US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Recently saw a newspaper headline that claimed boats crashing into bridges happens all the time.

 

[dustbuster]

As I said, on paper. And if 2022 taught me anything its to never, ever underestimate how much the Uniparty republicans will eagerly do their best to throw safe seats just to spite Trump.

TBH if they're re-authorizing fisa 702 and rewarding the FBI with a new headquarters after what they did to Trump, I don't see how losing their seats spites trump.
Not losing their seats, however...

Let's vacate the chair 3 or 4 times between now and November so the great mass of normies really gets turned off to our totally lacking in self awareness autistic tantrums

For fuck's sake

Mitt, please just retire already.
Yes, we know it's fucking you.
Utah hates you you know.

Push too hard and too often and it becomes the usual, weakening your position overall.

Forcing traitors out is never "weakening your position", at worst it's admitting you never had that position in the first place, because it was occupied by a traitor.
The chair needs to be vacated when it doesn't represent your voters, because the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem, publicly.

(if that means more RINOs go nuclear and leave the house to a "speaker jeffries", so be it. Everything passed since 12/2023 has had more Democrat than Republican votes, anyway!)

 

[Qtinterval]

Trump is so bad that people have to constantly lie about him to prove how bad he is...

One thing about our current situation that has proven useful is that it's allowed me to evaluate a lot of my previous assumptions. For example, there are a lot of people in my life who I thought of as intelligent. But what I realized is that what people think of as intelligence is more a matter of agreement. The more you agree with a person's thoughts or actions, the more intelligent you think they are. So in a way, people who aren't intelligent at all manage to falsely signal their intelligence by simply repeating the thoughts and opinions of what are considered intelligent people. It's like the difference between being witty and repeating jokes you read from a book.

But, anyway, if a person allows others to lie to them, or trusts people who intentionally withhold information from them, that person isn't intelligent. They don't want to understand anything. They just want to know what they're meant to say in order to feign it. They are false people. Recognize it and behave accordingly.


It's Vox. Their legal analysis is as useful as a Zimbabwean dollar.

Not to give vox a sort of win but a Zimbabwean dollar can be used to wipe one's ass so it can be useful. Funnily enough anything from vox prolly should be used to wipe one's ass.

 

[draggs]

"We have to let the Uniparty RINOs put the brakes on everything that might possibly be done to stop or harm Biden's admin or it looks bad" is right on par with "We need to lose with dignity."

Look fat

The Republican Party is more or less guaranteed to get 45% of the vote in a national election. Meaning Presidential year or midterms

The Democratic Party is more or less guaranteed to get 48% of the vote

The other 7% is who wins elections. These appreciators of fence sodomy don't like it when a Party is flailing about hitting itself in the balls like spastic retards constantly. Intentionally in purity spirals. Very communist of you tbh

Where the fuck were you chucklefucks 20 months ago when the entire Party was caught flatfooted on abortion. 2022 is your failure as much as it is the GOPe's there

Mike Johnson has blocked a large amount of Democrat priorities for 7 months with no margin for error in his caucus and a Republican Senate minority caucus that is much more establishment than his House caucus is. You were wagging your dicks in the face of the Josh Shapiros and John Fettermans like it was in the bag, that was a lot of help retaking the Senate wasn't it? Lot of help in the PA governor and legislature elections, wasn't it? Lot of help nationally, wasn't it? Now even Matt Gaetz is a traitor cuck or something to you childish, deeply unserious people. You've become almost as bad as faggots like Ken Buck. Don't worry you'll get there

Sorry the whole Party can't be, I don't even know, MTGs? Who the fuck does satisfy you people anymore? Trump? He can't exactly run for President and all 100 Senate and 435 House seats, can he? Who wouldn't you turn on? Mark Meadows? Jim Jordan? Andy Biggs? Paul Gosar? Byron Donalds? Scott Perry? That latina Jew MILF from Florida? Boebert? Why don't you win a seat in the House, take over the caucus, and run roughshod over the Uniparty like the QuantumChads you are? Can't be that hard

It looks real smart when you keep preferring to hang separately instead of together. Every. Single. Time. Maybe at some point being an effective political operation is more important than giving you choccy milk because you think choccy milk is the same thing as winning

Mitt, please just retire already.
Yes, we know it's fucking you.
Utah hates you you know.

