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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

CrimsonZephyr Would that it were so simple. from Massachusetts Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Would that it were so simple.
#185626: Apr 29th 2017 at 9:41:22 AM

"Able was I ere I saw Elba."

Hurrah, we're on day 100.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#185627: Apr 29th 2017 at 9:54:34 AM

[up][up] It bears repeating: the one promise he was able to make good on was to not sign the TPP.

Yes, our current POS POTUS's greatest and only real accomplishment in his first 100 days in office was making a show of not signing a document.

edited 29th Apr '17 9:54:52 AM by M84

Disgusted, but not surprised
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#185628: Apr 29th 2017 at 10:03:01 AM

He also got his SCOTUS pick through Congress. His SCOTUS pick is garbage and they had to change the Senate rules to get him past a Democratic filibuster, but he did do it.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#185629: Apr 29th 2017 at 10:09:25 AM

RE: Eisenhower

He wasn't the only one who'd never held elected office before. Grant hadn't either. Neither had Zachary Taylor. In general the USA has made exceptions for war heroes.

IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#185630: Apr 29th 2017 at 10:25:24 AM

[NYTimes] Under the Trump Tax Plan, We Might All Want to Become Corporations. Short version is that the different rates of corporate vs individual income tax could incentivize people setting up corporations so they pay under a corporate tax rate income instead of a personal one. In other words: the tax reform plan has loopholes big enough that all of America* can pass through.

*Not to be confused with the nation called United States of America, which is mostly situated in the continent.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#185631: Apr 29th 2017 at 10:28:22 AM

Hey, didn't the Kansas tax policy have such a loophole?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#185632: Apr 29th 2017 at 10:29:49 AM

[up]Yes, it's mentioned in the article that it had such an effect.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#185633: Apr 29th 2017 at 10:32:19 AM

Speaking of Republicans, I'm sympathetic to Nixon as president.

He wasn't exactly out of his mind. He was just paranoid with a mixed record.

I liked Eisenhower more but Nixon is more interesting.

edited 29th Apr '17 10:39:53 AM by MadSkillz

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#185634: Apr 29th 2017 at 10:54:43 AM

[up] Don't forget the bigotry. So much bigotry.

He particularly had it in for the Jewish for some reason. Seriously, it seems like his favorite way of dealing with stress was to get drunk and go on anti-Semitic rants.

Disgusted, but not surprised
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#185635: Apr 29th 2017 at 11:04:12 AM

I want to say Fuck Nixon for the southern strategy but then again...if he didn't do it. Somebody else would've. A backlash against civil rights was pretty much inevitable

New Survey coming this weekend!
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#185636: Apr 29th 2017 at 11:39:43 AM

Going back to that city in Alabama re-segregating schools; was it they were specifically going "only white kids here" or was it that they were trying to create a school district for badly veiled racist reasons. Because if it's just that latter, that's nothing new.

And going back to the question of even if it is (which it definitely seems to be racist) can you actually stop people from forming a school district for that if it's just de facto and not de jure segregation?

sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#185637: Apr 29th 2017 at 12:12:25 PM

And going back to the question of even if it is (which it definitely seems to be racist) can you actually stop people from forming a school district for that if it's just de facto and not de jure segregation?
Presumably not, otherwise the judge would have, I'd think, given that they cited racism specifically as a motivation but still allowed it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/29/trump-is-now-talking-about-consolidating-his-own-power/?utm_term=.d0ce5f3a2731

Normally I just post a little of an article, in this case I'm making an exception.

    Trump is now talking about consolidating his power 
President Trump has suggested that the judiciary doesn't have the authority to question him. He was a very early proponent of nuking the filibuster for Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. And he recently raised eyebrows by congratulating Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the expansion of his presidential powers — echoing his previous admiration for strongman leaders.

Now Trump is talking about consolidating his own power.

In an interview with Fox News that aired Friday night, Trump dismissed the “archaic” rules of the House and Senate — using that word four times — and suggested they needed to be streamlined for the good of the country.

