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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
It is of use to sap political capital from the opposition. I don't think that removing the filibuster for Gorsuch would cost Mitch a lot of political capital. Removing it on Ryancare on the other hand would likely overdraw it.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanArticles and then some to go with the above:
Since last year’s elections, Democrats have threatened to force Trump’s Supreme Court nominees to clear procedural hurdles requiring at least 60 senators to vote to end debate and proceed to a confirmation vote. Republicans are eager to confirm Gorsuch before an Easter recess next month, but with few Democrats expressing support for Gorsuch, they have threatened to change Senate rules to ensure the judge’s swift confirmation — a move that would allow Supreme Court picks to be confirmed with a simple majority vote.
On Thursday, Schumer warned that they should focus instead on changing Trump’s nominee.
“If this nominee cannot earn 60 votes — a bar met by each of President Obama’s nominees, and George Bush’s last two nominees — the answer isn’t to change the rules. It’s to change the nominee,” he said.
On the flip side:
https://secure.politico.com/story/2017/03/gorsuch-democrats-supreme-court-236384
[[quoteblock]]A group of Senate Democrats is beginning to explore trying to extract concessions from Republicans in return for allowing Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch to be confirmed, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
The lawmakers worry that Gorsuch could be confirmed whether Democrats try to block him or not — and Democrats would be left with nothing to show for it. That would be a bitter pill after the GOP blocked Merrick Garland for nearly a year.
The deal Democrats would be most likely to pursue, the sources said, would be to allow confirmation of Gorsuch in exchange for a commitment from Republicans not to kill the filibuster for a subsequent vacancy during President Donald Trump’s term. The next high court opening could alter the balance of the court, and some Democrats privately argue that fight will be far more consequential than the current one.[[/quoteblock]]
Finally:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/23/politics/trump-time-interview-wiretaps-falsehoods/
[[quoteblock]]President Donald Trump defended some of the most controversial claims of his young political career in*a wide-ranging interview with Time magazine*published Thursday, in which he offered a simple and absolute defense of his method:
"I'm a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right. Hey, look, in the meantime, I guess I can't be doing so badly, because I'm president, and you're not," he told Time's Washington bureau chief, Michael Scherer.[[/quoteblock]]
http://time.com/4710456/donald-trump-time-interview-truth-falsehood/?xid=homepage
The Time interview for anyone interested.
EDIT is something wrong with the quote formatting? That's the third time I've had trouble and not seeing anything wrong on my side.
edited 23rd Mar '17 10:18:27 AM by sgamer82
It's strange, but for some reason some people have the quoteblock format bug out on them.
And seriously? "I'm president and you're not, so I must be doing something right"? Dear Lord, Trump, I'd like to give you a history lesson on some of the people who have been presidents. Every time he speaks, he only further confirms how patently unfit he is for the position. A dead body would literally be a better president, because at least a corpse can't embarrass themselves and their nation on social media and enforce destructive policies.
The worst a dead body could do is soil itself during a public appearance
No, the Republicans can (and likely will) kill the filibuster the first time the Democrats try to use it. That means the Democrats' best play is to use it when killing it will make the Republicans look bad. The Supreme Court nomination may do that, if the public sees it as the Democratic pushback against the GOP stealing a SCOTUS seat from them, or if the nominee is seen as bad enough to justify attempting to block him. I'm not sure how likely either is.
Filibustering the ACA repeal seems likely to be unnecessary — everything I've heard about it suggests that it doesn't have the votes to pass anyway.
edited 23rd Mar '17 9:13:07 AM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.538 does an analysis of /r/t_d, which more or less shows that, yes, it's full of racist shitheads
@sgamer, Is it possible you're somehow using different symbols that look exactly like letters? (for example, Cyrillic "e" instead of latin "e").
edited 23rd Mar '17 9:20:14 AM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
x5 You're not alone: Lewis Black would also prefer a dead president as president.