At some point, promising wins and getting losses matters. Mitt Romney was and is a loser, and you're following in his footsteps

 

[AnotherPleb]

This election really will be a war between an utterly devastated left-wing ground game mixed with a resurgent and pissed off right.... versus ballet printer goes brrrrrrrr. There is no way, at all, the democrat's do not get fucking destroyed in both chambers of congress and the executive... on paper. The "keys to the Whitehouse" has every single key be False. If 6 or more are false it means a presidential incumbent loses. 13 of 13 are false. Beyond that every polling metric... has Trump leading,

The senate? Defacto 23 for Democrats and only 11 for Republicans means its already a hard battle , add in that only one of the republican seats is in a weaker state and as much as eight of the Democrats could be considered in play... and weeeeeell. Not an enviable position to be in on a presidential election where turnout will be incredibly high.

As for the house? Already Republican controlled, in year where the Republican is polling high enough to possibly get the popular vote? That's on paper going to be a bloodbath.


And in the other corner, a bedraggled and beleaguered fraud machine, that has every last bit of news coming out be how it will need to work even harder. This will be -interesting- to watch,

There's also the big elephant in the room that is the judiciary. If blatant fraud is done, what's stopping those cowards from bleating about standing and laches again?

By the standards of the unspoken goal of 'being the heel and making sure the populist wings is stifled', they're doing incredibly well.

There is a reason I keep calling them the Washington Generals.

 

[Gehenna]

TBH if they're re-authorizing fisa 702 and rewarding the FBI with a new headquarters after what they did to Trump, I don't see how losing their seats spites trump.
Not losing their seats, however...


Mitt, please just retire already.
Yes, we know it's fucking you.
Utah hates you you know.


Forcing traitors out is never "weakening your position", at worst it's admitting you never had that position in the first place, because it was occupied by a traitor.
The chair needs to be vacated when it doesn't represent your voters, because the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem, publicly.

(if that means more RINOs go nuclear and leave the house to a "speaker jeffries", so be it. Everything passed since 12/2023 has had more Democrat than Republican votes, anyway!)

It is not "Forcing traitors out" to hold a vote that fails. Sure it might be revealing a couple but chances are they were already known. All you do in that case is reveal you can't control those under you.

 

[draggs]

Oh yeah frenly reminder that there were only 8 House Republicans who voted to kick McCarthy's ass to the curb

Couldn't even get 1/6 of the Freedom Caucus to go along. 6/41. Plus Mace and Burchett. And now Buck, one of those eight, betrayed you because he turned out to be a faggot, and another one, Gaetz, apparently has as well. But you're the wave of the future everybody better coddle you and placate you and give you all the choccy milk you want when you throw tantrums and put you in charge with unlimited power and nod our heads when you go into yet another purity spergout it's the only way jfc

Seriously, who the fuck do you think you are? Kinda surprised you haven't turned on Trump too, you're holier than the God-Emperor Himself after all

 

[Gehenna]

Mike Johnson has blocked a large amount of Democrat priorities for 7 months with no margin for error in his caucus and a Republican Senate minority caucus that is much more establishment than his House caucus is. You were wagging your dicks in the face of the Josh Shapiros and John Fettermans like it was in the bag, that was a lot of help retaking the Senate wasn't it? Lot of help in the PA governor and legislature elections, wasn't it? Lot of help nationally, wasn't it? Now even Matt Gaetz is a traitor cuck or something to you childish, deeply unserious people. You've become almost as bad as faggots like Ken Buck. Don't worry you'll get there

I am generally in agreement with your post, the purity spiral isn't helpful. That being said Mike Johnson is proving to have some issues outside of purity. My big issue is that while I -think- he might be bidding his time until he has more power to do better things, he is constantly weakening his own position and cannot seem to decide where to make a stand and where to let things slide. So he keeps making half-missteps. Not bad enough to be thrown out on his ass but bad enough to be an accumulating amount of damage. Put simply, my issue is that he is showing in inexperience. And he cannot afford to.

