US Politics, February 2018: Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots

Mostly lawyerly speculation but some good quotes/viewpoints:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/02/trump-russia-indictment-mueller-probe-384969

The ending is what I found most interesting:

One of the Russia defense attorneys also suggested what he called a “jujitsu move”: naming Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator in a larger obstruction of justice case that targets one or more associates.

Whatever Mueller and his deputies have planned, the attorney said, it is not likely to be anticlimactic.

“There’s a sense of confidence I feel when I’m with them,” said the same lawyer. “Their level of confidence has grown, and that’s a body language thing.”

actually what we should really be focusing on is everyone getting Super Ebola AIDS in three years

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/01/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/?utm_campaign=buffer&utm_content=buffer6a5e6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=.4316ebf41085

but hey at least all those hardworking people at Home Depot got their $200 bonus checks

Just to be clear: We are really and truly at a historical moment where actual adults are discussing whether the President of the United States is good or bad at a test that includes "identifying sketches of animals."

Sure, he's a known sexual predator and white-supremacist sympathizer. But let's seriously drill down on the important issue of: Can he correctly name a picture of a bunny?

a bit early for a stiff drink, but what the fuck, #nothingmatters

Countries where the CDC is planning to scale back include some of the world’s hot spots for emerging infectious disease, such as China, Pakistan, Haiti, Rwanda and Congo. Last year, when Congo experienced a potentially deadly Ebola outbreak in a remote, forested area, CDC-trained disease detectives and rapid responders helped contain it quickly.

v sensible decision, good work everyone

where's the tax returns? president trump is conspiring with former KGB agents to break up the USA the way the USA broke up the USSR

I think I would be okay with that. Why didn't they just come right out and say so, they'd get a lot of support.

oh and by the way the Democrat lead in the generic Congressional ballot has cratered in the last few weeks so good luck with that "blue wave"

― frogbs, Friday, February 2, 2018 2:50 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

short-sighted.

Yeah, was just thinking the other day how good a job someone(s) has done at dividing the US. I feel like there's a phase which traditionally follows a 'divide' phase in the history of geopolitical maneuvering but I cannot for the life of me remember what it is.

cuddle puddle iirc

Thaaaaat's it, thx.

No idea how much faith to put into this, but I want to believe:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/opinion/sunday/republican-taxes-texas-blue.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur

That's not possible, because the Post says there might not be a blue wave.

Good point

Should've known posters would start freaking out about one poll showing tightening in November ten months out. Might as well stay home in November!

there’s a pretty rich mix of evidence — polling, special elections data, retirements, the history of the “out” party performing well in midterms — suggesting that the political winds favor Democrats. Now one of those indicators — an important one, the generic ballot — doesn’t look as good.

But if you had a model that blended all those indicators together, how much would a 5-point swing on the generic ballot in January affect your prediction for November? I don’t know, because we don’t start building those sorts of models until late in the election year. But I’d guess you’d have to discount it pretty heavily; so maybe a 5-point swing in January translates to a 1-point or 2-point swing in your November prediction, or something.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happened-to-the-democratic-wave/

The democrats pathetic cave on the shut-down would doom them in most years. Fortunately the news cycle moves at such speed these days that it'll probably be forgotten by the time the clocks change let alone november

The clocks go forward and back in Murrica, right?

Kinda feel like any data that keeps the Dems from feeling cocky and complacent is a good thing. Stay hungry.

pretty sure the last year has proved that stateside clocks only go back xp

Rephrase: TO THE EXTENT that it keeps Dems hungry, it's a good thing. Not so much if it actually pans out, obvs.

if trump fires rosenstein, and then mueller, then new york state indicts the trumps / kushners, season 2 of "the president" will be loads of fun

US clocks give the illusion that they're going forward only to occasionally go 'sike' and reveal that they've been standing still for half a decade.

alfred otm

It's entirely about money.

I agree with this re Russia, and as the cause of Yam's beating heart.

idk most conspiracies hinge on people doing in secret the sort of things that Trump is just doing out in the open

Conspiracies have been mostly unnecessary in this country since 1980. Just describe your malfeasance as beneficence and hardly anyone will challenge you.

The plethora of "bombshell stories" is one reason Jane/Joe Bigbox Worker may never get a handle on most of this. It's all one nonstop maelstrom of shit.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxposts even the people who are paid to pore over these stats on a daily basis wouldn't conclude "bye bye Democratic wave" based on the latest.

unless there's a mandatory 8 month hibernation coming up that I wasn't aware of

Actually, what we should really be talking about is the fact that the one guy with the power to instantly end life Earth has a very diseased brain

― frogbs, Friday, February 2, 2018 8:47 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, that he is bragging about acing a dementia screen might be more embarrassing than his whole electoral college bullshit

not that anyone really needs reminding but the last ten (eleven, really) questions of the MOCA are: remember the five words we asked you three minutes ago, and name the date/month/year/day/place/city

the whole point of the test is that virtually any human without dementia will get close to perfect score

just so you all can follow along at home: http://www.mocatest.org/pdf_files/test/MoCA-Test-English_7_1.pdf

I guess the Dems will have to run some non-generic candidates. Admittedly not their strength.

naming Trump as an unindicted co-conspirator in a larger obstruction of justice case that targets one or more associates.

