Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Asperion said:

 

What I'm expecting is a repeat of 2016. The common electorate will grant him something between 10-20% of the vote.  Then the powers behind the scenes will come in and determine that we did not know what we were doing and recast the election,  giving him over 50%, WAY  more than is needed to claim the nomination. (I was surprised that this didn't happen in 2020.)

 

I honestly can't see this happening. Outside of his clique of cultists, Republican legislators and even right-wing media have been turning against Trump since the midterms, criticizing and even blaming him, and advising him not to come to their rallies or endorse any more candidates. His support for Presidential candidate has dropped well below 50% even among registered Republicans. Trump is still in the lead there, but DeSantis is gaining on him fast.

 

The GOP establishment seems to have concluded they can't win a general election while still connected to Trump. If he did get 20% of the vote at the convention, the party leadership won't see it in their best interest to push him forward rather than another candidate. That alone would be enough to decide them, even if Donnie hadn't disparaged and insulted most of them repeatedly. (Of course his immorality and incompetence never weigh in their deliberations.)

[DShomshak]

The latest Economist offers the same three items on its wish list for the lame duck Congress, and adds a few. Their editorial is specifically addressed to Senate Republicans, since at least 10 are needed to advance legislation.

 

1) Permanent residency for the Dreamers. "Some Dreamers are entering middle age. Do Senate Republicans want to keep up the pretense that they may one day be deported? And if so, where to?"

 

2) Fund Ukraine's war effort. "Vladimir Putin's strategy is to wait out the West, and bomb and freeze Ukraine into submission. Ukraine needs to kow that its Western allies have more patience than Mr Putin thinks they do." The tens of vbillions asked are enormous for most countries, but small compared to the total Pentagon budget.

 

3) Reform the Electoral Count Act. "Plenty of Senate Republicans have expressed support." So put your public votes where your private opinions are.

 

4) Raise the debt ceiling until the next presidential election is over. "A sovereign default would crash the world economy and make America poorer and weaker... Better not to pretend it is an option."

 

5) "Reform permitting laws to make it easier to build new green-energy projects (including nuclear ones) and new electric grids." The newspaper claims that environmental permitting rules can delay such projects for decades, when the whole sector is poised to surge right now to the benefit of the US economy and the global environment. I don't know if that's true; but if it is then yeah, environmentalists may need to a ccept some trade-offs.

 

"One of the heartening outcomes of the midterm elections is that the extremes did badly. Democratic candidates ditched ideas like defunding the police and were rewarded for their moderation. Our analysis of the results found that candidates backed by Mr Trump did about five points worse than they would have without his endorsement, and election deniers did even worse. This is a good moment to turn the assertion of the moderate centre into a legislative programme."

 

[Personal addendum: The five-points-worse result could be because candidates who sought Trump's endorsement tended to be more wackadoodle than other Republicans, and it turns out that many voters do not actually want wackadoodles in Congress. Though alas, not enough.]

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

3 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

 

2) Fund Ukraine's war effort. "Vladimir Putin's strategy is to wait out the West, and bomb and freeze Ukraine into submission. Ukraine needs to kow that its Western allies have more patience than Mr Putin thinks they do." The tens of vbillions asked are enormous for most countries, but small compared to the total Pentagon budget.

 

 

All the equipment and munitions the US are sending to Ukraine need to be replaced. Defense industries love that prospect, and will lobby hard to keep it going.

 

6 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

 

5) "Reform permitting laws to make it easier to build new green-energy projects (including nuclear ones) and new electric grids." The newspaper claims that environmental permitting rules can delay such projects for decades, when the whole sector is poised to surge right now to the benefit of the US economy and the global environment. I don't know if that's true; but if it is then yeah, environmentalists may need to accept some trade-offs.

 

 

"Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good." (Most commonly attributed to Voltaire.)

