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The Trump Administration

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Posts

  • TaramoorTaramoor Storyteller Registered User regular
    So do we know who his SCOTUS nominee is yet?

    I figure it's either Steve Bannon, David Duke, or that judge from Georgia who ruled that Muslims aren't people.

  • Mr KhanMr Khan Not Everyone WAHHHRegistered User regular
    Taramoor wrote: »
    So do we know who his SCOTUS nominee is yet?

    I figure it's either Steve Bannon, David Duke, or that judge from Georgia who ruled that Muslims aren't people.

    Roy Moore from Alabama, given the trend of "rub the salt in liberal wounds" picks.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    At this point I wouldn't be surprised if it was the reanimated corpse of literally Hitler.

  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Can the courts say a law or clause isn't valid because it wasn't passed in accordance with the rules of Congress? Has that ever even come up?

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  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    daveNYC wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    This is the way they keep the fillibuster, and are thus prevented by the scurrilous Democrats from implementing the rest of the incredibly terrible ideas they sold the base on, while getting the Obamacare repeal to show they actually did something.

    I still think they're going to use the SCOTUS nomination to get their 'excuse' to kill the fillibuster.

    You can only kill the fillibuster in the rules vote on the first day of class. After that, it's in place for two years.

    So if they still haven't gotten a nominee seated by 2018 and we can't get our shit together before then, maybe.

    Nuclear option.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    Polaritie wrote: »
    Can the courts say a law or clause isn't valid because it wasn't passed in accordance with the rules of Congress? Has that ever even come up?

    I beleive the line has always been that it is congress' responsibility to self govern, so it would be up to congress to enforce rules violations.

  • GoodKingJayIIIGoodKingJayIII They wanna get my gold on the ceilingRegistered User regular
    I'm listening to the senate committee hearings now with Clapper et al right now. I'm not sure I can handle hearing our representatives talk about the dangers of "cyber" for the next four years.

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  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    daveNYC wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    daveNYC wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    This is the way they keep the fillibuster, and are thus prevented by the scurrilous Democrats from implementing the rest of the incredibly terrible ideas they sold the base on, while getting the Obamacare repeal to show they actually did something.

    I still think they're going to use the SCOTUS nomination to get their 'excuse' to kill the fillibuster.

    You can only kill the fillibuster in the rules vote on the first day of class. After that, it's in place for two years.

    So if they still haven't gotten a nominee seated by 2018 and we can't get our shit together before then, maybe.

    Nuclear option.

    No such thing that passes any kind of muster.

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  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    Would anything even unconstitutional matter? Its only as strong as the mechanisms willing to enforce it. The big political issue with doing truly heinous shit is the fear that you'll get removed and punished by the people replacing you. It incentivizes doing anything possible to maintain your power.

    "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!"

    I'm trying to think of other times the Supreme Court has been defied but it's hard to top Jackson's attempted genocide. The voting public was perfectly fine with that.

  • HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular

    Guys for real THIS IS A FUCKING CRAZY WAY TO RUN A COUNTRY

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  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    Running a country, or running a country into the ground?

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    Read a thing somewhere the other day, probably at LGM, where they were arguing that Trump is most like the Latin American strongmen that inevitably rise and topple the constitutional order in countries that adopt an American style presidential democracy.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • GundiGundi Serious Bismuth Registered User regular
    Trace wrote: »
    Wow.

    The GOP is going to kill a -massive- amount of people with this.
    It's not a bug, it's a feature.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    Read a thing somewhere the other day, probably at LGM, where they were arguing that Trump is most like the Latin American strongmen that inevitably rise and topple the constitutional order in countries that adopt an American style presidential democracy.

    Well, that's certainly consistent with his behavior so far.

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Alot of what you are seeing right now is how constitutional safeguards aren't actually effective in the end. The only real safeguard for a democracy is voters. Which is why it's important that your democratic system not be a clusterfuck of veto points. Because at the end of the day, those safeguards don't stop the really dangerous people. They only stop the parties trying to just act within the rules.

  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    daveNYC wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    daveNYC wrote: »
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    This is the way they keep the fillibuster, and are thus prevented by the scurrilous Democrats from implementing the rest of the incredibly terrible ideas they sold the base on, while getting the Obamacare repeal to show they actually did something.

    I still think they're going to use the SCOTUS nomination to get their 'excuse' to kill the fillibuster.

    You can only kill the fillibuster in the rules vote on the first day of class. After that, it's in place for two years.

    So if they still haven't gotten a nominee seated by 2018 and we can't get our shit together before then, maybe.