Classic revive from the '70s!

xpost Come on, this is the first test Donnie was able to pass without his daddy paying off a teacher. Let him have this.

I wonder if he hung it up on the fridge next to his finger paintings.

xp Morbs I dunno I wonder if there won't be a real appetite for vanilla after all this

Lantern jawed centrist "not a criminal"

I dunno Hadrian, what flavor was HRC?

Rocky Road?

today's white house propaganda email was titled "African American History Month and the Bonds of Patriotism"
i'm sure it's just a little freudian slip

"Conspiracies have been mostly unnecessary in this country since 1980. Just describe your malfeasance as beneficence and hardly anyone will challenge you."

i agree. look at afghanistan. it's a money machine. over a trillion dollars spent since the start and nobody in the u.s. even blinks. or cares what is happening there.

xp

African American History Month and the Bonds of Patriotism
In his Proclamation this week honoring African American History Month, President Donald J. Trump drew attention to a special theme this year: “African Americans in Times of War.”

“For far too long, African Americans bravely fought and died in the name of freedom, while at the same time struggling to attain equality, respect, and the full privileges of citizenship,” the President wrote. “Because of their love of country, these heroes insisted on serving and defending America despite racial prejudice, unequal treatment, diminished opportunities, and segregation.”

As he did during his State of the Union Address this week, President Trump used personal stories from real Americans to illustrate the significance of this struggle. “We remember soldiers like Sergeant Henry Johnson of the Harlem Hellfighters, the all-black National Guard unit that was among the first American forces to arrive in France during World War I,” the President wrote.

Johnson was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and a Purple Heart.

'subtext' seems generous tbh

Prediction is a losing game nowadays but here are some things that would not surprise me:

1. Progressives/Democrats/leftists/coastal liberals continue to be anti-Trump and anti-Republican. They're not necessarily all angry enough to march in the streets every day but those who are politically engaged and committed will vote reliably for the Democrats that are on the ballot.

1a. That phenomenon is great and all, but it remains way too concentrated in urban and coastal districts that were already safely blue. Moving Brooklyn (or whatever) from 94% passionate D to 99% passionate D is not helpful nationally.

2. Rising stock markets and generally rosy economic indicators (rosy, that is, for those who are actually benefitting) may dampen many upscale Republicans' distaste for the Trumpoid style of politics. Individual Republicans may find him personally crude and "not like us." But they like what they're seeing in their portfolios, so they will not rebel no matter how many worrisome Twitter tirades the toddler tyrant unleashes from his golden toilet.

2a. Hate to get all Baffler-ish, but the selective blindness of heartland and Rust Belt white people remains as a persistent issue. A roaring stock market and dizzying corporate profits sounds like a good economy. And if you hear good economic news, you may credit the president and his party, even if you never personally benefit from that largesse.

xp no argument

YMP I think these are all safe bets, the caveat being a market bubble burst before 2020

Which is almost certainly a question not of 'if' but 'when' at this point, yes?

yeah for sure

xp to the tipping thread (god help us)
https://bnanews.bna.com/daily-labor-report/labor-dept-ditches-data-on-worker-tips-retained-by-businesses

Labor Department leadership scrubbed an unfavorable internal analysis from a new tip pooling proposal, shielding the public from estimates that showed employees could lose out on billions of dollars in gratuities, four current and former DOL sources tell Bloomberg Law.

Senior department political officials—faced with a government analysis showing that workers could lose billions of dollars in tips as a result of the proposal—ordered staff to revise the data methodology to lessen the expected impact, several of the sources said. Although later calculations showed progressively reduced tip losses, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta and his team are said to have still been uncomfortable with including the data in the proposal. The officials disagreed with assumptions in the analysis that employers would retain their employees’ gratuities, rather than redistribute the money to other hourly workers. They wound up receiving approval from the White House to publish a proposal Dec. 5 that removed the economic transfer data altogether, the sources said.

perhaps tell these fuckers to fuck off here: https://www.regulations.gov/comment?D=WHD-2017-0003-0001

Be really surprised if the bubble bursts before Dems retake either chamber, at which point they will promptly be blamed by a roided-up echo chamber. the Trump-hostile MSM will mostly shrug and say “well it’s hard to argue with that”. Dems meanwhile will strongly agree to disagree and pout.

this indictable treason was only alleged two days ago

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/31/582099085/journalist-details-israels-secret-history-of-targeted-assassinations

2020 seems a long way away at the pace time is moving at the mo. where o where is paul virilio?

love a contextual virilio shout-out

*even the Trump-hostile

why haven't they released the memo yet?

Dems: [reasoned, point-by-point analysis of factors resulting in unfortunate state of affairs]
Reps: 'It's the Dems' fault! They're buttholes!'
Result: Dems take the fall, because we're all perpetually in third grade

i want to know why president clinton didn't just fire ken starr, the way the crazy GOP is talking these days