Politics 2018

[John Smith]

“Tonight,” he said, “I call on the congress to empower every Cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers—and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people.”

One more f’d up proposal from the beast. A dictatorial power. The irony is that dirty Dick Cheney worked to convert a ton of positions from appointee positions to career positions so he could embed conservatives on untouchable positions so they could continue to carry on Conservative positions...a deep state approach. Trump wants to make all positions subject to loyalty to him and politics. Pending Vlads approval though.

[caliber66]

It will be the "best and most watched State of the Union address in the history of the nation" regardless of what the actual numbers are.

Gonna go ahead and take credit for this one:

 

Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history. @FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 1, 2018

 

 

 Fact checked by Fox News:

 

 

#SOTU TV Viewers:

2018: 45.6M

2017: 47.7M*

2016: 31.3M

2015: 31.7M

2014: 33.3M

2013: 33.5M

2012: 37.8M

2011: 42.8M

2010: 48.0M

2009: 52.4M*

2008: 37.5M

2007: 45.5M

2006: 41.7M

2005: 38.4M

2004: 43.4M

2003: 62.1M

1993: 66.9M* (largest TV audience)

*Not an official SOTU

— Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) February 1, 2018

 

 

 

 

[NoJ]

Anybody else like reading Charles Pierce's daily political analysis over at Esquire.com? He's astute, funny and like the rest of us, agog at what the GOP is doing to America.

[NoJ]

Just read the Nunes memo. What a waste of time.

[Sir Stewart]

Insanity.

[lost highway]

It's so interesting the way the Fed as a power has entered into the checks and balances ecology. Watching Oliver Stone's "The Untold History of the United States", it was easy to see how the growth of our intelligence agencies in the McCarthy era was a way for Executive power to increase in an underhanded and immoral way. Now intelligence agencies are functioning as our primary safeguard against the perversion of power by the Executive Office (the same one that originally empowered them). Power is always a double edged sword in politics. This is some Game of Thrones shit.

[Chez]

^^ Rhymes with "Hannity."

[John Smith]

Just read the Nunes memo. What a waste of time.

Exactly. However for trump fans what is in the memo is irrelevant. That the memo does not jibe with the narrative is irrelevant. Most will not read it. What is relevant to them is the story they have been sold.

 

Edit: Red State .com and Breitbart are talking about the inconsistencies in the memo and how it does not really support what has been said recently.  Judging by comments around the web though, the rank and file does not care.  Preaching to the choir works for them.

[kidsmoke]

It's so interesting the way the Fed as a power has entered into the checks and balances ecology. Watching Oliver Stone's "The Untold History of the United States", it was easy to see how the growth of our intelligence agencies in the McCarthy era was a way for Executive power to increase in an underhanded and immoral way. Now intelligence agencies are functioning as our primary safeguard against the perversion of power by the Executive Office (the same one that originally empowered them). Power is always a double edged sword in politics. This is some Game of Thrones shit.

 

This is so well put. Especially that last line.

 

This time feels slightly surreal!

[remphish1]

Just read the Nunes memo. What a waste of time.

Yup a nothing burger. When trump falls and he will it’s going to be spectacular. Pence will go too.

[Chez]

Yup a nothing burger. When trump falls and he will it’s going to be spectacular. Pence will go too.

 

I'm beginning to think that the only thing the Trump presidency could not survive is if Trump were to fire Mueller.  So in a weird way, that's what I'm rooting for.

[lost highway]

I'd say it's not quite a nothing burger, and not for the reasons the GOP intended. The memo shows that they were able to renew their surveillance through the FISA court multiple times. According to law they had to present evidence that the initial warrant was yielding evidence of illegal activity or they couldn't renew it. So now they've published a memo proving that the courts have evidence of wrongdoing.

 

It also shows that the warrant wasn't gotten on the problematic Steele dossier alone, but also on evidence against Papadopolous, and since he's already been indicted we know that was a substantial reason.

 

It also shows that the Dems were willing to spend six figures to get dirt on Trump through the Steele dossier, which is pretty sleazy. Of course the contents of the Steele dossier are sleazy to the third power, and we know some of them have been substantiated since it alerted the Feds to some problems. How much of it is legitimate, and how much is fake only Trump knows, but Mueller I'm sure has some of it squared away.

[John Smith]

a sin of omission in the Nunes memo is that the conservative Washington Free Beacon started the intelligence gathering on Trump. I believe they may have hired Baker McKenzie who hired Fusion who hired Steele, or they hired Fusion directly.  Regardless the research was started by conservatives and Steele had no idea who the research was being done for.  Note though the Free Beacon denies they had anything to do with this now, however it has been testified to in congress once or twice that this is the chain of events. Also omitted is that multiple sources have noted that when applying for the FISA warrant the judge was aware that a political entity had been paying for research contained in the dossier. These are just a couple of tiny things that are in publicly available sources, such as congressional testimony.  Regardless these are just couple of issues with Nunes memo.

 

It is painfully obvious that our president has either not read the memo (most likely its six pages afterall) or has totally misunderstood what is in the memo (highly likely), or he is purposefully mis-representing the contents of the memo (also highly likely). This should worry regular people, wingnuts will rejoice in whatever he says.  