    Nuclear option.

    No such thing that passes any kind of muster.

    You're saying the Wiki article is incorrect? Because the constitution is pretty flexible on what the Legislative houses can do as far as setting their rules.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    Gundi wrote: »
    Trace wrote: »
    Wow.

    The GOP is going to kill a -massive- amount of people with this.
    It's not a bug, it's a feature.

    Not if it happens to be their old white voting base.

    Whippy wrote: »
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  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    I think the Obamacare repeal, specifically, is going to hurt a lot of Republicans, but it's going to be in states where they don't need that margin to win. Social Security and Medicare are going to be carved up in such a way as to keep the oldsters alive, but Obamacare is much less granular in that way.

    Of course, a few thousand people dying in each of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas isn't going to matter at all for the Republicans, politically.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

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  • Jealous DevaJealous Deva Registered User regular
    edited January 2017
    Read a thing somewhere the other day, probably at LGM, where they were arguing that Trump is most like the Latin American strongmen that inevitably rise and topple the constitutional order in countries that adopt an American style presidential democracy.

    Yeah. The American style of governmental system tends to be unstable, it is honestly pretty impressive that it has gone this long with just one major blowup. The big problem is that the pegs holding it together are mostly based on institutions and norms like respect for the constitution that have very little real force behind them. And of course for the last 30 years or so Nidhoggr has been chewing up the roots of the tree pretty fiercely

    Jealous Deva on
  • PROXPROX Registered User regular
    GOP to limit local government's ability to pass legislation including ability to raise minimum wage.
    http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/312766-gop-aims-to-rein-in-liberal-cities

    BALLS.
    Freakin increase the minimum wage. The lower class is dying and being squeezed dry. If the majority of people earned a living wage, they'd spend more on goods and services. Companies don't hire unless they need to provide more goods or services. This is just a race to the bottom.

  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    I think the Obamacare repeal, specifically, is going to hurt a lot of Republicans, but it's going to be in states where they don't need that margin to win. Social Security and Medicare are going to be carved up in such a way as to keep the oldsters alive, but Obamacare is much less granular in that way.

    Of course, a few thousand people dying in each of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas isn't going to matter at all for the Republicans, politically.

    The angrier they get, the harder they vote Republican. Even if Republicans are proposing policies that will literally kill them.

    Here's an interesting article in the New York Times about what Trump voters on government health care want.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/opinion/the-health-care-plan-trump-voters-really-want.html?_r=0

    The journalist notes that a lot of them sound more like Bernie voters in terms of what they actually *want*. But obviously they vote Republican for cultural reasons.

  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    What are the voting rates for elderly folks when divided by income and/or who do they vote for? It might be in the GOP's interest to kill off poor old people and save Medicare just for richer elders (the ones who never really needed it in the first place) who will continue to vote R.

  • Dronus86Dronus86 Now with cheese!Registered User regular
    PROX wrote: »
    GOP to limit local government's ability to pass legislation including ability to raise minimum wage.
    http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/312766-gop-aims-to-rein-in-liberal-cities

    BALLS.
    Freakin increase the minimum wage. The lower class is dying and being squeezed dry. If the majority of people earned a living wage, they'd spend more on goods and services. Companies don't hire unless they need to provide more goods or services. This is just a race to the bottom.

    Honestly I've never been terribly good at understanding politics, so there's a fair chance I am wrong, but I genuinely do not understand how the GOP can claim to want 'small government' while doing this. Am I misunderstanding the idea of a small federal government? Or isn't "allowing each city/state/etc to make its own laws" the whole point of having a small federal government?

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  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    It was always all dog whistles. They just wanted the right to be oppressive locally but don't want people to have the right to not be oppressed elsewhere.

  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    Dronus86 wrote: »
    PROX wrote: »
    GOP to limit local government's ability to pass legislation including ability to raise minimum wage.
    http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/312766-gop-aims-to-rein-in-liberal-cities

    BALLS.
    Freakin increase the minimum wage. The lower class is dying and being squeezed dry. If the majority of people earned a living wage, they'd spend more on goods and services. Companies don't hire unless they need to provide more goods or services. This is just a race to the bottom.

    Honestly I've never been terribly good at understanding politics, so there's a fair chance I am wrong, but I genuinely do not understand how the GOP can claim to want 'small government' while doing this. Am I misunderstanding the idea of a small federal government? Or isn't "allowing each city/state/etc to make its own laws" the whole point of having a small federal government?

    Your problem is you think the GOP is serious about any of its principles. It's all about power.

