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

[aja_christopher]

Wait, people actually pay money to see the latest "Scary Movie"?

1 Scary Movie $157,019,771 3,301 $42,346,669 2,912 7/7/00
2 Scary Movie 3 $110,003,217 3,505 $48,113,770 3,505 10/24/03
3 Scary Movie 4 $90,710,620 3,674 $40,222,875 3,602 4/14/06
4 Scary Movie 2 $71,308,997 3,220 $20,503,356 3,220 7/4/01
5 Scary Movie 5 $32,015,787 3,402 $14,157,367 3,402 4/12/13

Total Gross: $461 million

They had a good run... though the well is probably dry at this point.

Have no fear though -- I think Marlon is hard at work on his next cinematic masterpiece "50 Shades Blacker".

[Tami]

My first article of the day

Iowa went big for Trump, but there are signs its voters are souring on the president

Despite it all, Iowa has seemingly soured on the president and his party. The end-of-year Iowa Poll, an industry standard conducted by Des Moines-based Selzer and Co., found Trump with just 35 percent approval in the state. Only 34 percent of Iowans said they would back Republicans for Congress in 2018, and 61 percent said they were turned off by politics altogether.

The discrepancy between the rosy economic picture and the public’s distaste for Trump in Iowa has confounded both parties and complicated one of the major political stories of the decade — the Republican romp through the Midwest.

[Tami]

The Daily 202: Trump’s true priorities revealed in holiday news dumps

In the week that followed, Trump kept giving his members new reasons to celebrate. While cable news fixated on how much he was golfing — NBC reports that Monday was Trump’s 91st day at a golf course as president – his political appointees back in Washington worked overtime to deconstruct the administrative state, eviscerate several of Barack Obama’s signature achievements and roll back significant environmental protections.

Underscoring how politically unpopular these moves are, most were rolled out on the Fridays before Christmas and New Year’s Eve to minimize media coverage and public notice.

Like Richard Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell said, watch what they do — not just what they say. Trump campaigned like a populist. Now more than ever, he’s governing like a plutocrat.

[KOSLOX]

My first article of the day

Iowa went big for Trump, but there are signs its voters are souring on the president

Iowa was extremely divided on the Hillary/Bernie nomination which probably helped lower blue turnout, or flipped them. Additionally, Iowa is mostly white, and generally is light purple outside of Steve King's district in the NW, a lot of the dog whistles people like myself and other POCs clocked immediately were ignored by the larger white population because it doesn't really effect them. Further, a lot of the progressive centers of the state were very much into the Bernie or Bust narrative. I imagine the next election won't have as divisive a candidate (on the democratic ticket).

I think Kim Reynolds has a pretty good chance at losing the Governor election as well. People are furious with her, and see her as very tone deaf.

[Iron Maiden]

The Daily 202: Trump’s true priorities revealed in holiday news dumps

Trump probably doesn't even know the meaning of the word "plutocrat". But he acts just like the U.S. Government is his company and he is the CEO with no one to keep him in check. That's why he was stupid enough to say in the now famous Lester Holt interview that he fired Comey over "this Russia thing"

[KOSLOX]

Trump probably doesn't even know the meaning of the word "plutocrat". But he acts just like the U.S. Government is his company and he is the CEO with no one to keep him in check. That's why he was stupid enough to say in the now famous Lester Holt interview that he fired Comey over "this Russia thing"

Trump has never run a "real" company either. He's run a glorified family business, and never had to deal with a board with any real power.

[Malvolio]

I'd politely disagree about that.

- If I do the dishes, they wind up clean.
- If I mop, the floor winds up clean.
- If I take out the trash, it winds up on the curb.

You don't always get those results from voting. If you got anything remotely like those results, folks might look at voting differently.

I did not say that voting will automatically clean things up. But if intelligent people refuse to vote, and more stupid people do vote, we wind up with the mess we have now. I'd rather vote to clean up at least a little of the mess, than complain that the mess will never be completely cleaned up and watch as it gets worse and worse.

And BTW, about that last one, yes, the trash winds up on the curb, but if you don't pay for the private trash pick-up, or the government does a poor job of public trash pick-up, the trash just piles up on the curb into it falls into the street.

