Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

Schumer:  We don't govern by temper tantrum.

 

WINNER!

 

That said, can't say Pelosi and Schumer will go down into a speakers' hall of fame...

[unclevlad]

Lunch stayed down.  Letting the chicken come up to room temp;  things going into the oven shortly.  Late-ish dinner even for me, but no big.

[Old Man]

Thanks for watching this travesty so the rest of us wouldn't have to.  I appreciate your sacrifice.

[unclevlad]

I'm not as angry as I was afraid I was going to be.  Disgusted is closer.

 

But I think I'm signing off for the night, and I'm going to watch college hoops and read.  

 

And pour myself a nice dollop of...scotch, I think.  I don't think this calls for cognac.  

[Pariah]

Why waste good cognac--or even Scotch--on that guy? Thunderbird sounds like more the right quality.

 

(Disclaimer: I don't drink....)

[Pariah]

10 hours ago, Hermit said:

I can endure longer but I end up turning into Statler and Waldorf

 

I believe that's the best response to this issue that I've ever heard.

 

[mojo_bones]

11 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Pelosi and Schumer have demanded, and received equal time to respond.

 

Some git on MSNBC is saying the networks should've refused to give Trump the air time.  Idiot doesn't have a clue.  That'd be totally unacceptable.  Time for the response is the correct tactic.

 

I suggest you look back to 2014 and Obama's DACA speech. The networks said it was too political so did not air it. I remember all of the outrage for that....oh wait no I don't. I remember crickets. These are the things that show the idea that the media has a left leaning bias just so laughable.

[csyphrett]

Did anybody get the email for money for the wall when it was for his campaign committee instead? Grifting to the end.

CES

[Pattern Ghost]

8 hours ago, csyphrett said:

Did anybody get the email for money for the wall when it was for his campaign committee instead? Grifting to the end. 

CES

 

If I had an e-mail account that got on that mailing list, I'd deactivate it immediately.

[Pattern Ghost]

17 hours ago, unclevlad said:

BTW, Trump is a piss-poor speech reader. 

 

Or just "piss-poor reader."

 

The Daily Show end of year skit  showed a bunch of his flubs trying to read from a teleprompter. It was both funny and scary.

[csyphrett]

8 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

If I had an e-mail account that got on that mailing list, I'd deactivate it immediately.

I can't argue with that. I'm still trying to figure out how I got on Coryn's mailing list.

CES

[DShomshak]

Watched His Orangeness and, as usual, was impressed by the sheer multi-layeredness of his lies. In his way, Trump (and his writers) are the greatest rhetoricians of our time: Not just simple lies of fact, but manipulating the background of statements to create implicit lies and meta-lies.

 

But Schumer and Pelosi's response was indeed none too great. I was disappointed that they did not stress the point that the core problem with Trump's wall is that it cannot work, as explained so well above.

 

Dean Shomshak

[unclevlad]

Quite a few years ago, ESPN ran a competition show for a SportCenter anchor.  Obviously a big skill is reading from a teleprompter.  It was interesting to see how often the people had difficulties...and figure these were likely all communications or journalism majors.  Similarly, when I listened to the local public radio station...it's on campus and uses students quite a bit...they're often awkward reading promos and the like.  You'd think that'd be easier.  But of course, the important aspect is recognizing the problem exists, and we know Trump can't ever acknowledge he might be less than perfect at anything.

3 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

I can't argue with that. I'm still trying to figure out how I got on Coryn's mailing list.

By association, probably.  Mailing lists get sold/passed around regularly, particularly in the past when privacy wasn't as much front and center.  Intrusive access to browser history.  Website cookies.  That's off the top of my head;  I wouldn't be surprised there are other avenues.

 

I was never sure how I got onto Republican Party lists, but I got calls *all* the time from them before I switched things around, dropping the voice line and going to VoIP services.  No, I didn't keep the old number...which created some problems, as I'd had it for 25 years.  But the massive drop in spam calls has been wonderful.

 

Spam email like that has basically zero cost, so ANY way they can try to send out more and more of that crap is deemed fair game.  Unsubscribing works when the email originator cares about your opinion of them...but political BS doesn't, so it may not work.  There probably isn't a good way to enforce a requirement to honor unsubscribe requests, so some sites either mis-process it or simply ignore it, knowing they're safe to do so.  (Yes, I have a commercial site that's doing it.  I think it's a glitch, as I've told them to unsub me a few times, but I still get junk from them.)

[unclevlad]

16 hours ago, Pariah said:

Why waste good cognac--or even Scotch--on that guy? Thunderbird sounds like more the right quality.

 

(Disclaimer: I don't drink....)

 

I didn't have it for him, I had it for me.  

 

Life's too short to drink bad coffee or booze.

[DShomshak]

Today my local paper printed NY Times pundit's column telling Senate Republicans to grow spines and confront Trump. Brooks pointed out that Dems taking the House puts Senate Republicans in quite a good position. Their great fear -- the leverage Trump has over them -- is that an angry tweetstorm from him will result in them being primaried out in their next election. But now they have leverage to use in return: House Dems are almost certain to impeach (their own base will demand nothing less), in which case the Senate Republicans becomes Trump's jury. He can remove them from office, maybe, eventually; they'll be able to remove him from office (and facing prosecution) definitely, right then. So it would be deeply imprudent for him to make threats against them.

 

(A little math to strengthen the point: Assume all 47 Senate Dems vote to convict. They have nothing to lose -- not many red state Dems left. That means only 20 Republicand need to vote to convict. 20 of 53. Senators who face election in 2020 might be queasy, but for those who don't face reelection until 2022 or 2024, what the hell. In politics, three or five years is an eternity.)

