POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

I would too.

Good. I would also love to see Fish and Flag and Drew out there. Firstly because it's the right thing to do, but of course I would think that, the hard part is realizing it's true even when things go your way. Perhaps the second reason will be more convincing: because the next guy with all the power could be Bernie Sanders. Or Noam Chomsky. Or, hell, Hillary Clinton.

The question I struggle with is would I be protesting if a liberal administration was doing exactly what this administration is doing? I f-cking hope so, but that test is hypothetical. For conservatives, that test is right now. This is a real life critical test of principles.

 

[Drew S.]

Good. I would also love to see Fish and Flag and Drew out there. Firstly because it's the right thing to do, but of course I would think that, the hard part is realizing it's true even when things go your way. Perhaps the second reason will be more convincing: because the next guy with all the power could be Bernie Sanders. Or Noam Chomsky. Or, hell, Hillary Clinton.

The question I struggle with is would I be protesting if a liberal administration was doing exactly what this administration is doing? I f-cking hope so, but that test is hypothetical. For conservatives, that test is right now. This is a real life critical test of principles.

I've never been to any sort of protest in my life so I likely wouldn't go. The type of thing that would upset me would be if Trump tried to deport people who were 100% US citizens or something like that. I think the Russia stuff is a bunch of nonsense and the self dealing I don't care that much about. Basically every politician who goes to DC winds up being rich so it isn't really out of the norm.

To your larger point though, the trouble in recent times is the legislative branch has massively let us down. They basically can't make a tough decision when it comes to any sort of financial problem. Healthcare is a great example. For me the fundamental issue with healthcare is the bottom 30% or whatever spend a lot of money/need a lot of healthcare and can't really afford to pay much if anything. All the republicans are doing is re-arranging deck chars and it won't fix the underlying problem.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

To your larger point though, the trouble in recent times is the legislative branch has massively let us down. They basically can't make a tough decision when it comes to any sort of financial problem.

I would say, to any problem. Congress has ceded much of its authority to the presidency and the executive bureaucracy. Then it turns around and complains about those institutions when they fill the gap Congress left. The most galling example is their failure to have an honest debate over war. The War Powers Act was only a start -- we should strongly reassert the Congressional roll in deciding where to commit troops and tightly constrain the President. The excuse that this would limit our ability to respond in a crisis is greatly overbroad and we can have a process for dealing with imminent peril. It has been used to remove all accountability from Congress, much to the delight of Congress which is now free to pass the buck to the White House and then take potshots without any responsibility.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

I would say, to any problem. Congress has ceded much of its authority to the presidency and the executive bureaucracy. Then it turns around and complains about those institutions when they fill the gap Congress left. The most galling example is their failure to have an honest debate over war. The War Powers Act was only a start -- we should strongly reassert the Congressional roll in deciding where to commit troops and tightly constrain the President. The excuse that this would limit our ability to respond in a crisis is greatly overbroad and we can have a process for dealing with imminent peril. It has been used to remove all accountability from Congress, much to the delight of Congress which is now free to pass the buck to the White House and then take potshots without any responsibility.

Republicans in Congress have been massively successful. They've managed to move 20 trillion dollars from the middle and lower classes to the 1%. They've done this by setting policy in every area of American life. From the military to the Courts.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Republicans in Congress have been massively successful. They've managed to move 20 trillion dollars from the middle and lower classes to the 1%. They've done this by setting policy in every area of American life. From the military to the Courts.

While that's true, the problem with the encroachment of executive power has been completely bipartisan. Democratic and Republican presidents have greedily increased executive power, and Democratic and Republican Congresses have joyfully ducked their responsibilities. The Founders assumed each of the three branches would grasp as much power as they could so that tautness would keep the distribution of powers stable. They did not anticipate the abdication of the legislature.

 

[Handyman]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Republicans in Congress have been massively successful. They've managed to move 20 trillion dollars from the middle and lower classes to the 1%. They've done this by setting policy in every area of American life. From the military to the Courts.

And the people they screw love them for it. One of the great cons of all time! It is like the peasants that love the King that enslaves them and starves them.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

And the people they screw love them for it. One of the great cons of all time! It is like the peasants that love the King that enslaves them and starves them.

