Author Topic: Politics  (Read 594721 times)

Crafty_Dog

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ccp

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no loss
« Reply #1151 on: May 04, 2017, 05:31:38 AM »
The congressional hearings are such a waste of time anyway.  She is just going to lie her way through them even if she showed up so what is the point?
Have we ever seen any consequences that means anything from any of these things?  I can't recall any:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-obama-security-adviser-declines-invite-testify-220908322--politics.html


Crafty_Dog

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VDH: The Big Lie of the Trump campaign-Russian collusion theory
« Reply #1152 on: May 15, 2017, 06:03:16 AM »
30 minute video

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/13/scholar-unravels-the-big-lie-surrounding-the-tump-campaign-and-russian-collusion-video/

Scholar Victor Davis Hanson says there’s a “big lie” surrounding the “boogeyman of Russian collusion” that Democrats and the media rally around, according to an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Hanson’s analysis begins by reminding us of the recent massive Democratic losses, which he places at the feet of President Barack Obama’s policies and identity politics gone awry. “The blue wall crumbled,” he says, turning working people against the Democrats in droves. The party then scrambled for any alternative to explain the electoral defeats.

He mentions the financial entanglements with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia by Former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton that betray the sudden growing Russiaphobia of most Democrats.
 

When “the big lie” of Russian collusion is repeated by influential Democrats, doubt is cast and suspicions are raised against President Donald Trump, even without actual evidence. Then, Trump’s approval ratings are expected to fall, ensuring greater erosion of Republican support for the president’s agenda — an agenda that threatens the progressive project that was designed to ensure continued Democratic dominance.

Hanson predicts there will be new surprising evidence of Obama malfeasance against Trump over the next six months.

The scholar then discusses the causes and ramifications of the “Trump Derangement Syndrome” unfolding politically and culturally. He gives Trump high marks for using his unpredictability to restore vital deterrence on the world stage.

Yet, for many Republican elites, he says, they focus on Trump’s appearance — his Queen’s accent, and his gaudiness. A class-driven hostility to this president is revealed, Hanson says, when he hears such charges as, “he hangs out with wrestling people; he likes Mike Tyson; he’s just uncouth.”

In a “weird way” the polarization Obama’s identity politics brought to America will largely evaporate if Trump is able to bring about economic growth, which will unify us again, Hanson says.

As for Democratic leaders, he calls them simply “geriatric.”  He sees the younger ones as “unhinged and in search of an identity.” Rather than find policies to bring working class voters back to the Democratic Party, Hanson predicts they will rally around race, class, and gender, as well as climate change and other fads thought up by Hollywood and radical elites.

This compelling video features Hanson discussing the intolerance and infantilization on display on American campuses, as well as tips for ordinary Americans living with growing intolerance and incivility.


G M

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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/05/15/liberals-are-an-inferno-of-flaming-crazy-and-we-should-pour-gasoline-on-the-fire-n2326754

Liberals Are An Inferno Of Flaming Crazy And We Should Pour Gasoline On The Fire

Kurt Schlichter |Posted: May 15, 2017 12:01 AM 
 


Pity the Democrats, to the extent you can without bursting into hysterical laughter at their agony. America has thoroughly rejected them in every branch of the federal government plus out in the states, and on top of that they were utterly humiliated by the guy they all claimed was a complete moron. Which begs the question – what does that make the sanctimonious harpy he crushed in the Electoral College?

They still haven’t realized what’s going on. Their ego-driven drive to dominate normal people and shape us into New Socialist Nongendered Beings has blinded them to the bitter reality.

We think they, along with their minions in the media, in Hollywood, and on campus, suck.

They are baffled at our refusal to acknowledge their moral, intellectual, and political superiority. It doesn’t just compute.

Yeah, well compute this, geebos.

You look nuts. I mean wacko, zonked out, “Hey, that goldfish is firing a mind control laser at my brain and making me break dance” nuts.

But don’t stop. No, pump it up. You’re at “11,” and I say take it to “12.”

This is great!

All this insanity is going to help us normals retain power, from your gyno-hat marches to the fake hate crimes to your insistence that the Russians are responsible for everything from Hillary losing the election to the rarely-discussed but well-known liberal epidemic of ED.

Here’s a little test. It’s been about six months since Trump treated The Smartest Most Accomplished Woman In The World like a NordicTrack treats Harry Reid, and does anyone know even one person who has said, “You know, I voted for Trump, but now after Neil Gorsuch, General Mattis and H.R. McMaster, I really wish I had checked the box for Felonia von Pantsuit?”


I’m not talking about alt-right weirdos – they don’t count. I mean literally, unless they remove their off-brand Nike knock-offs. I mean normal people. Who voted for Trump and now says something remotely like this?

“Yeah, I really regret not letting Hillary pick a SCOTUS judge who thinks the Constitution bans guns but mandates taxpayer-subsidized transsexual abortions!”

“Wow, that 70% drop in illegal alien entries into America and all those deportations of MS-13 guys are depriving the country of valuable, productive future Democrat voters!”

“Gosh, I hate so much how Trump has paid attention to that sliver of our country lying between I-5 and I-95!”

“It was Ashley Judd’s v-cap slam poetry, combined with Bill Nye’s sex confusion clip, that convinced me what America needs is liberals back in power!”

No one.

No one who voted for Trump has ever said any of those things. Oh, they might have voted for him reluctantly, but no statistically significant slice of them wish they hadn’t.

But the Democrats work under the assumption that such folk exist and are receptive to their tantrums. Good! These liberals are crazy, and they’re stupid, and we totally need to encourage them to keep doing crazy, stupid things.


We conservatives are supposed to be terrified by polls that say that the House could flip to the Dems in 2018. Just ask President Clinton about how the liberal wishcasting multiplier effect on the polls worked for her, but the fact is that we have 18 months to go. On the Democrat side, it looks to be 18 months of kookiness that will leave us normals scratching our heads and snickering.

“Yes, I know that just this morning I was saying Comey should have been fired but then Trump actually did it and his doing what I suggested is the worst constitutional crisis ever!”

“Bombing Putin’s ally was a cunning ploy to throw us off the trail!”

“Why, even though failed FBI Director Jim Comey, James “MC Leakmaster J” Clapper, Diane “Crypt-keeping It Real” Feinstein, and even noted particle physicist Maxine Waters concede that there’s no evidence that Trump and Putin are breeding a collusive love child, I’m still convinced of the existence of this sweeping, enormous, and invisible conspiracy that occurred for some reason somehow, and about which absolutely zero evidence of Trump collusion has leaked out during ten months of colonoscopy-esque investigation despite everything else leaking out.”


Sounds legit.

Sure, Congress polls right around the popularity of “Outhouse scuba diving” and “Borrowing Charlie Sheen’s toothbrush,” but then who wants to live in a country where we like our politicians? It’s not like in 2016 we were high-fiving these guys. We get that a GOP Congress is a necessary evil. But we also get that a Democrat Congress is an unnecessary evil.

