USNEWS: Put a ratty-looking paperclip on the stimulus bill

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USNEWS: Put a ratty-looking paperclip on the stimulus bill

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

Party Plane Jones posted:

21https://twitter.com/NYTimesAtWar/status/1061637693954768896

Just commenting on this briefly: it was very cool to already have read through the part of the Richard J Evans 3rd Reich book dealing with this period of time as this anniversary passes. This period of time was way crazier than I was taught in school and it bears remembering. We really should study WW1 far more than we do. Anyway, that's all I'll say about it since it was linked here.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2018 19:24

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 00:40

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

It's amazing to me that we are holding on to the Senate seat in AZ.

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1061685707314487298

Can someone remind me (and the thread) what happens to the McCain seat? Kyl has it now but isn't there going to be a special election for it soon anyway? The term expires in 2022 IIRC right? I wonder what this means for that seat too. Two Dem AZ Senators would be bonkers.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2018 19:29

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

axeil posted:

I believe Kyl is currently the caretaker Senator until the election for it in 2020 but there are rumors he will resign at the start of the year so Governor Ducey can appoint McSally (if she loses) so she has incumbency advantage in 2020.

But there is no incumbency advantage for appointed incumbents so I'm not sure what this will accomplish. She also will still need to win a GOP primary for it.

After that I do believer there is a "normal" Senate election for it in 2022.

Wow lots of Senate elections to come then for AZ, should be very interesting to see who runs, who wins, who loses etc.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2018 19:42

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

evilweasel posted:

Netenyahu's open interference in favor of the Republican party is only about six years old. But I think you underestimate the absolute rage in a lot of parts of the Democratic party about what Netenyahu has been doing - parts of the Democratic party that used to support the pro-Israel consensus. Now it's sort of an issue of national sovereignty. Realignments take time, but I think people are (understandably) just looking at the past 40 years and assuming all will continue as normal, when I think that's no longer the case.

And many of those fundraisers will indeed be gone as well; heavy-handed intervention into American politics in favor of the Republican party is one of the things splitting off a number of American Jews from supporting Israel.

On Twitter, a good example is David Simon, whose Twitter after the Pittsburgh shooting is a non-stop tirade against Bibi and his way of doing business. He does not mince words.

# ¿ Nov 12, 2018 18:00

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

Tibalt posted:

Not to get all Freudian, Neilsen is also a woman with the main job of telling Trump "no." Not because she wants to, understand, but because Trump seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how immigration works and has reportedly tried to do things like cancel all visas from Central America or send asylum seekers away without a hearing or have the army fight the caravan or insist on building the wall.

Seeing as how two days ago Trump accused Baltic state leaders for helping to start the Balkans conflict in the former Yugoslavia (WHERE HIS CURRENT WIFE IS FROM!!!) I'd go with yeah, he doesn't know poo poo about poo poo.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics...-lithuania.html

# ¿ Nov 13, 2018 14:15

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

https://www.facebook.com/tiffany.easter.35/posts/10156279441089608

https://twitter.com/TiffanyEaster/status/1062411102292791302

# ¿ Nov 15, 2018 15:47

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

evilweasel posted:

Yeah, but the party had a substantial amount of its majority composed of legacy conservative/blue dog democrats, both in the House and the Senate. How far Pelosi could go depended on what she could round up 218 votes for. If she couldn't round up 218 votes for what she wanted, she had to go with whatever was closest to what she wanted that would get 218 votes. Who is responsible for those mistakes depends on who was responsible for the end product.

You can judge her to a certain degree by the end result, but the most important thing you have to look at where she was trying to drag people to get to those results. Pelosi could have thrown abortion rights overboard to get Obamacare passed easily. Instead, she spent weeks dragging the anti-abortion democrats in the House (at the time, there were enough to block Obamacare) over to where she wanted them to be. The key issue is where she decided to try to drag people to the left, and where she didn't, and that requires actually digging into the history of the 2008 Congress much more than people actually do in these discussions. She dragged 218 votes to implement a carbon tax in the hopes the Senate would then be forced to take it up (they didn't), knowing that would place some of her members at risk, because that was important to her. A more conservative speaker would not have tried. There are certainly probably areas she did not try, or tried to drag the people on the left to the more centrist position she preferred - but you've got to go find what those are and look at them to confirm that's what happened, and not that the default was a more conservative position that she dragged as far left as she could while preserving 218 votes and a chance of passing the Senate.

