was not addressing these things.

[Res]

7 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Does everyone just forget that Republicans only answer to the economy is to deregulate and cut taxes (mostly for the rich)?

Absolutely not; I mean, of course this is all unexpected. But hey, people are still under the delusion that they'll somehow benefit.

And there's still relative silence from more than half the country on Roy Moore, Trump's insults to Native Americans (which were quite deliberate, not that we'd expect any differently, of course), that no one apparently has much issue with all the false statements and lying, etc.

And before the whataboutists appear, yes, Franken should resign, too.  

[Slumber]

13 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

I thought this was more due to negligence in addressing the low interest rates in housing from the Clinton administration.

Even though that's another fuck-up of the Bush administration, which was not addressing these things.

It was a mix of Bush never following up on short-term solutions that Clinton put in place, and then Bush's own awful tax plans.

Obama inherited a shitshow of massive proportions. And while I wasn't his biggest fan, I will always commend him for managing to keep America from falling apart overnight. Not that it matters much anymore, since Trump seems convinced that everything Obama did was bad, and is dragging us, kicking and screaming, back to the situation that led to America being in the most dire economic situation since pre-WW2 America.

Get ready to Dust Bowl-proof your property while you still have money, because that's damn near the only thing we're missing right now!

Edited December 1, 2017 by Slumber

[Zasplach]

This Flynn news, while interesting, doesn't give any clarity into what Bob Mueller has on anyone in the administration.  All we really know is that Flynn isn't going to jail as long as he flips to state-side and rats on people and there is speculation that he might have evidence against Jared Kushner.  Getting into the Trump sphere is of mild note, but I'm not really convinced that we are going to learn anything damning about the President and just like Ollie North fell on his sword for President Reagan during the Iran-Contra affair, I suspect that even if President Trump did something wrong/illegal, someone will fall on their sword for him and take all of the blame, Jared Kushner seems like a good candidate.  

While I'm not a huge proponent of supply-side economics, I think it's fairly clear that the tax cuts of 1981 had a positive effect on the state of the US economic situation.  I know none of us were alive, but the 70's were an economic situation that the country had never experienced and the Keynesians had never predicted; the country was stiffed by inflation rates, the decade averaging in the 7 percents while economic growth lagged behind and the result was a poor economy.  Keynesians thought that inflation always followed growth, so clearly something was stifling growth and the tax cuts of the early 80's both relieved the excessive inflation and helped spark growth.  The real flaw I see in the tax cuts, especially of the early 2000's is creating a greater disparity in economic conditions of those with more and those with less.  

I think it's pretty clear that 2008 economic collapse was caused by deregulation of the personal mortgage market which  allowed for millions maybe tens of millions of people to purchase homes they couldn't afford except in the best possible economic conditions and then when best economic conditions ended people couldn't pay their bills and millions of people faulted, causing banks to go under.  It didn't help that the Glass-Stegall act was repealed in 1999 which allowed for commercial (saving and loan banks) and investment banks to be under one entity and so when the commercial arms of the banks had trouble, the investment arms seized up and the economy went boom.  Most of these policies were started in the 90's by Republicans and President Clinton and solidified under the Bush administration.

The real issue with these tax cuts (basically the last 3 waves since 2000) is that the country tends to elect Republicans when times are good and we should be decreasing inflation by paying down our debt by cutting spending and raising taxes, the country instead decides that times are good and they can only get better by increasing the deficit by cutting taxes and then the economy cycles into recession, we boost spending to fight deflation and then the cycle continues and we end up in the same spot we're in.  

[Shoblongoo]

4 hours ago, Zasplach said:

This Flynn news, while interesting, doesn't give any clarity into what Bob Mueller has on anyone in the administration.  All we really know is that Flynn isn't going to jail as long as he flips to state-side and rats on people and there is speculation that he might have evidence against Jared Kushner.  Getting into the Trump sphere is of mild note, but I'm not really convinced that we are going to learn anything.