    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Dronus86 wrote: »
    PROX wrote: »
    GOP to limit local government's ability to pass legislation including ability to raise minimum wage.
    http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/312766-gop-aims-to-rein-in-liberal-cities

    BALLS.
    Freakin increase the minimum wage. The lower class is dying and being squeezed dry. If the majority of people earned a living wage, they'd spend more on goods and services. Companies don't hire unless they need to provide more goods or services. This is just a race to the bottom.

    Honestly I've never been terribly good at understanding politics, so there's a fair chance I am wrong, but I genuinely do not understand how the GOP can claim to want 'small government' while doing this. Am I misunderstanding the idea of a small federal government? Or isn't "allowing each city/state/etc to make its own laws" the whole point of having a small federal government?

    The whole small government line has been nonsense for at least a few decades now. They continue to claim it but have routinely passed laws to take power away from state and municipal governments any time they had the ability to and didn't like what those entities were doing.

  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    Honk wrote: »
    Honk wrote: »
    Polaritie wrote: »
    Honk wrote: »
    So if I get this right they know it will cost billions to repeal ACA.

    But presumably they want to remove it to reduce federal spending?

    So then the solution is to ignore the cost spending tens of billions of federal money. That way the excel sheet will say that spending was reduced?

    This sounds like how the Greek government viewed numbers until recently.

    It sounds like they can't avoid a filibuster unless it's revenue neutral, so they're trying to order the CBO to declare it revenue neutral.

    But then the people demanding it be revenue neutral will know that it isn't actually revenue neutral?

    Since I now know it's not revenue neutral they will of course know this as well.

    Its a quirk of the US filibuster system. you can avoid the filibuster of needing 60 votes by using reconciliation but it only works if your bill is revenue neutral. So it's more than just public perception. they literally can't pass it otherwise.

    Oh I didn't know there was a way to avoid filibusters using rules.

    This seems dumb. Why not declare everything revenue neutral forever then.

    They don't directly control how it gets analyzed. Bill get submitted to the Congressional Budget Office which is a nonpartisan office which takes the data from the bill and rates it's budget impacts.

    Except it's a toothless non-partisan office that operates independently only because we agree that's what it is. But the other side doesn't agree with that anymore, and they're going to tell it to just get fucked.

    The Reconciliation process and in particular the Byrd rule(which includes the sunset provisions and revenue neutral stuff) is outlined in law.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    That would be interesting from a purely political standpoint.

    Minimum wage hikes are very, very popular. Especially in urban centers. And this makes local hikes a national issue.

    If I were a GOP strategist, I'd be calling every House member whose number I had and reminding them that midterms exist.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    Mayabird wrote: »
    What are the voting rates for elderly folks when divided by income and/or who do they vote for? It might be in the GOP's interest to kill off poor old people and save Medicare just for richer elders (the ones who never really needed it in the first place) who will continue to vote R.

    Even rich old people need government healthcare, if by rich you mean "well off." The 1% don't, but they are literally the 1% and so not a big voting bloc. For everyone else, no insurance company is going to insure the elderly because they are not cost effective. You *will* get something serious and die when you are old. It is literally unavoidable, unless you are killed in a freak and instantaneous accident (not common.) If old folk are not supported by the government for health care in their old age they will need to pay out of pocket, because insuring anyone above the age of 70 is like insuring a house teetering on the edge of a cliff.

  • CouscousCouscous Registered User regular
    The GOP plans to do a bunch of confirmation hearings all on the same day to overwhelm any potential media focus.
    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/05/how-overwhelm-media/214932
    Trump previously promised to hold a December 15 press conference to address the conflicts of interest his business empire creates for his presidency, but he canceled it. Those conflicts -- including the possibility that Trump will be in violation of both the Constitution and a contract with the federal government immediately upon taking office -- should be a top priority for journalists on January 11. But by refusing to give a press conference for so long, while simultaneously scaling back on media appearances, Trump has created such a backlog of potential issues that it will be impossible for reporters to give all of them the time and coverage they deserve.

    Meanwhile, McConnell has done his best to fracture journalist attention by ensuring that six different confirmation hearings are scheduled for the same day. Wednesday will see hearings for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the nominee for attorney general; ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson, the nominee for secretary of state; billionaire conservative activist Betsy DeVos, for secretary of education; Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), for CIA director; Gen. John Kelly, for secretary of homeland security; and Elaine Chao, for secretary of transportation.
    This feels too clever by half because Trump is guaranteed to say something that will distract news outlets anyway without the need for such tricks.

