DrmDoc Posted May 12, 2017 Author Share Posted May 12, 2017 Yet more evidence of this administration's march towards totalitarianism. Trump suggests cancelling press briefings! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airbrush Posted May 13, 2017 Share Posted May 13, 2017 The reason why Trump gets away with murder is because his followers are mostly enamored by Trump's Billions of dollars and TV celebrity. Celebrity is why Arnold S got elected governor of California for 2 terms. Trump supporters are saying to him "Since you are a BILLIONAIRE you must know what you are doing". That sums up why Trump has his supporters. Ross Perot was a billionaire but wasn't as persuasive a con artist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten oz Posted May 13, 2017 Share Posted May 13, 2017 The reason why Trump gets away with murder is because his followers are mostly enamored by Trump's Billions of dollars and TV celebrity. Celebrity is why Arnold S got elected governor of California for 2 terms. Trump supporters are saying to him "Since you are a BILLIONAIRE you must know what you are doing". That sums up why Trump has his supporters. Ross Perot was a billionaire but wasn't as persuasive a con artist. Trump gets away with everything because the House and Senate are controlled by his party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airbrush Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 Trump gets away with everything because the House and Senate are controlled by his party. And the house and senate are controlled by his party because Trump's voters are enamored by his Billions in wealth and celebrity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten oz Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 And the house and senate are controlled by his party because Trump's voters are enamored by his Billions in wealth and celebrity. No, the house and senate are controlled by his party because of gerrymandering and who hand control of redistricting in 2010. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delta1212 Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 No, the house and senate are controlled by his party because of gerrymandering and who hand control of redistricting in 2010. Well, that's why they have control of the House, anyway. The Senate can't be gerrymandered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KipIngram Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 It's interesting to me that supporters of both parties complain that the other party has committed gerrymandering. It's sort of a "catch all" for when one isn't getting one's way. The other mechanism that gets so abused is the electoral college; no one complains when their own candidate wins the electoral vote but not the popular vote - it's only invoked when it displeases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delta1212 Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 It's interesting to me that supporters of both parties complain that the other party has committed gerrymandering. It's sort of a "catch all" for when one isn't getting one's way. The other mechanism that gets so abused is the electoral college; no one complains when their own candidate wins the electoral vote but not the popular vote - it's only invoked when it displeases. Five Presidents have won the electoral college without having won the popular vote. John Quincy Adams, in 1824, was a Democratic-Republican which later split into the Democrats and the Whigs (he was part of the Whig faction). All four of the rest were Republicans. The Democrats don't invoke complaints about the electoral college when they win without the popular vote because they never have. The closest you can get is a precursor party from 1824. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KipIngram Posted May 14, 2017 Share Posted May 14, 2017 You're taking the position that I'm wrong? Let's say the recent election had been turned the other way (Hillary won, but lost the popular vote). Do you think the same people would have complained? Issues like this should be considered and opinions formed based on the processes themselves, as abstract entities, not in the heat of the moment when people are upset. The Founders had specific reasons for structuring the things the way they did, and parties didn't even exist then so we know that those reasons had nothing to do with favoring one 21st century party over another. To be specific, the whole process of designing the Constitution was based on finding a structure that was equally acceptable to both populous and lightly populated colonies. The small colonies refused to support a 100% population driven structure, and the heavily populated colonies refused to support a 100% equal weighting amongst all states. So the system was put together to offer advantages to both. Equal representation in the Senate is one of those decisions that favored small states; proportional representation in the House was one that favored the heavily populated states. The Electoral Colony contains the same balanced mixture of influences. I don't know what to say, except that it was considered then to be a reasonable way to provide balanced treatment to states of different population natures. Of course, none of the Founders ever dreamed the federal government would wind up with the powers that it has; in their view of the world the state governments would continue to have the most significant impact on the lives of their citizens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrmDoc Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 (edited) "Trumponomics" budget cuts will affect the most vulnerable Americans, including his base, which would serve them right for their continued support for a president who doesn't really care about any interests other than his own. The sum of this president's concerns for the poor and vulnerable seems to be if they're going to die, "they better had do it, and decrease the surplus population." (Charles Dickens) Edited May 23, 2017 by DrmDoc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iNow Posted May 23, 2017 Share Posted May 23, 2017 They're also making stupid mistakes like double counting the same money in two different places... trying to make it look like they're saving twice as much when they're not Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrmDoc Posted May 23, 2017 Author Share Posted May 23, 2017 They're also making stupid mistakes like double counting the same money in two different places... trying to make it look like they're saving twice as much when they're not That and increasing military spending like it really needs more $600 toilet seats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrmDoc Posted June 9, 2017 Author Share Posted June 9, 2017 Under the heading of Broken Promises, the republican House have passed a bill that reverses the safeguards against government bailouts that Trump himself made as part of his February 3rd executive order. If passed in the Senate, Trump will likely sign this bill and break a core promise to his constituents; i.e., business as usual for this administration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iNow Posted June 9, 2017 Share Posted June 9, 2017 They actually repealed at least four of the most helpful banking regulations implemented to help prevent another recession creating financial crisis, only one pertaining to bailouts. It still has to pass the senate, though... if only crossing my fingers actually helped. