All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[AnakinFlair]

I'm amazed that it seems like everyone who pushed for Brexit is quitting

[Tami]

I'm amazed that it seems like everyone who pushed for Brexit is quitting

They got what they wanted, and it turned out to be a real messup, so they are getting out before the populace also realizes this and pulls out their pitchforks and torches and drives them out.

[Coin Biter]

I'm amazed that it seems like everyone who pushed for Brexit is quitting

I can understand David Davis quitting, although he could have done it on Friday rather than wait the weekend. The Chequers plan (which won’t be accepted by the EU, at least as it stands) is rather against what he has propounded for the last couple of years. May won’t be too disappointed - the key guy is Oliver Robbins anyway, supposedly Davis is largely an irrelevance. I’ll admit that, adamant a Remainer as I am, I do at least think that Davis has some principles and is sincere. Nice that Steve Baker went as well though

Boris Johnson, though, didn’t jump on Friday. He didn’t even jump first thing on Monday. He jumped because he felt he had too, to protect his ambitions. He wanted to do it, as part of what I imagine he thinks to be a “devastating” resignation speech. The story goes that Downing Street decided to pre-empt him, and announce his resignation several hours before he’d planned to do it. After 18 months or so of incompetence, bluster, continual backbiting in the right wing media, and constant threats to resign, I imagine the predominant feeling in government is relief. Not even the Brexiteers are much impressed by Johnson any more: he polls behind several other potential leaders. His bolt is, for the time being, truly shot.

Whatever happens in the May administration now (and I suspect she’ll survive) at least we’re rid of that perpetual embarrassment as Foreign Secretary.

Let no-one believe, because of these resignations, that the Chequers plan is some brilliant masterstroke, though.

[ed2962]

Wait, are you saying you only like the Ozzy stuff and the first record with Dio, and that's it?

All of Dio's Sabbath work is phenomenal, and the Ian Gillan fronted Born Again is one of their best albums. Plus Headless Cross is a metal masterpiece. The rest of the Tony Martin albums and the one Glenn Hughes records are pretty damned good too. In short, all Black Sabbath is good, to one degree or another.

Also....did I really click on a Fox News Opinion piece about Hillary secretly planning to run again that was presented in a discussion as a factual piece of information. My god.

I don't think she will run again. I could be wrong, no matter what, the opinion piece exists solely to rile up the typical Fox News audience.

Those aren't the only records I like but probably the stuff I listen to the most.

[Darkspellmaster]

So apparently only 4 more boys and their coach remain. Crossing my fingers for a speedy recovery.

[Tami]

Trump going to announce his pick for SCOTUS soon, not that it really matters. Anyone he chooses will be just as dangerous as the others on the list.

Actually, Bret Kavenaugh is a little worse since, apparently, he believes that Presidents should be Above the Law. That Presidents should be immune from any kind of legal action or prosecution. Which is why Trump picked him.

[Mister Mets]

No sane person would claim that Warren vs. Trump is a race between "two weirdos" on the basis of some non-issue insult that has little to nothing to do with the office of the presidency -- if the argument is that such a claim makes her just as dishonest as Trump then that just goes to show that it's impossible to have an objective discussion on matters like this with a supporter of the Republican party.

Despite the overt racism behind it, at least with Obama claiming that he was Kenyan challenged his legal validity to the presidency -- with Warren it's nothing but playground name-calling, plain and simple.

As Warren herself points out -- your Republican President is separating children from their parents without due process while he engages in racist childhood insults in order to damage her credibility: that's not something a "weirdo" does -- those are the actions of a sociopath.

With regards to the "abolish ICE" issue: the "distraction" is that we are NOT having a discussion on the immigration policy -- Trump is just throwing them into camps in violation of the law and Pence just walks away when asked questions about it.

Have your Republican party actually follow the law first and then discuss what bipartisan changes need to be made to said laws in the future -- that's how democracy works.

Edit: Changed "president" to "party" since this is just as much Sessions idea as anyone else's and the majority of the Republican "base" supports Trump's actions.

It's not that the lies are equal, but that at a certain point a threshold is crossed and the argument isn't about Trump VS an honest person, but about the Republican VS The Democrat.

The issue with Warren isn't the insult, but that she claims something about her background that isn't true, despite evidence to the contrary.

With the immigration argument, "Abolish ICE" is a policy position, and its relevance should be considered.