  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    But again, anyone able to find divides in the elderly vote by income? My cursory googling has found nothing. I assume there are some differences between people who are entirely dependent on Social Security for funds and those with assets though I can't be sure. Of course, if the poorest ones don't vote because they never voted, it won't hurt the GOP to openly let them die. After all, they didn't vote in Kentucky to literally save their own lives.

  • DacDac Registered User regular
    Oh boy, there's just no end to the vile.

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  • Mr KhanMr Khan Not Everyone WAHHHRegistered User regular
    Mayabird wrote: »
    What are the voting rates for elderly folks when divided by income and/or who do they vote for? It might be in the GOP's interest to kill off poor old people and save Medicare just for richer elders (the ones who never really needed it in the first place) who will continue to vote R.

    Even rich old people need government healthcare, if by rich you mean "well off." The 1% don't, but they are literally the 1% and so not a big voting bloc. For everyone else, no insurance company is going to insure the elderly because they are not cost effective. You *will* get something serious and die when you are old. It is literally unavoidable, unless you are killed in a freak and instantaneous accident (not common.) If old folk are not supported by the government for health care in their old age they will need to pay out of pocket, because insuring anyone above the age of 70 is like insuring a house teetering on the edge of a cliff.

    Which does beg the question of how medicare can be voucherized unless the premiums are prohibitively exorbitant to the point where your vouchers are functionally worthless.

  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    edited January 2017
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    If I were a GOP strategist, I'd be calling every House member whose number I had and reminding them that if they're able to establish a precedent for this, once the Democrats gain control of the government again they can ensure access to abortions, they can prevent governments from establishing "bathroom" laws and they'll enforce non-discrimination laws on everyone, and they'll mandate that everyone has to say "Happy holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas!"
    Edited to show the real problem for Republicans!

    Shadowhope on
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  • HakkekageHakkekage Space Whore Academy summa cum laudeRegistered User regular
    Couscous wrote: »
    The GOP plans to do a bunch of confirmation hearings all on the same day to overwhelm any potential media focus.
    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/05/how-overwhelm-media/214932
    Trump previously promised to hold a December 15 press conference to address the conflicts of interest his business empire creates for his presidency, but he canceled it. Those conflicts -- including the possibility that Trump will be in violation of both the Constitution and a contract with the federal government immediately upon taking office -- should be a top priority for journalists on January 11. But by refusing to give a press conference for so long, while simultaneously scaling back on media appearances, Trump has created such a backlog of potential issues that it will be impossible for reporters to give all of them the time and coverage they deserve.

    Meanwhile, McConnell has done his best to fracture journalist attention by ensuring that six different confirmation hearings are scheduled for the same day. Wednesday will see hearings for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the nominee for attorney general; ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson, the nominee for secretary of state; billionaire conservative activist Betsy DeVos, for secretary of education; Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), for CIA director; Gen. John Kelly, for secretary of homeland security; and Elaine Chao, for secretary of transportation.
    This feels too clever by half because Trump is guaranteed to say something that will distract news outlets anyway without the need for such tricks.

    I don't know how journalism can mea culpa for the profession's generally disastrous error in judgement of where to apply the not-inconsiderable power of press attention. They have been played so thoroughly that, of course, media outlets are being PR'd to death with tactics like these.

    McConnell is Littlefinger. Burn it all down, if he could be king of the ashes.

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  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    I think the Obamacare repeal, specifically, is going to hurt a lot of Republicans, but it's going to be in states where they don't need that margin to win. Social Security and Medicare are going to be carved up in such a way as to keep the oldsters alive, but Obamacare is much less granular in that way.

    Of course, a few thousand people dying in each of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas isn't going to matter at all for the Republicans, politically.

    The angrier they get, the harder they vote Republican. Even if Republicans are proposing policies that will literally kill them.

    Here's an interesting article in the New York Times about what Trump voters on government health care want.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/05/opinion/the-health-care-plan-trump-voters-really-want.html?_r=0

    The journalist notes that a lot of them sound more like Bernie voters in terms of what they actually *want*. But obviously they vote Republican for cultural reasons.

    I don't take that from this at all. The main reading you get from this is that they care mostly about what it costs them, they want better insurance but not higher costs, they are resentful of poor people who they see as having it better, they don't want to have to pay to help sick people and, most of all, they are appalled by the GOP's proposed plans but actively disbelieve that Trump would do that, in the face of all evidence. The last being something we've been seeing for years with GOP voters: they vote GOP but actively don't believe that GOP policy is what the GOP says it is. They substitute their own ideas instead.
    When told Mr. Trump might embrace a plan that included these elements, and particularly very high deductibles, they expressed disbelief. They were also worried about what they called “chaos” if there was a gap between repealing and replacing Obamacare. But most did not think that, as one participant put it, “a smart businessman like Trump would let that happen.”