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrmDoc Posted June 9, 2017 Author Share Posted June 9, 2017 Our mid-term elections can't come soon enough. In the meantime, we need to see more passion, dare I say, sustained anger from the democrats in Congress until then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrmDoc Posted July 21, 2017 Author Share Posted July 21, 2017 Yet more evidence of how this administration choses to "drain the swamp" with Wall Street insiders. Trump has appointed Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier, to the position of communications director. Yet another Wall Street wolf guarding the sheep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MigL Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 It was good to see J McCain get up from his hospital bed to cast the deciding vote against the gutting of ObamaCare. His reason for voting ( along with two other Republicans ) against party lines - " Because it's the right thing to do " 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharonY Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 To be fair, it was also very strategic to demonstrate his brand of a maverick. He voted yes for the bill to proceed, he made the impassioned speech against the bill, then voted for it (though one could assume that he already knew it would not pass), before finally voting no on the final version. Meanwhile two fellow republicans (Murkowski and Collins) both opposed the bill consistently from the start, but got overshadowed to some degree by McCain. But then one has to consider that if McCain had not voted in the first place, the motion would have not proceeded to begin with. After all it was a 50:50 vote with Pence as tie-breaker. They needed McCain's "yes". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iNow Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 Surely, this didn't help: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharonY Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 Probably. He got shat on by Trump more than once, but if push comes to shove he tended to tout the party line (at the very least after he lost against Obama). I am pretty sure that it has become harder to do so (and not only for him). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten oz Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 7 hours ago, CharonY said: To be fair, it was also very strategic to demonstrate his brand of a maverick. He voted yes for the bill to proceed, he made the impassioned speech against the bill, then voted for it (though one could assume that he already knew it would not pass), before finally voting no on the final version. Meanwhile two fellow republicans (Murkowski and Collins) both opposed the bill consistently from the start, but got overshadowed to some degree by McCain. But then one has to consider that if McCain had not voted in the first place, the motion would have not proceeded to begin with. After all it was a 50:50 vote with Pence as tie-breaker. They needed McCain's "yes". His vote provided cover for many other Republicans that wanted it to fail but didn't want to be singled out by FoxNews and other right wing media for voting against it. Every Republican Senator up for re-election in 2018 voted yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iNow Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 1 hour ago, Ten oz said: His vote provided cover for many other Republicans that wanted it to fail but didn't want to be singled out by FoxNews and other right wing media for voting against it. Every Republican Senator up for re-election in 2018 voted yes. Indeed. The risk profile for McCain has drastically shifted. Between his advanced age and this recently diagnosed aggressive brain cancer, reelection is no longer in the cards. Instead of voting to save himself in the primaries he can now vote his conscience. On another note... Its really sad that it takes entry into the octogenarian club combined with brain cancer to allow one to vote their conscience in our modern day legislature. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imatfaal Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 I believe - but I am not an expert - that the procedural trick used to allow this Bill to be passed with a simple majority is not easily repeatable within the year. Thus if McCain had not allowed the bill to go forward to the vote then this simple majority vote might have been used for a slightly less bad bill which McCain would have had trouble voting against (bearing in mind some of his electoral promises) . McCain deserves credit for out-foxing the GOP whips - but all three deserve credit for voting it down. MitchMc is gonna find a new way to move to simple majority voting soon unfortunately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten oz Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 48 minutes ago, imatfaal said: I believe - but I am not an expert - that the procedural trick used to allow this Bill to be passed with a simple majority is not easily repeatable within the year. Thus if McCain had not allowed the bill to go forward to the vote then this simple majority vote might have been used for a slightly less bad bill which McCain would have had trouble voting against (bearing in mind some of his electoral promises) . McCain deserves credit for out-foxing the GOP whips - but all three deserve credit for voting it down. MitchMc is gonna find a new way to move to simple majority voting soon unfortunately. McCain derserves some credit but he isn't the only Republican that voted against it and I think many more wanted to but ultimately didn't need to because only 51 votes were needed. It is getting hung on McCain but it was a team effort which is why Trump is the entire GOP establishment for it. Sadly this issue won't be going away anytime soon. I suspect there will be more votes in the coming weeks. Healthcare currently has nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with 2018's budget. The Trump and the GOP want tax cuts. To pay for them they need to end healthcare subsidizes and cut medicare. There simply isn't enough discretionary spending to be cut. Completely eliminating NASA, EPA, and etc doesn't free up enough money for tax cuts. The budget cannot move forward until healthcare is resolved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharonY Posted July 31, 2017 Share Posted July 31, 2017 (edited) On 7/31/2017 at 7:13 AM, imatfaal said: I believe - but I am not an expert - that the procedural trick used to allow this Bill to be passed with a simple majority is not easily repeatable within the year. Thus if McCain had not allowed the bill to go forward to the vote then this simple majority vote might have been used for a slightly less bad bill which McCain would have had trouble voting against (bearing in mind some of his electoral promises) . McCain deserves credit for out-foxing the GOP whips - but all three deserve credit for voting it down. MitchMc is gonna find a new way to move to simple majority voting soon unfortunately. That is an interesting point. I am not familiar with Senate proceedings, but do you happen to have an article that explains that part? I think I heard something like that, but cannot really find it. Edit: found it. Apparently Budget Reconciliation (which only requires a simple majority) can only be voted on once per year. That makes it quite more interesting. Though, it does not quite explain why it could not have died at the second vote. Edited August 1, 2017 by CharonY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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