Strongly disagree--look at the factual basis for the guilty plea that Flynn has admitted to. It's in the court documents: Flynn admits as true that he met with the Russians at the direction of and through secret back-channels established by Jared Kushner; lying to the FBI when he provides testimony to the contrary. There's a very solid picture of where this is going--Kushner is the next target. Flynn is the cooperative witness that has the dirt on Trump and his family. Mueller would not have let him off-the-hook with only a conviction for lying to the FBI about what he did, with no charges as to his underlying conduct, unless he delivered the goods. (Also now being reported on CNN that Trump has approached several Republican Senators and asked them to shutdown the investigation)

Edited December 2, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Lord Raven]

7 hours ago, Res said:

And before the whataboutists appear, yes, Franken should resign, too.  

Absolutely. At first I was skeptical and holding onto some hope that it was a one-time thing that the person in question and Al Franken were very open and candid about, but more has come out since by people who do not have a political reason for doing this.

Just because Moore is worse does not mean Franken should not resign.

[Zasplach]

4 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Strongly disagree--look at the factual basis for the guilty plea that Flynn has admitted to. It's in the court documents: Flynn admits as true that he met with the Russians at the direction of and through secret back-channels established by Jared Kushner; lying to the FBI when he provides testimony to the contrary. There's a very solid picture of where this is going--Kushner is the next target. Flynn is the cooperative witness that has the dirt on Trump and his family. Mueller would not have let him off-the-hook with only a conviction for lying to the FBI about what he did, with no charges as to his underlying conduct, unless he delivered the goods. (Also now being reported on CNN that Trump has approached several Republican Senators and asked them to shutdown the investigation)

Trump has no strategy, he just spouts his mouth off without the slightest bit of thought; he basically told CBS the information that necessitated the creation of the special counsel; his mouth isn't going to get him impeached, it just makes him a clown.  I'm not saying there is no there, there, I'm saying that until someone will stand up and point there finger at President Trump and bellow to the public that he did something illegal and or nefarious in regards the Russian meddling, no one of sound mind should expect anything to come of it.  The special counsel had Mr. Flynn's genitals in the vice grip because they had him and his son and he may have been willing to do the full 5 year sentence for the president, but he didn't want his son to have to do the time, so he rolled.  Now he is pointing his finger at Kushner, I don't see Kushner pointing his finger at the President, talk about a way for a Jewish man to get kicked out of the family, by rolling on his dear old dad-in-law the President and I don't see Muller wanting anyone more that Kushner other than the President.  So what does Muller really have on Kushner? Maybe what they had on Flynn, lying to the FBI, five years at most and violating the Logan act, that's a max of three years, so Kushner falls on his sword and does the 8 years in a white collar federal prison, probably eligible for parole in 5 and after the next election win or lose Trump can pardon him because no one can hurt him after that so he probably only does 2 years at most, less if his lawyers drag it out.  I still don't see Muller's end game, he's a smart guy, he has to be near it, he's running out of cards and I don't see an Ace or Trump, pun intended, yet.

On a side note tax bill passed the Senate 51-49 at 1:51 am EST, didn't catch which Republican voted against, now the fun of the conference between House and Senate begins. 

Edited December 2, 2017 by Zasplach

[Res]

Bob Corker voted against.

Some of the amendments slipped in at the last minute are... interesting.

It sounds as if it was a complete mess in general:

Democrats also noted that the bill is more than 400 pages long, saying they only have a few hours to digest the entirety of the bill before voting on it.

Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin tweeted a screenshot of one of the pages with a long, handwritten note in the margin.

“Trying to review the #GOPTaxScam but they are making hand-written changes to brand new text as we speak - can anyone else read this?" Durbin tweeted.

[Moblin Major General]

I knew my Senator was principled. He isn't running again, so what reason does he have to tow the line? Let's hope Lamar Alexander has a similar change of heart.

