Trump

[poorpete]

I hate to agree with some Trumpites, but the potential-failure of Gorsuch and the failure of AHCA it's really a disaster for congressional republicans. The unprecedented stealing of the SCOTUS pick was spearheaded by the Senate Republicans. The repeal of Obamacare has been the rallying cry of the House Republicans since 2010. None of this was Trump's stupid ideas (though he supported these ideas).

If Gorsuch fails, this will get ugly. Either Trump will nominate a radical and get him through via destruction of the fillibuster. Or Dems and Reps agree on a compromise candidate along with other agreements (I can't imagine what). But if there's a compromise candidate that's still a conservative, that's essentially Gorsuch, so why not compromise now, before it gets too ugly? Because Dems will not accept the first candidate after what happened to Garland. It would have made sense to compromise a year ago.

A lot would have made sense to do a year ago.

[Mike]

No. They don't get to distance Trump from that. Repeal and replace was a rallying cry of his campaigns. He may not have started it, but he owned it. He promised that he knew the system better than anyone and that once he was in office, he'd deliver the moon. They don't get to back off using the excuse that he was a moron who had no idea what he was talking about.

No one knew healthcare was so complicated. Bullshit.

[Mike]

AND FURTHERMORE...

Despite his bragging that he knew better than anyone how to get stuff done in Washington, he clearly has no idea what he's doing in this system. A more savvy president would have actually developed a full legislative agenda and worked with various factions to have a shot at getting something passed, instead of trying to ramrod this piece crap through and having to lose face by bullying his own party members and failing.

The man is completely lost in this world, rejecting the multitude of tools developed over decades to help him get stuff done and instead trying to rule like a dictator. Which he isn't.

[bralbovsky]

So three problems: (It's more than three, but that's enough)
Bad guys in charge down the line as far as can be seen. So what if Pence is an accessory after the fact, So what if Ryan has no moral center and can't really lead...It's that bad.
Party over country. Even McCain. Lots of guys, Rubio, Cruz, guys I don't like but who could have stood up, refuse/fail to stand up. Spineless, gutless. Inertia will win because there's no resistance available.
Logic....no use. Who cares if he's a serial adulterer, a pathological liar, awash in financial malfeasance...liberals. and nobody cares what they think or say, see rule #2. No memory, no ethics, no morality has the strength of the cowardice and selfishness that has gripped a critical mass of the electorate, not to mention...sorry I said I'd stop at three

$$$$$$$, and the promise of it, even if it's a scam. That wins over foolish people every time. Suckers, all of us....

[Bonefish]

I don't know if I'd say bad guys all the way down. There's a really good candidate in the cabinet, we just need to get rid of 4 more people after Trump and Pence.

[Phoebe]

Trump owns whatever happens with health care; getting rid of the supposed evils of Obamacare was the centerpiece for the entire party and campaign. But it's tricky to get rid of a thing that was a Republican idea to begin with, once upon a time, and that is going to have serious negative consequences for lots of people. It's hard to mask that.

Trump also owns Gorsuch. He had no compunctions about the failure to vote on Garland. It's not okay to vote on anyone before Garland gets his vote, even if it's a nay vote. Gorsuch was okay with me on paper compared to the other judges on Trump's List, but then he opened his mouth and we got to see him answer questions. He seems like a real jerk on a personal level and for some reason that is not ok with me. Most federal judges seem to be absolutely marvelous human beings even when you disagree with them on policy or philosophy, and that's partly what makes the system work. We can respect their different reasoning because we know they are striving for what they think is best and trying to be good to the other humans. When a guy gets in there, knowing he shouldn't even be sitting in that chair because he was unacceptably leapfrogged over Garland, and can't even display some humility and respect for the people asking questions, under the current very difficult circumstances, well... I'm not very happy with what we've seen of him. They should resist the whole way and get a new nominee. Same views, different personality would be an improvement imo.