It's worse. The peasants usually loved the King because he (He?) was a counter-weight to the local nobles who did the enslaving and starving. There was rationality in their belief that the King would enforce a divine (literally) justice just as God would in the afterlife.

But in our case the peasants are cheering the same local nobles who are screwing them. That's what's so funny and pathetic about the Deplorables.

 

[Handyman]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

It's worse. The peasants usually loved the King because he (He?) was a counter-weight to the local nobles who did the enslaving and starving. There was rationality in their belief that the King would enforce a divine (literally) justice just as God would in the afterlife.

But in our case the peasants are cheering the same local nobles who are screwing them. That's what's so funny and pathetic about the Deplorables.

Hey if the Red States want to get bent over a barrel doesnt bug me much.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

While that's true, the problem with the encroachment of executive power has been completely bipartisan. Democratic and Republican presidents have greedily increased executive power, and Democratic and Republican Congresses have joyfully ducked their responsibilities. The Founders assumed each of the three branches would grasp as much power as they could so that tautness would keep the distribution of powers stable. They did not anticipate the abdication of the legislature.

While that's true, and it's bad, I care less about that than the 20 trillion dollars. I'm sick of living in an Oligarchical society but it's not like I have much choice at this point. I gather it's could be worse (i.e. Russia) but it's getting ridiculous. We've known about this 1% problem for a long time now. We had our great recession. Where is our Roosevelt? Where is our correction?

 

[Rover]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

While that's true, and it's bad, I care less about that than the 20 trillion dollars. I'm sick of living in an Oligarchical society but it's not like I have much choice at this point. I gather it's could be worse (i.e. Russia) but it's getting ridiculous. We've known about this 1% problem for a long time now. We had our great recession. Where is our Roosevelt? Where is our correction?

Who cares? If you either 1) keep voting Republican, 2) vote 3rd party, or 3) don't vote, you DESERVE to take it in the shorts! The great wealth transfer isn't affecting me any, and the people getting screwed are the same people who keep voting Republican (working class whites) or don't vote/3rd party people (students getting reamed with debt).

There's little point caring about voters (or non-voters) who can't be bothered to care for themselves. There are two social programs I will most likely take advantage of at some point. Social Security and Medicare. Even scum sucking Republicans now know enough to leave these programs alone. If Medicaid gets turned into a block grant in order to cut funding to give to billionaires, yet like 70M people are enrolled in the program, do they not have the electoral power to vote out Goopers pushing for this? Start solving your own problems at the ballot box I say.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

While that's true, and it's bad, I care less about that than the 20 trillion dollars. I'm sick of living in an Oligarchical society but it's not like I have much choice at this point. I gather it's could be worse (i.e. Russia) but it's getting ridiculous. We've known about this 1% problem for a long time now. We had our great recession. Where is our Roosevelt? Where is our correction?

We need to ask why we got FDR in 32 and Obama in 08.

A big difference was in the 30s the Democratic party was much closer to the working class and had power centers in unionized industrialized labor and agriculture.

It would be interesting to see what the overlap of the "power elite" graphs for donors and officials looked like in the 30s and the 00s. It seems like now the players are just as entangled between the parties as boards of directors are.

In short, both parties are now handmaidens of the 1% when it comes to economic principles. There is no major American political force that says we should think of college education or housing or energy or transportation or medicine -- or, indeed, income -- as essential public rights like K12 education or policing and military protection, rather than luxuries that should be distributed by the profit motive.

There has been no Left in America for 40 years. The Democratic party was co-opted by the 1% sometime between McGovern and Clinton because it didn't see a way of winning nationally with a pro-labor, socialism platform. They became Republican Lite on economics and their discriminator became identity politics -- first blacks, then women, now gays and Hispanics. (The Dems have become inclusive enough that it's now the Republicans who are sharply defined by identity politics: it's a white Christian nationalist party.)

In consequence, both parties have been rushing into the arms of the oligarchs ever since. Working people get no representation at all and democracy, on fiscal issues, is dead. We get to vote on social issues, but economic issues are decided by unelected entities which we can't control or stop because they have bribed both parties, and the Courts have ruled that bribery as "protected speech."