And while these liberal spazzes and their fussy Fredocon gimps are shrieking about the coming Armageddon in their high-pitched, girlish voices, Trump is just rolling along. Special prosecutor, schmecial prosecutor – he’s not falling for it. And did you see the ten judges he just nominated? You usually have to come up with roses and champagne to score like that.

Here’s how this goes. The Democrats, along with the media and Team Tinfoil, keep whining about Russians Russians Russians, and normal people keep tuning them out. While they’re babbling about nonsense that means nothing outside of the coastal looney bins, normal people are tuning into how the stock market and the job market just keep getting better, how we’re not taking guff from foreign creeps anymore, and we’re not talking about how much taxes will go up but about how much they’ll go down.


Tax reform is going to pass. Obamacare is getting repealed – it’s as dead in the Senate as it was in the House, which is not at all. Our military is getting rebuilt. We’re going to stop leading with our chin on trade. Things are going to keep getting better, and people will see it.

The only way the President can still screw this up is by choosing to screw this up. He won’t do it by messing with liberals. Keep tweeting those twerps into a sputtering rage! It pays dividends every time he provokes them to new heights of lunacy.

No, the President only fails by forgetting his conservative friends, and that is becoming a problem. Where are the hardcore cons at State and Defense? He needs to get solid business leader Anthony Scaramucci into the White House, like we conservatives were promised (A guy who can raise $20 million might come in handy). And as for judges, well, the motto for conservatives is “No Justice Willett, No Peace.”

The Democrats are being crazy and it’s a bad look. So let’s keep helping them do it. We can pity them even as we laugh at them.


Crafty_Dog

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POTH: Elite Fracture
« Reply #1155 on: May 19, 2017, 06:56:02 AM »

Thursday, May 18, 2017   NYTimes.com »


Welcome to the Interpreter newsletter, by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, who write a column by the same name.

On our minds: The Trump administration has had a rough week, and a few legislators have started dropping the I word — impeachment — in public statements. But political science can help us understand what might be going on behind the scenes.


What President Trump Can Learn from Venezuela

We’ve been writing about Venezuela lately, where the embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, is struggling to contain huge public protests against his regime. That means we’ve been thinking a lot about “elite fracture” — a political science theory that says that while protests matter, the real trigger for regime change is usually when an authoritarian leader loses the support of important elites. That may be happening in Venezuela right now, but it also could apply to our country.

In a blog post that was the talk of political science Twitter this week, Tom Pepinsky, a political science professor at Cornell University, suggested that elite fracture is a good way to understand the dilemmas that Democrats and Republicans in Congress are facing over the latest round of scandals relating to the Russia investigation and President Donald J. Trump’s firing of the F.B.I director, James B. Comey.

Loyalty, it turns out, is basically a collective-action game played by self-interested politicians. While it’s always nice to hope that politicians will put their country’s interests over their own, research suggests it would not be smart to count on that. Rather, elites will most likely abandon a leader if they think that it will leave them better off, and will stay loyal, even in the face of public unrest, if they think that is the best option for them personally.

So in many ways Republican members of the House and Senate are facing a decision similar to the one that Mr. Maduro’s allies in Venezuela are most likely debating right now. Is it wiser to stay loyal to the president, who is broadly unpopular but still commands the loyalty of the Republican base? Or is it time to cut their losses and start separating from him?

Research on elite fractures is usually used to explain seismic events like coups or impeachments, but it’s also relevant to the smaller steps that lead to those outcomes. The same collective-action game is how, say, Republicans decide whether to defend Mr. Trump publicly each time news breaks of some development in the Russia situation, or how the congressional committees they lead decide on how actively to investigate his campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia.

But, Pepinsky points out, elite fracture research suggests that there’s another big issue here that the public debate has largely overlooked: whether Democrats will be willing to compromise with Republicans to encourage them to abandon Trump.

In other countries where elite fractures have led to regime change, there’s usually some kind of bargain between the opposition and the faction of elites who split from the regime. The specifics vary — maybe the rebel faction gets immunity from prosecution, or promises of cabinet posts, or valuable contracts — but the big takeaway is that there’s pretty much always some kind of tit-for-tat.

Right now, Pepinsky writes, Democrats are so deep in the partisan trenches that they would probably reject any compromise with moderate Republicans. And partisan polarization is so strong that Democrats have a strong incentive to go on the attack against all Republicans; it’s what the voters demand and reward. But if Democrats don’t compromise with moderate Republicans, the Republicans will be more likely to stick together -- making elite fracture less likely, at least for now.





Crafty_Dog

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G M

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Re: POTH: Elite Fracture
« Reply #1157 on: May 23, 2017, 07:07:27 AM »
The "elites" are really clueless to the anger in the places they only pretend to care about. What comes after Trump will make the coastal "elites" much less happy, or safe and secure.



Thursday, May 18, 2017   NYTimes.com »


Welcome to the Interpreter newsletter, by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, who write a column by the same name.

On our minds: The Trump administration has had a rough week, and a few legislators have started dropping the I word — impeachment — in public statements. But political science can help us understand what might be going on behind the scenes.


What President Trump Can Learn from Venezuela

We’ve been writing about Venezuela lately, where the embattled president, Nicolás Maduro, is struggling to contain huge public protests against his regime. That means we’ve been thinking a lot about “elite fracture” — a political science theory that says that while protests matter, the real trigger for regime change is usually when an authoritarian leader loses the support of important elites. That may be happening in Venezuela right now, but it also could apply to our country.

In a blog post that was the talk of political science Twitter this week, Tom Pepinsky, a political science professor at Cornell University, suggested that elite fracture is a good way to understand the dilemmas that Democrats and Republicans in Congress are facing over the latest round of scandals relating to the Russia investigation and President Donald J. Trump’s firing of the F.B.I director, James B. Comey.

Loyalty, it turns out, is basically a collective-action game played by self-interested politicians. While it’s always nice to hope that politicians will put their country’s interests over their own, research suggests it would not be smart to count on that. Rather, elites will most likely abandon a leader if they think that it will leave them better off, and will stay loyal, even in the face of public unrest, if they think that is the best option for them personally.

So in many ways Republican members of the House and Senate are facing a decision similar to the one that Mr. Maduro’s allies in Venezuela are most likely debating right now. Is it wiser to stay loyal to the president, who is broadly unpopular but still commands the loyalty of the Republican base? Or is it time to cut their losses and start separating from him?

Research on elite fractures is usually used to explain seismic events like coups or impeachments, but it’s also relevant to the smaller steps that lead to those outcomes. The same collective-action game is how, say, Republicans decide whether to defend Mr. Trump publicly each time news breaks of some development in the Russia situation, or how the congressional committees they lead decide on how actively to investigate his campaign’s alleged contacts with Russia.