[Overhazard]

Iowa was extremely divided on the Hillary/Bernie nomination which probably helped lower blue turnout, or flipped them. Additionally, Iowa is mostly white, and generally is light purple outside of Steve King's district in the NW, a lot of the dog whistles people like myself and other POCs clocked immediately were ignored by the larger white population because it doesn't really effect them. Further, a lot of the progressive centers of the state were very much into the Bernie or Bust narrative. I imagine the next election won't have as divisive a candidate (on the democratic ticket).

I think Kim Reynolds has a pretty good chance at losing the Governor election as well. People are furious with her, and see her as very tone deaf.

The mayor of Cedar Rapids is running for governor, I know that. I'm not entirely sure how well liked he is, but I haven't heard a lot of complaints about him.

[KOSLOX]

The mayor of Cedar Rapids is running for governor, I know that. I'm not entirely sure how well liked he is, but I haven't heard a lot of complaints about him.

My Alderman is running too. He's alright, the only interaction I've had with him is when I emailed him to bitch about some roadwork going on at 3:00a near my house. He mailed me back early the following day, and the construction work picked up during later hours the rest of the week.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I'd politely disagree about that.

- If I do the dishes, they wind up clean.
- If I mop, the floor winds up clean.
- If I take out the trash, it winds up on the curb.

You don't always get those results from voting. If you got anything remotely like those results, folks might look at voting differently.

Ok but you're talking about your house. If you're cleaning up the Empire state building and you do your share of the floors, trash, and dishes it still might not be a net clean for the building. America isn't in the micro it's in the macro. So if you take yourself out of the pool you increase the chances that it winds up dirty. That said, if you think both your options are dirty or that the only way to get clean is to scare people with a mess, then yeah that may be more effective.

[Tami]

5 ways the 2018 midterms could change American politics

The results of this year’s midterm elections will be enormously important — not just in shaping the future of Donald Trump’s presidency, but in shaping the American political landscape for a great many years to come.

A sprawling series of contests for a plethora of offices in different states will be on the ballot in November. There’s the whole House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, 36 governorships, and many state legislature seats. That’s so many races that only the most obsessive political observers could possible keep track of them all.

Naturally, there will be a whole lot of horse race coverage this year, over whether Democrats or Republicans are expected to do well or poorly. That’s all well and good.

But to understand why the question of who wins is so important — really, to understand why the midterms matter so much — it’s worth taking a step back and looking at the big picture of what’s at stake.

Depending on how well Democrats do, the party could kill the Republican legislative agenda in Congress, gain new powers to investigate the Trump administration, get the ability to block Trump’s nominees from being confirmed, pass new liberal state laws in many parts of the country, and win many offices with power over the 2021 redistricting process.

But if Democrats do poorly, they could feel the consequences of their failure for a generation.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Depending on how well Democrats do, the party could kill the Republican legislative agenda in Congress, gain new powers to investigate the Trump administration, get the ability to block Trump’s nominees from being confirmed, pass new liberal state laws in many parts of the country, and win many offices with power over the 2021 redistricting process.

But if Democrats do poorly, they could feel the consequences of their failure for a generation.

And don't think Republicans aren't aware of that, and more. Since they're married to THE most unpopular president this country's seen in over a generation, the GOP will have to do everything they can despite Trump leading their party as I'm sure they fear the likelihood that anything he touches in terms of candidate endorsements will turn to ****, i.e. what happened in Alabama with Luther Strange and Roy Moore. That means Republicans will be cranking up their dirty tricks machine to 12, and with gerrymandering already in place, they'll be working overtime to mitigate losses. Meanwhile, Democrats need to get their act together and stop screwing around, stop bringing plastic knives to gun fights and get down and dirty if they want to win. I worry Dems are still living under Michelle Obama's mantra: "When they go low, we go high". Kill that noise, there's too damn much at stake to continue playing Boy Scout, if Dems want to reclaim power, they're going to have to jump down into the mud pit and rip it from the hands of the GOP.

[mojotastic]

Today in 1804 was Haiti Independe from the French, this action would sent schockwaves to South America, where Simon Bolivar would arrive to Haiti to prepare his plan for his independence movement in New Granada (Now Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and part of Guyana) from the Spaniards and his action would be follow by the other in Latin American countries.

[Iron Maiden]

Trump has never run a "real" company either. He's run a glorified family business, and never had to deal with a board with any real power.

Yeah, I'd have to agree here too. He frequently used contractors on projects....and then would try and weasel out of payments. Have we ever seen a figure on just how many people he had on the payroll for Trump Corporation prior to the eleciton?

[master of read]

not sure if this is the right place to say this but...........logan paul is scum