[Shoblongoo]

7 hours ago, Zasplach said:

Trump has no strategy, he just spouts his mouth off without the slightest bit of thought; he basically told CBS the information that necessitated the creation of the special counsel; his mouth isn't going to get him impeached, it just makes him a clown.  I'm not saying there is no there, there, I'm saying that until someone will stand up and point there finger at President Trump and bellow to the public that he did something illegal and or nefarious in regards the Russian meddling, no one of sound mind should expect anything to come of it.  The special counsel had Mr. Flynn's genitals in the vice grip because they had him and his son and he may have been willing to do the full 5 year sentence for the president, but he didn't want his son to have to do the time, so he rolled.  Now he is pointing his finger at Kushner, I don't see Kushner pointing his finger at the President, talk about a way for a Jewish man to get kicked out of the family, by rolling on his dear old dad-in-law the President and I don't see Muller wanting anyone more that Kushner other than the President.  So what does Muller really have on Kushner? Maybe what they had on Flynn, lying to the FBI, five years at most and violating the Logan act, that's a max of three years, so Kushner falls on his sword and does the 8 years in a white collar federal prison, probably eligible for parole in 5 and after the next election win or lose Trump can pardon him because no one can hurt him after that so he probably only does 2 years at most, less if his lawyers drag it out.  I still don't see Muller's end game, he's a smart guy, he has to be near it, he's running out of cards and I don't see an Ace or Trump, pun intended, yet.

On a side note tax bill passed the Senate 51-49 at 1:51 am EST, didn't catch which Republican voted against, now the fun of the conference between House and Senate begins. 

...remember what Comey was fired for, all the way back before we even had a special prosecutor. Trump in his one-on-one meetings with the FBI director had two concrete demands as to how he expected Comey to show his "loyalty." (1) Put out a statement that Donald Trump is not personally under any criminal investigation. (2) "Take it easy on Mike Flynn. He's a good guy." Flynn was with him from the beginning. This was the guy who had all the access to the inner circle of Jared and Don Jr. and Ivanka, but none of the family loyalty. He knew who was doing what and on who's orders and could expose the whole thing, if The State flipped him with the threat of criminal prosecution. You say Miller is running out of cards. I say he just drew a full hand. (Further note that they offered no such plea deal to Paul Manafort. In other words--knowing what he knows--Mueller has deemed Flynn's knowledge-of-events + cooperation with prosecutors useful to his investigation, in ways that Manafort's wasn't)

Edited December 2, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Zasplach]

4 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

...remember what Comey was fired for, all the way back before we even had a special prosecutor. Trump in his one-on-one meetings with the FBI director had two concrete demands as to how he expected Comey to show his "loyalty." (1) Put out a statement that Donald Trump is not personally under any criminal investigation. (2) "Take it easy on Mike Flynn. He's a good guy." Flynn was with him from the beginning. This was the guy who had all the access to the inner circle of Jared and Don Jr. and Ivanka, but none of the family loyalty. He knew who was doing what and on who's orders and could expose the whole thing, if The State flipped him with the threat of criminal prosecution. You say Miller is running out of cards. I say he just drew a full hand. (Further note that they offered no such plea deal to Paul Manafort. In other words--knowing what he knows--Mueller has deemed Flynn's knowledge-of-events + cooperation with prosecutors useful to his investigation, in ways that Manafort's wasn't)

A quick parsing  shows that Flynn joined him in February, so quiet a while.  And I didn't say he's running out of cards, I said he's running out of people with which to flip; he may very well be pointing fingers at people President Trump cares about (however little he can care about anyone), but until someone points the accusatory finger at the President, no one should be holding their breath.  Remember, a hallmark of this presidency is the presidents lack of interest in specific policy points or really any interest in anything but Twitter and campaigning/rallies, so he may never have been part of any specific, provable offense; he's a giant narcissist, I don't think he really cares that much about his sons/son-in-laws doing federal time, if someone from his personal circle (his sons/son-in-laws, daughters, Steve Bannon, Hope Hicks) doesn't flip, may not be any thing Mr. Mueller can do.  