But, Pepinsky points out, elite fracture research suggests that there’s another big issue here that the public debate has largely overlooked: whether Democrats will be willing to compromise with Republicans to encourage them to abandon Trump.

In other countries where elite fractures have led to regime change, there’s usually some kind of bargain between the opposition and the faction of elites who split from the regime. The specifics vary — maybe the rebel faction gets immunity from prosecution, or promises of cabinet posts, or valuable contracts — but the big takeaway is that there’s pretty much always some kind of tit-for-tat.

Right now, Pepinsky writes, Democrats are so deep in the partisan trenches that they would probably reject any compromise with moderate Republicans. And partisan polarization is so strong that Democrats have a strong incentive to go on the attack against all Republicans; it’s what the voters demand and reward. But if Democrats don’t compromise with moderate Republicans, the Republicans will be more likely to stick together -- making elite fracture less likely, at least for now.








Crafty_Dog

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« Last Edit: June 26, 2017, 06:38:06 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Henninger: Should Trump abandon the GOP?
« Reply #1161 on: June 29, 2017, 02:59:16 PM »
 By Daniel Henninger
June 28, 2017 6:22 p.m. ET
875 COMMENTS

In 2016, Donald Trump stood on debate stages and ran against a half-dozen Republicans in the party’s presidential primaries. He won. With his presidential victory came Republican control of the House and Senate, in part because of his coattails.

After Senate Republicans this week failed to move a bill to repeal and replace Obama Care, Mr. Trump must be asking himself: Why do I need these people?

Just now, that’s a good question.

If the congressional Republicans can’t do ObamaCare reform after years of chanting they would, what chance is there they’ll pull off the heavier lift of tax reform?

Mr. Trump has to be wondering whether he would be better off with his version of the Obama presidential model: govern by pen-and-phone executive order through the agencies he controls.

Barack Obama rendered Congress moribund with little outcry from voters. The Obama error was his predictable left-wing overreach with extralegal decrees like the Clean Power Plan, which failed a court challenge before the D.C. Circuit.

To succeed as president, Mr. Trump has to show he can govern, and it looks like that may require separating himself from a Republican Party disabled by a permanent blocking minority with no interest in governing.

At the level of domestic politics, successful presidential governing means not much more than enabling and attaching oneself to an improving economy, as the impeached but popular Bill Clinton proved possible.

The economy is already strengthening, and Mr. Trump can direct Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House economics chief Gary Cohn to accelerate their deregulation of financial and energy markets.

Before the Republicans lose seats and maybe control of the House in 2018, Mr. Trump can still extract a few things helpful to himself. Desperate incumbents, such as Nevada’s ObamaCare reform opponent Sen. Dean Heller, will be looking for a legislative life raft. Mr. Trump no doubt could get a modest tax-cut bill passed this year. That will support slow but steady upward growth unless he retards even that with a regime of steel tariffs and myriad trade uncertainties.

Real tax reform would liberate the U.S.’s ocean of pent-up capital and produce an economic boom, assuring continued GOP control of Congress. But Republicans like West Virginia’s Sen. Shelley Moore Capito see their reason for being as protecting the Medicaid status quo.

Some may say Mr. Trump and the Republicans will now take political ownership of the steady collapse of the ObamaCare exchanges. But he didn’t create these things; Congress did, and when voters elected a Congress to reform ObamaCare, it failed.

The press will dump full responsibility for this political nonfeasance on congressional Republicans, and voters will take it out on them in 2018. Health and Human Services can tinker with the failing ObamaCare exchanges, as it would have under Hillary Clinton anyway, and Mr. Trump can blame Congress for the residual mess.

As to Mr. Trump’s low approval rating, the danger there was always that it would scare away Republicans from his agenda. That looks moot now. The Republicans’ approval rating is no doubt already plummeting. Mr. Trump’s approval will rise as the economy improves and if he modulates himself by about half, as he’s done recently.

Most intriguing of all is the longer term future of Mr. Trump’s formal relationship with the Republican Party. After voters in 2018 reorder Congress, Mr. Trump can consolidate his base with a big infrastructure bill co-designed by Democrats and likely approved by independent voters. By then, the Republican opposition that tanked ObamaCare reform will be irrelevant.

And please, hold the faux shock when Mr. Trump, a nonideological pragmatist, entertains Chuck Schumer’s Medicare-for-all as the final health-care fix. In Mr. Trump’s world, subcontractors come and go. The GOP shouldn’t bother trying to collect for work done.

This disorder could surface the possibility that dare not speak its name until now: a more centrist Trumpian political party of the sort favored by Ivanka Trump. No one thought Emmanuel Macron’s party bolt in France could go so far.

Look who’s out front undermining Mr. Trump’s health-care reform: Ted Cruz, Rob Portman, Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The nominal reasons each has given for opposing the reform don’t add up. What makes sense is compulsively ambitious Republican politicians positioning themselves to emerge from the rubble and run in 2020 against what they think will be a wounded president. They may end up with nothing but the rubble.

Reasons abound for the GOP’s rump opposition to spend the July 4 holiday rethinking what it is doing. But the biggest of all is this: After eight years of rule by progressive presidential decree, they are putting in motion four more years of centralizing power by a Republican president. The opposition may alter American government forever, but this couldn’t be further from what they intended.

Write henninger@wsj.com.

Crafty_Dog

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« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 12:50:14 PM by Crafty_Dog »


DougMacG

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Re: Recess appointments blocked
« Reply #1164 on: August 04, 2017, 06:31:20 AM »
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/345261-senate-blocks-trump-from-making-recess-appointments-over-break?rnd=1501804525

How would they have the power to do that?  Does saying otherwise make recess not so?  Court challenge likely if Trump makes a "recess" AG appointment.  MHO.

"Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned last month that Democrats had "tools in our toolbox" to block a recess appointment."

How about just stay in session until their work is done?


Crafty_Dog

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Crafty_Dog

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ccp

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winners of Liberty award
« Reply #1169 on: October 17, 2017, 05:17:19 PM »
prior to McCain who suddenly is one the list.  Wonder if he supported Trump if he would be on the list for his service?

notice Hill also won it for the most miles travelled.

Colin Powell for what?

William Gates for what?

Spielberg for his movies?

some seem bona fide but others seem dubious

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Liberty_Medal

Crafty_Dog

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DougMacG

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Re: Both parties circling the drain? That favors Democrats! see VA, NJ
« Reply #1172 on: November 08, 2017, 07:54:26 AM »
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/453385/democrats-republicans-both-parties-dysfunctional-unhealthy

Both parties circling the drain favors Democrats, see yesterday's elections where Democrats kicked ass on Republicans in Virginia and New Jersey.

