The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[SSF1991]

19 hours ago, Patticus said:

I think the US is well past its corruption tolerance threshold.

2016 was the point where the US became well past its tolerance threshold for just about everything.

[tailsBOOM!]

Biden, Trump, Obama Memes (Have to do this)

[Candescence]

Meanwhile SESTA has passed the senate by an overwhelming vote, showing how "feel good" attempts to curb sex trafficking can not only do the opposite but also harm the internet in general. And, Hollywood is happy that they've succeeded at covertly pushing the US more step further towards having a non-free Internet by exploiting the plight of sex trafficking victims for their own gain without doing anything to help them at all.

[Dizcrybe]

So what does SESTA actually do?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

So, in recent news, because the current POTUS refused to take advice from him regarding the Mueller probe, his lawyer, John Dowd has quite, filed in his resignation, leaving Trump in quite a spot.

 

[Patticus]

Quote

President Trump replaces US National Security Adviser HR McMaster with Bush-era defence hawk John Bolton.

In a tweet, Mr Trump said he was thankful for Mr McMaster's service and said he had done an "outstanding job".

He is the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the White House.

Last week, Mr Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson via Twitter, replacing him with former CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43509695

We're all fucked. Trump's lawyer resigned, McMaster's out - the man obviously has no qualm with crossing any lines. Kim Jong-un may be a scary tyrannical dictator, but even he isn' dumb enough to start a nuclear war. Trump, on the other hand, would start a nuclear war if his ego felt threatened enough.

[Blue Wisp]

What's that? You don't want to vote because both candidates are "bad"?

Well.

This is what happens when you don't vote.

Dragged yourself into a hole with the whole world slowly following.

Nice.

[SSF1991]

So, the omnibus spending bill has passed both chambers of Congress. The bill appeals to Democrats a lot. Planned Parenthood, Obamacare, and Sanctuary Cities are all funded. The only pro-Trump thing? Some money dedicated to border security. Nothing, however, for his wall. I don't know about this CLOUD Act thing that some Trump supporters are going on about, but it seems like it's only them bringing it up so that's all I need to know. Unfortunately, DACA is not in this bill, nor are there any pro-Mueller investigation protections. So that stinks. But still, the bill manages to do a lot.

Either way, Trump supporters are pissed about this bill. We'll see if Trump signs it into law. If he does...yeah his base won't be happy.

[Tornado]

On 3/18/2018 at 12:04 AM, TailsTellsTales said:

But shipping what few good paying non college degree required jobs that are left to other countries just to make some corporation who primarily benefits from it richer is not cool.

You really need to stop using "corporations" and "the rich" as buzzwords in lieu of an argument. You know who benefits from free trade? Everyone who buys anything that is derived from it. No amount of punitive tax against companies that outsource cheap labor is going to bring shitty factory jobs back to the US, and they certainly aren't going bring middle level ones back. What would probably happen instead is more companies just forgoing the US market entirely (something already increasingly common due to differences in US/EU regulations), eat the tax, or make massive investments to eliminate as many actual jobs as possible in mass production environments to keep long term pricing similar.

 

And, to be frank, after eight years of getting shit internationally for the US meddling in the domestic affairs of shithole countries, even if I did support US meddling I shouldn't need to particularly care about the plight of citizens in other countries above my own if those countries' governments aren't too bothered by it themselves. Certainly not when it's framed as part of a larger argument about how the US should promote protectionism, but only if done by someone other than Trump (because reasons). The US promoted protectionism on the 1970s and 1980s. It almost destroyed the automotive industry. Twice. It did destroy the British one.

[Candescence]

So Trump is threatening to veto the omnibus spending bill mentioned above. Over DACA (the thing he deliberately killed and basically refused to reinstate despite a bipartisan deal) and the wall.

If he does, the government shuts down. Again. And apparently the threat has blindsided his own party, as usual.

 

 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE SO-CALLED PARTY OF SUPERIOR ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT. Ugh.

 

[KHCast]

So somewhat old(like last week), but Texas senate approved a law that allows adoption agencies to deny non-Christian and homosexual or single parents. I mean wtf?

[SSF1991]

So hey, about that omnibus veto threat.

"lol jk"

EDIT: He signed it. And he's acting like a child who didn't get what he wanted. And holy shit is his base not happy.

 

 

 

[Meta77]

Could care less if there mad or happy as a worker in gov these days and games are worst for us honestly.

[Tara]

1 hour ago, SSF1991 said:

He signed it. And he's acting like a child who didn't get what he wanted.

"I can't believe the liberals forced Trump to do something of his own free will."

[Candescence]

The right wing are tearing themselves to shreds over this. T_D is having a goddamn meltdown. It is incredible.

The Dems got everything they wanted, including stuff they would never have gotten under Obama. I mean, fuck, buried in the massive document is the authorisation for the Centers for Disease Control to be able to do research on gun violence again, something they've been barred from doing since 1996. That is huge.

The GOP is such a fucking shambles that they ended up capitulating to the Dems hardcore to avoid shutting down the government again. And the base is livid.

Disunity. Equals. Death. It's a truism in politics. Broad churches can be an asset to popular support when handled properly, but when the cracks form, they can become catastrophic.

[Patticus]

I've heard that the bill screws the Internet in a horrible way, though, leading to Reddit eliminating a ton of its boards, and Craigslist to remove its entire personals section.

[SSF1991]

2 hours ago, Patticus said:

I've heard that the bill screws the Internet in a horrible way, though, leading to Reddit eliminating a ton of its boards, and Craigslist to remove its entire personals section.

The CLOUD Act. It's a nasty blemish on an otherwise good bill. Hopefully the ACLU, who spoke out against it, will sue. Considering that it was included in a spending bill, however, I don't know if it'll work.

