US Politics January 2018: "You All Just Got A Lot Richer"

They won't remember this in 6 months because now CHIP is off the table and, in a few weeks, DACA will be as well. And all sorts of other horrible shit will have passed to get those things done.

There was no real disagreement in DC or among the public with CHIP or DACA. It's the GOP that had been putting them both off, for weeks, for months, for years. The Dems just seriously risked dividing their support and slowing momentum/hindering enthusiasm, in an election year, by fighting and sacrificing for things that both sides wanted and have in the past agreed on.

I'm more hopeful for gains in the House and/or senate thanks to grassroots mobilization and legal decisions, but for all I know these kinds of shitty moves on the parts of mainstream Dems could put even safe races at risk.

xp apparently it needs 60% to pass

I know we like horse races and shit on a thread that updates every few minutes, but let's wait until after February before we consider long term effects.

I think of all the disappointing news yesterday the 30% tariff on solar panels is by far the most depressing

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 23, 2018 6:17 AM

I have a lot to say about this but I'm going to stick with this: The blame here lies squarely on Solar World and Suniva, the two companies who initiated the trade case. Trump didn't give them nearly what they wanted here, which means that instead of a total disaster this is just a bump in the road, and not as bad as the 2012 retroactive tariffs.

see also the Solar Power thread

I know we like horse races and shit on a thread that updates every few minutes, but let's wait until after February before we consider long term effects.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, January 23, 2018 4:59 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the twitter thread had a relevant take on this thread this morning -

One of the warning signs for me is when I can’t tell the difference between a big problem and a small problem. My brain stops prioritizing. Every problem comes at me at exactly the same size. This is depression taking away a major coping mechanism. And that’s exactly what was happening on Twitter. Every outrage was becoming the exact same size.

xposts if ever there was a demagogue-able ballot initiative, cue Willie Horton ducking darkly behind the voting booth curtains. Not gonna happen esp at that threshold

I guess we'll have to wait 3 weeks to see how much of a spine the Dems actually have but for now I suppose you can say getting CHIP off the table when the GOP was using it as a hostage is sort of a win for the Dems. Now all they've got is DACA? Also, as pointed out, the Dems are the minority party, they don't have all that much leverage to begin with.

That said the Dems caving one day after one of the largest protests in US History is exactly the sort of thing that will lead to disappointment come midterms. If they don't fight like hell for this in 3 weeks I'm never giving them another dime.

xp apparently it needs 60% to pass

Budget requires 60 votes. "Promised" DACA or whatever vote is up/down vote, which is simple majority, afaict. And this bullshit about negotiation ... there have been several DACA bills and compromised. There was one just a couple of weeks ago! Why couldn't the Dems have just said Durbin/Graham or GTFO?

imo we're all gonna die, but we're supposed to think that's a good thing now

wait i thought the 60% was about the florida referendum

yeah my 60% comment refers the florida felon enfranchisement vote

oh, whoops, yeah

via Corey Robin

Democratic institutions are presumed to be permeable and responsive to the popular will. When they aren't, voters begin to view them as illegitimate.

The problem didn't start with Donald Trump, but he makes it far worse — by giving democratically unresponsive institutions a high-minded justification for doubling down on the status quo at the very moment when popular agitation on both the right and the left is demanding more dramatic change. (Would a democratic-socialist president be permitted to pass and implement a single-payer health-care system? Or would the courts immediately declare it unconstitutional? We may find out with the election of our next Democratic president.)

This may be the paradoxical way that Trump contributes to the longer-term breakdown to democracy in the United States: Not by seizing power in the name of the people, but by inadvertently demonstrating that the people possess remarkably little power under the current system to change anything significant at all.

http://theweek.com/articles/750016/against-great-rethinking-about-trump

But how can McConnell hold a debate on DACA that can't be filibustered? Cloture only comes in at the end.

for now I suppose you can say getting CHIP off the table when the GOP was using it as a hostage is sort of a win for the Dems

Try replacing "the Dems" with "poor children who need health insurance" and see how you feel.

lol yeah I know but I feel like the Dems actually care about sick kids to some extent, while the GOP would be more than happy to let it expire just so they can blame the Democrats for it