Both parties may be dysfunctional, fighting within their party, unfocused, unhealthy, behaving badly, etc.  but there is a difference.  Dems have the media, all of academia and all the other institutions on their side with tiny exceptions like Hillsdale College and the NRA.  First level thinking favors Dems on all issues.  With all that, Dems still lost the House, Senate, White House, Governorships and state legislatures by acting and governing stupidly.

Without all that advantage, the R's think they can circle the drain instead of uniting, messaging and governing.  They are wrong. 

The Republican brand starts at a HUGE disadvantage.  They can't just show up and win.  Trump knows that; he ran against both parties.  But he can't govern by tearing down both parties.  State and federal issues are different but the only chance R's had in Virginia would have been to have a successful message to sell.

Chris Christie had a 14% approval rate, which really means zero.  14% are the ones who won't reveal their frustration to the pollster.  Why?  He was a rising star.  He made mistakes but people (sometimes) overcome mistakes.  He ran for President too.  What message did he bring forward?  Establishmentarianism?  The only mark he made was the prosecutorial teardown of Marco Rubio.  Divide and go personal.  Good for him, but it wasn't.  His numbers went down as fast as Rubio's and he dropped out immediately after.  The takedown set him up for the VP slot?  Not so much.  They took the guy with the much better approval rating instead.  What are the tax rates as CC leaves NJ?  Where were his coattails in the legislature during his terms?  What was his message?  What minds did he change?  Leadership involves followers...  Follow what, another man's ego?

Contrast that with Scott Walker in Wisconsin.  More messaging, more governing, less ego.  Until a year ago, Wisconsin was part of the blue wall.  Did Trump change Wisconsin?  No, Cruz beat Trump there.
 Walker changed Wisconsin.  When did you hear Walker attack his own side?

As President, Trump is doing some things right and then steps in it.  That isn't good enough!  As President, the stupid stuff is amplified, hurts the agenda, hurts the party, not just the person.  The Corker fight should have been in private, for example.  Flake?  Good riddance, oops, we still need his vote.  The fight against NK isn't just against their dictator.  It is a fight against the American and eastern and western opinion that we should do nothing.

Trump is better than having a Dem President.  Gorsuch, repealed executive orders, tough on Iran, etc.  Unless what?  Unless it leads to another Dem President - before any change is enacted.  Then all is lost! 

Ditto for the Republican congress.  More infighting than action.  Better than having a Democrat majority congress?  Not if what we are doing right now brings us to that. 

Bannon bringing war against all establishment office holders and same with Levin, Hannity, others selling hatred against fellow republicans.  Tear down that brand and who wins the war?  Democrats.

Boehner, McConnell, Corker... these are underperforming leaders.  Quietly and diplomatically take them out of leadership or out of office when you have someone better to take their place - who can win.

Democrats hate Republicans more than they hate terrorists, so they lose the war with terrorists.  Republicans who put their energy into hating other Republicans lose their wars too.

Gillespie was an uninspiring candidate who tried to bridge too wide of a divide, without a message.

I hope someone answers this wake up call.



ccp

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conservative review on Rep rout
« Reply #1173 on: November 08, 2017, 08:16:41 AM »
https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/memo-to-republicans-its-the-lies-stupid

For me i will be shocked if I only pay up another 100 bucks under the new business only tax cut.

In NJ a fiercely Democrat controlled state it has been almost inevitable that the teachers and other unions and their bosses and the free shit croud would come back with a vegeance

Couple that with Christie's bridge problems and lying about it while throwing his own colleagues under the bus and running for cover by running for President and the sad self serving sucking up to Trump for job and the next Republican had virtually no chance. 

as for Virginia I have no idea.


DougMacG

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1175 on: November 08, 2017, 09:28:52 AM »
"as for Virginia I have no idea."

I don't want to write off a great big swing state, but the swamp resides there, Republican and Democrat.  The red areas of Virginia are very red.  Separate that off and ask what is the largest industry?

From conservative review:
"the inevitable result of a Republican party that has spent a year accomplishing nothing."

Gillespie could not get excitement from either side of the R divide (and needed both).  With the way things are going since Nov 2016 and the whole campaign coming into that other than stop Hillary, why would anyone get excited about being Republican?

From national review:
"exit polls indicated that 95 percent of self-identified Republicans voted for Gillespie, compared to 88 percent for Trump."

Measuring the view of those who showed up misses the point.  The off-year turnout surge was not from "self identified Republicans".

« Last Edit: November 08, 2017, 09:32:56 AM by DougMacG »

DougMacG

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Re: Politics - Minneapolis
« Reply #1176 on: November 08, 2017, 09:53:39 AM »
FWIW - In a confusing field of all leftists, more than 80% of Minneapolis ranked choice voters voted their first choice for someone other than incumbent Betsy Hodges.  Failing to cancel her fundraiser in Beverly Hills to be at work after the Somalian Minneapolis cop shot the innocent, unarmed, white Australian woman in a bathrobe probably didn't help.  
http://www.startribune.com/as-year-s-end-violent-crime-up-in-minneapolis-for-fifth-straight-year/363508991/
« Last Edit: November 08, 2017, 10:21:59 AM by DougMacG »

DougMacG

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Re: Politics - What issue swung it?
« Reply #1177 on: November 08, 2017, 10:39:59 AM »
Republicans broke a major promise and now own Obamacare.  All the uncertainty that surrounds people's healthcare is ours now.  One party holds the Presidency, Senate and House and doesn't even have a proposal on the table for a solution.

We all said this would happen and now we're surprised.

Can't prove our ideas work better when we never pass them.  Like CRAp, we keep proving their ideas don't work by leaving them in place and taking the blame for their failure.

https://www.nbcnews.com/card/early-exit-polls-health-care-most-important-issue-virginia-voters-n818691


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1178 on: November 08, 2017, 10:56:49 AM »
Trump's victory would not have happened had not the black vote stayed home (one million less than for Obama).  Unfortunately he has done diddly to follow up on his appeals for the black vote, and has greatly irritated the black vote and many good white people with his handling the the Confederacy statue issue.  I suspect this had something to do with the Dem turnout in Virginia.

==============================================

Patriot Post

One year after Donald Trump's surprising election victory, Democrat anxiety has been given a brief reprieve as they gained gubernatorial victories in the states of New Jersey and Virginia. While much of the mainstream media and Democrats have begun to spin the election wins as a repudiation of Trump, in reality it's more of a mixed bag. Both New Jersey and Virginia were states won by Hillary Clinton, for starters.

The fact is New Jersey was never really in play for Republicans. Outgoing Gov. Chris Christie, more moderate than conservative, had fallen out of favor in the state ever since Bridgegate and he has thrown in the political towel. His lieutenant governor had little chance of escaping the perception of Christie's scandal-plagued shadow.