That dragging generally happens internally, and then it's her job to defend the end product, so a lot of people look at an end product that is farther to the right that they want, note Pelosi defending it, and assume she was the cause. Frequently that was not true: the problem is that we have now forgotten (thanks to all of them losing in 2010) how big the blue dog caucus at the time was.

Pelosi's job was to pass what she could with the caucus she had (and given Obama's preferences and what the Senate would do). Where those results were inadequate, you need to determine if it was because those were the results she wanted, and she worked to get them, or if they're the results closest to what she wanted that she could get.

For me, I was pretty onboard with finding another Speaker once Pelosi held that press conference during primary season and said that if they retook the House, they would reinstate PayGo. That plus her other pleas for "bipartisanship" and overall :decorum:

to me demonstrates that whatever she's done before now, in the here and now she's trying to be bipartisan with Nazi death cultists and thus is not equipped to lead anymore. IMO we need someone new, someone more in tune with today's politics.

https://www.thenation.com/article/the-perils-of-pelosis-pay-go-promise/

# ¿ Nov 15, 2018 17:27

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

evilweasel posted:

The big problem is when you just take tax increases on the rich entirely off the table. You can fund basically any spending any new Democratic administration wants to do by reversing the Trump tax cuts on the rich and corporations anyway.

This also has the helpful side effect of, if you do it right, making key programs "self-funding" so they're exempt from the appropriations process and require new legislation to defund or abolish (like, say, Obamacare).

Right. My problem with it? It's conceding to a bullshit right wing talking point. They act like we can't fund social programs then tax cut the rich all the hell, it's flat out bullshit and Dems should not concede to it on any level.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2018 17:33

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

Stexils posted:

i'm always wary of trying to co-opt a right wing talking point because the right has a way more unified and bigger propaganda network, and are also better at just pushing talking points to begin with (remember that "fake news" was originally a dem creation). even if it was possible to do, the current democratic party is just not capable of it and will only undermine themselves by trying.

This is where I come down too. Democrats are NEVER as good at sloganeering as Republicans and trying to take their talking point away will backfire, it's a guarantee.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2018 17:47

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

evilweasel posted:

uh we just had an election that the initial republican plan was precisely to run on their tax cut sloganeering, and it failed so badly in the face of democratic responses that they abandoned it entirely by the time of the election. they failed so badly people have almost entirely forgotten it.

people are starting to get how tax cuts are linked to social spending being cut, and it resulted in a tax cut being more of an electoral liability than tax hikes in the past have been. that's big, and that's the ground shifting under republicans. we do not need to cower before their economic sloganeering on this issue: we know we can win this, because we did win this.

I hear what you're saying but I thought the story was they were expressly trying to ignore unpopular (for them) issues like taxes and Obamacare and ran on THE CARAVAN!!! instead?

# ¿ Nov 15, 2018 18:18

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

marshmonkey posted:

https://twitter.com/AlexHortonTX/status/1063060683129008128

SUPPORT AR TROOPS! SUPPORT AR TROOPS!!

Another GOP lie exposed.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2018 19:16

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

The Glumslinger posted:

https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/1063189614427602944

"It looks like Trump is just going to straight up ignore the questions he doesn't like!"

"That's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for him."

# ¿ Nov 15, 2018 23:26

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 00:40

VH4Ever: Oct 1, 2005; by sebmojo

friendbot2000 posted:

D.C. votes to restrict short term rentals like AirBnB

So the D.C. Council passed a bill to restrict renting your home out for services like AirBnB. If I am reading this right, you have to actually live in the home in order to rent out through services like AirBnB. Overall I think this is a net positive because in the Bay Area I know there are slum lordy types that buy up housing and renovate it to be used for these types of services and skirt the regulations for motels, hotels, and other hospitality industries. Also, excuse me while I laugh uproariously that some critics are whining that you can't use your second home for short-term rentals now. gently caress you if you have a second home that sits empty most of the time and there are people in D.C. that have no home.

A lot of other states and cities are following suit with laws like this too. Hence why I put it in this thread.

San Diego is trying to do this but it's been a fight.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2018 17:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USNEWS: Put a ratty-looking paperclip on the stimulus bill