 

8 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

"One of the heartening outcomes of the midterm elections is that the extremes did badly. Democratic candidates ditched ideas like defunding the police and were rewarded for their moderation. Our analysis of the results found that candidates backed by Mr Trump did about five points worse than they would have without his endorsement, and election deniers did even worse. This is a good moment to turn the assertion of the moderate centre into a legislative programme."

 

[Personal addendum: The five-points-worse result could be because candidates who sought Trump's endorsement tended to be more wackadoodle than other Republicans, and it turns out that many voters do not actually want wackadoodles in Congress. Though alas, not enough.]

 

Dean Shomshak

 

I think we're getting a chicken-or-egg situation here.

[unclevlad]

IIRC, one of the strong correlations was the Trumpist candidates with NO experience in politics, especially running for broader office...Senator or Governor, possibly also Sec of State or equivalent...they got hammered.  Yvette Harrell lost down here, but was that Trumpism, or her abortion stand?  The effect of the abortion decision, and the rapid enactment of laws banning or HIGHLY restricting them, is a complicating issue in trying to analyze these results.

 

I have my doubts that electoral reform can be pulled off in the limited time remaining...because I suspect there may be reasonable bipartisan support for reform, but not a consensus on any set of measures to enact.  It'll get tangled up with too many wanting, or rejecting, too many parts so either very little gets passed, or nothing at all. 

[Cygnia]

Ohio leaned wackadoodle, alas

 

Meanwhile, in China...

[unclevlad]

This WILL disturb you.  

Stewart Rhodes' son: ‘How I escaped my father’s militia’

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63709446

[Cygnia]

New Zealand, but I think this fits the politics thread

 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/130623195/saboteur-graham-philip-jailed-for-trying-to-cut-power-to-entire-north-island

[unclevlad]

8 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

New Zealand, but I think this fits the politics thread

 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/130623195/saboteur-graham-philip-jailed-for-trying-to-cut-power-to-entire-north-island

 

7 charges of sabotage, quite significant damage done...and he only gets 3 years?

[unclevlad]

Maybe, just maybe, something can now come of this one...

 

Appeals Court overturns the special master review of the Trump docs seized from Mar-a-Lago a while back, and rips the judge.  From NYT, mostly a quote of the decision:

 

Quote

The appeals court was sharply critical of the decision in September by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee, to intervene in the case. It said that Judge Cannon never had legitimate jurisdiction to order the review or bar investigators from using the files, and that there was no justification for treating Mr. Trump differently than any other target of a search warrant.

 

“It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president — but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” the court wrote.

 

Limits on when courts can interfere with a criminal investigation “apply no matter who the government is investigating,” it added. “To create a special exception here would defy our nation’s foundational principle that our law applies ‘to all, without regard to numbers, wealth, or rank.’”

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Trump keeps complaining that no POTUS has ever been treated like him... no POTUS has ever behaved like him, either.

 

If these events lead America as a society to broadly reevaluate its political institutions, that may in the long term be to the betterment the union.

[BNakagawa]

two GOP operatives convicted of voter fraud sentenced to register voters in DC.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-orders-right-wing-operatives-who-targeted-black-people-with-robocalls-to-register-voters-in-dc-210638840.html

 

[Pariah]

You don't say.

 

School principals say culture wars made last year 'rough as hell'

[TrickstaPriest]

2 hours ago, Pariah said:

You don't say.

 

School principals say culture wars made last year 'rough as hell'

 

It's bloody shocking to me how often they are just... calling out an entire workforce and naming it the enemy of the people.

 

Election workers too.  But USPS workers?  Doctors, nurses?  Teachers?  Children's hospitals now?  I remember reading something even toeing IT security being 'the enemy' for a bit.

[Hermit]

I really don't think the same jerkholes who want to 'arm teachers' , then praise 'stand your ground laws' then THREATEN said teachers have thought a possible course of events through

[unclevlad]

4 minutes ago, Hermit said:

I really don't think the same jerkholes who want to 'arm teachers' , then praise 'stand your ground laws' then THREATEN said teachers have thought a possible course of events through

 

Well, if they did, it'd be a first for them.

