The General US Politics Thread

I doubt he's the first President to make a flub like that. There's plenty of stuff that Trump's done that's more worthy of mockery than that.

edited 21st Sep '17 9:01:26 AM by KarkatTheDalek

He's not the first President to do a lot of stupid things but he might just be the first President to do all of the stupid things.

That, I'll give you. He has consistently been the perfect storm of shit.

edited 21st Sep '17 9:02:18 AM by KarkatTheDalek

Namibia is an existing country, on the south west of africa.

It still means that Trump still doesnt know it exists, and that no one who wrote him whatever he was reading knew it exists either.

edited 21st Sep '17 9:04:59 AM by Superdark33

I don't see why it definitely means that, when it could easily have been a typo or he simply mispronounced the name.

Exactly. This is just so trivial I can't see why it's worth discussing compared to, for example, him calling Kim Jong Un "rocket man" or threatening Venezuela (and thus legitimizing Maduro in the eyes of many people here in Argentina, just when they were finally starting to accept that he is a dictator).

Trump's legitimizing a lot of dictators, honestly. He's trying to tear down the hegemony of institutions like NATO and the U.N. and revert the world to this sort of "Every country for itself" power struggle the likes of which we haven't seen since the age of Imperial Europe.

It's honestly very empowering for dictators, who get to go home and tell their citizens, "America could come for you at any moment and only I can stop them."

Fear of others and the need to be able to rally the military on a moment's notice without waiting for approval from the general public is one of the strongest arguments in favor of dictatorship. Many dictators rise to power on anti-Them sentiment.

edited 21st Sep '17 9:21:46 AM by TobiasDrake

no coincidence he’s trying to be one of those dictators, and is backed by another.

So I"m wondering how big a chance there is of the Affordable Care Act being saved next week? I know they think they can get new votes, (why?) but Democrats are going to hopefully universally vote against that.

Also though I think it was good to have Pelosi and Democrats working with Trump it is gonna look bad soon whenever Trump does something even more stupid than usual and cause very hard left to vote against whatever candidate they come up with in 2020, (assuming nothing comes of the Russian investigation that directly ties to Trump himself).

The very hard left is never satisfied and probably won't vote for the Democratic candidate in 2020 anyway. Even if it is Sanders.

By "very hard left" I am referring to the likes of people who genuinely thought having Stein and Baraku in the WH was a good idea.

Personally I'm trying to avoid calling those people the "hard left" or the "radical left" since, when you look at some of the candidates they support they aren't actually further to the left then many of the "centrists" or "Blue Dogs" or "neoliberals" they despise.

Impossible to say. We need three Republican Senators to vote "no."

The only possibilities are Mccain, Paul, Collins, and Murkowski.

Mccain's worrisome since he's been quite back and forth on this and he said his vote would depend on what his Governor says. His Governor said "vote for it."

Paul has said he will vote no. Here's hoping that sticks.

Collins seems like a fairly safe no. Her most explicit issue with the last time it came up was defunding Planned Parenthood. This one defunds it for a year (to be honest, I genuinely don't know what that means), but PP has called this bill more damaging than the last.

Mirkowski... I honestly haven't heard much of anything on her concretely.

So yeah. This could really, really easily pass. Especially since, as far as I can tell, the outcry over it is a fraction of the last time this came around. If the politicians think people won't care, then they are less likely to resist it.

edited 21st Sep '17 10:22:49 AM by Larkmarn

The most concrete thing I've seen from Murkowski is this Q&A video with interns, where she cites her vote against the repeal as the biggest difference she's made. (I don't have the time stamp at the moment)

edited 21st Sep '17 10:27:39 AM by Eschaton

I find it unlikely Murkowski will vote for this, as her state stands to lose around $11bn if it passes, from what I recall of the bill analysis.

Make sure that she is told of this. And her voters.

Are there any other senators that could possibly defect? Mc Cain will almost certainly vote yes.

I think it depends on whether "Doesn't screw the poor enough" outweighs "OBAMA BAD!"

edited 21st Sep '17 10:48:47 AM by sgamer82

Not really, no.

Fuck.

In regards to the woman refusing to take down Trump signs on what I'm assuming is her own property, I'm just going to say that I find things like city laws and neighborhood associations that restrict things like what, exactly, you can have out in front of your house are very, very weird to me. And this extends beyond political signage; apparently there's places that don't allow you to have something like a vegetable garden in your lawn.

I find these perplexing. (Are Neighborhood associations even a legal entity the way a city council is?)

Murkowski will almost certainly vote no, especially since the Governor of Alaska joined in with other Governors (from both sides) who don't support the Cassidy-Graham Bill.

So long as Rand Paul's Amendment doesn't pass, it will be close, but I'm expecting another upset defeat (49-51). If it does pass, we could be looking at a serious defeat (remember, a Clean Repeal lost by 7 votes, meaning 9 Republicans will not do a clean repeal, and the Cassidy-Graham Bill is not a good enough repeal for most Republicans).

have we heard from Collins specifically that they won’t vote for this?

@AceofSpades: Usually yes, as there's an actual contract involved that stipulates what you can and can't do on your property. While it's not criminal law as such, you open yourself up to lawsuits if you don't follow the code of the contract.

edited 21st Sep '17 11:14:57 AM by TotemicHero

I mean, it makes sense. Private property is still, to an extent, visible to the public. You cannot, for example, put up a giant billboard of nude people on your lawn, or deck your house out in so much neon and Christmas lights it looks like Vegas 24/7. Laws and regulations are in place to make sure one asshole won't screw over the neighbors. Also, it effects public perception and the likelihood of people moving into the neighborhood, aka the all-important housing prices.

And if you don't sign the contract can they just somehow cause you to not buy the house? What are these associations even for?