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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Ya, didn't Paul Ryan consider the tax cut in part an excuse to cut welfare systems? And don't these people believe in "starving the beast" (—>cutting taxes in order to reduce government spending) despite that being demonstrably ineffective?
(Not sold on that, Charles Phipps. a) We don't have any evidence that Jill Stein would have received fewer enough votes without Russian support, to the point of swinging an election, and b) the point I make is that - outside perhaps of Wiki Leaks - we don't have good evidence that without Russian intervention 2016 would have gone different. I do not disagree with the notion that they influenced your elections or that Trump probably has unsavoury relations there)
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThere's no direct evidence of it being trolling and plenty of reason to believe that a Republican official might believe and say those things.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Trump is a Russian puppet. Everything he does can either be explained as ego tripping or as active malice against the united states from a hostile agent. This is the latter.
The point of the shutdown is to crash the US economy. - and make no mistake, not paying a double digit percentage of the US workforce for months on end will do that.
It will stay shut down until congress gets its act together and rams through a veto-proof spending bill.
There is an old saying: Do not attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. This fails the second half of that saying, so I am now assuming malice. Everything about US politics under the Trump regime makes a lot more sense that way.
Edited by Izeinsummer on Jan 14th 2019 at 1:34:39 AM
Just wishful thinking on my part, I guess. Or trying to convince myself it's not that bad
The truth is, I'm fucking terrified about this, but I know we're not allowed to do "Can we panic now?" posts, so I just thought I'd see if anyone else believed it.
Guys... is it really that hopeless? Is there nothing anyone can (or will) do?
The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.![]()
See, I don't believe that, not without more evidence. I can completely believe ego and incompetence. Hanlon's Razor suggests we should believe that before we believe that he is a direct Russian agent.
Panic? Not unless you're one of the employees who's not getting paid. I'd say it's more a case of wondering just how much suffering the nation will have to endure before enough Congressional Republicans are willing to vote for a budget to make it veto-proof.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 14th 2019 at 4:36:27 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Congress can override the president. The veto power is not absolute. So, write your critter, tell them to do so.
Nope. Too consistent. Hanlons Razor is conditional, and at this point my belief that this is credibly just stupidity fails to be suspended. He is a bloody Russian agent, likely because he managed to loose all his fathers money and has been keeping afloat by being a conduit for Russian money laundering.
.. Also, there is plenty of grounds for panic, even if you are not in the directly affected group. People who are not getting paid will spend as little money as at all possible to preserve savings. That will have knockon effects on the economy right damn quick.
Edited by Izeinsummer on Jan 14th 2019 at 1:40:54 AM
I believe Trump gladly takes money from Russia and anyone else who will bribe him and does what he can to further their interests.
He's not owned, however, because he has no loyalty beyond himself.
So he's rented.
Re: Trump
No, he's never going to back down on this and everyone who knows him, knows he's not going to back down on this. Neither is the Republican Senate.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jan 14th 2019 at 1:40:03 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
That's what I tend to believe. As bad as things are, they could be SO much worse.
The Democrats winning the House helped at least a little, I think. But Trump could always just go around Congress, and with the Dems now in control of the House, he might get desperate
Edited by MrHellboy on Jan 14th 2019 at 3:42:02 AM
The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.So I have a question that's been on my mind since the shutdown started, although I assume it's one many people have.
How exactly is this going to go? Donald and the GOP have little reason to back down, the former because of his pride and the second because they are servile. The democrats also can't afford to back down, both from a moral standpoint and also because giving into GOP demands would have a severe affect on voterbase morale; they were put into office to oppose Trump.
So then what happens? It's not like the government can afford being shut down indefinitely. Is there going to come a point where the GOP will feel enough of a threat to their position that they'll tell Donald to stop? Will Donald even listen to them?
Edited by Draghinazzo on Jan 14th 2019 at 5:55:36 AM
> But Trump could always just go around Congress
One does simply go around congress,you must go through congress and out the other side
My first thought was two words "Stalemate",the shut down ends and nobody comes away with anything
Edited by Ultimatum on Jan 14th 2019 at 9:54:38 AM
have a listen and have a link to my discord server

‘Senior Trump Official’ On Shutdown: ‘We Do Not Want Most Employees To Return’
While it’s unclear how “senior” this administration official is — many senior Trump officials are still being paid, while the author claims to be “one of the senior officials working without a paycheck” — the op-ed could offer a window into another goal of this shutdown, in addition to using federal workers’ paychecks as leverage in an attempt to extract border wall funds from Congress: starving the government.
The op-ed’s author wrote that “many federal agencies are now operating more effectively from the top down on a fraction of their workforce” and that “we do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them.”
Roughly 800,000 federal employees are currently going without pay, and millions of Americans who rely on the agencies those employees usually run — everything from the Food and Drug Administration to the Department of the Interior to the Department of Homeland Security — are going without services, except for those provided by workers deemed essential to national security or public safety.
“Now that we are shut down, not only are we identifying and eliminating much of the sabotage and waste, but we are finally working on the president’s agenda,” the official wrote, adding in conclusion: “Wasteful government agencies are fighting for relevance but they will lose. Now is the time to deliver historic change by cutting them down forever.”
The Daily Caller said the author’s “career would be jeopardized” if their name were to be made public. “We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers,” the publication added.