Virginia is the state over which Democrats were most anxious, as a loss there would have meant further repudiation of the party's brand. However, it's now Republicans who will be struggling to establish their brand. Republicans were not only unable to win the governorship after the term of Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe, but they suffered losing control of the state's House of Delegates, where they entered the night with a 17-seat margin. Democrats were able to wrestle control away from Republicans as they picked up 14 seats last night. So was this the repudiation of Trump that Democrats and the Left have been looking for ever since his election? Not so much.

The truth is much of this leftist turn within Virginia can be blamed on the DC swamp spreading into northern Virginia. The commonwealth's three most populated counties of Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun, in which some of Washington's largest suburbs are located, voted nearly two to one in favor of Democrats. This has been a growing pattern, and Virginia is only going to become more blue.

It also appears that the Democrats' campaign to label all Republicans as racist, white supremacists ever since the events in Charlottesville seems to have reaped dividends. Recall that McAuliffe quickly took the opportunity to politicized Charlottesville by labeling conservatives as supporters of racism, while blasting Trump for failing to show "real leadership."

This may be a warning to the GOP of constituent disillusionment with congressional Republicans who have failed to do what they promised they would. Democrats insist this is a harbinger for the 2018 election cycle. If so, and the Senate flips, the change of rules regarding SCOTUS nominees — if there is not another opening ahead of that election — is a severe threat to Liberty.
« Last Edit: November 08, 2017, 11:13:45 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1179 on: November 08, 2017, 11:24:00 AM »
In Virginia, Democrats Learn the Shape of an Anti-Trump Coalition
Northam won by nearly double Clinton’s margin, riding wave of energy that carried down ballot
By Gerald F. Seib
Nov. 8, 2017 10:05 a.m. ET
637 COMMENTS

In their rousing election victories in Virginia on Tuesday, Democrats learned two important things: They found out what an anti-Trump coalition looks like, and they discovered it can be a winning one.

That coalition combines upper-scale white voters, millennials, minorities, suburban women and single women. Exit polling indicates that those groups not only went heavily for Democratic victor Ralph Northam in the governor’s race, but performed better for him than they did for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

That tide produced a stunning nine-point victory for Mr. Northam—almost twice as large as the margin by which Mrs. Clinton carried the state—and it’s hard to interpret it as anything other than a reaction to President Donald Trump. He is the biggest actor on every political stage right now; almost everything happens in the Trump context.

In fact, the best news for Democrats may have been the signs that their wave of energy carried beyond the top race and down the ballot to elections for the state House of Delegates. Many thought Mr. Northam could win at the top of the ballot (though most concluded only barely), but nobody thought Democrats would be on the verge of turning the state legislature blue.

Still, there also are multiple, less-obvious cautionary notes for Democrats in Virginia, starting with the tendency to over-interpret such an off-off-year election.
Deeper Divide

How Virginia's vote shifted by party from 2013 gubernatorial election to gubernatorial election Tuesday, in margin of victory by percentage point.

Arlington

Alexandria

More

Democratic

More

Republican

Charlottesville

+10

+5

+5

Same

+10

Richmond

Lynchburg

Roanoke

Newport

News

Blacksburg

Norfolk

Va. Beach

Shift in Virginia vote by party from 2016 presidential election to Tuesday's gubernatorial election

Arlington

Alexandria

Charlottesville

Richmond

Lynchburg

Roanoke

Newport

News

Blacksburg

Norfolk

Va. Beach

Source: Virginia Department of Elections

Beyond that, this winning coalition brought decisive margins in blue parts of the state—the Washington suburbs, college towns and upper-scale coastal areas—but it wasn’t enough to break into the swath of red territory in central and southern Virginia. That part of the state continues to look and act a lot like Trump country in the interior of America.

Mrs. Clinton learned what happens in a presidential race when you run up victories, even big ones, in areas Democrats are strong but don’t crack through in areas where the party is weaker.

Moreover, Democratic success in Virginia probably will do more to paper over than resolve the Democrats’ split between establishment groups and the party’s progressive wing. Liberals had backed former Rep. Tom Perriello in the primary, were under-enthused by Mr. Northam, and thought he should have stressed economic issues more. They were particularly unhappy when he hedged his position supporting sanctuary cities that provide a haven for undocumented aliens. In short, the residual problem for Democrats is that progressives wanted a different kind of candidate and a different kind of campaign.
Related

    Democrat Ralph Northam Elected Governor of Virginia
    Murphy Beats Christie’s Lieutenant in New Jersey
    New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio Easily Wins Re-Election

The good news for them, of course, is that all signs suggest that liberal activists largely swallowed those misgivings and went to work, and to the polls, anyway. We’ll see which side of the coin—tensions at the beginning or unity at the end—proves to be the most important dynamic elsewhere.

The underlying proposition of the campaign of losing Republican Ed Gillespie, meanwhile, was that he could win by having, in the words of populist political crusader Stephen Bannon, “Trumpism without Trump.” That is, that Mr. Gillespie could embrace Trump-like themes—the dangers from violent immigrants, the virtues of Confederate monuments—without embracing Mr. Trump himself personally.
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It didn’t work as hoped, obviously. Why? For an answer, look at how two particularly energized Democratic groups performed Tuesday in Virginia.

Single women, inspired by Hillary Clinton and the chance to elect the nation’s first female president, were a big part of the Clinton coalition in 2016. But, one year after Mr. Trump became president, they turned out to be an even more-potent part of the Ralph Northam coalition.

Exit polling by Edison Media Research for the Washington Post and other news organizations shows that unmarried women went for the Democrat by a stunning 77% to 22% margin. That is to say, they went Democratic by more than three to one. The Democratic vote among single women this time was 16 percentage points higher than the vote they produced for Mrs. Clinton in 2016.
Related Video
Trump's Job Disapproval Grows in Trump Country
The latest WSJ-NBC News poll looks at how President Trump is currently fairing in counties that voted for him in the 2016 presidential election. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib analyzes other findings from the survey. Photo: AP

There is little except the arrival of a President Trump to explain the difference. In short, single women look an awful lot like a constituency that is newly energized.

Second, consider the performance of millennials, a core Democratic constituency, on Tuesday. NextGen America, a liberal activist group, chose nine precincts across Virginia where millennials make up a majority and monitored them to determine enthusiasm among young voters.

In each precinct—most around college campuses—residents aged 18 to 40 made up at least 60% of voters. In all of them, voter turnout was up over the totals seen in the governor’s election four years ago. In the area around Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, turnout more than doubled.