Heard some House idiot float the idea of allowing Dreamers to stay for renewable (which I guess means potentially not-renewed?) 3 year spans while they wait in "line," not (immediately) deported but not given citizenship, either. That's the sort of shit we're going to get.

most depressing is the Facebook friends I've got posting shit like "Let's say a father and daughter broke into your house. After they've already ransacked it, the US Government says that the daughter gets to stay, and you have to house her and pay for her education!! Does that seem FAIR?? Well now you understand DACA..."

i am glad i am not friends with people posting that shit

ransacked it? by working and paying taxes?

no no, these people are all attended public schools and are now on welfare

fuck this damn monsters and their pathetic nonsense unfriend them

brb unfriending 2/3 of white americans

We really should be taking down names for the day when fuckers like that no longer have an implicit mandate to just say whatever xenophobic bullshit springs into what passes for their minds.

brb unfriending 2/3 of white americans

And a large percentage of nonwhite Americans, especially legal immigrants who've been here a long-ass time and hate illegal immigrants as much as any redneck strawman.

yup. sad to say this is true from personal experience

brb unfriending 2/3 of white americans

idk i don't have shit like that in my feed because i unfriended them

yes. those non-white long term immigrants who hate new immigrants do exist. and they're no better than the white people who hate new immigrants. the point is that the USA makes it extremely hard to work here legally, but happily exploits the millions who are working and living here without green cards. that's the problem. not the color or immigration status of the haters.

as a legal immigrant coming from a family of legal immigrants, i can say i am definitely related to some of those nonwhites who hate illegal immigrants

but it's not like they're the voting bloc that matters

btw, there are tons of illegal immigrants from European countries, who overstayed their tourist visas and never went home. we just don't hear much about them.

been hearing a lot about that poor polish doctor from michigan

that's not sarcastic, i really do feel bad for the guy

ya would hate to be the token "see, we deport white people too!" guy

so Chuck now saying the wall is off the table, which I'm sure means in three weeks he's going to agree to sell all the DREAMers into slave labor to build the thing so the Democrat party doesn't appear "unreasonable" or "obstructionist" to racist soccer moms

!!! Rep. Pat Meehan says he never harassed his aide - he merely told her they were “soulmates” and “lash(ed) out” when he found out she had a boyfriend because he cared about her a lot. https://t.co/41PEjnkFXP

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 23, 2018

Look, no-one knows that this won't work, right?

mueller wants to talk to the smart guy https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-seeks-to-question-trump-about-flynn-and-comey-departures/2018/01/23/e6652db6-0068-11e8-9d31-d72cf78dbeee_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.c2eb20758979

trump is going to be so mad when he finds out the investigation didn't end before christmas

Rep. Pat Meehan vehemently denies throwing his trash into the street, claiming he merely tossed his refuse onto the road.

lol no way Trump's lawyers are gonna let him do this

he might do it anyway

haha this right here

Meehan -- accused of turning hostile when aide rejected him - says he was "tough" on staff but attributes it to stress around ACA repeal vote: https://t.co/Fhv7egSQL3 https://t.co/XtSPnOF9Hm

— Jonathan Tamari (@JonathanTamari) January 23, 2018

tammy duckworth is preggers, will be first sitting senator to give birth

when you get caught harassing young aide just blame obama

lol no way Trump's lawyers are gonna let him do this

he might do it anyway

My favorite bit:

Roger Stone, a longtime informal adviser to Trump, said he should try to avoid an interview at all costs, saying agreeing to such a session would be a “suicide mission.”

“I find it to be a death wish. Why would you walk into a perjury trap?” Stone said. “The president would be very poorly advised to give Mueller an interview.”

just do it and be a legend

"Yes I had sex with her."

*awkward silence*

"We were asking about the conversation with the Russian ambassador."

Mookie - so is New Zealand's Prime Minister.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/01/19/new-zealands-prime-minister-is-pregnant-i-am-not-the-first-woman-to-multitask-she-says/?utm_term=.5129565552d8

I will say there's a certain cinematic quality to the fact that Trump is on TV all the time while Mueller seems to only be seen in stock photos

idk one thing you could do is not perjure yourself

do you know who we're talking about here?