 

[draggs]

I am generally in agreement with your post, the purity spiral isn't helpful. That being said Mike Johnson is proving to have some issues outside of purity. My big issue is that while I -think- he might be bidding his time until he has more power to do better things, he is constantly weakening his own position and cannot seem to decide where to make a stand and where to let things slide. So he keeps making half-missteps. Not bad enough to be thrown out on his ass but bad enough to be an accumulating amount of damage. Put simply, my issue is that he is showing in inexperience. And he cannot afford to.

So he has many of the same problems as his haydurs. And he does lean too much on his leadership team - which is too establishment - because he's inexperienced. Maybe everyone should get together and agree to stop being self-sabotaging retards to each other. It's a lot easier to do intraparty squabbles when you have a comfortable majority

 

[dustbuster]

It is not "Forcing traitors out" to hold a vote that fails. Sure it might be revealing a couple but chances are they were already known. All you do in that case is reveal you can't control those under you.

Let's do a possibility tree exercise like in a shitty undergrad business course for the sake of clarity:

1. A traitor speaker is outed, and replaced with a more representative speaker (good)
2. A traitor speaker is outed, and the house is deadlocked voting forever on a new speaker (better than what is happening now)
3. A traitor speaker is outed, and traitor back-bench reps out themselves by either voting for a democrat "compromise" candidate or retiring and allowing Jeffries to become speaker (clarifying and outing fake GOP for the base to rout by staying home in 2024 - Good on balance)
4. A traitor speaker is NOT outed, because democrats cross the aisle (clarifying which party the speaker ACTUALLY works for and highlighting the target for the base in 2024 - Also Good on balance)

I don't see a problem with any of these possibilities.
I'd prefer a caucus of reps that DONT piss on me, but if the only choice is to piss on me and call it rain or piss on me and call it piss, i'll take the latter every time because at least the guy pissing on me is not also lying to me.

 

[Gehenna]

So he has the same problem as his haydurs. Maybe they should all get together and agree to stop being self-sabotaging retards to each other

What he -should- do is actually somewhat counterintuitive. He should decide to become Beige McBeigman. He -is- in a weak position with very little he can actually do. Assuming he does have good intentions and is mearly hashing it up, the best thing he could do is... well, kinda what he does do... occasionally. Blend into the background, make minimal noise, be a minor speedbump on anything less than utterly egregious. Only acting when something is clearly going to try to tip the balance like the FISA bill. Where it was at least limited and moved to a battle when they would be potentially stronger.

He keeps picking the wrong battles though. Going after bills that really could just be let go as he bides his time and then just letting pass things that would be worth more of a fight. So I am left with the impression he is either in way over his head and needs to bring on some experienced hands... or he actually is a RINO in disguise doing his best to look almost-competent.

I suspect a lot of people are cluing into that second possibility and, given the Uniparty's demonstrated willingness to throw their own babies out with the bathwater, are more than a little justifiably paranoid.

 

[Breadbassket]

Johnson’s Plan for Ukraine Aid Meets Republican Pushback, Muddying Its Path​

Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday encountered stiff resistance from Republicans as he embarked on a complicated and politically perilous strategy to push legislation through the House to send aid to Israel and Ukraine — all while beating back a threat to his own job.

Mr. Johnson, who has agonized for months over whether and how to advance aid to Ukraine that many in his party bitterly oppose, has settled on a multipart plan that will require everything to go right for him this week to prevail.

It aims to bring together a complicated mix of bipartisan coalitions and allow different factions in the House to register their opposition to pieces of the aid package without sinking the entire thing. And it would ultimately mean cobbling together just enough support from Democrats and mainstream Republicans to pass the legislation amid resistance from hard-right Republicans to Ukraine funding and among left-wing Democrats to unfettered aid for Israel.

Mr. Johnson plans to advance a legislative package that roughly mirrors the $95 billion aid bill the Senate passed two months ago with aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other American allies — but broken down into three separate pieces that would each be voted on individually. There would also be a fourth vote on a separate measure containing other policies popular among Republicans, including conditioning Ukraine aid as a loan.

The strategy has run into a flurry of opposition from members of his own party, including one Republican, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who on Tuesday announced that he would join a threatened bid to remove Mr. Johnson from the top post.