Energy matters in politics. And on Tuesday in Virginia, at least, Democrats seemed to capture it.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1180 on: November 08, 2017, 11:27:59 AM »
WSJ

The Anti-Trump Wave
Democrats come out in droves and the GOP is caught in the undertow.
Governor-elect Ralph Northam, and his wife Pam, cast their ballots at the East Ocean View Community Center in Norfolk, Va., Nov. 7.
Governor-elect Ralph Northam, and his wife Pam, cast their ballots at the East Ocean View Community Center in Norfolk, Va., Nov. 7. Photo: julia rendleman/Reuters
By The Editorial Board
Nov. 8, 2017 1:34 p.m. ET
52 COMMENTS

Republicans took a thorough beating in Tuesday’s elections, and no one should sugar coat the results because the voting was confined to a few states. Democrats came out in droves to send a message of opposition to Donald Trump, and GOP candidates were swamped in the undertow. While the cliché is not to read too much into an off-year election, this defeat was broad and deep enough to signal that Republicans will struggle to hold Congress next year.

The Democratic sweep in New Jersey and especially Virginia is in that sense a mirror image of what Republicans did in 2009 in opposition to Barack Obama. Chris Christie won in the Garden State that year and after two mostly failed terms Democrats are taking Trenton back under public-union control. Governor-elect Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs millionaire, is a 360-degree progressive who wants to raise taxes, increase spending and in the process will drive even more taxpayers from the state.

The more consequential message came from Virginia, where Democrats swept the major statewide offices and may have picked up the 17 seats they needed to take over the House of Delegates. Ralph Northam, the lieutenant governor who beat a Bernie Sanders acolyte in the primary, spent most of his time and money wrapping Donald Trump around Republican candidate Ed Gillespie.

Republicans can take little comfort that Hillary Clinton defeated Mr. Trump by five points in 2016. Mr. Gillespie lost by nine and he badly underperformed in Northern Virginia, home to federal employees and white, college-educated suburbanites who dislike Mr. Trump’s polarizing politics by insult. In his 2014 near-miss Senate race, Mr. Gillespie won pivotal Loudoun County by 456 votes. On Tuesday he lost it by 23,432.

Mr. Trump tried to distance himself from the defeat by tweeting from Asia that “Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!” Sometimes Mr. Trump’s comments are so transparently false you wonder if he’s laughing as he writes.

Earlier on Election Day he tweeted support for Mr. Gillespie, whom he endorsed. The House victories in GOP-leaning districts Mr. Trump cites were also far closer than they should have been. Mr. Trump is motivating Democrats to vote while his divisive style and rhetoric are dividing Republicans. A Trumpian candidate nearly beat Mr. Gillespie in the primary and refused to endorse him until the end of the campaign as Mr. Gillespie appeared to be gaining in the polls.

Mr. Trump’s media allies are blaming Mr. Gillespie for not being Trumpian enough, but days before the election former White House aide Steve Bannon was saying Mr. Gillespie might win because he had endorsed Trumpian themes of crime and immigration.

The truth is that Mr. Gillespie tried to span the GOP coalition by campaigning on traditional themes of tax cuts and education reform while running against illegal immigration and sanctuary cities. The media portrayed the latter as divisive and racist, but note that Mr. Northam came out against sanctuary cities late in the campaign. Mr. Gillespie did the best he could to bridge the GOP divide in a Democrat-leaning state, but he couldn’t overcome the anti-Trump wave.

The message for Republicans going into 2018 is that they are in trouble in the swing suburban districts where the House will be won or lost. Republicans hold seats in 23 districts where Mrs. Clinton also won. One is the 10th Congressional District in North Virginia held by the estimable Barbara Comstock that includes much of Loudoun County. Democrats will run as a check on Mr. Trump, and Republicans need a response beyond a Nancy Pelosi fright mask.

Another message is that the GOP success down-ballot during the Obama years can go rapidly in reverse. That’s clear from the GOP rout in the Virginia House of Delegates. But there’s also evidence from Rob Astorino’s defeat as executive of Westchester County in New York, a state Senate seat in Washington that gives Democrats a majority, and a GOP incumbent mayoral loss in Manchester, N.H. American politics is more national than ever, and if Mr. Trump’s approval rating stays at 38% next year, the GOP’s state gains could wash away.
***

Mr. Trump won’t change, so the only GOP antidote to a Democratic wave is legislative accomplishment. Democrats will be motivated to vote no matter what Congress does. But Republicans will stay home unless the House and Senate fulfill their campaign promises. This means passing a pro-growth tax reform that will accelerate the expansion. Republicans should also realize how much damage they have done to themselves by failing to repeal even a part of ObamaCare.

More broadly, the election shows that the American system of democratic checks and balances is working. All the media and academic panic about looming fascism has been nonsense. The tides of politics ebb and flow, and Tuesday’s results show that the Trump years are likely to be good for Democrats.


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Re: Politics
« Reply #1182 on: November 08, 2017, 01:40:54 PM »
Crats had every and one reason to vote - screw Trump

Cans had no real reason to vote - what are they voting for.  They got the WH Capital HIll and the Chamber and are still cowards and cannot agree to get anything much done for the front page.

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1183 on: November 09, 2017, 09:24:33 AM »
"[Republicans] had no real reason to vote - what are they voting for."  - Right.  Just confusion at best.

How far we have or have not fallen in Virginia in 9 years:

2008                 Obama      McCain
Popular vote   1,959,532   1,725,005
Percentage   52.63%   46.33%

Skipping Gillespie and his establishment background that didn't help in northern Virginia, look at Lt Gov race for generic votes cast:

2017 Lt. Gov.    Democrat    Republican
                       1,362,080    1,222,434
                        52.7%        47.3%

Besides the similarity, look at the numbers.  Republicans could easily have won by turning out everyone in an off-year election.  But as ccp says, why should they turnout?  Was limited government or individual freedom on the ballot?  What we needed to fix in 2008, we still need to fix in 2017-2018.

You change this kind of margin by changing a few hearts and minds.  Instead, in 2008 and 2017, Republican is a poisoned brand.  Likewise for Democrats, but when parties are badly damaged, Democrats generally win.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1184 on: November 09, 2017, 09:53:35 AM »
Here is my thought:

All of us, most certainly including President Trump, need to remember that he should have beat Hillary by 20 points and that he most likely would have lost had not Kelly Ann Conway gotten him to stay relatively on point (e.g. the Gettysburg speech) for the last 4-6 weeks of the campaign. 

He won by drawing an inside straight.  He won because the black vote decreased by one million from the vote for Obama.  Mostly likely this in part was because of his appeals for the black vote, but what follow through since then?  Absolutely zero!  He won because large portions of the American people were revolted by Hillary's corrupt criminality and simply did not vote.

A lot of these variables will  not be there or will be quite different next time.

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Billary and Al are but sacrificial lambs , , , ,
« Reply #1185 on: November 16, 2017, 05:08:22 PM »
CCP nails it:

"This all about getting Trump"

Crafty_Dog

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Noonan: Button it
« Reply #1186 on: January 07, 2018, 12:41:21 PM »

By
Peggy Noonan
















 
Jan. 4, 2018 7:08 p.m. ET

 1205 COMMENTS   
















































































From the Oval Office address by President John F. Kennedy informing Americans of the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, Oct. 22, 1962: “Our policy has been one of patience and restraint, as befits a peaceful and powerful nation which leads a world-wide alliance. We have been determined not to be diverted from our central concerns by mere irritants and fanatics. But now further action is required, and it is under way; and these actions may only be the beginning. We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of world-wide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth; but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.”


