All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[worstblogever]

A filing in NY today regarding Mazars being asked to turn over Trump's tax returns was blocked by Trump's lawyers via a temporary restraining order. The legal filing is dubious, and downright scary, as Trump's lawyers aren't just claiming you can't indict a sitting president, they're now arguing you can't even investigate a sitting president.

Which, the Mueller Investigation was a thing going on until at least May of 2019, so that seems like a huge mound of bulls***.

But as far as the whistleblower complaint about Ukraine goes... it's not just that Trump allegedly tried bribing an ally with money they need to stand up to Russia to try and get dirt on Biden...

Now both Trump's White House and AG Bill Barr may have obstructed justice (again) by going out of their way to try and prevent that whistleblower's complaint from reaching the ears of Congress.


These are problems that you face when the president is a stupid, lawless, sundowning jackass. I don't know how long it's going to be before Republicans wise up that you will never, ever, get a respite from trying to defend him, because he can't go five minutes without blundering into a latest misadventure of corruption that there are no mental gymnastics you can do to argue he's in the right without losing your own sanity and soul.

[worstblogever]

It's even more damning that Trump did this because he thought Ukraine could get him dirt on Biden's son.

Okay, the risk of trying to extort a bribe from a foreign leader to gain their interference in a an election...

1) Trump had his nuts in a vice with the Mueller Report for his campaign getting Russia's help in 2016. He f***ing KNOWS he can't get foreign help so blatantly.
2) Ukraine wouldn't be motivated to help a guy widely regarded as Putin's b****.
3) He's doing this because the timeline on approving or disapproving that funding to Ukraine was Sept. 30th... so he had a month to extort them before having to make a decision.
4) It's specifically for dirt on Biden, who might not even be the nominee he faces in November 2020. The polling has Elizabeth Warren surging. And sure, in head-to-head matchups, Biden kicks Trump's ass the hardest right now. But to take a risk like this to eliminate a Democratic candidate who is not necessarily the final nominee?

He's that f***ing paranoid and dumb. I mean, Joe Biden might have defeated Donald Trump just by running, and not even eventually winning the Democratic nomination.

[Mister Mets]

Typical Republican cowardice. Effectively quoting, "If you give a mouse a cookie..."

When the question was, "Can we not just take an action that kills these people?" That's it. The question isn't about taking on more, it's just "don't send these people away to die".

And rather than just admit your party if full of s*** about actually being pro-life, you're trying to pretend there's a slippery slope argument to, "Can we just not legalize the murder of these sick people?"

A new low has been achieved.

It's hardly cowardice to suggest an unpopular policy may have merit. It would be more cowardly to refuse to articulate an alternative because it's easier to complain than to potentially make tough choices.

You know my abortion stance. Zygotes aren't children, Mets. Your party, however, is the one that claims that life is sacred right up until its ejected from the womb -- but we both know Republicans don't really care about them then either.



Great message from a Spider-Man mod, there. 'Not our problem!'


There was bipartisian immigration reform and you know it.

Why am I not surprised you'd like the president to be a guy known best for being so pro-life that he caused an HIV outbreak? But you're in luck: Pence is already running a lot of the policy show.

I mean, nobody should feel they need to play devil's advocate for the policies being implemented by the white house right now. The devil has enough advocates there already.

Some stuff isn't our problem.

As for Pence, he's not my favorite elected official, but I would prefer him to Trump.

My thought, assuming Pence knows about it and said nothing, did nothing. Didn't even try to stop him from doing, whatever. How would that not lead to Pence being in trouble as well?

Barr praised 2017 book that claims colleges unfairly went after male students accused of sexual assault

We have no idea what the allegation is, or how many people in the Trump administration knew about it. Vice Presidents aren't always involved in conversations between Presidents and leaders of other countries.

Granted, it would be interesting to see the ramifications if some massive scandal forces out Trump and Pence, and we get President Pelosi.

It’s worth pointing out that a lot of the people on this board who were advocating for the age thing were also propping up
Beto who has been a disaster with no shot to win and Buttegieg is also struggling. Harris is plummeting and it’s converining how far a perceived star has fallen. Castro has no chance. Really Booker (polarizing with progressives) and Yang (kind of an outsider Democrats) are the only younger candidates with real shots anymore and even they are clearly several tiers below the big 3.

The reality is the field would be dramatically weaker with an age limit and the candidates that are proving the ability to build the most effective coalitions, wouldn’t be there. It would hurt the party.

Also just historically it is unfounded. Churchill was at the forefront of the biggest war ever at an advanced age. These aren’t physical jobs

The age limit thing is an interesting question, since we don't know the effect on the field if famous elderly candidates were kept out.