“We’re steering toward everything Chuck Schumer wants,” Mr. Massie said of the aid package, referring to the Senate majority leader in explaining his decision to reporters after the meeting.

Mr. Johnson said he chose the approach because “every member, Republican and Democrat, can vote their own district and their own conscience on this thing.” It would allow, for example, Republicans who support aid for Israel but abhor aid for Ukraine to register each position separately, instead of forcing them to support or reject a combined foreign aid bill.
“The will of the House is to address it in single subjects, in regular order, in a regular process with an amendment process,” he said on “Fox and Friends.”

If all four pieces passed the House, they would then be folded into a single bill for the Senate to take up, in an effort to ensure that senators could not cherry-pick pieces to approve or reject.

Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he was “reserving judgment” on the legislative package “until we see more about the substance of the proposal and the process by which the proposal will proceed.”

House Republican leadership aides were working on Tuesday to put together the bill text. But some members of Mr. Johnson’s own party were already balking.

Mr. Massie, a libertarian-leaning lawmaker who was a leader of the effort to oust John A. Boehner as speaker nearly a decade ago, endorsed the ouster effort against Mr. Johnson led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, making him the second Republican to do so. In a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning, he stood and told Mr. Johnson that he should announce a resignation date and allow Republicans to choose a new speaker before he relinquished the top post.

Representative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative, said he was unhappy that Mr. Johnson had not included any border security measures in the foreign aid package — as he previously had insisted he would — and opposed the idea of sending the separate measures to the Senate in one package.

“Don’t use Israel as a way to force Ukraine down the throats of the American people without having border security,” Mr. Roy said.

The speaker’s plan, he said, “is being sold as an open process, but it’s all structured to achieve a final omnibus result which is going to be effectively similar to the Senate bill.”

Despite conservative frustration with the plan, it seemed far from clear that other Republicans would join Ms. Greene’s effort to oust another speaker, after Kevin McCarthy was removed from the position last October. Mr. Massie’s announcement on Tuesday prompted open frustration from mainstream Republicans and even some conservatives, who said they did not want to go through another painful ouster.

“We don’t need that,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio. “No way. No way. We don’t want that. We shouldn’t go through that again.”

And a group of mainstream conservatives rallied to Mr. Johnson’s side. In a remarkable joint statement, all three leaders of the national security panels in the House — Representatives Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee; Mike Turner of Ohio, chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Mike Rogers of Alabama, chairman of the Armed Services Committee — endorsed the plan. Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Appropriations chairman, also signed on.

“There is nothing our adversaries would love more than if Congress were to fail to pass critical national security aid,” they wrote. “Speaker Johnson has produced a plan that will boost U.S. national security interests in Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific. We don’t have time to spare when it comes to our national security. We need to pass this aid package this week.”

Mr. Johnson defended his decision on Tuesday and flatly ruled out resigning.

“I regard myself as a wartime speaker,” he said at a news conference at the Capitol minutes after the closed-door meeting. “In a literal sense, we are. I knew that when I took the gavel. I didn’t anticipate that this would be an easy path.”

Former President Donald J. Trump, who gave Mr. Johnson a boost in a joint appearance last week but has recently upended the speaker’s legislative agenda, was circumspect when asked on Tuesday about Mr. Johnson while making a campaign stop after proceedings in his New York criminal case.

“Well, we’ll see what happens with that,” Mr. Trump said. “I think he’s a very good person.”

Even getting the national security package to the House floor for a vote would require extraordinary measures. Given mounting Republican opposition and the party’s razor-thin majority, it appeared certain that Mr. Johnson would not be able to bring up the bill, which requires a floor vote, without Democratic support.

The minority party almost never votes for a rule advanced by the majority in the House. But Democrats previously helped pave the way for legislation to suspend the debt ceiling, averting the nation’s first-ever default, and have since signaled that they might be willing to come to Mr. Johnson’s aid on issues of critical importance.

At least one Democrat, Representative Jared Moskowitz of Florida, suggested on Tuesday that he would move to save Mr. Johnson if hard-right Republicans forced a vote to remove him, a move that Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has suggested many in his party would consider.