With the separated children, there is no good option. There is a law limiting the amount of time children can be held in custody. If the children were released with their parents, that would incentivize more parents to put their kids at risk crossing the border in the future (The family crossings have become a bigger problem recently.) They could just automatically evict anyone who makes an asylum claim in the wrong place (the overwhelming majority of asylum claims from Central America are rejected), although that's not a great choice either. Trump's Executive order is a temporary fix, and may very well be thrown out by a judge.

It's going to be difficult to come up with a bipartisan solution when one of the top-ranking Democrats went around with a T-shirt announcing that he doesn't believe in borders.

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/0...neapolis-rally

When's the last time a Republican's heritage come into to question?

There was recent discussion about Trump's dad's arrest in the 1920s.

Honestly, I hadn't considered that a backlash against Trump's Pocahontas comments might be informed by Trump's outrageous and ridiculous claims against Obama, in the sense that it makes his comments seem immediately suspect. There's no point to arguing from authority when it comes to Trump (IE- using the fact that he says something to justify its validity) so my understanding of Warren's background isn't based on that at all. It's based on the fact-checkers.

[Gray Lensman]

Trump going to announce his pick for SCOTUS soon, not that it really matters. Anyone he chooses will be just as dangerous as the others on the list.

Actually, Bret Kavenaugh is a little worse since, apparently, he believes that Presidents should be Above the Law. That Presidents should be immune from any kind of legal action or prosecution. Which is why Trump picked him.

Betcha that position would be the opposite if the President was a Democrat. As much as I disliked Scalia, he at least was more consistent than the conservatives left on the court (and Gorusch).

[Tazirai]

I've known this for awhile. But Trump in Montana gave away the Secret of why they call the Democratic party the Democrat party.

He thinks Democratic is too nice for us. (Former me), Democrat ends in Rat, and his low base, low brow voters pick up the rat part.

It's a reason he's a sucky businessman, but marketing genius. He knows how to reach people that don't like to think too hard.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump going to announce his pick for SCOTUS soon, not that it really matters. Anyone he chooses will be just as dangerous as the others on the list.

Actually, Bret Kavenaugh is a little worse since, apparently, he believes that Presidents should be Above the Law. That Presidents should be immune from any kind of legal action or prosecution. Which is why Trump picked him.

Would that make Kavenaugh a lifeline in the event Mueller makes a public reveal of Trump’s dirty dealings with the Ivans?

[InformationGeek]

Trump going to announce his pick for SCOTUS soon, not that it really matters. Anyone he chooses will be just as dangerous as the others on the list.

Actually, Bret Kavenaugh is a little worse since, apparently, he believes that Presidents should be Above the Law. That Presidents should be immune from any kind of legal action or prosecution. Which is why Trump picked him.

Yeeeeeeeeep.

President Donald Trump on Monday nominated Brett Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge in Washington, to succeed Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

Trump made the announcement shortly after 9 p.m. ET at the White House, where he was joined by Kavanaugh and his family. NBC News broke the story shortly before the president made his choice public.

"What matters is not a judge's personal views, but whether they can set aside those views to do what the law and the Constitution require," Trump said in the prime-time announcement from the East Room. "I am pleased to say I have found, without doubt, such a person."

[aja_christopher]

It's not that the lies are equal, but that at a certain point a threshold is crossed and the argument isn't about Trump VS an honest person, but about the Republican VS The Democrat.

The issue with Warren isn't the insult, but that she claims something about her background that isn't true, despite evidence to the contrary.

With the immigration argument, "Abolish ICE" is a policy position, and its relevance should be considered.

It's going to be difficult to come up with a bipartisan solution when one of the top-ranking Democrats went around with a T-shirt announcing that he doesn't believe in borders.

What it is is a childish, immature, racist President throwing meat to his base -- nothing more, nothing less.

If they see that as something that crosses the same "threshold" as Trump lying at a rate of about 100 times per week then that says more about their lack of objectivity that Warren's "dishonesty" -- something that has already been proven by the whole "email" nonsense.

And there you go pointing out one "proxy" that you can try to claim somehow represents the "liberal" position which is exactly what I referred to when I was conversing with the last "conservative" guest to grace our boards -- you know "open borders" and "abolish ice" aren't the real issue at hand, yet you still continue to pivot to those talking points every time the issue is raised, while refusing to admit to -- or even discuss -- the fact that Pence won't even answer questions regarding immigration.

You're sitting here talking about a "bipartisan solution" when the Republicans don't even bother trying to be bipartisan anymore -- the last time we saw a real attempt at bipartisanship was from Obama, and we all know how the Republicans reacted to his seven or so years of outreach, so let's not even go there: recent history has proven that when the "left" tries to meet the "right" halfway, the right just moves further right.

