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PoliGAF 2017 |OT6| Made this thread during Harvey because the ratings would be higher

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Diablos

Member
Yes, but we're at the point where some of the GOP, and even people like Limbaugh, are starting to think maybe Trump's not really a good person.
Limbaugh is a blow hard but he’s a dinosaur and has been around long enough to know at this point they are better off with Pence who is more up his alley anyway.
 

Ithil

Member
He's already "over" Puerto Rico. He can't concentrate on anything for more than a short period of time and the hurricane was three weeks ago. It's ancient history to him even as the island is still in crisis.
 
I don't know, they should be able to ram through a Tax bill under Pence if that is what they are truly worried about. Seems to much like fanfiction.
Why? How does Pence being president magically fix decades worth of special interest issues, idelaogical differences between the far right and more corporate GOPers, costs, etc? All the president does is sign legislation. They can't get to that point because congress can't figure out how to complete the bill yet...

This all probably ends with republicans passing a short term, Bush style tax cut and the markets reacting negatively.
 
wow, I actually got to a person on Rob Portmans office for the first time. holy shit.

he said rob portman is aware of the presidents comments and does not support them.



so do something.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
He's already "over" Puerto Rico. He can't concentrate on anything for more than a short period of time and the hurricane was three weeks ago. It's ancient history to him even as the island is still in crisis.

This seems actually like a plausible scenario right now.
 

dramatis

Member
GH6c.png

Huh
 

dramatis

Member
With the UNESCO thing, I feel like the SecState after Trump is going to have a much harder job than even Hillary Clinton had after Bush's round.
 
Like, what the fuck do we do? It feels like waiting for the mid-terms isn't enough.

These GOP fuckers need to go now. Puerto Rico, Flint, North California, all dying because of them.
 

VanMardigan

has calmed down a bit.
I wonder what his threat means to the relief efforts in the US Virgin Islands. My people there are better off if he forgets we exist and just allows the FEMA people to do their jobs apparently. Crazy thing to say but with his erratic behavior, it's probably best if we're not on POTUS' mind right now.
 

Blader

Member
I wonder what his threat means to the relief efforts in the US Virgin Islands. My people there are better off if he forgets we exist and just allows the FEMA people to do their jobs apparently. Crazy thing to say but with his erratic behavior, it's probably best if we're not on POTUS' mind right now.

He probably doesn't even know they exist.
 
The weird thing is, Hillary winning in 2016 would've been actually great for them, long term.

Even if Hillary pulls a few more Senate seats and the Democrats have a slight majority, Ryan is still Speaker. Nothing gets done, 2018 is another midterm shallacking, the MSM and Fox will create 39 new scandals and in 2020, sadly, Hillary probably easily loses to a Tom Cotton/Mike Lee ticket.
Yeah. Garland is always going to be the huge fucking asterisk to this, but it might actually have been better to elect Trump IF Congress flips next year and IF we get a Dem president in 2020 as a result of his disastrous presidency dragging the GOP through the mud again. I’m sure they’ll rebound in 2022 anyway, though at least then we’ll be dealing with new Congressional maps and a stacked Senate class.

Of course, beating Trump would have made a rather strong statement against racism and idiocy, so I’d probably still take the “Hillary wins” timeline.

LMAO, House planning for Christmas?
Why do republicans hate Christmas?
 
Fuck, Bannon is going to have serious ammo no matter what. If they don't pass it, he hits them as useless. If they do pass it, he break conservative kayfabe and tells voters how bad the reform is and how it doesn't favor them.

lol
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
I feel like trump has desensitized America to tragedy. No one cares about Puerto Rico. The Myanmar situation seems like a holocaust. No one gives a shit.
 
I feel like trump has desensitized America to tragedy. No one cares about Puerto Rico. The Myanmar situation seems like a holocaust. No one gives a shit.

To be honest, that was long before Trump. If it's not happening directly to us, we couldn't care less. I'd wager that the percentage of the population that didn't want us in World War 2 was higher than you'd think.
 
I feel like trump has desensitized America to tragedy. No one cares about Puerto Rico. The Myanmar situation seems like a holocaust. No one gives a shit.

Is everything his fault, even decades worth of examples of Americans not caring about tragedies that impact brown or black people? How many people gave a shit about the terrorist attacks and natural disasters Africa faced during Obama's presidency, including that Boko Haram attack that took placed shortly after the shooting in France. No one cared.
 

RDreamer

Member
I feel like trump has desensitized America to tragedy. No one cares about Puerto Rico. The Myanmar situation seems like a holocaust. No one gives a shit.

