Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Michael Hopcroft]

All 100 senators were invited to a briefing at the White House regarding North Korea. I had no idea the White House could accommodate that. I just hope cool heads prevail here.

Unfortunately, all the cool heads have been kicked out of Washington. I hold out no optimism.

[Sociotard]

The more I think about it, the more I think this is just a power move. Donald Trump likes his power moves. It is not uncommon for the Senate to get classified briefings, and the only thing that is unusual here is the change in venue.

 

Basically, he's forcing the Senate to come to him and get stuffed into a little room.

[aylwin13]

Too bad Trump can't get stuffed somewhere.

[Michael Hopcroft]

The more I think about it, the more I think this is just a power move. Donald Trump likes his power moves. It is not uncommon for the Senate to get classified briefings, and the only thing that is unusual here is the change in venue.

 

Basically, he's forcing the Senate to come to him and get stuffed into a little room.

 

 

Too bad Trump can't get stuffed somewhere.

That's what State Dinners are for. And by now he should have gotten his first White House catering bill (the President doesn;t pay rent on his living quarters in the White House, but he is responsible for his food), which if it's like every other bill he sees he will be seeking a way not to pay.

[Vurbal]

Can't we do both?  I'm pretty sure that government shutdowns don't include the military.

Only their paychecks.

 

Well, and all the disbursements to the multitude of outside contractors. I'm sure they'll keep the machne running, though, and probably charge extra for the delayed payments.

[Old Man]

If they're still in business.  The MIC will be fine, but smaller contractors might not survive.  The cash flow interruption is devastating.

[Iuz the Evil]

Yeah, it's more of an issue for mid sized and small government contractors. The big entities have reserves or can float loans. Depending on where a business is on project deliverables or other critical needs it can shut them right down.

 

It's not good for the stability of the economy either.

[Enforcer84]

New GOP Health Care Bill Amendments. Funny thing about our belt tightening and "choice," Congress would keep their Obamacare Protections.

 

 

 

The waivers would not apply to CO-OPs or multi-state plans or to the Basic Health program, 1332 state innovation waivers, the section of the ACA that allows sale of insurance across state lines through interstate compacts, or the provision that requires members of Congress to purchase coverage through the exchanges. Members of Congress are not going to lose essential health benefits or be subject to health status underwriting.

 

From Health Affairs Blog

[csyphrett]

The proposal for the tax reform is even worse from the little I could see of it on TV. They expect growth to power their tax reform.

CES 

[Old Man]

Not much else to understand.  Deficit spending and trickle-down haven't worked for almost forty years, but maybe this time, right?

[Lord Liaden]

Trump has come up with a few ideas that haven't been tried in American politics before. They're crazy, but at least they're fresh.

[Sociotard]

And it looks like, if there is no shut down, more of those government contractor dollars will head to Old Man's state. There's a silver lining.

 

As for the deficits, I've posted my "derivative of the deficit" table before. We have a United government now, under Republicans.  Both Democrats and Republicans make the deficit grow when they get the whole government. Under Democrats, that is because they grow the government and raise taxes to pay for it, but they grow faster than they raise. Republicans shrink the government and cut taxes, but they cut faster than they shrink.

 

So, if Hillary had come to power with a Democratic Congress, she'd be growing the deficit too (though democrats grow it slightly slower).

[Michael Hopcroft]

What are the chances Social Security checks won't get paid, but Congressional paychecks will?

[Pariah]

What are the chances Social Security checks won't get paid, but Congressional paychecks will?

"Point-oh-sh!t" is the precise mathematical expression of that probability, if I'm not mistaken.

[megaplayboy]

Dems should start using dynamic scoring for various spending proposals, to argue that the programs will ultimately generate economic growth and thus pay for themselves.

[Lord Liaden]

 

Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life

The guy really was clueless.

[Armitage]

Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life

The guy really was clueless.

 

 

 

It's become very clear that the catchphrase (punchline) for this administration is 'Who knew that ________ could be so complicated?"

[DasBroot]

Everyone. Everyone knew.  Especially the silent majority of Republicans who plugged their noses or threw up into the nearest garbage can after voting for him but just couldn't pass up a chance to control the House, Senate, and Presidency.  

 

Poor Canada, though - after all that anti-Mexico rhetoric and praise for Canada they're the ones that actually get hammered by something more substantial than 'we'll build a wall - someday'.  (Unfounded rant against daily, a softwood tariff, and threatening to tear up NAFTA).

[Hermit]

Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life

The guy really was clueless.

 

 

Makes you wonder which of his past lives was so strenuous...