A sampling:

  • “We don't have a lot of closers in politics, and I understand why: It's a very rough system. It's an archaic system.”
  • “You look at the rules of the Senate, even the rules of the House — but the rules of the Senate and some of the things you have to go through — it's really a bad thing for the country, in my opinion. They're archaic rules. And maybe at some point we're going to have to take those rules on, because, for the good of the nation, things are going to have to be different.”
  • “You can't go through a process like this. It's not fair. It forces you to make bad decisions. I mean, you're really forced into doing things that you would normally not do except for these archaic rules.”

And then Trump came out and just said it: He doesn't like the filibuster.

“I think, you know, the filibuster concept is not a good concept to start off with,” he said.

So there you go. Trump is frustrated with the pace of legislation after 100 days, and his answer is that he wants to change the rules.

Whether this is just him blowing off steam or signaling what lies ahead, it's significant. Because it suggests a president, yet again, who doesn't agree with his own powers being limited or even questioned. Remember when senior policy adviser Stephen Miller declared “the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned?” This is more of that kind of attitude.

He wants more power — and he wants it quickly. It's not difficult to connect this to his past admiration for authoritarian leaders, and these comments are likely to give Democrats (and even some in the GOP establishment) plenty of heartburn. This is a demonstrated pattern for him, for all the reasons listed at the top of this post.

We're a far cry from the presidential candidate who decried President Obama's executive orders, suggesting they were an indication of a weak leader who couldn't bend Congress to his will. Trump is now admitting that he can't bend Congress to his will, but he blames the system rather than himself. Who knew governing was so tough, right?

And it's difficult to overstate how significant it would be if he actually went after the filibuster. The 60-vote threshold for passing legislation in the Senate — which still exists for everything except presidential nominations — is the last vestige of Democratic power in Washington and really the only thing standing in the way of the majority party doing whatever it wants. Getting rid of it completely would change the face of American politics for good and clear a major hurdle for Trump in passing his agenda.

He'd still have to get Republicans to unite behind his priorities, which hasn't proven easy. His health-care push, for example, isn't stalled because of the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. It's actually not even subject to it; his problem is getting House Republicans to agree.

Whether he targets the filibuster specifically or not, his attitude toward his own power is clear: The more, the better. He's already gotten a taste for rolling back the filibuster, and after just 100 days of frustration, he already wants more.

edited 29th Apr '17 12:13:17 PM by sgamer82

MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#185638: Apr 29th 2017 at 12:38:56 PM

Wall Street freaked over American Airlines giving a pay raise to its workers:

American Airlines agreed this week to do something nice for its employees and arguably foresighted for its business by giving flight attendants and pilots a preemptive raise, in order to close a gap that had opened up between their compensation and the compensation paid by rival airlines Delta and United.

Wall Street freaked out, sending American shares plummeting. After all, this is capitalism and the capital owners are supposed to reap the rewards of business success.

“This is frustrating. Labor is being paid first again,” wrote Citi analyst Kevin Crissey in a widely circulated note. “Shareholders get leftovers.”

Indeed, major financial players were so outraged by American’s decision to pay higher wages that they punished airline stocks across the board. American itself took it hardest on the chin, of course, but the consensus among stock analysts was that higher pay at American could signal higher pay at other airlines too, with negative consequences for the overall industry.

Wall Street analysts hate the idea of paying workers

JP Morgan’s Jamie Baker was even more scathing than Crissey.

"We are troubled by AAL's wealth transfer of nearly $1 billion to its labor groups,” he wrote, suggesting that the move was not just contestable as a matter of business strategy, but somehow obviously illegitimate.

Labor’s share of income has been declining

Baker is certainly correct that for workers to get a larger slice of the pie would be a dramatic new precedent relative to recent trends. As a report last year from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows, in both the United States and other rich countries workers as a whole have been receiving a smaller and smaller share of national income.

Noah Smith of Bloomberg View recently wrote a column summarizing the various main theories professional economists have about why this is happening — monopoly power, global trade, robots, and landlords are the leading contenders for villain.

It’s less quantifiable, and thus not-beloved by academic economists, but my personal view is that what amounts to a management fad for treating workers poorly is an underrated factor here. The beating American took in the stock market — and the outraged tone of the analyst letters — is a clear sign of the constant pressure that modern companies are under to be as stingy as possible with their workforce.

Good ol' Wall Street.

Article by Vox here. I would suggest people to read it gives a good reading on how our national economy is structured.