I think there's just a deluge of bullshit this year. No one can really keep track of anything. Trump himself creates news stories that would be week long scandals in any administration prior, so that blocks off a ton of time. On top of that we have 3 fucking hurricanes, major wild fires, and a massive national tragedy. People are stupid and if we're not still talking about it, they get bored and don't care as much. Well, with all this other stuff to talk about, we're not spending the time we would on Puerto Rico or Myanmar.

2017 is just horrible in every way possible.
 

Pixieking

Banned
I feel like trump has desensitized America to tragedy. No one cares about Puerto Rico. The Myanmar situation seems like a holocaust. No one gives a shit.

To be contrary, I think Trump's blatant not giving a shit, coupled with his arrogance, is actually going to make people care. Awful stuff is going on now that people aren't noticing, it's true - Myanmar is just wtf - but I think Trump's slowly holding a mirror up to the American people. He is the average American Joe - ignorant, dumb, uncaring, out-for-himself. The more he does that's cruel or spiteful, the more it's going to push the general population towards actually giving a shit, because they won't be able to stomach how he makes them feel, when they've secretly thought and done so much of what he's doing out in the open.

But that's very "glass is half full". *shrugs* :)
 
We didn’t. But we did give a shit about Haiti. We’re usually better about natural disasters than we are about human atrocities.

You can usually get Americans interested in sending aid more than interventions.

How did that work out for Haiti...

I hate to be a dick, there's just not a good track record here when it comes to Americans giving a shit or our institutions doing much good for black/brown people.
 

Ogodei

Member
Yeah. Garland is always going to be the huge fucking asterisk to this, but it might actually have been better to elect Trump IF Congress flips next year and IF we get a Dem president in 2020 as a result of his disastrous presidency dragging the GOP through the mud again. I’m sure they’ll rebound in 2022 anyway, though at least then we’ll be dealing with new Congressional maps and a stacked Senate class.

Of course, beating Trump would have made a rather strong statement against racism and idiocy, so I’d probably still take the “Hillary wins” timeline.


Why do republicans hate Christmas?

The "Hillary Wins" timeline allows us to paper over white supremacy and the astounding ignorance and partisan vitriol that abounds in the electorate. It's like a drunk driver who made it home from the bar unscathed one more time instead of ramming their car into a fire hydrant. Sucks about the car but now the problem can no longer be ignored.

The question is how much damage the Trump administration does in this scenario. Did our proverbial drunk driver merely hit a fire hydrant, or will we run over a pedestrian?
 

Watch Da Birdie

I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
Sorry if this comes across as too much of a hot take, but I seriously think all the stuff with Hollywood is gonna bite Trump in the butt.

Like, right now it's kind of being used by some as a "liberal hypocrisy!" moment, but the net effect is putting sexual harassment in the spotlight. It started with Weinstein, but now Ben Affleck is in hot water. I hate thinking of this as a "gotcha moment!", but it seems there's going to be a snowball effect from here on out.

I don't see Trump staying quiet on this for long. He'll probably go with the "liberal hypocrisy!" take, but even if he sticks up for Hollywood it'll look bad either way. People are going to bring up his sexual assault allegations, and I think they're going to come back into focus. I don't think they'll do anything sadly, but I do think this will end up reminding everyone that, oh yeah, we probably voted a serial sexual harasser into the White House.
 
Republicans have been very stupid to try and use the Weinstein story as an opportunity to attack Democrats. Not only is this an actual problem that needs attention that goes beyond party lines, but the memory of the access hollywood tape is still fresh in everyone's minds.
 
The "Hillary Wins" timeline allows us to paper over white supremacy and the astounding ignorance and partisan vitriol that abounds in the electorate. It's like a drunk driver who made it home from the bar unscathed one more time instead of ramming their car into a fire hydrant. Sucks about the car but now the problem can no longer be ignored.

The question is how much damage the Trump administration does in this scenario. Did our proverbial drunk driver merely hit a fire hydrant, or will we run over a pedestrian?
True as well, but like you said it depends on the damage done.
 
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-kelly-20171010-story.html

When President Trump agreed last month with Democrats to strike a deal granting legal status to so-called Dreamers brought to this country illegally as children, his chief of staff, John F. Kelly, was all for it. Another Trump confidant disagreed: Fox host Sean Hannity made clear in a phone call and on his show that Trump must draw a harder line on broader immigration enforcement as his price.

Trump sided with Hannity, according to a person close to the White House. The result was a list of demands unveiled Sunday night — conditions seemingly guaranteed to thwart a bipartisan deal.

Kelly, the retired Marine general who is Trump’s second chief of staff, has sought to tighten the flow of information and visitors to the president, to bring order to an unruly White House and to the way that Trump makes his decisions. But he is often thwarted by one man: Trump.

The president by many accounts has bristled at the restrictions and continues — usually alone on mornings, nights and weekends — to act on his own gut sense, using his own lines to contact allies outside the White House and, using Twitter, to reach those millions of supporters he calls "my people."

