Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[entropy]

People aren't interested in boundaries...they want to "win" over the other side as a personal vindication.

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Exhibit A: this thread. Most real policy or idea discussion last a few posts, but politics as usual go on for days..

[Dr. Strangelove]

Quinnipiac: Trump approval rating at 36%, is losing support among white men and whites with no college degree for first time.

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2456

By a 54-38 margin, voters want the Dems to win the House in 2018

[Wild Hoss]

Exhibit A: this thread. Most real policy or idea discussion last a few posts, but politics as usual go on for days..

Meh...hashing over the same old policy discussions isn't going to keep up with current events in any forum. HC has been beaten to death in here to boot.

[Wild Hoss]

Quinnipiac: Trump approval rating at 36%, is losing support among white men and whites with no college degree for first time.

https://poll.qu.edu/national/release...ReleaseID=2456

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.

[Mainevent]

I've said all along, I doubt the investigation would be able to approve direct, without a doubt collusion, absent some real smoking gun (email, recorded conversation, Trump insider testifying). I've got to believe the majority of Democrats believe this as well.

But there are any number of reasons for the Democrats to want to continue investigating Russia even if there's no concrete evidence of collusion:
- It's bad for Trump; the more they find, even if not outright collusion, it slows the agenda of the administration
- It clearly bothers him and his ego, and the more likely he is to lash out and do/say more stupid things
- Real concern over Trump business ties to Russia and the conflicts of interest and potential influence they have on decision making. If there's nothing there, why are they constantly lying about it?
- Some actually want to, you know, get to the bottom of foreign power influencing our election process

Those last two should be bipartisan concerns.

Oh, and Rod Rosenstein, if you don't want to be put in the line of fire on this, don't write a specifically to justify the President's desire to fire somebody.

[froot loops]

It depends on what you count as collusion and what actually constitutes part of the campaign. For low hanging fruit, if you can prove Guccifer 2.0 is Russian and Roger Stone is working with Trump, that is coordination or collusion. That may be small potatoes but it's actually public evidence and pretty damning. Most stuff is classified, so we wouldn't know.

[hack]

Flynn has offered to sing.

[hack]

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.

[Wild Hoss]

It also depends on whether you believe a significant portion of the electorate gives a shit, when the issue for many boils down to Russian collusion v President Hillary Rodham Clinton. IMO, at least a third of voters wouldn't care if Trump rolled up his sleeve to reveal a red star tatooed on his shoulder like the Winter Soldier. "Better than Hillary".

Unless something truly and undeniably criminal comes out, this is ultimately a partisan issue that will be decided in partisan fashion in congress and the voting booth IMO.

[hack]

People aren't interested in boundaries...they want to "win" over the other side as a personal vindication.

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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.

[Wild Hoss]

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.

There are a number of issues. First and foremost in my mind is the Coke v Pepsi political system; there need to be more voices and POVs at the table to force compromise. Getting there is almost impossible, without a massive change to public-funding of elections. The stranglehold is unbreakable.

I also think the electoral college is a trainwreck. We don't vote along lines of Big States v Small States anymore; Texas and Kansas, California and Rhode Island have voted similarly to one another for decades now, with no signs of change. Ds in TX and Rs in NY deserve a voice in deciding our leader.

[Dr. Strangelove]

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.

Well, a big deal was made out of the fact that Trump (supposedly) got people to vote who had never voted or hadn't voted in decades. It presumably wouldn't take a lot to discourage the same group back into apathy.

[Wild Hoss]

Well, a big deal was made out of the fact that Trump (supposedly) got people to vote who had never voted or hadn't voted in decades. It presumably wouldn't take a lot to discourage the same group back into apathy.

Maybe. Or they might be the most dedicated Trumpkins out there.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump will be displeased with this

[ame]https://twitter.com/kaylatausche/status/862691859293929477[/ame]

[THE_WIZARD_]

DSL:

hello