I like Biden, and would vote for him over Trump. But there is an argument that he's taking the spotlight from any potential moderate alternatives, just as Sanders is taking the spotlight from lesser-known radicals.

You know what is funny about Met's insistence that there must be a complete, perfect immigration policy from the Dems before we can decry Trump's disastrous policies. His party has been trying to overturn Obamacare for 10 years now, without the hint of a plan on their own. And Mets fully supports this.

I wrote about the Republicans' inability to come up with an alternative to Obamacare being one of their shortcomings just yesterday, so the whataboutism doesn't quite work.

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post4576227

Yes, there was, and it was summarily thrown out by Trump in favor of the current horror show.
I don't think the Democrats are the party you'd need to worry about honoring a bipartisan agreement. The other guys are the ones with the reputation for coloring ouside the lines.

I doubt that Democrats would stick with elements of the proposed bill if there was no Republican President. It paid for funding the wall.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...migration-bill

There doesn't seem to be any indication that the bill was supposed to be the permanent status quo when it comes to determining our standards for who is allowed to immigrate legally.

[worstblogever]

It's hardly cowardice to suggest an unpopular policy may have merit. It would be more cowardly to refuse to articulate an alternative because it's easier to complain than to potentially make tough choices.

You are advocating for sick people of color to go and die because you're afraid if we don't, more migrants of color might come across the border.

That's cowardice, motivated by racial fears. Which is a proven tactic of the GOP. And you have just shown us it can work on the rank and file.



The White House was shamed into reversing this policy as of this afternoon. But you're still defending it, because you're still that frightened of the prospect of more migrants.

Pro Tip: Experts on climate change predict migrations from Central America because of climate change. If you actually do want to stop the flow of migrants because you can't get over your fears of them, get your party to admit climate change is a threat, and address THAT. Which they won't do, because their donors in the oil, coal, and fracking industries would rather they don't go to alternative fuels like wind and solar.

But definitely stop lying to us all that you guys are "pro-life".

[WestPhillyPunisher]

A filing in NY today regarding Mazars being asked to turn over Trump's tax returns was blocked by Trump's lawyers via a temporary restraining order. The legal filing is dubious, and downright scary, as Trump's lawyers aren't just claiming you can't indict a sitting president, they're now arguing you can't even investigate a sitting president.

Which, the Mueller Investigation was a thing going on until at least May of 2019, so that seems like a huge mound of bulls***.

But as far as the whistleblower complaint about Ukraine goes... it's not just that Trump allegedly tried bribing an ally with money they need to stand up to Russia to try and get dirt on Biden...

Now both Trump's White House and AG Bill Barr may have obstructed justice (again) by going out of their way to try and prevent that whistleblower's complaint from reaching the ears of Congress.


These are problems that you face when the president is a stupid, lawless, sundowning jackass. I don't know how long it's going to be before Republicans wise up that you will never, ever, get a respite from trying to defend him, because he can't go five minutes without blundering into a latest misadventure of corruption that there are no mental gymnastics you can do to argue he's in the right without losing your own sanity and soul.

The problem is Republicans will NEVER wise up, not this late in the game. They’re in too deep with Trump to back out now, when he goes down, they’ll sink with him, and they know it, but they’ll keep on protecting him, they have no choice. Meanwhile, Moscow Mitch doesn’t give a **** what’s happening, he’s too busy stacking the courts and playing his obstruction games with Dems. Bottom line: the GOP willingly sold their souls on the altar of Trump for pennies on the dollar and believe it was a good deal.

[Dalak]

The chain of posts was about other people's views and how they might interpret numbers. With those numbers, the tradeoff in a reduction in abortions makes up for an increase in deaths, although the latter number is probably exaggerated.

We probably greatly exaggerate the healthcare services provided by Planned Parenthood, as well as the effects of government funding on the organization. Fundraising has been brisk since Trump's election, and their biggest problems seem to be own-goals, like the firing of their president Leana Wen, and the ensuing legal fight.

I was asking what policy you would explicitly advocate for.

The increase in abortion rates is in comparison to the levels of abortion that conservative Republicans want (which varies from none at all to special exceptions like rape, incest and an elected official's pregnant mistress.)

The phrasing in the original post which got you to ask me to explain my understanding was "It seems odd to suggest that Republicans want more black and brown babies as part of a racist strategy" so that's the context of our discussion.

With less abortions, there would be more black babies. Reducing access to abortion does ultimately reduce abortion rates, even if there are all sorts of other consequences. However, the number of prevented abortions is almost going to be more than 700 an year (this assumes that every pregnancy/ childbirth related death is avoidable with Democrats in total control of government which is probably not the case) so it will still result in more black lives.