[Phoebe]

Not sure what to make of the latest news. Everything we're hearing is so odd and unprecedented. You find yourself thinking things like, God I hope Gen. McMaster is actually a patriot who won't tolerate some of the things we're seeing reported, if they turn out to be true! And maybe if he wanted Bannon off the principles committee, that's a good sign? On the other hand, you can't trust a darn thing you see. Is that for show, to pacify other Republicans who are worried about Bannon's ideology or the extent of his possible entanglement with all this Russia and voter-influencing business? In other words, it doesn't seem like a big sacrifice to make that change, so it's not clear how much the meaning is superficial and symbolic and how much it represents any shift away from the white nationalism influence. All I know is that I don't trust a lot of the people who are now in the highest offices of power, and it is freaking me out that people I used to disagree with over policy issues due to their extreme conservatism are ALSO freaking out about their mistrust of people in the highest offices. Now those people are the strongest allies. Thank God some of them are not okay with all this. It's weird to be pinning your hopes on the military to have some kind of basic respect for the ideals of democracy and our shared citizenship, contra financial and political influences from elsewhere which would undermine it. I guess I naively believed our democracy was so fundamentally good and well-organized that this would never happen in my lifetime. Congress seems like a lost cause, unless maybe the Senate plays the role of adult soon. The judiciary is doing OK too and even very conservative judges are unhappy about things this administration is doing. But the judiciary alone isn't enough; they have to have either Congress or all the policing forces of the state solidly behind them. It turns my stomach a little every day that things seem so tenuous; I have discovered I was thoroughly indoctrinated as a child to be pro-democracy and patriotic, and it's very upsetting to feel like your nation is under attack and the people who are supposed to defend it could be part of the attack!

[Bonefish]

In all fairness, our military has already saved us once from fascists taking over our country. And when the high ranking generals right insightful articles about the importance f understanding other cultures, acting in a fashion that is agreeable with them, upholding commitments to equality? Well, that looks a lot better than the dumpster fire we have.

Sadly, it seems like a lot of the left is still stuck on the perception of the US military as "baby killers".

[Phoebe]

Well, I may not be the best person to respond because I'm not exactly left and my view of the military is generally positive, but I feel like we're imposing the wrong burden on our military if we expect those officials to stand up for democracy when the other normal checks and balances aren't working the way they're supposed to. It seems like we should be able to find political solutions to that that don't depend on the military drawing lines and saying, we're not going to torture people, we're not going to violate the constitution, we're not going to let procedures to be followed that threatened democracy, etc. And let's be clear that Obama was part of the problem because he dramatically expanded executive power even beyond the dramatic expansions we saw under Clinton and Bush. No, he didn't support the illegal torture policy and things like that, but he seemed to be happy to use drones to kill American citizens without any due process and illegally surveil or jail them and so forth. He was happy to take full advantage of the executive branch powers to start wars independently without the appropriate Congressional approval. And now that has paved the way for President Trump to take actions like that and say, well I'm not doing anything different from what President Obama did, and in many cases he'll be right.

[Phoebe]

O M G the Gorsuch plagiarism.

Maybe it shouldn't derail every nominee to any post, but it is an absolute DOA deal breaker for the Supreme Court. OMG. Wow. Never expected it. Though it's good to know my jerk detector skills are functioning again, since they were apparently broken badly for a while. As soon as you heard the guy answer questions, wow. The condescension. From a plagiarist!!! A JUDGE no less.

Whatever one wants to say about Scalia's views, it would be a tragic insult to have such an astounding pen replaced by... a plagiarist!!!

[Bonefish]

[Phoebe]

No worries, it made sense. I honestly have no idea what to think. Everything is so confusing at this point and trust levels in the information are so low - that's one of the worst consequences of this whole election and aftermath. It's just not clear who's shilling for what team and why, and the news sites I trust are (probably for related reasons) slower to offer analysis that would help shed light. No idea what we should be doing right now, as a nation; no idea what is being done in our name or what policy or principles are guiding things. So then we're back to, please let this Gen. McMaster be one of the best ones, please. Also, he's a beautiful man - not that this matters, but he's beautiful.

[Bonefish]

I wouldn't blame just this election cycle. I think our media has had slanted and skewed coverage for quite some time. It's just kept creeping more and more towards propaganda. As I've said: I think 9/11 hastened it for people, it made it more palatable, because, MURICA! But that creep just kept going and going. And now, it's become so obvious.

You know, it's one thing to be the crazy homeless guy on the corner, shouting that the world is ending, the government is rigged and corrupt, the news media are shills, our driving motivation is greed and self-interest, and the CIA is spying on us. But, what about when you're just walking past that guy, and start thinking. "man, he makes a lot of sense". How do ya feel then?