From his commencement address at American University, June 10, 1963: “What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children. Not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women; not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

“I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost 10 times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.”

From the address by President Ronald Reagan after the summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Oct. 13, 1986: “I told him I had pledged to the American people that I would not trade away SDI”—the Strategic Defense Initiative. “There was no way I could tell our people that their government would not protect them against nuclear destruction. I went to Reykjavik determined that everything was negotiable except two things: our freedom and our future. I am still optimistic that a way will be found. The door is open, and the opportunity to begin eliminating the nuclear threat is within reach.”

From Reagan’s remarks at the signing, with Mr. Gorbachev, of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, at the White House, Dec. 8, 1987: “The numbers alone demonstrate the value of this agreement. On the Soviet side, over 1,500 deployed warheads will be removed, and all ground-launched intermediate-range missiles, including the SS-20s, will be destroyed. On our side, our entire complement of Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles, with some 400 deployed warheads, will all be destroyed. Additional backup missiles on both sides will also be destroyed. But the importance of this treaty transcends numbers. We have listened to the wisdom in an old Russian maxim. And I’m sure you’re familiar with it, Mr. General Secretary, though my pronunciation may give you difficulty. The maxim is: Dovorey no provorey—trust, but verify.”
   
Mr. Gorbachev: “You repeat that at every meeting. [Laughter]”

Reagan: “I like it. [Laughter]”

This is how American presidents have always talked about nuclear weapons and the nuclear age—blunt, direct, factual and clear: We never want these weapons used again.

Until now. President Donald Trump’s tweet, 7:49 p.m., Jan. 2, 2018: “North Korean leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

We’re not going in the right direction, are we?





Here are the reasons Mr. Trump’s tweet is destructive and dangerous.

Because it is cavalier about a subject that could not be graver. Because the language and venue reflect an immature mind, the grammar and usage a cluttered and undisciplined one. By raising the possibility of nuclear exchange on social media, the president diminishes the taboo against nuclear use. Anything you can joke about on Twitter has lost its negative mystique. Destigmatizing the idea of nuclear use makes it more acceptable, more possible—more likely. Bragging about your arsenal makes it sound as if nuclear weapons are like other weapons, when they’re not.

Using a taunting public tone toward an adversary such as Mr. Kim, who may be mad, heightens the chance of nuclear miscalculation. The president’s tweet is an attempt to get under the skin of a sociopath. Is it a good idea to get under the skin of a sociopath who enjoys shooting missiles?

Blithe carelessness on an issue with such high stakes lowers world respect for American leadership. It undermines our standing as a serious and moral player, which is the only kind of player you would trust, and follow, in a crisis.

The sober and respected Sam Nunn represented Georgia as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate from 1972 to 1997, and is co-chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit trying to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction. “The danger of nuclear use is greater now than during the Cold War,” he said. The impact of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric? “It increases the risk of blunder.”

There are more nuclear nations, more independent actors, including terrorist groups. “Nuclear material is not fully secured, scientific knowledge of how to make a bomb is increased.” And there is the cyber threat—hacking into weapons systems, supplying false data. “Want a war between India and Pakistan?” Mr. Nunn says. “Simulate a missile attack.” Make it appear missiles are incoming when they’re not.

The risky world becomes riskier. “Add to that the heated rhetoric and name calling, and that increases risk and lays the foundation for a catastrophic blunder.”

You always fear miscalculation and misinterpretations, he says. But the chance of a blundering into disaster is probably greater than the chance of deliberate use.

Mr. Nunn notes we have been lucky that 73 years into the nuclear age there have been no accidental launches, no catastrophic decisions. The nuclear nations have been careful, professional, restrained. But yes, we’ve been lucky.

And should do nothing to press that luck.

Bragging about nuclear arms increases the likelihood of proliferation. “If we’re trying to get countries around the world not to go nuke, then we shouldn’t talk in a way that enhances their importance,” Mr. Nunn says. “There’s a lot of countries out there looking to take their small button and make it into a big button.”

By the way, Reagan’s INF Treaty, that turning point in the history of arms control, remains in force but could unravel due to charges of violations and bad faith. Keeping it up and operating will require work but be heartening for the world.

Focus there. And don’t tweet about it.

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WSJ: Shumer in Charge
« Reply #1191 on: January 21, 2018, 05:47:42 AM »



By The Editorial Board
Updated Jan. 20, 2018 1:12 p.m. ET

Donald Trump spent 90 minutes talking to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer at the White House on Friday trying to avoid a government shutdown, and after he left Mr. Schumer vouchsafed that “we made some progress.” But not enough to stop him and his fellow Democrats from filibustering a government funding bill and shutting down the government on Saturday. This is what Mr. Trump’s life will be like, times about 10, if Democrats retake the House and Senate in November. They’re going to torture him like a dancing bear.


The most important political fact of this latest shutdown melodrama is that Democrats feel they can get away with it. Democrats are essentially doing what GOP Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee tried in 2013 over repealing ObamaCare: Refuse to fund the government over an unrelated policy issue.

Democrats pilloried Republicans for that one, and Nancy Pelosi called them “legislative arsonists.” But now Mr. Schumer has rallied Democrats, or perhaps they’ve rallied him, to shut down the government over an immigration deadline that is still six weeks away and has nothing to do with funding the government. The audacity is impressive.


The House has passed its funding bill for 30 days along with some policy priorities Democrats profess to want, such as a six-year extension of the CHIP program for children’s health care. Mr. Trump says he’s waiting to sign it. But Mr. Schumer still wants to hold Mr. Trump and the government hostage to the minority’s political priority on immigration.

Democrats are insisting on their timetable for a deal to legalize the so-called Dreamers even though the two sides have only begun to negotiate in earnest and even though Mr. Trump has said he wants to work something out. Mr. Schumer is showing Mr. Trump who’s really in charge.

Democrats are pulling this shutdown stunt because they think they will pay no political price. They see Mr. Trump’s low approval rating. They saw the GOP rout in November in Virginia. They saw Democrats pick up the state Senate seat in Wisconsin this week that Republicans have held for 17 years. They have the press in their pocket. Above all, they figure that Mr. Trump is incapable of making a consistent, credible argument to the American people about the shutdown that might explain what Democrats are really doing.

And why not? Mr. Trump can give a speech saying one thing one day and issue a tweet contradicting himself the next. He nearly scuttled the House funding bill this week with a tweet that said CHIP funding shouldn't be part of any short-term spending bill. The other day he almost scuttled the renewal of Section 702 intelligence-gathering authority with another impulsive, ignorant tweet. Republicans on Capitol Hill could only roll their eyes and try to repair the damage.