After a wild weekend of attacks by Twitter and off-the-cuff comments, including against a senior Republican senator, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Trump kept it up on Tuesday. He tweeted a schoolyard taunt about Corker’s height — “Liddle’ Bob Corker — and said the senator “was made to sound like a fool” in a New York Times interview in which Corker warned that Trump could provoke World War III.

Trump challenged his own secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to an IQ test, even as he dismissed as fake news last week’s reports that Tillerson had called him a moron. ”And I can tell you who is going to win,” Trump added, according to a Forbes interview published Tuesday.

Allies see signs that Trump is frustrated with Kelly and increasingly unwilling to be managed, even just a little. The person close to the White House said the two men had engaged in “shouting matches” in recent days. (Hannity declined to comment about his role in advising the president on immigration policy.)

“The president has started to call people more on the weekends, from the cellphone, which he didn’t used to do,” the person said, noting that Trump often calls Hannity after the Fox News host’s nightly show. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to preserve relations with Trump.

“Every time it says on MSNBC or CNN, which you know he watches, ‘This is the adult.… Thank God they stopped him,’ it all gets to him.”

Lindsay Walters, the deputy White House press secretary, disputed the account of Hannity’s role in advising Trump. She added in an email, “The President has always had a robust list of outside advisers in business and politics because he is open minded and ultimately wants to do the right thing for the country.”

KELLY VS HANNITY FIGHT

Fuckin' ridiculous
 
The "Hillary Wins" timeline allows us to paper over white supremacy and the astounding ignorance and partisan vitriol that abounds in the electorate. It's like a drunk driver who made it home from the bar unscathed one more time instead of ramming their car into a fire hydrant. Sucks about the car but now the problem can no longer be ignored.

The question is how much damage the Trump administration does in this scenario. Did our proverbial drunk driver merely hit a fire hydrant, or will we run over a pedestrian?

If the US survives this, and our institutions are strengthened because of it, then we'll be in the most painful timeline, but maybe the best one.

Awareness of Republican shenanigans is starting to spread; which is a big benefit.
 
Trump Just Blew Off a Deadline for Implementing Russian Sanctions He Approved
Lawmakers worry the president is planning to ignore parts of the law he signed under congressional pressure.


Mother Jones said:
The White House has blown by an October 1 deadline for beginning to implement new sanctions targeting Russia, drawing concern in Congress that President Donald Trump is planning to ignore parts of a bill he grudgingly signed in August.

“The delay calls into question the Trump administration’s commitment to the sanctions bill which was signed into law more than two months ago, following months of public debate and negotiations in Congress,” Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said in a joint statement Wednesday. “They’ve had plenty of time to get their act together.”

The bill required the Trump administration to issue by October 1 “regulations or other guidance to specify the persons that are a part of, or operate for or on behalf of, the defense and intelligence sectors of the Government of the Russian Federation.” The administration has yet to do so. The Treasury and State departments also have not issued guidance on their plans for imposing the measure, a Senate aide said. The aide said that members of the White House’s National Security Council have assured senators that they are “getting to” the sanctions and “it’s gonna happen.” But lawmakers are wary.

Cardin and McCain said the White House has also ignored a September 28 letter they sent asking for information on implementation plans. “In addition to the administration’s lack of responsiveness on this deadline, there does not appear to be a significant diplomatic effort to engage our allies in Europe and lead an effort to increase pressure on Moscow,” they said in their joint statement. “Congressional intent was clear, reflected in the overwhelming bipartisan majority in favor of the legislation.”

The legislation’s primary thrust was to prevent the president from removing sanctions without congressional approval. Trump has mulled unilaterally rescinding earlier US sanctions imposed on Russia after its incursion into Ukraine. The new sanctions bill passed both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly amid bipartisan concern about Trump’s frequent praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin and congressional and Justice Department investigations into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during last year’s presidential race.

Trump opposed the new legislation, agreeing to sign it only after it became clear Congress could override his veto. But he also issued a presidential signing statement suggesting he might ignore what he said were “a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions” in the legislation. “My administration will give careful and respectful consideration to the preferences expressed by the Congress in these various provisions and will implement them in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations,” the statement said. The White House did not respond Wednesday to questions about its plans concerning the Russian sanctions.
 

Blader

Member
Y2Kev said:
I think Clinton took a lot of flak for Rwanda.

From the public at large, or just those already plugged into what was happening? Clinton took flak but was never really held accountable by enough people to make an appreciable difference.

We didn't. But we did give a shit about Haiti. We're usually better about natural disasters than we are about human atrocities.

You can usually get Americans interested in sending aid more than interventions.