    He notes:
    They have no strong ideological views about repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, or future directions for health policy.
    Which, sure. But the problem is they have very strong ideological views about who to vote for.

    The most glaring thing the writer himself says though, to me, is this:
    But after listening to working-class supporters of Donald J. Trump — people who are enrolled in the very health care marketplaces created by the law — one comes away feeling that the Washington debate is sadly disconnected from the concerns of working people.

    It's a nice little pithy comment everyone loves to make sometimes, but it just doesn't match what he talks about for the rest of the article. Rather, what comes through is that the voters are the ones completely disconnected from the process. They are the ones not paying attention. But they keep voting.

  • MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    Mr Khan wrote: »
    Mayabird wrote: »
    What are the voting rates for elderly folks when divided by income and/or who do they vote for? It might be in the GOP's interest to kill off poor old people and save Medicare just for richer elders (the ones who never really needed it in the first place) who will continue to vote R.

    Even rich old people need government healthcare, if by rich you mean "well off." The 1% don't, but they are literally the 1% and so not a big voting bloc. For everyone else, no insurance company is going to insure the elderly because they are not cost effective. You *will* get something serious and die when you are old. It is literally unavoidable, unless you are killed in a freak and instantaneous accident (not common.) If old folk are not supported by the government for health care in their old age they will need to pay out of pocket, because insuring anyone above the age of 70 is like insuring a house teetering on the edge of a cliff.

    Which does beg the question of how medicare can be voucherized unless the premiums are prohibitively exorbitant to the point where your vouchers are functionally worthless.

    I have been assuming that it will end up being much more expensive while covering half the people half as much. Most voucher attempts end up this way because they're not about improving things, but just making more graft.

    Ever notice how the GOP is always, always, always talking about government corruption? It's been projection. They know that if they have power they will exploit it to line their own pockets and assume that other people are always doing the same; they don't really care that it's happening, just that their own pockets aren't being lined at that moment. That this is not always the case never occurs to them or they don't really care.

  • OptimusZedOptimusZed Registered User regular
    I seriously think that if they go through with their minimum wage ceiling bill, and the Democrats are even halfway competent with messaging, we could do some major damage in the midterms.

    Note the bottleneck in that sentence.

    We're reading Rifts. You should too. You know you want to. Now With Ninjas!

    They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
  • GoodKingJayIIIGoodKingJayIII They wanna get my gold on the ceilingRegistered User regular
    Couscous wrote: »
    The GOP plans to do a bunch of confirmation hearings all on the same day to overwhelm any potential media focus.
    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/01/05/how-overwhelm-media/214932
    Trump previously promised to hold a December 15 press conference to address the conflicts of interest his business empire creates for his presidency, but he canceled it. Those conflicts -- including the possibility that Trump will be in violation of both the Constitution and a contract with the federal government immediately upon taking office -- should be a top priority for journalists on January 11. But by refusing to give a press conference for so long, while simultaneously scaling back on media appearances, Trump has created such a backlog of potential issues that it will be impossible for reporters to give all of them the time and coverage they deserve.

    Meanwhile, McConnell has done his best to fracture journalist attention by ensuring that six different confirmation hearings are scheduled for the same day. Wednesday will see hearings for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the nominee for attorney general; ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson, the nominee for secretary of state; billionaire conservative activist Betsy DeVos, for secretary of education; Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS), for CIA director; Gen. John Kelly, for secretary of homeland security; and Elaine Chao, for secretary of transportation.
    This feels too clever by half because Trump is guaranteed to say something that will distract news outlets anyway without the need for such tricks.

    Honestly I'm beginning to think the proposed cuts to the OCE were just a gigantic smoke screen to push some other shit through unnoticed. Like this new OCB rule on The ACA repeal for example.

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  • Mr KhanMr Khan Not Everyone WAHHHRegistered User regular
    OptimusZed wrote: »
    I seriously think that if they go through with their minimum wage ceiling bill, and the Democrats are even halfway competent with messaging, we could do some major damage in the midterms.

    Note the bottleneck in that sentence.

    Federal government can't pre-empt, they're talking about state-by-state where things are much more hopeless for the Democrats, because the cities impacted are already represented by Democrats for the most part and the rural voters seem more concerned with sticking it to the cities than in getting positive outcomes for themselves (noticing a theme here).

This discussion has been closed.