 

"in 61 BC, I was creating economic opportunity for Rome as a foot soldier... I had to lock shields as we butchered some fleeing Suebi Gaul, very tedious, very tiring... but we we amazing. We had the best leader, and I take credit for Julius... I called him Julie... because I'm a people person. There was an arena later on... Jules idea of a joke for my little nick name. I don't like lions. Still.... easier than president which is very hard. Oh, and the idea to build a wall in Britannia and make the Picts pay for it? Totally mine... Hadrian was a hack."

[Lord Liaden]

Poor Canada, though - after all that anti-Mexico rhetoric and praise for Canada they're the ones that actually get hammered by something more substantial than 'we'll build a wall - someday'.  (Unfounded rant against daily, a softwood tariff, and threatening to tear up NAFTA).

 

After all the soothing words coming out of Washington, and our Prime Minister having apparently charmed the Donald, we Canadians were pretty startled when the cannons suddenly turned in our direction. Just goes to show that no one is safe from Trump's mood swings.

[Old Man]

If Trump directly paid Putin's hackers for cyberattacks on the Democratic party, would that constitute collusion?

[DShomshak]

Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life

The guy really was clueless.

 

Yep. As the Economist observed in one of its editorials, his whole campaign was built around the idea that governments was easy, that common men with plain horse-sense (i.e., a flattering vision of his admirers) could do better than the effete experts and corrupt elites.

 

It's a deeply rooted myth in American culture. But like so many myths, it's just not true. Sorry, Mr. Smith, but it's not helpful for you to go to Washington.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Joe Walsh]

Yup. It's an all-purpose tool for American con artists. At yesterday's NRA summit, it was evoked again, in another of its familiar forms:

 

 

 

“It’s up to us to speak up against the three most dangerous voices in America: academic elites, political elites, and media elites,” [NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre] said. “These are America’s greatest domestic threats.”

 

See, elites think they're smarter than you are, but they're not. If academic elites use science to find that, on average, gun owners are more likely to shoot loved ones than criminals, they're just being evil. You know better than them!  If media elites report those lies, then they're part of the conspiracy!  And if political elites try to do something about this so-called 'problem,' then they're the problem! 

 

Not to mention that by "political elites" he means Democratic politicians, who are completely out of power on the national stage. Oh, those wily Democrats, managing to be both powerless and dangerously elite at the same time!

 

Of course, as Trump pointed out at the same event, we just went through eight years of assaults on our second amendment rights, when Barack Obama and his cronies devastated the gun industry by forcing them to sell enormous quantities of guns and ammunition to the American people. Not to mention passing blank page after blank page of anti-gun legislation.

 

It's a weird, weird world.

[DShomshak]

Well, science is evil. The great biologist (and epigrammatist) J. B. S. Haldane had an excellent discussion of this in his brief 1923 book, Daedalus; or, Science and the Future. To paraphrase: The moral virtues (though not the intellectual virtues) are means between extremes, and conditioned by what people can actually do. If human capabilities change, so do institutions and morals.

 

One of his examples was the Great War, still very much in mind. As Haldane put it, for most of history patriotism was "a flame upon the altar." And it meant fighting and winning wars. But the powers of modern science and industry have so magnified the destruction of war as that the flame on the altar has become an inferno that can devour the world. In the wake of World War One, millions of people -- ordinary people, not just a few elites -- see the need for some form of world government. Not that Haldane was sure it would begin with the League of Nations (and it didn't), any more than with the Somethingth Internationale (Communism; it didn't, either). And we still aren't there, but many people do still believe that this just can't go on: There must be a law to govern the nations.

 

For a less extreme example, Haldane looked at the decline of the English estate. As he put it, it used to be that the lord of the manor probably died around age forty and was succeeded by his son who grew up there and knew it well. "Now," Haldane said, "he dodders on until about eighty." His heir is by then "perhaps a moderately succdessful Army colonel or stockbroker, but knows nothing about running an estate." He manages incompetently; or he hires a manager whom he cannot competently supervise to prevent corruption. Either way, he gets a poor return. "And ascribes to Bolshevism what he should really blame on vaccination."

 

Haldane expected that science and technology would bring more such disruptions, at every scale. Nothing could survive unchanged, Some disruptions would be evils of the past, magnified until they became intolerable, or useful -- even benign -- institutions that had become untenable. Others would be wholly new. But most people are committed to the institutions and morals of their past and present. And so, "The inevitable result of scientific progress is to turn good into evil."

 

Haldane represents this aspect of science through the mythic inventor Daedalus, one of the few figures in Greek mythology for whom gods were simply irrelevant. He was never punished for abetting the breeding of the Minotaur, nor for flying like a god. (His son Icarus was merely careless in following safety tolerances.) Haldane suggested that in time, more scientists might come to resemble Daedalus in their challenge to traditional gods and morals... and proud of it.

 

(Write up your own supervillain.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Old Man]

The House has voted to repeal Obamacare for everyone but themselves.