Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Da Geezer]

Sen. Lee floated the name of Merck Garland for FBI director. What do you lefties think about him as a candidate?

What about Rod Rosenstein? He just was confirmed 94-6, and it would be pretty hard for the Dems to vote him down.

Doesn't it seem like there would have been a "leak" of some evidence supporting collusion with the Russians, if indeed there had been collusion?

Hack, in regards to what the tenor of politics in the US was after Watergate, there was simply far less partisanship. There were Nelson Rockefeller Republicans and Scoop Jackson Democrats. I happen to believe that the primary, particularly the open primary system, has been one of the major causes of the steady decline in comity. It used to be that the state parties would nominate a candidate for the senate or governor (don't take issue with my "allness" here, I'm making a generalization). With the expansion of primaries, the extreme partisans took more control over candidate selection, and they chose more radical candidates. Further, many Representatives have their own power base and do not rely on the state party as much, so you have the Freedom Caucus, as an example, feeling free to oppose the party's national leaders, because they have safe seats. You know, there is something to be said for smoke-filled rooms.

[froot loops]

He's better suited for SCOTUS. Sally Yates for FBI Director.

[froot loops]

Anyways Garland certainly isn't going to give up a lifetime appointment for serving at the pleasure of the Orange Menace.

[SeattleLionsFan]

The system is broken. The center did not hold. IMO, longterm, you can have democracy or you can have the extreme version of free-speech rights that the US has. I don't know if you can have both.

The system at this point requires a hero. Someone who can tell voters that they have to look beyond their own desires, embrace people of different backgrounds, and pay their fucking taxes. And probably tell a whole lot more unpopular truths, and still get elected. As long as we have politicians telling people they can have their cake and eat it too, we'll be going down this same road to ruin.

Who is that hero that everyone will listen to and agree with?

[Da Geezer]

You need to be wary of those numbers...some of those Disapprovals aren't votes against his policies, but rather because he hasn't doubled-down on them enough. His approval ratings among Pubs is still extremely high.

Good point. Trump's approval among party Republicans is at historically low levels. You are watching the first Independent President in American history. He ran on a program of liberal social policy and conservative fiscal policy (eg. he favors single payer for health care and said so often during the campaign).

Trump did a hostile takeover of the Republican Party from the inside, basically pissing off what became the never-Trumpers. The Dems wanted to run against Trump, and he pissed them off by winning. Take a look at Sen McCain if you want to see what the Washington DC establishment thinks of Trump. DC voted for Hillary by about 95-5%, so you know where the Deep State stands. It is little wonder that DC is all a-dither over this Russian thing, because every day spent on it is another day they can resist and potentially defeat the program Trump ran on.

I figure all these polls are basically meaningless because no one really "likes" Trump personally. Trump voters, and people like me who didn't vote for him, do like most of his policies. And binary polls still show Trump beating Hillary (the last one I saw was 43-40 head to head).

[Da Geezer]

The system is broken. The center did not hold. IMO, longterm, you can have democracy or you can have the extreme version of free-speech rights that the US has. I don't know if you can have both.

So, what is "the extreme version of free-speech rights that the US has." exactly?

And the center held just fine. American voters followed basically the same pattern that they have followed since FDR, swinging from one party to another every 8 years or so. They fear too much accumulation of power by either party, and that is basically how they vote. That is a reasonable definition of how "the center" holds, IMO.

[Mainevent]

It clearly bothers him and his ego, and the more likely he is to lash out and do/say more stupid things


I am divided on this. Fake investigations are part of the playbook now since the GOP and Ken Starr. It's a testament to how clean Obama is that they couldn't get anything on him. Or how good he was at covering his tracks. Anyhow, as a rule I'd say that participating in the hyperpartisan debasing of the political process is a means unjustified by the ends, but if it trips up the agenda of this particular administration, you're actually genuinely saving lives in the process. Apart from Cheney's war starting/profiteering, these guys make Bush/Cheney look like campus liberals.

But, that said, I don't think this is that kind of investigation. It's pretty reasonable to want to get to the bottom of all this.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that I support investigations based solely on a political agenda. That's some bullshit no matter what side you're on. There is certainly a topic worthy of investigation here. But there's no doubt that the longer this goes on the more likely Trump is to keep having these types of reactions and the Democrats see the benefit of his outbursts to them.

[Dr. Strangelove]

So Trump confirmed to Lester Holt that all his spokespeople have been lying for him the past 2 days and are now getting thrown under the bus. The Rosenstein letter was totally irrelevant to Trump's decision, exactly like I've been saying.

[ame]https://twitter.com/bungdan/status/862721379514200064[/ame]

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ame]https://twitter.com/JonahNRO/status/862722785344442368[/ame]

[froot loops]

What a clown show.

[hack]

Getting there is almost impossible, without a massive change to public-funding of elections. The stranglehold is unbreakable.

Public funding? You mean private money? IMO if there was one thing to start with it is campaign finance. It's utterly absurd.

[hack]

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that I support investigations based solely on a political agenda. That's some bullshit no matter what side you're on. There is certainly a topic worthy of investigation here. But there's no doubt that the longer this goes on the more likely Trump is to keep having these types of reactions and the Democrats see the benefit of his outbursts to them.

Sure -- understood.

[hack]

Who is that hero that everyone will listen to and agree with?

No clue. Just a wild guess, but I bet he/she is under the age of 30 right now.

Or over 70, but anyone that age or older has a very small shot at really influencing things.

[Dr. Strangelove]

You know, it's not just staff. He had Pence out there lying for him all day yesterday. Someone kept a count and Pence said 7 times during his press conf yesterday that Trump was just following Rosenstein's recommendation. Today Trump admits it didn't matter what Rosenstein or Sessions said; he was firing Comey.

Does Pence crave power enough to keep putting up with this shit?

[Whitley]

I hope that's right, I am a lot less confident about the ability to peel off GOP senators. The movers and shakers of the party are in lockstep on this firing.

You are starting to see cracks here though. You have Sen. Burr and Sen. McCain calling for senate investigations here. Rep. Amash is working on legislation for the same basic thing.

Sen. McConnell says the same basic thing too. There is a good political reason for this. An investigation would basically shut down this congress from doing anything. Now, you would have a congress that did not accomplish anything with the Republicans getting hung with that and the corruption (at the least) of President Trump.

The key here is Speaker Ryan. Ryan has no love for President Trump but is hamstrung because Trump is more popular in his district (among Republican voters) than he is. But when/if that changes to the degree that Ryan can break from Trump, that will signal time to head for the lifeboats.