The thing is that those numbers were never provided. You assumed they were exaggerated before every getting any, as they can not be compiled until the impact is known. Since the question I asked you was what your personal perspective was on whether the reduction in abortions was worth the loss of healthcare from Planned Parenthood as well as the 32 million that would be thrown off their insurance, here's some numbers for you. Lets say .01% were negatively affected health wise by the loss, seriously. Then lets say 10% of them die. That's nearly 300k in serious trouble with over 30k people dead. So assuming those numbers, do you personally still think it's worth the suffering and deaths of many thousands?

Please answer my direct question and don't deflect this time.

[Kirby101]

I wrote about the Republicans' inability to come up with an alternative to Obamacare being one of their shortcomings just yesterday, so the whataboutism doesn't quite work.
.

"Republicans kept complaining about Obamacare, but didn't have an alternative they could all support"

HA!, They didn't come up with one they could all support? They never offered a single plan in the House or Senate, just votes to abolish the ACA.
What I said still stands.

[numberthirty]

- https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...ivilian-market

Colt suspends production of AR-15 and other rifles for the civilian market

[Tendrin]

- https://www.latimes.com/world-nation...ivilian-market

After they've made how many millions, of course.

[Tendrin]

You are advocating for sick people of color to go and die because you're afraid if we don't, more migrants of color might come across the border.

That's cowardice, motivated by racial fears. Which is a proven tactic of the GOP. And you have just shown us it can work on the rank and file.



The White House was shamed into reversing this policy as of this afternoon. But you're still defending it, because you're still that frightened of the prospect of more migrants.

Pro Tip: Experts on climate change predict migrations from Central America because of climate change. If you actually do want to stop the flow of migrants because you can't get over your fears of them, get your party to admit climate change is a threat, and address THAT. Which they won't do, because their donors in the oil, coal, and fracking industries would rather they don't go to alternative fuels like wind and solar.

But definitely stop lying to us all that you guys are "pro-life".

I can't get past the 'may have merit'.

[numberthirty]

You are advocating for sick people of color to go and die because you're afraid if we don't, more migrants of color might come across the border.

That's cowardice, motivated by racial fears. Which is a proven tactic of the GOP. And you have just shown us it can work on the rank and file.



The White House was shamed into reversing this policy as of this afternoon. But you're still defending it, because you're still that frightened of the prospect of more migrants.

Pro Tip: Experts on climate change predict migrations from Central America because of climate change. If you actually do want to stop the flow of migrants because you can't get over your fears of them, get your party to admit climate change is a threat, and address THAT. Which they won't do, because their donors in the oil, coal, and fracking industries would rather they don't go to alternative fuels like wind and solar.

But definitely stop lying to us all that you guys are "pro-life".

Out of curiosity...

What would these so-called "Pros" suggest doing to address all of the climate change that the US is not directly responsible for?

[Tendrin]

Out of curiosity...

What would these so-called "Pros" suggest doing to address all of the climate change that the US is not directly responsible for?

Gosh, it's not like a USA government that invests in clean technologies and power itself wouldn't have considerable economic and political leverage to bring to bear on other actors.

Come on, 30.

[numberthirty]

Because the reality looks kinda like this -

- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/c...l-warming.html

Who’s Most Responsible for Global Warming?

But China is today’s biggest emitter, by a mile.

The rapidly industrializing country overtook the United States as the world’s biggest source of carbon emissions in the mid-2000s, and has doubled its output since then.

In 2014, China released 10.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industry; the United States released more than 5.2 billion metric tons that year.

(Carbon emissions from both countries decreased slightly by 2016, according to the latest data from the related Global Carbon Project. But 2017 estimates suggest that Chinese emissions ticked back up last year.)

[numberthirty]

Gosh, it's not like a USA government that invests in clean technologies and power itself wouldn't have considerable economic and political leverage to bring to bear on other actors.

Come on, 30.

On that, I think you are quite a bit more optimistic that I.

Would that be great? Absolutely.

Is it even remotely realistic that it would give us the leverage you suggest? Doubt it.

Not to say that the it isn't past time that the US got it's figurative butt in gear about dealing with getting away from fossil fuels as much as is realistically possible.

Just that taking a sober look at the bigger picture might be an even more important step that doing so.

[worstblogever]

Because the reality looks kinda like this -

- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/c...l-warming.html

The reality is... THEY HAVE 3-4 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE THE U.S. DOES.

Although, the U.S. will have a population increase if people are forced to migrate from Central America north to survive if we choose to do nothing about it.

Which you seem content to do by going, "WAH! CHINA DOESN'T DO ENOUGH!"

At least China signed the Paris Climate Accords, unlike a certain Republican President who backed out like a true dunce.