[Tryhard]

Mueller seems very intelligent and good at his job - he knows he can't just go to Trump immediately with anything or there will be a huge amount of blowback. There is going to be anyway, but showing up the people that Trump picked one by one is engaging in illegal activity at first will make it easier for him if there is anything there (I'd argue that Mueller opened the floodgates to just general corruption earlier when he said he was going to look into Trump's business transaction - something I do think Donald probably has some skeletons on)

Plus, Trump is now saying that he fired Flynn because he lied to 'Pence and the FBI'.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Tryhard

[Water Mage]

1 hour ago, Tryhard said:

Mueller seems very intelligent and good at his job - he knows he can't just go to Trump immediately with anything or there will be a huge amount of blowback. There is going to be anyway, but showing up the people that Trump picked one by one is engaging in illegal activity at first will make it easier for him if there is anything there (I'd argue that Mueller opened the floodgates to just general corruption earlier when he said he was going to look into Trump's business transaction - something I do think Donald probably has some skeletons on)

Plus, Trump is now saying that he fired Flynn because he lied to 'Pence and the FBI'.

But if Trump is saying that, isn’t he admitting to obstruction of justice? I mean Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to let it go that’s obstruction of justice. Dear god, if I’m right the man is an idiot because he admitted to obstruction of justice without even realizing it.

[Shoblongoo]

Mueller now reportedly in possession of a previously undisclosed email from the Trump transition team, stating plainly that Russia "threw the election to Trump." (Flynn's  cooperation + plea agreement announced, then one day later this--take a wild guess how prosectors came into possession of that email). http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/362951-trump-transition-official-in-email-russia-has-just-thrown-the-usa

Edited December 2, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Crysta]

1 hour ago, Water Mage said:

But if Trump is saying that, isn’t he admitting to obstruction of justice? I mean Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to let it go that’s obstruction of justice. Dear god, if I’m right the man is an idiot because he admitted to obstruction of justice without even realizing it.

It's... it's all 4D chess! He's playing us! He's doing all this #winning and we don't even realize it!

I can only imagine how the rest of his staff reacted when they read that lol

[Lord Raven]

Also, Mueller supposedly fired someone from his investigation team for sending anti-Trump texts.

This man is a true Patriot. His goal is justice, not shit flinging.

[Tryhard]

so while the tax plan could be somewhat of a "promise" that Trump could have claimed to have actually achieved (even though that's actually just the Republicans), I think the results right now as a result of the killing of TPP and Trump's supposed protectionism is telling. More jobs have been outsourced from Trump's inauguration than in the average of the previous five years under Obama. Whether you think that's a good thing or not, I thought Trump's position was America First and that they should "bring jobs back there" (or keep them in the US).

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trump-carrier-offshoring-jobs_us_5a1f6f97e4b0a8581e67e62e

More than 93,000 jobs have been eliminated due to foreign competition since Trump’s election, according to Labor Department data analyzed by Good Jobs Nation, a union-backed labor advocacy group. The previous five years saw an average of 87,500 jobs lost due to trade.

One reason Carrier kept its plant open instead of shifting all the production to Mexico was that its parent company, United Technologies, is a major government contractor and didn’t want to jeopardize that revenue stream. At the very least, it seemed, the Carrier deal showed Trump could use the presidency to bully companies into hiring American workers. But big federal contractors contributed 11 percent of the layoffs due to trade over the past year, compared to only 4 percent over the preceding five years.

Edited December 5, 2017 by Tryhard

[Shoblongoo]

Like I'm trying not to be too hyperbolic about the Trump tax plan. It's bad policy. It's not the end of the world. I do think if it passes it becomes the GOP's Obamacare; a massively unpopular piece of legislation passed on party-lines that's going to become a rallying cry for the opposition going into the midterms, and carry them back to the majority. And it's sort of in the same boat as Obamacare where its subject to the political whims of the next president and congress; just because its passed doesn't mean it survives the shelf-life of this presidency. I'm much more interested in what's going on right now with Trump's Israel policy and plans to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, tbh. Any thoughts on that one?

[Moblin Major General]

The Middle East is already a stirred up hornet's nest. This will cause another nest higher up in the tree to fall down. Not that the people dumb enough to throw rocks at the higher nest didn't have the forethought to wear beekeeper suits before doing it.

[Tryhard]

5 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Like I'm trying not to be too hyperbolic about the Trump tax plan. It's bad policy. It's not the end of the world. I do think if it passes it becomes the GOP's Obamacare; a massively unpopular piece of legislation passed on party-lines that's going to become a rallying cry for the opposition going into the midterms, and carry them back to the majority. And it's sort of in the same boat as Obamacare where its subject to the political whims of the next president and congress; just because its passed doesn't mean it survives the shelf-life of this presidency. I'm much more interested in what's going on right now with Trump's Israel policy and plans to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, tbh. Any thoughts on that one?