 

Its a shitshow because it didn't get the reaction that republicans thought it would.  Apparently Nunes didn't research it, he left that to Gowdy, and Gowdy is saying that the memo does not impugn Mueller, and the DOJ in response to Manafort's lawsuit says that the investigation is legal.  So, it appears that the opposite of the desired results are occurring. Hannity is still selling hard the notion that this is bigger than Watergate though, I agree that it is, but not in the same way.  Its bigger than Watergate because the president is committing crimes and the republican party and congress are helping to cover them up and some are actively involved in obstruction of justice.

 

One thing that I am interested in very greatly is the reported statement that an attack on North Korea might help republicans in the mid-terms.  I don't think the sourcing is independently verified yet, but I would not put it past this administration to start a war for political gain.  

[lost highway]

It is painfully obvious that our president has either not read the memo (most likely its six pages afterall) or has totally misunderstood what is in the memo (highly likely), or he is purposefully mis-representing the contents of the memo (also highly likely). This should worry regular people, wingnuts will rejoice in whatever he says.  

 

The best part of Trump saying it "totally vindicates" him is it allows any of us who read the memo, or even carefully read about the memo to know more than he does on the topic. And Trump was the one who released it. I know more than the president about the memo he released, because as you said it's 6 pages long which is beyond his current reading comprehension level.

[John Smith]

Paul Ryan stepped in it yesterday when he tweeted about a secretary who was getting an additional $1.50/week in her paycheck because of the tax cuts. He was rightfully ridiculed and deleted the tweet.

 

People confuse their paycheck with tax relief these days and they shouldn’t. You should calculate the tax year over year using the old law and the new law and compare the tax. For instance if you have 4 or 5 exemptions and your deductions are in the $23k range and your in the new 22% bracket, depending on your income you could pay more under the new rules. You would still get $xx more in your check because of the new withholding tables, but in the long run you’re not better off. Everyone’s tax picture is different and all the parts are different for everybody so you get different results. For instance in my example if you lower the current itemized deductions to $13k you are better off under the new law. Don’t be fooled by lower withholding on your new checks.

[jff]

I'm beginning to think that the only thing the Trump presidency could not survive is if Trump were to fire Mueller.  So in a weird way, that's what I'm rooting for.

 

I've come to the conclusion that if that happens, nothing will happen to Trump's presidency.  There is no bottom. No point at which his base will abandon him. No point at which republicans in general will abandon him in numbers large enough to matter.  But I'm very interested in why you think it will bring down his presidency. Not saying you're wrong, I just can't get there after having seen so many outrageous scandals go nowhere.

[Oil Can Boyd]

I wonder if the president is going to take the blame for the Dow dropping 1,175 points today.  

[ih8music]

Knowing how tone deaf he is, he'll probably brag about how everyone with short positions made a killing today.

[chisoxjtrain]

I wonder if the president is going to take the blame for the Dow dropping 1,175 points today.  

 

Somehow it will be Obama's or Clinton's fault.

[lost highway]

On top of the stock market plunge, now the House panel has approved the Democrats rebuttal memo. Trump has to decide if he wants to be seen silencing information, or if he's going to let another side of the story come out.

 

Not that the original memo really helped him all that much.

[tinnitus photography]

Yet he claimed it totally vindicated him.

 

This moron can’t die fast enough.

[remphish1]

On top of the stock market plunge, now the House panel has approved the Democrats rebuttal memo. Trump has to decide if he wants to be seen silencing information, or if he's going to let another side of the story come out.

 

Not that the original memo really helped him all that much.

He’s going to look bad either way if he rejects the memo or accepts it so I can’t wait!!

[John Smith]

Somehow it will be Obama's or Clinton's fault.

Hannity has it covered, it’s clearly Obama’s fault. Seriously. His moronic followers won’t put 2+2 together though. Hannity says that Obama’s fed kept interest rates low and that caused artificially inflated prices that tanked last week and this week. That will be good enough for them. They won’t in any way shape or form acknowledge that those same policies have been in effect during the gains claimed by trump and touted by fox. Obama’s bad policies can touch single days of trading it seems.

[lost highway]

He’s going to look bad either way if he rejects the memo or accepts it so I can’t wait!!

 

He went with the more likely looking-corrupt-for-not-releasing-the-memo, approach. I think the suits call this "bad optics".

 

In other news, I won't be the first to point out that the party of fiscal responsibility passed a tax bill that adds $1.5 trillion to the deficit, and followed it with a $400 billion spending bill edging us very close to an even $2 trillion of new debt. Most economists agree that it will have a modest boost for GDP, but that's a tiny fraction of the magical number the white house invented for growth projections.

[lost highway]

So I've been thinking about this: the immigration debate by every indication is coming down to a kind of Sophie's choice for democrats. Will they accept a wall in exchange for DACA?

 

Every time this trade has come up in the news cognitive dissonance has made me stop thinking about it. Maybe there's some other way for it to go down, but that might just be it. Obviously the moral answer is yes, but it's a tough pill to swallow. It would be such an expensive, ignorant, and disgusting symbol to his perception of success.