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Who cares? If you either 1) keep voting Republican, 2) vote 3rd party, or 3) don't vote, you DESERVE to take it in the shorts! The great wealth transfer isn't affecting me any, and the people getting screwed are the same people who keep voting Republican (working class whites) or don't vote/3rd party people (students getting reamed with debt).

There's little point caring about voters (or non-voters) who can't be bothered to care for themselves. There are two social programs I will most likely take advantage of at some point. Social Security and Medicare. Even scum sucking Republicans now know enough to leave these programs alone. If Medicaid gets turned into a block grant in order to cut funding to give to billionaires, yet like 70M people are enrolled in the program, do they not have the electoral power to vote out Goopers pushing for this? Start solving your own problems at the ballot box I say.

I care because they've destroyed my retirement options. I hope you are right on Medicare and Social Security cause I'm going to need them.

 

[Rover]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Kep, gotta disagree with you on something here. The Democratic party hasn't changed its stance on income equality. The voters have. Simply put they bought a slick marketing campaign and screwed themselves. What you're basically saying is that if your relative gets involved in a Ponzi Scheme, and you tell them its a Ponzi Scheme but they don't want to believe you because the payoff it so alluring, its just as much of your fault that they ended up losing all their savings.

At some point voters need to be held accountable. If you want to vote to cut your Medicaid so billionaires can get a tax cut, all because you're worried about mythical gay muslim illegal immigrants coming to take your guns, then its on that person to either smarten up or keep getting played for a sucker. I'm done caring about these idiots. I'll continue to vote Dem, loudly and proudly because their closest to my ideological leanings, but if poor people want to keep transferring their money to me, hey - nobody's forcing them to.

 

[MaizeRage]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Conservatives, this is the Constitutional crisis you have been fapping off worrying about, only the call is coming from inside the house. So, who are you? Are you going to support it because it's good for your agenda, or are you going to oppose it because it's terrible for our system of laws? It's really easy for me to be against this -- the hard job here is yours.

They spent years fapping about the evil government attacking the little guy and responsible gun ownership too. And when they got a clear-cut slam dunk case of the government murdering a responsible gun owner, how much marching did you see?

There are no principles there and it's time we stop pretending there ever was. It's all about one thing and one thing only: keeping a group of people below them to make them feel better about their own sad, pathetic lives and the fear that that is starting to erode in our society. Anything else is just an excuse to hide that fact.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Kep, gotta disagree with you on something here. The Democratic party hasn't changed its stance on income equality. The voters have. Simply put they bought a slick marketing campaign and screwed themselves. What you're basically saying is that if your relative gets involved in a Ponzi Scheme, and you tell them its a Ponzi Scheme but they don't want to believe you because the payoff it so alluring, its just as much of your fault that they ended up losing all their savings.

At some point voters need to be held accountable. If you want to vote to cut your Medicaid so billionaires can get a tax cut, all because you're worried about mythical gay muslim illegal immigrants coming to take your guns, then its on that person to either smarten up or keep getting played for a sucker. I'm done caring about these idiots. I'll continue to vote Dem, loudly and proudly because their closest to my ideological leanings, but if poor people want to keep transferring their money to me, hey - nobody's forcing them to.

Rover, I'd say the fact that you and I are both in the same party proves my point that the Democratic party's practical discriminator is social issues. If it were economic issues, one of us would not be a Democrat. In a perfect world, we're opposing one another in the two major parties and I'm calling you a Capitalist Tool of the Billionaires while you're calling me a Naive Utopian Communist. The fact that we're both hard-core Democrats means the party has no economic orientation at all.

In a way, Dems have become the actual laissez-faire party. They are content to allow the status quo, which is the gradual immiseration of the 99% because capital compounds and money warps democracy. The Republicans aren't content -- they are actively trying to rip apart the status quo and accelerate that immiseration. Both parties are boiling the frog. They just set the heat differently.

 

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

They spent years fapping about the evil government attacking the little guy and responsible gun ownership too. And when they got a clear-cut slam dunk case of the government murdering a responsible gun owner, how much marching did you see?

There are no principles there and it's time we stop pretending there ever was. It's all about one thing and one thing only: keeping a group of people below them to make them feel better about their own sad, pathetic lives and the fear that that is starting to erode in our society. Anything else is just an excuse to hide that fact.