 

So they should do their duty by re-passing the funding bills they voted for before, re-open the government, and tell Trump that if he attacks them they can take him down with them. His Orangeness doesn't seem to understand much, but he understands fear and retribution.

 

I can only hope that many senators read Mr. Brooks' column.

 

Dean Shomshak

[csyphrett]

9 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Quite a few years ago, ESPN ran a competition show for a SportCenter anchor.  Obviously a big skill is reading from a teleprompter.  It was interesting to see how often the people had difficulties...and figure these were likely all communications or journalism majors.  Similarly, when I listened to the local public radio station...it's on campus and uses students quite a bit...they're often awkward reading promos and the like.  You'd think that'd be easier.  But of course, the important aspect is recognizing the problem exists, and we know Trump can't ever acknowledge he might be less than perfect at anything.

By association, probably.  Mailing lists get sold/passed around regularly, particularly in the past when privacy wasn't as much front and center.  Intrusive access to browser history.  Website cookies.  That's off the top of my head;  I wouldn't be surprised there are other avenues.

 

I was never sure how I got onto Republican Party lists, but I got calls *all* the time from them before I switched things around, dropping the voice line and going to VoIP services.  No, I didn't keep the old number...which created some problems, as I'd had it for 25 years.  But the massive drop in spam calls has been wonderful.

 

Spam email like that has basically zero cost, so ANY way they can try to send out more and more of that crap is deemed fair game.  Unsubscribing works when the email originator cares about your opinion of them...but political BS doesn't, so it may not work.  There probably isn't a good way to enforce a requirement to honor unsubscribe requests, so some sites either mis-process it or simply ignore it, knowing they're safe to do so.  (Yes, I have a commercial site that's doing it.  I think it's a glitch, as I've told them to unsub me a few times, but I still get junk from them.)

i always thought it was because I had some friends in Texas and that's what landed me on the list. Coryn's tech doesn't recognize me as a human being because of my answers to his poll or the zip code I used to process his request for information

CES 

[Starlord]

Was it just me or did anyone else get "Twins in the hallway from The Shining" from Pelosi and Schumer?

[Old Man]

No, I got this.

 

[Ternaugh]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Quite a few years ago, ESPN ran a competition show for a SportCenter anchor.  Obviously a big skill is reading from a teleprompter.  It was interesting to see how often the people had difficulties...and figure these were likely all communications or journalism majors.  Similarly, when I listened to the local public radio station...it's on campus and uses students quite a bit...they're often awkward reading promos and the like.  You'd think that'd be easier.  But of course, the important aspect is recognizing the problem exists, and we know Trump can't ever acknowledge he might be less than perfect at anything.

By association, probably.  Mailing lists get sold/passed around regularly, particularly in the past when privacy wasn't as much front and center.  Intrusive access to browser history.  Website cookies.  That's off the top of my head;  I wouldn't be surprised there are other avenues.

 

I was never sure how I got onto Republican Party lists, but I got calls *all* the time from them before I switched things around, dropping the voice line and going to VoIP services.  No, I didn't keep the old number...which created some problems, as I'd had it for 25 years.  But the massive drop in spam calls has been wonderful.

 

Spam email like that has basically zero cost, so ANY way they can try to send out more and more of that crap is deemed fair game.  Unsubscribing works when the email originator cares about your opinion of them...but political BS doesn't, so it may not work.  There probably isn't a good way to enforce a requirement to honor unsubscribe requests, so some sites either mis-process it or simply ignore it, knowing they're safe to do so.  (Yes, I have a commercial site that's doing it.  I think it's a glitch, as I've told them to unsub me a few times, but I still get junk from them.)

 

As an aside, NoMoRobo is free for VOIP landlines, and the service that I use has an easy linkage to it (yours might, too). My call list puts (NoMoRobo) in back of the number when it's been blocked. Additionally, I've set a rule up to block any numbers that start with my area code+3-digit prefix to avoid "neighbor spam". 

[Old Man]

Speaking of the Pelosi/Schumer rebuttal, they missed a golden opportunity.  Instead of factual corrections, they should have just pointed out that McConnell could have ended the shutdown a week ago.  Trump is irrelevant.

[Sociotard]

I was under the impression that, unless they can get a 2/3 majority (and there is no chance of this), they must have Trump's signature to reopen the government.

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, Sociotard said:

I was under the impression that, unless they can get a 2/3 majority (and there is no chance of this), they must have Trump's signature to reopen the government.

 

That's what is required to override his veto, so probably that is what will be needed.  Right now, no, that won't happen.

 

That said, if the Republican Senators get sufficiently fed up/hear enough from their constituents, it may become possible.  The Republicans have to look to 2020.  Maybe they won't lose certain seats...but I can see a LOT of incumbents in "safe" districts losing in primaries.  Plus any even remotely contested seat will probably go to the Democrats.

 

A side thought here.  It's been opined that Trump's political future is fundamentally on the line here;  if he loses on the wall, he can kiss his re-election goodbye.  That's part of what's driving the intransigence, altho not all of it.  But he may not be the only one.  McConnell's future as Majority Leader might be as well.  He's Trump's right hand man on this, blocking the Senate from doing anything.

[Lord Liaden]

To me the key point is not so much whether Congress can actually get legislation past Trump. It's whether they fulfill their constitutional responsibility to function as a branch of the government separate from the executive. McConnell is actively muzzling the Senate from even debating the issue unless he thinks Trump will agree to what they vote on, effectively turning them into the President's rubber stamp.

[Hermit]

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/424730-mcconnell-blocks-house-bills-to-reopen-government

[Joe Walsh]

Yes, Mitch, it would be pointless to see whether enough Senators will vote for even a single one of these bills to pass it, and then later to find out if enough will vote to override any veto Trump may make.

 

Voting is pointless.