"The IDEA demands more," the chief justice said. "It requires an educational program reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the child's circumstances..."
That standard was the one suggested by President Barack Obama's administration, in one of its final arguments before the justices in January.
For the Children! Maryland high school rape case sparks immigration row
Two Central American-born students are in custody after a 14-year-old girl was attacked last week at Rockville High School in Maryland, police say.
The White House said "tragedies like this" had motivated President Trump's illegal immigration "crackdown".
On Tuesday night, protesters gathered outside the school, some expressing concern about undocumented immigrants.
On Tuesday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer condemned the crime, calling it "shocking, disturbing, horrific and whatever other words that someone can think of".
But at a press conference, school officials played down the immigration angle.
"We would like to change the conversation," said Jack Smith, superintendent of the 159,000-student Montgomery County Public Schools system.
"Some have tried to make this into a question and issue of immigration... but we serve every student who walks through our doors," he added.
He said the two suspects had been enrolled in a special programme for non-English speakers.
On Tuesday night, demonstrators outside the school chanted "safety not sanctuary", a reference to sanctuary cities, where local authorities often protect those without legal US residency from deportation.
Trump leaving office isn't particularly likely. It's possible that something will come up to disgrace him to the point where he has essentially no political capital left, and the remainder of his term is just him playing damage control and getting nothing done. But he's not likely to resign or be impeached unless something absolutely daming comes up, like incontestable evidence that he — him personally, not his campaign or his aides or his family — had direct contact with Russia and coordinated with them on releasing information to damage Clinton's candidacy.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.@FiveThirtyEight: That analysis algorithm they used is quite interesting, speaking from a programmer's perspective, and it really does work to show some telling things about just what kind of people are drawn to support Trump, at least in a small-to-mid-scale. Kind of interested to see what comes up if the same tool is used to analyze more left-wing subreddits.
I doubt people of Bannon's type have any particular loyalty to country. And, in addition, I still remember how favorable GOP voters became to Putin after it was more or less confirmed that Russia interfered in the election.
Remember there are still people making the argument that the Wikileaks releases were in the name of transparency and furthering a "truly" free election.
edited 23rd Mar '17 10:11:01 AM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our livesAs House members try to rally the Tea Party, they are alienating the Moderates, and supposedly, the list of Republicans who will vote 'no' on Ryancare is staying steady in the 30's.
There is also no time set up for the vote itself.
I hope and pray that the Moderates and Teapublicans that are saying no now keep the balls to say no when the vote actually happens...
edited 23rd Mar '17 10:12:30 AM by DingoWalley1
Eeyup. And that isn't a genie that can be put back in the bottle, either. Automation is the future. I've talked before about how America is drifting in the direction of a world where capitalism is no longer viable, and automation is probably the biggest force pushing us towards post-capitalism.
There will come a day when there just aren't enough jobs for us.
It's only a win if we gain something. Trump's already shown his colors time and again. Publicly shaming him accomplishes nothing. He does that to himself on a daily basis. It's a pointless gesture.
Instead, all we get is permanent immunity from the law for every crony we try to pre-emptively charge. Due to the nature of Double Jeopardy, if Trump pardons Manafort or anyone like him, then that's it. In the eyes of the law, his sentence is served. He can never be charged again.
The more cronies we charge now, the fewer will ever serve a day in jail even if we manage to reclaim Washington.
I actually don't expect Pence has anything to do with Russia. He clashed with Trump about Russia's involvement in Syria during the debates. The two do not see eye to eye on that topic.
edited 23rd Mar '17 10:13:13 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

No, there's likely no way to stop Gorsuch's confirmation. However, it puts Mitch in ab bad position: If he nukes it, he has to own everything that happens while his President is in the middle of an FBI investigation that he's probably not certain will end how he wants it to. And this is after Trumpcare is likely to fail in the Senate.
The second Democrats used this, the GOP'd likely nuke it anyways. What use is a tool you lose the second you actually use it to begin with?