I think there are principled conservatives who genuinely worry about the erosion of democracy and the replacement of the republic with a centrally-controlled tyrannical state. I think the people who were complaining about that under Obama, while they may have been delusional that Obama was anything like that, were sincere in their worry in the abstract that it could happen.

That's why I'm addressing them now. It is happening. There are two obstacles to them acting. The first is hypocrisy -- they only mean that stuff when it's somebody they don't agree with and they're perfectly compliant with a conservative dictatorship. Obviously some are like that but I don't think more than a trivial number -- the same number who would be perfectly compliant with a liberal dictatorship. The second obstacle is that they don't even see the problem because their news media has their brains scrambled. That's possible so it's up to the opposition to keep putting the evidence and the question. In the case of Trump we actually have an ally -- he's so mindblowingly OBVIOUS that he's not even hiding it. It would be much more difficult to hurdle obstacle two with a smart and subtle would-be tyrant.

Drew seems to be saying he doesn't care -- it's nothing. He's not getting over the second obstacle, partisanship prevents him from seeing that there is any problem to act on. But the thing is, with Trump it's never over -- the evidence is only going to get worse and his actions are only going to get more obvious, so Drew is in a way an interesting lab experiment. How many straws can that camel take?

 

[Rover]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Meh...not really Kep. We agree on a lot of economic principles. Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare for example. Free college tuition to state universities for people under a certain income level. Rich get away with too many tax breaks. Our differences really revolve around how hard you want to stick it to the wealthy. That's no reason for us to be in different parties, especially when the opposition wants to keep giving them tax cuts.

What people to the left of the modern day GOP need to do is unite around the economic principles that we agree on and elect Democrats, be it Joe Manchin or Bernie Sanders, and THEN have the discussion of how much we'd like to do once in office. Sadly as we've found out in 2010, 2014, and 2016 this concept is lost on these people who'd rather sit out elections and watch Trump-Ryan-Itch have complete control of the gubmint.

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

The presidency has been growing in power since WW2, so much so that they were calling it the "Imperial Presidency" fifty years ago and it's only gotten worse. Much of that has been Congress hiding from responsibility and accountability.

Here we completely agree.

 

[Handyman]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Kep, gotta disagree with you on something here. The Democratic party hasn't changed its stance on income equality. The voters have. Simply put they bought a slick marketing campaign and screwed themselves. What you're basically saying is that if your relative gets involved in a Ponzi Scheme, and you tell them its a Ponzi Scheme but they don't want to believe you because the payoff it so alluring, its just as much of your fault that they ended up losing all their savings.

At some point voters need to be held accountable. If you want to vote to cut your Medicaid so billionaires can get a tax cut, all because you're worried about mythical gay muslim illegal immigrants coming to take your guns, then its on that person to either smarten up or keep getting played for a sucker. I'm done caring about these idiots. I'll continue to vote Dem, loudly and proudly because their closest to my ideological leanings, but if poor people want to keep transferring their money to me, hey - nobody's forcing them to.

This is exactly right. Why should either party act any different when the voters have said this is what they want? If the voters held the GOP accountable they would change their stances because they would be out of power. The Dems dont have any balls so they do what the polls tell them anyways.

 

[Handyman]

Re: POTUS 45.14 - No Confusion, It's Collusion!

Meh...not really Kep. We agree on a lot of economic principles. Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare for example. Free college tuition to state universities for people under a certain income level. Rich get away with too many tax breaks. Our differences really revolve around how hard you want to stick it to the wealthy. That's no reason for us to be in different parties, especially when the opposition wants to keep giving them tax cuts.

What people to the left of the modern day GOP need to do is unite around the economic principles that we agree on and elect Democrats, be it Joe Manchin or Bernie Sanders, and THEN have the discussion of how much we'd like to do once in office. Sadly as we've found out in 2010, 2014, and 2016 this concept is lost on these people who'd rather sit out elections and watch Trump-Ryan-Itch have complete control of the gubmint.

Agreed. People dont want long wonky policy speeches telling us all the benefits of the Democratic Platform. They want loud rhetoric. The Dems need to stop talking and just worry about what gets them elected. Then when they get there drag people along for the ride.