 

4 hours ago, Meta77 said:

Could care less if there mad or happy as a worker in gov these days and games are worst for us honestly.

Indeed, but these are the people that put Trump in office in the first place. That's his base. He loses that, and it's game over for his presidency and for the GOP. The right is absolutely peeved about what happened. Quite a few have dropped their support of Trump or the GOP. They feel betrayed. Expect their turnout to drop. And, if so, that will make the potential blue wave later this year more likely. Believe it or not, Trump's base is just as sick of Ryan and Mitch as we are. Part of why they voted for Trump was to "drain the swamp", yeah, but believe it or not, Ryan and Mitch were part of that "swamp". And now Trump has basically become the "swamp" in their eyes.

If there's one thing that the GOP has managed to succeed in doing, it's piss off and betray their voters. Even Democrats, as dumb as they were being in 2016, can't even compare to the stunts the GOP is pulling.

[Tani Coyote]

On today's episode of "Trump is a national embarrassment," he has called on Congress to bestow upon him a line item veto.

Line item vetoes have been struck down by the Supreme Court.

If nothing else it's quite good to see the GOP base losing a lot of its enthusiasm for him. Even if 2018 isn't a midterm wipeout, his odds of re-election just tanked.

20 hours ago, KHCast said:

So somewhat old(like last week), but Texas senate approved a law that allows adoption agencies to deny non-Christian and homosexual or single parents. I mean wtf?

Likely it will get struck down by a court.

[Tornado]

4 hours ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

On today's episode of "Trump is a national embarrassment," he has called on Congress to bestow upon him a line item veto.

Line item vetoes have been struck down by the Supreme Court.

Which was also true when Bush asked for (and nearly received) it in 2006 and when Obama asked for it in 2010 and nearly got it in 2012. They still asked and the House still tried to grant it, because if it made it through Congress (and assuming Congress hadn't learned their lesson from how it was written in 1996) it wouldn't be struck down until it actually went to court.

[Tani Coyote]

http://www.wcax.com/content/news/Vt-House-to-take-debate-gun-bill-Friday-477640123.html

Vermont looks poised to ban bump stocks, expand background checks and raise the gun buying age to 21, showing that Florida's bill may create copycat bills cross country.

The NRA is going to be having a fun time over the next year, no doubt. Here's hoping they get gutpunched.

6 minutes ago, Tornado said:

Which was also true when Bush asked for (and nearly received) it in 2006 and when Obama asked for it in 2010 and nearly got it in 2012. They still asked, because if they got it it wouldn't be struck down until it actually went to court.

That and both of those aren't standard line item vetoes, but can be overruled by simple majority in both chambers, which would make the Supreme Court's original objection moot.

Something tells me Trump did not think that far, particularly given the odds he could lose both chambers later this year. Doubly so since he whines about Congress having to approve sanction reductions by simple majority, the same exact concept.

He wants to be a strongman and is pissy everyone's "no thanks."

[Tornado]

11 minutes ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

That and both of those aren't standard line item vetoes, but can be overruled by simple majority in both chambers, which would make the Supreme Court's original objection moot.

That's not what your post said, and it's irrelevant how far Trump has thought it through because Congress would never have any interest in giving it to him in the first place. But that's him, specifically; an idiot they would never trust with any form of the idea. The Supreme Court saying the line item veto as codified in 1996 was unconstitutional did not close the book on the concept of the line item veto in all future federal law; and whoever the next president is in 2020 will undoubtedly have the idea floated around again.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

In latest news, the DNC hacker slipped up and revealed himself as a Russian spy.

Dude forgot to mask his IP address.

This just got even more interesting.

[Tani Coyote]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/24/politics/white-house-response-to-march-trnd/index.html

Trump's response to today's marches is to applaud people for exercising their First Amendment rights while also mentioning his support for recent bills expanding background checks and funding preparedness for mass shootings in schools. The Justice Department's recent rule to ban bump stocks also was given attention.

Will most of the marchers feel this is satisfactory? In all likelihood not, as plenty of Senate Democrats have already stated it does not go far enough.

The Senate bill may meet its end on the debate over universal background checks, which are traditionally handwaved by gun advocates on the basis "most" gun sales are covered by it. Always funny how the right excuses a small percentage when it's convenient, but when it's something like welfare abuse, time to rev up the draconian regulation system.

On that subject, fun times ahead:

https://thinkprogress.org/student-activists-march-for-our-lives-voter-mobilization-df85985f3f04/

There are activists registering people to vote at many of the marches today, which is likely to make the GOP's midterm headache that much worse.

[Tornado]

Today the most popular counter-narrative surrounding Guccifer 2.0 concedes that the account was a fake persona but posits that it was created by the DNC to support a false-flag operation implicating Russia. In this theory, advanced in two

widely cited anonymous blogs, Guccifer 2.0 was the DNC posing as Russia posing as a Romanian hacker.

I've actually heard this one before. I always thought it was pretty funny. All part of their master plan to... out themselves as a nakedly corrupt political machine so they can be swept out of Congress and lose the presidency when they publicly made it obvious that they expected to basically bury the GOP across the board.

[Candescence]

4 hours ago, Bergamo (Ogilvie) said:

http://www.wcax.com/content/news/Vt-House-to-take-debate-gun-bill-Friday-477640123.html

Vermont looks poised to ban bump stocks, expand background checks and raise the gun buying age to 21, showing that Florida's bill may create copycat bills cross country.

The NRA is going to be having a fun time over the next year, no doubt. Here's hoping they get gutpunched.

They already have. Again, the omnibus includes The Fix NICS Act, which modestly improves the existing gun background-check system, plus a provision instructing the Centers for Disease Control that it is free to conduct research on gun violence, which they haven't been able to do since 1996.