“Massie wants the world to burn, I won’t stand by and watch,” Mr. Moskowitz wrote on social media. “I have a bucket of water.”

Article Link

 

[Gehenna]

Let's do a possibility tree exercise like in a shitty undergrad business course for the sake of clarity:

1. A traitor speaker is outed, and replaced with a more representative speaker (good)
2. A traitor speaker is outed, and the house is deadlocked voting forever on a new speaker (better than what is happening now)
3. A traitor speaker is outed, and traitor back-bench reps out themselves by either voting for a democrat "compromise" candidate or retiring and allowing Jeffries to become speaker (clarifying and outing fake GOP for the base to rout by staying home in 2024 - Good on balance)
4. A traitor speaker is NOT outed, because democrats cross the aisle (clarifying which party the speaker ACTUALLY works for and highlighting the target for the base in 2024 - Also Good on balance)

I don't see a problem with any of these possibilities.

I have several problems with your honestly naive take here.

First off, bringing any vote to the table and losing (what i was talking about) would not out a "traitor speaker" as the speaker will always vote for the bill. If a speaker as a traitor he would arranage someone else to give a no vote so he doesn't get his hands dirty. So your entire premise is flawed from the word go. Traitors who -lead- generally avoid being that obvious about it.

Second, in your third one Jefferies gets in meaning the democrats now control the house. How long do you think it would take them to immediately make a bill stopping Trump from running? We have razor thin margins as it is, and you'd be handing the role of who gets to decide what to bring to vote to someone who could actually do damage. At the time he could do the most damage. Please -think- beyond your immediate wants.

Also all of these assume he is a traitor with no other explanations and is just an absolute case of assuming everything is exactly as you think it is and nothing at all unexpected could occur if what you want occurs. Its naive.

 

[Gehenna]

Article Link

See, this is what he should be doing. He is in an absolutely weak position. He cannot actually oppose the aide, there is absolutely enough traitor votes to make it pass. So instead he's cut it into pieces ensuring everyone who does vote for it has their name on it. It also forces everyone involved to actually say where they stand, something I would heavy suspect he has had issues getting people to say behind closed doors. Its absolutely designed as a way to finally get people to actually declare their intentions.

Now, do I think it could be done better? -Yes-. I actually agree with Chip Roy that adding in border security would have been a good idea, and the general idea this shouldn't be sent to the Senate as a whole piece (Unless it had the border security stuff in it). Those decisions feel like he is compromising too much, acting hesitant, showing again a lack of experience.

 

[dustbuster]

First off, bringing any vote to the table and losing (what i was talking about) would not out a "traitor speaker" as the speaker will always vote for the bill.

I'm talking about a motion to vacate the chair that is 3 months overdue, not a "bill"

Second, in your third one Jefferies gets in meaning the democrats now control the house. How long do you think it would take them to immediately make a bill stopping Trump from running? We have razor thin margins as it is, and you'd be handing the role of who gets to decide what to bring to vote to someone who could actually do damage. At the time he could do the most damage. Please -think- beyond your immediate wants.

I read this in the whiny voice of John Boehner.

We have literal show trials happening on US soil.
I don't give a shit about anything other than stopping them or shutting down this illegitimate regime.

The current speaker is governing with a Democrat coalition against the will of his voters.
He needs to be out no matter what comes next.

 

[Betonhaus]

What I want to know is after the election, the evidence of rigging that will inevitably come out... will the press be able to suppress it this time? The lawsuits against Fox et all probably gave even the righty news outlets an internal mandate to ignore electrion fraud stories no matter what.

They'll be broken down rigging machines which increases the odds they'll fuck up, they'll be desperate which increases the odds they'll fuck up, and they'll have to do way more rigging this time which increases the odds they'll fuck up a LOT.

And what happens if there's ironclad evidence that the DNC (through one of their puppet orgs) was rigging a national election? Do we pull a JFK and just politely ignore it cause the alternative is immediate civil war?

I expect counting places will have overnight vigils that last until the race is called, where there's a crowd of people watching all movements in and out of the building. It might also be harder to kick out neutral poll watchers, and even partisan poll watchers may call out the fraud.