It's bad policy because it's giving more wealth inequality in a time of unparalleled wealth inequality. It just might take a while to feel.

If there was any doubt Trump went ahead and announced Jerusalem as Israel's capital now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42259443

Edited December 6, 2017 by Tryhard

[Zasplach]

5 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Like I'm trying not to be too hyperbolic about the Trump tax plan. It's bad policy. It's not the end of the world. I do think if it passes it becomes the GOP's Obamacare; a massively unpopular piece of legislation passed on party-lines that's going to become a rallying cry for the opposition going into the midterms, and carry them back to the majority. And it's sort of in the same boat as Obamacare where its subject to the political whims of the next president and congress; just because its passed doesn't mean it survives the shelf-life of this presidency. I'm much more interested in what's going on right now with Trump's Israel policy and plans to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, tbh. Any thoughts on that one?

Eh, tax cuts don't tend to be albatrosses on majorities necks like acts of compulsion (see President Bush 1 being sunk by the raising of taxes and the Democrat majority being sunk by Obamacare which force people to buy health insurance).  It's a stupid bill, but I don't expect the backlash that different types of bills can have on a majority.

On one hand, the whole moving the capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a move to reality. Israel's actual, physical governmental capital is in West Jerusalem, all the apparatus of state exist there, but there is a lot of controversy in that act.  Both the potential dual states of Israel want Jerusalem as their capital for cultural, historical, and political reasons, it seems it would be easier if the 'City of God' was paved under dirt, but alas.  On the other hand, this certainly hurts our ability to be neutral arbiters between the PLO and Israel, not that has gone very well over the last forty years.  I don't see any gain, except political for President, in moving the embassy to Jerusalem, but politics reign supreme so no matter.  The US has been attempting to move the embassy since '95, but all 3 Presidents since then have decided to sign waivers because they didn't want to drop the bomb, it looks like President Trump will continue to sign the waivers for a while, so this may be a wholly political act that never comes to fruition.  

And lastly, it looks like Senator Franken is going resign.  Thirty Democratic senators called for his resignation today and he wasn't on the floor or in committee today and he has an announcement coming tomorrow.  It seems a little late and more to do with the pushing of the political winds, but doing the right thing is always welcomed.  It appears that the cultural left is less willing to trade votes for what it perceives as a violations of it's core tenants, absolute equality of women being one.  I suspect, at least in the near future, this will be the norm, accused Democrats will be compelled to resign by the proverbial lynch mob and their caucus refusing to cooperate with them , while Republicans will attempt to entrench themselves against such accusations.

[Shoblongoo]

...yeah AP confirming today--Franken's out. He had to go. Sexual assault really shouldnt be a partisan issue, but you can't be the party claiming the moral high ground on respect and tolerance and accountability for outrageous conduct in the age of Donald "grab em' by the pussy!" Trump. Then turn around and keep a guy like that around.

[Lord Raven]

Agreed. He's a lot less disappointing than Anthony Weiner, but it was still necessary.

[Slumber]

It's frustrating to me that the only way a republican ever gets in trouble for sex scandals is if they get caught with a man.

Fuckin', talk about harassment openly, talk about forcing yourself on people, actually force yourself on people, cheat on your wife and/or have sex with minors and it's a-okay as long as it's all male on female. Do it with a dude though and the party won't touch you with a ten foot pole.

Franken had to go, but it's becoming more and more frustrating seeing only democrats be accountable and suffer the consequences for anything.

Well, at least Dayton will probably pick a good replacement.

[Tryhard]

Yes, my frustration is that Republican colleagues and voters have shown that they have a very shaky understanding of morals at best and are prepared to ignore a lot.

Go high, and get punished for it, or go low and be rewarded: politics in a nutshell.

Edit: Of course, Alabama GOP voters have a chance to prove me wrong very soon. But I'm not hopeful.

Edited December 7, 2017 by Tryhard