Some Democrat wearing a "T-shirt" isn't the problem and the both of us know it -- the fact that we don't even know what our (Republican) government is doing with hundreds of children is a much, much bigger concern to anyone with a conscience and a sense of responsibility for the actions of said government.

[Tendrin]

Some Democrat wearing a "T-shirt" isn't the problem and the both of us know it -- the fact that we don't even know what our (Republican) government is doing with hundreds of children is a much, much bigger concern to anyone with a conscience and a sense of responsibility for the actions of said government.

But some Democrat did something, Aja, somewhere at some point and that means all things are equal and thus a pox on both their houses in a way that just conveniently exculpates Republicans.

[aja_christopher]

Not my opinion -- just one that puts the Republican immigration agenda into perspective.

-----
"Some quick background: Republicans are supposed to vote tomorrow on two competing bills. One, a hard-line measure sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, would significantly reduce legal immigration, beef up border security, require employers to use the E-Verify system to verify the citizenship of employees (it’s currently voluntary) and give the “dreamers” a temporary legal status but not citizenship. The other, a slightly less severe measure supported by the House leadership, would also restrict legal immigration, but wouldn’t require E-Verify and provides a path to citizenship for dreamers.

So why do I say this is going to fail? Here are the reasons:

They can’t agree amongst themselves. Since Democrats aren’t going to support either of these bills, Republicans have a small margin for error, and they’re confronting a problem they’ve always had: Their few remaining moderates are skittish about the harsher approach, while their conservatives don’t want anything that they think is “amnesty” for anyone, including dreamers. Everyone acknowledges that the Goodlatte bill doesn’t have the votes to pass, and it looks as though the compromise bill — which, we should note, is still very harsh — will also lose enough hard-liners to fall short.

As far as they’re concerned, doing nothing is a viable option. As much as Republicans say they hate the current immigration system, they’ve shown time and again that they’re perfectly happy to shake their fists at it but leave it in place. If the alternative is voting for a bill that a far-right primary challenger will say is amnesty, many of them would rather do nothing. They’ve seen how people such as Sen. Marco Rubio got punished for trying to achieve comprehensive immigration reform that included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and they don’t want to put themselves at risk.

The president won’t help them. Just in the past week, Trump has gone from saying that he won’t support the compromise bill to saying that he supports both bills; as one Republican said after yesterday’s meeting, “He made comments like ‘I’m behind it 1,000 percent,’ but what is ‘it’?” Members of Congress have learned that Trump simply can’t be trusted to keep to a single position from one day to the next. So if you were one of them, would you stick your neck out on the theory that the president had your back?

The Senate won’t pass either of these bills anyway. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that he doesn’t have any intention of bringing up a comprehensive immigration reform bill this year, and it’s almost impossible to see how even the compromise bill — which, to repeat, is still extremely harsh — could get the votes of nine Democrats, which is what it would need to reach 60 votes and overcome a filibuster.

The only incentive is to deal with the family separation crisis and leave it at that. Every day brings more horrifying stories and images of the children who are being separated from their families at the border as a result of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. Trump claims that he hates doing it (which no one believes) and that it’s the fault of imaginary laws passed by Democrats (which is just false). So there’s a solution: pass a narrow bill dealing just with this issue.

There are already bills circulating from both Democrats and Republicans to do just that. Passing one of them could handle the Republicans’ immediate political problem without creating other problems for them with their own base, so that’s the path they’re most likely to choose. Then they’ll go home and tell their constituents that the immigration system is a mess and we absolutely have to do something about it.

One of these days."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-going-to-fail

[aja_christopher]

But some Democrat did something, Aja, somewhere at some point and that means all things are equal and thus a pox on both their houses in a way that just conveniently exculpates Republicans.

I hear one of them wore a tan suit and the other used the wrong email server, which in certain minds probably balances out with conspiring with the Russian government to steal an election, starting international trade wars with historic allies, claiming that there are "very good people" marching with white supremacists, repeatedly asking if you can invade Venezuela, sleeping with porn stars behind your wife's back, and separating families just because they came to America seeking a new life.

On a related note -- Lisa Simpson faked a Native American heritage and also succeeded Trump as President after he drove our nation into bankruptcy.

But this is reality and we can't count on some cartoon character to come along and repair the damage this President has already done, much less what he might do in the future.