[Phoebe]

It appears that the legal world can be divided into three groups:
- People who for purely partisan reasons believe that what Gorsuch did in his BOOK was not plagiarism, even though they know in their hearts that it is, and defend it on grounds that utterly destroy their credibility as intellectuals and academics forever after, like "so many pages! of course mistakes!" and "didn't steal any substantive ideas, just some boring pedestrian words!"
- People who think what he did was plagiarism but not bad enough to derail an entire USSC nomination at the eleventh hour, since apparently the lowest standards are OK for the highest court and if something is found out late that makes it less of a Fact.
- People who honestly have no clue that what he did really is plagiarism and would have gotten them an F in a law school class (or worse - I've attended schools that would not have kicked anyone out for this, and an F or re-do of the paper would have been the likely outcome, and I've been at schools where you would have been out on your ass with your suitcase bouncing behind you, so...).

The important thing is, nobody really gives a toot about this, so you know, I'm just going to go copy a bunch of pedestrian words other people have written and submit it to Oxford University Press as a book, because BRAVE NEW WORLD now on every level, apparently. Whatever, people are being gassed. I'm just done and ready to go live in my island cave with the little goats.

[poorpete]

Today in "Was this all a distraction from Trump's ties to Russia?":
*Attacks on Syria: No
*Gorsuch nomination: No
*Anything about Susan Rice: Yes

edit: I shouldn't plural it, it was an attack on Syria, as sounds like no more are planned, but this guy doesn't plan anything so who knows. I'm obviously conflicted, as should anyone when military force is used, as anytime a racist sexist monster who hates muslim Syrian immigrants risks a bigger war in order to send a message that murdering Syrian muslims is a bad thing.

[Phoebe]

Yep, I agree. Sometimes the timing of a thing has accidental secondary effects. I don't see the point of the conspiracy theories about why we made this airstrike either. When you gas your people, you can expect that there might be some kind of very negative response. The question is not so much whether any military action was justified, but whether we need to take additional action and what happens in the follow-up? Are we still going to stop taking in refugees? Are we going to act like the Russians can't possibly be contradicted, whenever they want something, without starting some horrible global war? It seems like this was one of the smallest military responses we could have made while still having a response. When Europe and the United States and other allies stand united together against them, what is Russia going to do? Why do these Trump supporters think Russia is trying so hard to undermine the unity of Europe and install someone in the United States more sympathetic to their interests?

It's not like all these investigations are going away because something else serious is happening in the world. If we divert attention, like that proverbial tree falling in the forest, it's not like all the sound stops. Trump supporters have to have some fairy tale to tell about surveillance that shifts the blame onto Obama, who is as we all know responsible for everything bad thing that has ever happened and will ever happen in the future.

[Bonefish]

Long story short, this was a telegraphed blow. Important syrian air assets got to safety, and nothing is really changed.

Maybe ww3 is in the cards. Or maybe, Assad took one for the team.

[Cazmonster]

So, we threw fifty thousand-pound bombs at the airport and it's still functional?

They didn't crater the airstrips or demolish the command and control structure. They didn't destroy all the aircraft in the area.

I don't understand the attack at all.

[Phoebe]

All I have heard is the many missiles fired at airport. So... You would think airport at least decommissioned for a while? If not that is sad; they should do it again or something. BTW that is not an endorsement of the legality of the action, but I think it's nonsense to worry aboutvthat aspect when Obama could do almost the same by himself as long as he used different weapons and hit different targets. I'm afraid Congress has to decide whether they want their powers back, because they deliberately gave them away.

[Bonefish]

I'm not gonna go all sper geek on military weapons systems, but short story: we used an anti-personal weapon against hardened targets. Caz, in SR terms? We used flechette ammo when we should have used APDS.

My current line of thinking is something like this:

Chester Cheetoh: Sheeeyit, sheeit gys. I think they're on to us. What will we do?
Vlad: Punch Hajji in the face.
Hajji: WHAT?!
Vlad: It's cool, just roll with it, act pissed off, they'll think we're all fighting.
Cheeto: That's great Vlad, they won't think I'm i cahoots with you if we do this!
Hajji: Guys... I don't know if I wanna-
Vlad: SHUT UP Hajji, do you want us to help, or not?
Hajji: I don't see how punching me in the face helps me, i all I'm sayi-
Cheeto: *WHUMP*