I only quoted the more important parts.

edited 29th Apr '17 12:39:40 PM by MadSkillz

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#185639: Apr 29th 2017 at 12:46:14 PM

That's probably something for the Economics thread, not the Politics thread. The two overlap significantly, but I don't see anything political about that particular story.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
MadSkillz Destroyer of Worlds Since: Mar, 2013 Relationship Status: I only want you gone
Destroyer of Worlds
#185640: Apr 29th 2017 at 12:50:54 PM

Oh right. I forgot that thread exists. I'll move it there.

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#185641: Apr 29th 2017 at 12:52:57 PM

[up][up][up][up] Thank goodness, then, that the process to Amending the Constitution is really hard, and that Trump has burned enough bridges to be unable to alter the Constitution on a whim.

I'm also glad a national referendum doesn't mean crap to amending our Constitution.

FireCrawler2002 Since: Apr, 2017
#185642: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:03:51 PM

[up][up][up][up][up] Can anyone say impeachment if he tries that shit?

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#185643: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:12:21 PM

You'd need Republican support for that and a lot of them are perfectly fine with making Trump more authoritarian if it means policies they want get passed.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#185644: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:12:39 PM

[up][up]Who would impeach him? The GOP controls Congress, he's not getting impeached if they're still there.

edited 29th Apr '17 1:12:51 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#185645: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:34:04 PM

The reason they haven't gotten rid of him is because they're implicated to with all this Russia shit, considering that the RNC was hacked too yet NONE of their shit was leaked by Wikileaks.

Their base are a bunch of (almost literally) brain dead racist morons who swallow fake news and propaganda daily, sometimes hourly. They could easily spin the propaganda of how we needed to impeach Cheeto for the sake of our nation or some other bullshit, and it might take anywhere from six months to two years, they'd fully turn on him eventually.

New Survey coming this weekend!
FireCrawler2002 Since: Apr, 2017
#185646: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:37:15 PM

[up][up] He's already pissed them off, and I don't think the GOP in the House and Senate will like him essentially getting rid of their jobs...

edited 29th Apr '17 1:37:29 PM by FireCrawler2002

DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#185647: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:38:51 PM

[up][up][up][up] But you also need 3/4ths of the States to approve it themselves in order to pass an Amendment, as well as the outright majorities in both Houses. Republicans do not have any of these. Plus, the Republican Party right now is a mess, so even then they probably wouldn't agree to it.

edited 29th Apr '17 1:43:27 PM by DingoWalley1

Eschaton Since: Jul, 2010
#185648: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:45:04 PM

re: "Trump is now talking about consolidating his power - This is exactly what I expected to happen. Whether he can get his tiny hands around the levers of power to make it happen is another matter.

Trump asked Washington Post to run 2016 electoral map on front page to commemorate first 100 days. No, he's not insecure. What makes you think that?

And here's a tweet I find incredibly revealing:

Mainstream (FAKE) media refuses to state our long list of achievements, including 28 legislative signings, strong borders & great optimism!
Now, I do think those 28 pieces of legislation are being overlooked. Of course, most of them are awful, and the rest aren't meaningful. But there's so much unconventional bullshit going on, that the conventional bullshit gets overlooked.

But the most pathetic part of his "accomplishments" is "great optimism." This goes back to what we've talked about before: It was never actually making people's lives better (see his legislation), it was about making them feel better, which is much easier.

And that ties into something much more worrisome: When talking about North Korea, while he would “love to solve things diplomatically … it’s very difficult.” That should immediately set off red flags and alarm bells, because he is a lazy-ass motherfucker.

edited 29th Apr '17 1:46:50 PM by Eschaton

IFwanderer use political terms to describe, not insult from Earth Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Wishfully thinking
use political terms to describe, not insult
#185649: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:45:18 PM

@Top of the page: Relevant Youtube clip.

That aside, apparently some neo-nazis in Kentucky are getting pissed off at Trump for not being fascist enough.

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV
FireCrawler2002 Since: Apr, 2017
#185650: Apr 29th 2017 at 1:58:45 PM

[up][up] The North Korea situation makes me want to strangle Trump supporters. If you support the risking the lives of innocent South Koreans and Japanese, you deserve to have your life at risk.

edited 29th Apr '17 2:01:41 PM by FireCrawler2002


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