[unclevlad]

Elsewhere, Elon Musk is finding out that no, you cannot have completely unfettered speech.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html

 

This, after another anti-Semitic rant, including that he "saw good things about Hitler" on Alex Jones' show.

 

 

 

[Pariah]

16 minutes ago, Hermit said:

I really don't think the same jerkholes who want to 'arm teachers' , then praise 'stand your ground laws' then THREATEN said teachers have thought.

 

Fixed that for ya.

[TrickstaPriest]

I don't want teachers, or anyone else, to be put in a position where that's necessary.

 

I wonder at the amount of scars on the very foundations of these occupations that the GOP is willing to inflict in bids to stay politically relevant.  The only wilder thing to me is the amount the Democratic party is willing to risk toeing the possibility of losing to the GOP despite the apparent willingness to put them in the ground.  😕

[Hermit]

I hate the term "Both sides" but I'm rather pissed at the Democratic Party (or at least Biden) right now because of their treatment of the potential rail strikers. The GQP? I expected it from.

 

 

[Pariah]

Sadly, the middle of a recession isn't the best time to be idealistic about labor relations when a strike just before the holidays could bring supply-chain problems back to height-of-COVID levels. 

[TrickstaPriest]

2 minutes ago, Hermit said:

I hate the term "Both sides" but I'm rather pissed at the Democratic Party (or at least Biden) right now because of their treatment of the potential rail strikers. The GQP? I expected it from.

 

Yep, exactly.  Since I moved to my current location, I've been exposed to more, what I can call, 'murder the libs/welfare humor' than I could have ever imagined.

 

So it's quite something to see the Dem Party basically shrug their shoulders as that is further legitimized and continue to risk their own irrelevancy.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

28 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Elsewhere, Elon Musk is finding out that no, you cannot have completely unfettered speech.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-suspends-yes-twitter-account-after-swastika-post.html

 

This, after another anti-Semitic rant, including that he "saw good things about Hitler" on Alex Jones' show.

 

 

 

 

Elon Musk hates free speech!

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Hermit said:

I hate the term "Both sides" but I'm rather pissed at the Democratic Party (or at least Biden) right now because of their treatment of the potential rail strikers. The GQP? I expected it from.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Yep, exactly.  Since I moved to my current location, I've been exposed to more, what I can call, 'murder the libs/welfare humor' than I could have ever imagined.

 

So it's quite something to see the Dem Party basically shrug their shoulders as that is further legitimized and continue to risk their own irrelevancy.

 

IMO Biden bungled a great opportunity to score political points with labor, traditionally a strong base of support for Biden specifically. If he was going to impose a contract settlement, he could have just as easily imposed a lot more of what the union was asking for, in terms of reduced work hours and days off, which again IMO are a legitimate grievance and a serious risk both to them and the public. Biden chose to come down on the side of management, and that may cost him and the Democratic Party at the polls.

[Hermit]

1 minute ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

 

IMO Biden bungled a great opportunity to score political points with labor, traditionally a strong base of support for Biden specifically. If he was going to impose a contract settlement, he could have just as easily imposed a lot more of what the union was asking for, in terms of reduced work hours and days off, which again IMO are a legitimate grievance and a serious risk both to them and the public. Biden chose to come down on the side of management, and that may cost him and the Democratic Party at the polls.

 

Hell, he could have threatened to Nationalize it, THEN say 'or give them some sick days' and been a hero

[TrickstaPriest]

Just now, Lord Liaden said:

Biden chose to come down on the side of management, and that may cost him and the Democratic Party at the polls.

 

Yeah, and the problem to me is the amount of 'humor' that amounts to murdering/killing the Dems (and possibly their voting base) and the implication that the Democratic Party just looks at that and 'shrugs'.