 

[draggs]

Why do these Lost Causers even care who is Speaker of the House of the tyrannical Union

I guess the eternal legitimacy of the Confederasah takes a back seat to more immediate concerns of power... maybe they just want to be in charge so they can split the South off and go be in charge of it. Though that seems kinda cold to the good people of the rest of the country crying out for freedom from the uniparty or whatever

 

[Gehenna]

I'm talking about a motion to vacate the chair that is 3 months overdue, not a "bill"

Okay so were talking about separate things. Got it. That's still a bad idea though. Actually think through this please. Not your ideal where everything ends up fine, actually think about this. If he fails to be ousted... you have accomplished nothing. Your side looks weak. If you do oust him... who replaces him? No MAGA candidate would ever win, that last fight proved that and there were -more- Republicans then. So you either get Jefferies (And give the Democrat's a massive amount of power when they could do the most damage) or a true RINO (Who will do a much worse job than Johnson).

Your desire fucks you over -no matter the outcome-. It is a quintessential example of cutting off your nose to spite your face. No matter what happens, the outcome is -worse- than the current status quo. At -least- wait to call for it after the elections when you could potentially have -literally any- positive outcome.

Why do these Lost Causers even care who is Speaker of the House of the tyrannical Union

I guess the eternal legitimacy of the Confederasah takes a back seat to more immediate concerns of power... maybe they just want to be in charge so they can split the South off and go be in charge of it. Though that seems kinda cold to the good people of the rest of the country crying out for freedom from the uniparty or whatever

Oh come on, you were on a roll for actually good posts then you do this? This helps nothing.

 

[dustbuster]

If he fails to be ousted... you have accomplished nothing. Your side looks weak.

I disagree.
It becomes very clear who he actually works for, the base stays home in 2024 and his seat gets a legitimate representative in 2026.

If you do oust him... who replaces him? No MAGA candidate would ever win, that last fight proved that and there were -more- Republicans then

Disagree here.
If hard-liners were harder line they'd have gotten a MAGA speaker.
In the event the fucking jellyfish afraid of what the NYT would say are not ALSO folding like cheap suits before that ultimatum, it again makes clear who has to go in 2024.

I'm not thinking about my "immediate wants".
I'm thinking long-term just like Pelosi did in 2009.
She sacrificed a majority to purge useless, toothless blue dogs and within a few years had a majority willing to throw actual punches.

I fucking want that, for my side.
I am willing to sacrifice a 2nd Trump Term to make the rest of gop into Trump instead, through merciless attrition.

This "reform" of the GOP ranks to counter a much more hard-line marxist DNC is now 6 years overdue.
With every cycle we purge more RINOs. It hasn't been fast enough. I'd love to speed up, but even at this pace it still must happen.

 

[Gehenna]

I disagree.
It becomes very clear who he actually works for, the base stays home in 2024 and his seat gets a legitimate representative in 2026.


Disagree here.
If hard-liners were harder line they'd have gotten a MAGA speaker.
In the event the fucking jellyfish afraid of what the NYT would say are not ALSO folding like cheap suits before that ultimatum, it again makes clear who has to go in 2024.

I'm not thinking about my "immediate wants".
I'm thinking long-term just like Pelosi did in 2009.
She sacrificed a majority to purge useless, toothless blue dogs and within a few years had a majority willing to throw actual punches.

I fucking want that, for my side.

They absolutely would not have. How, in the hell, would the hardliners being more hardline ever have accomplished jack? No, seriously. Lets say they dug in -forever-... they didn't have anywhere near potentially, even possibly enough votes to have gotten someone better.

A -conservative- number of RINOs is about 45-50

You need 218 votes in order to get a speaker.

There is, at max, 41 members of the freedom caucus.

Unless the Republicans had a 263-268 majority, those 41 could have held out till the end of time. There simple wasn't enough votes to get a MAGA candidate. Period. Where the hell do you think they could have gotten the votes if they were simply harder line? Do you think if they held out the RINOs would have caved and voted for one? Or that the Democrats would have voted for one? That is laughable. Jefferies would have been voted in well before a full MAGA candidate was ever even considered.