We gave a shit about Haiti because Obama gave a shit. If there's no leadership on where and when to give a shit, then most of the rest of the country does not follow.

I wonder how much of "we're doing this as a duty to save America" is true re: Kelly and Tillerson.

I hesitate to give them too much credit for anything, especially Rex. But at the same time I totally believe it. Kelly is career military, Tillerson is literally a boy scout. They know exactly what kind of person their boss is.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Trump choosing Hannity should put to bed any debate that was had earlier about Trump being secretly smart.
 
I feel like trump has desensitized America to tragedy. No one cares about Puerto Rico. The Myanmar situation seems like a holocaust. No one gives a shit.

he sucks up all oxygen. its all him.

it makes covering impersonal things difficult.

Remember when you could go days without thinking about the president. I can't go 10 minutes.

He's structured his presidency as a reality should with him as the leading man randomly bouncing around different segments and set ups that don't exist on their own but only how they affect the leading man

I wonder how much of "we're doing this as a duty to save America" is true re: Kelly and Tillerson.

I can't help but think its true. It helps me sleep.

But we've seen flashes of it with "the president speaks for himself" and mattis' speech to the troops about waiting for this to pass.
I don't think they actually disagree with the policies and overall goals of a more conservative strength based foreign policy (I don't think they were fans of Obama's lead from behind) but they realize that you can't be a bull in a china shop on these issues and there are some goals that you can't win. I think they joined for that but are now having to managing the worst impulses that could lead to disaster.
 
Wow, if Menendez gets off because of this, it will be some kind of karma

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/nyregion/menendez-corruption-trial-mcdonnell-ruling.html?_r=0

This should not be cheered. I'd be perfectly happy if Menendez got convicted. Just don't force him to resign till after Murphy takes over in January.

The president by many accounts has bristled at the restrictions and continues — usually alone on mornings, nights and weekends — to act on his own gut sense, using his own lines to contact allies outside the White House and, using Twitter, to reach those millions of supporters he calls "my people."
I don't think we talk about how utterly repulsive this is.

He literally see himself as president for "his side," he does not care about people whose lives are reflected if they show him disrespect or offer him nothing.

This isn't like Bush's indifference to black people and focus on conservatives where its more out of priorities and ignorance. This is active malice. He wants to hurt people.
 
This should not be cheered. I'd be perfectly happy if Menendez got convicted. Just don't force him to resign till after Murphy takes over in January.


I don't think we talk about how utterly repulsive this is.

He literally see himself as president for "his side," he does not care about people whose lives are reflected if they show him disrespect or offer him nothing.

This isn't like Bush's indifference to black people and focus on conservatives where its more out of priorities and ignorance. This is active malice. He wants to hurt people.

The vast majority of all communication from Trump- all of his tweets for sure- are desperate pleas to his base. It's all about keeping the con going on that group. Everything is angled to reach his cult and keep them on board. He very rarely intends to speak to the American people.
 

Ernest

Banned
Trump Just Blew Off a Deadline for Implementing Russian Sanctions He Approved
Lawmakers worry the president is planning to ignore parts of the law he signed under congressional pressure.
He has the attention span of a gold fish.

Also...

Steve Bannon 'thinks Trump only has a 30% chance of serving a full term'

The prominent Republican made the comment that the White House has transformed into an ”adult day care" and Mr Trump is the child.

How does this surprise you, Bannon! How did you not know of Trump's incompetence before you signed up to be on his team?
 
Interesting in that it gives Donnelly bipartisan cover to oppose any final tax deal. He’s been one of the D senators most willing to find common ground with Trump on this issue and probably the most vulnerable (tossup between him and McCaskill, but I think McCaskill is a stronger incumbent).

PPP did a round of polling for House Democrats, and it all looks pretty good for blue team, albeit with some close margins. Here’s the list:

AZ-2 McSally and Kirkpatrick tied 44-44

VA-10 Comstock down to Generic D 39-48

CA-49 Issa down to Generic D 41-51

WA-8 Rossi down to Generic D 42-43

PA-6 Costello (R) beats Houlahan (D) 43-37

MN-2 Lewis (R) beats Craig (D) 43-42

IA-1 Blum (R) down to Finkenauer (D) 40-42

IA-3 Young leads Generic D 44-43

PA-15 Generic D beats Generic R 44-43

ME-2 Poliquin down to Generic D 44-45

MI-11 Generic D and Generic R tie 42-42

CO-6 Coffman (R) beats Crow (D) 43-36

More deets here including Trump and Ryan favorability numbers: https://mobile.twitter.com/AliLapp

Trump is underwater in every district except PA-15 where he manages a tie, but Ryan’s numbers are fucking atrocious.

Based on these I’d say the only real slam dunks are CA-49 and VA-10 but every other contest listed is very winnable.
 
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