Our guess is that this shutdown, if it happens over the weekend, will be short-lived as the sides work out some deal. But with another fight looming over a two-year budget, and another over raising the debt ceiling, the Schumer Democrats will be back at the same stand soon enough if they think it will play to their advantage. They want chaos in Washington because they think it will contribute to their emerging campaign theme that Mr. Trump is a dangerous man who can’t govern and must be checked by the opposing party.

This is the price Mr. Trump is paying for his reckless habit of tweeting before he thinks and squandering his credibility with false or uninformed statements. Even the 10 Democratic incumbents running in states Mr. Trump won in 2016 aren’t afraid of voting for a shutdown. Imagine how Democrats will treat him if the polls are right and Democrats run all of Congress next year. After a few months Mr. Trump may want to be impeached.

Crafty_Dog

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WSJ: The Trump Paradox
« Reply #1192 on: January 21, 2018, 05:56:55 AM »
second post


By
Daniel Henninger
















 
Jan. 17, 2018 7:09 p.m. ET

 865 COMMENTS   
















































































What’s the difference between Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump ?

Mr. Zuckerberg saw that the destructive political forces set loose by social media were threatening the core of Facebook and made adjustments last week to protect his crown jewel.

A Twitter account and the tides of media are undermining Mr. Trump’s presidency, but he’ll never adjust.


Which leads us to the Trump Paradox: Donald Trump may be the most disliked president in the postwar era, even as he presides over one of the most solid first-year policy performances of that era, most notably a strengthening economy.

(A colleague asked if by “postwar,” I meant World War II or the American Revolution.)

For most of the first year, the Trump paradox didn’t matter much beyond the altered psychological state of his audience. Reacting to “Trump” became, like uncontrollable weather, a daily routine.

But in Year Two, the story line is about to change. Everything in 2018 will be defined in terms of its effect on the November midterm election. Including any meeting with Dick Durbin.

The phrase “political animal” was invented for people like Sen. Durbin. Lost down the Trump-Durbin you-know-what hole is a question: Why did Dick Durbin do it?

The answer is inescapable: Sen. Durbin poisoned the well of the immigration negotiations. He instantly recognized that Democrats would gain more politically from public exposure of Mr. Trump’s private words than they would from any DACA deal.


For Democrats, every waking moment has telescoped down to one thing: gaining control of the House in November. They have concluded, not without reason, that success at the polls will correlate directly to public dislike of Mr. Trump personally. For Sen. Durbin, the Trump expletive was a gift from the gods. As to the 800,000 dreamers who had a deal in sight at last Tuesday’s White House meeting, well, they can wait.

If the Trump economic record was pouring out of a different, more agreeable vessel, the Democrats would be floating out to sea. Instead, Democrats and the nonsectarian Trump opposition are billing him as the apotheosis of evil, arguing that his personality and words discredit all his policy accomplishments—whether the historically low black unemployment rate of 6.8% that eluded Barack Obama or the defeat of an Islamic State that beheaded journalists on camera and sold Yazidi girls into sexual bondage.

Teeing up Donald Trump as a cartoon villain is preposterous—but rational. Normally, politicians strive to enlarge the circles of empathy between themselves and the public. The empathy may be fake, but it’s necessary. Mr. Trump is uniquely content to limit his personal appeal.

The Democratic “resistance,” which looked pathetic and irresponsible in Year One, suddenly makes sense in Year Two. The generic-ballot numbers, which show the public preferring a Democratic Congress by an astounding 11-point average, are suddenly relevant. Suddenly it matters that Mr. Trump’s approval in Georgia, which he carried in 2016 with 51.3%, is now 38%.

This one-man meltdown is occurring almost entirely among women, driven by a relentlessly smirking, I-could-care-less demeanor. The beer-and-shot base loves it. Women? They just don’t. Women came out of the woodwork to vote against Mr. Trump in the Virginia gubernatorial election that Ed Gillespie lost.

The bedrock Trump base, always around 35%, carried him through the presidential competition. But the 2016 victory was made possible by adding the topsoil of wealthier suburban voters. The Trump topsoil is eroding. Men who voted for Mr. Trump in these suburban towns won’t bother trying to talk their wives out of turning their 2018 vote into an anti-Trump statement. Donald Trump never had a bad day in his life. His supporters have one every week.

It will be a remarkable accomplishment if the Democrats pull this off—a victory not linked to an opposition’s major policy failure, an unpopular war or economic downturn. Beyond the Trump persona, the policy substance of the Democratic case is approximately zero. But running every candidate on the ballot against Donald Trump relieves them of having to think much.




Post-2018, the Pelosi-resurrected House would use the threat of impeachment, however baseless, to make Mr. Trump do deals with them on issues like infrastructure, while poking him just enough to keep him in a snarling rage until a professional empathizer like Joe Biden arrives in 2020. Tempting and taunting Donald Trump will be the capstone to Nancy Pelosi’s career.

The Democrats, now dominated by street-theater progressives, could blow it by making their return to public view more annoying than Mr. Trump’s tweets. They are planning to attend the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday dressed in black, like Hollywood stars, and carrying #HandsOff signs. That would be the people whose eight years of hands on the American economy put Donald Trump in the White House

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Go nuclear?
« Reply #1194 on: January 21, 2018, 11:44:56 AM »


http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/369971-trump-calls-for-republicans-to-go-nuclear-if-stalemate-continues 

What say we?

Go nuclear to fund the military. Let the non-essential federal employees stay on unpaid furlough. Make it clear that if the Dems don't bend to what Trump wants, no back pay for non-essential employees. Let's just wait and see how long they hold out.
I

ccp

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1195 on: January 21, 2018, 02:39:46 PM »
"Go nuclear to fund the military. Let the non-essential federal employees stay on unpaid furlough. Make it clear that if the Dems don't bend to what Trump wants, no back pay for non-essential employees. Let's just wait and see how long they hold out. "

Sounds good to me.  Lets so how most Fed employees the majority of whom are crats will like having their pay held up for illegals  that according to CNN 90 % of Americans favor a pardon   :roll:


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1196 on: January 21, 2018, 05:30:23 PM »
Someday we will not be in power; going nuclear carries near certainty of blow back some day.

I'm open to the idea of carving out the military budget as an exception.


G M

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1198 on: January 21, 2018, 06:57:05 PM »
Someday we will not be in power; going nuclear carries near certainty of blow back some day.

I'm open to the idea of carving out the military budget as an exception.


https://legalinsurrection.com/2016/10/harry-reid-nuclear-option-proliferator/

The dems already called the tune.


Crafty_Dog

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Re: Politics
« Reply #1199 on: January 21, 2018, 08:44:56 PM »
"The dems already called the tune."

Only half way.