Trump's Card

[caja-dglh]

It is typically useful not to have a Presidential candidate that has spoken very clearly about never wanting to be in politics, let alone be President.

[Gerontophile]

It should be Adam Schiff.

(Even better if it were Richard Schiff)

[San Bernardhinault]

I am not in favour of whatever the opposite of gerontocracy is - where you fetichise youth and end up with Tony Blair and David Cameron who "look young". But, equally, when your only candidates are over 70 or related by marriage or descent from previous leaders, you've got a serious paucity of talent. Please, no more Obamas or Clintons or Bushes or Trumps. And I desperately hope that Bernie Sanders doesn't run in 2020, because that really means that the only voice of the Left is nearly 80 years old. If a presidential candidate in the US (bar those seeking re-election) is over 70, I get nervous about the consequences. You don't want to discount that talent pool but there's an exponentially greater risk of senility or death once the years start ticking past 75.

[Ginger Yellow]

Looks like the Dems have taken the Virginia House to 50/50. By a single vote.

[Lang Spoon]

Woo-hoo!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Wahey!!!!

Is that Medicaid expansion then?

[Tubby Isaacs]

The outgoing governor having a last crack with his proposed budget. Is that right, it's worth $421m free money in a state the size of Virginia? How can anybody run on not expanding, and get any votes at all?

Under the federal Affordable Care Act, federal money would cover 90 percent of the additional cost of expanding the program. McAuliffe proposed covering the remaining cost through a “provider assessment” on hospitals, an arrangement the state’s hospitals had agreed to in previous years.

The budget predicts savings of $421.7 million over the two-year period by taking the federal money — freeing up state resources to use on other priorities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...=.ada63ed70769

[Tubby Isaacs]

Democrats seem to have won the popular vote in the Virginia house by 9 points. Not unlike their governor's victory.

And still 50/50. That's shocking. Even allowing for uncontested races.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Trump family in "We Don't Know How To Vote" shock!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Josh BarroVerified account @jbarro

Phil Rucker says sources have been telling him Trump keeps complaining that Rod Rosenstein, who is a Republican, is “a Democrat.”

Hm. What characteristic of Rosenstein’s would cause him to say that?

As David Frum says, could be the Rosen or the Stein.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Trump family in "We Don't Know How To Vote" shock!

Trump got his own birthday wrong?

The Perils of going through life believing that every day is your sweet Sixteen.

[ad hoc]

Nikki Haley sends threatening letter to UN members

"The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us,"


read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...mpaign=General

[Nefertiti2]

Democrats seem to have won the popular vote in the Virginia house by 9 points. Not unlike their governor's victory.

And still 50/50. That's shocking. Even allowing for uncontested races.

The level of Gerrymandering in us elections is actually mindblowing

[G-Man]

Nikki Haley sends threatening letter to UN members

"The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us,"


read more: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...mpaign=General

If he's following it so closely, he can do a Google News Search. It would inform him: "The whole world, even your friends, is telling you to piss off".

[ad hoc]

I feel that the fact that he can easily find out who voted against them is not so much the point as the implicit threat.

[SouthdownRebel]

One wonders what the response would be if the list of names simply said “all of them”

[Guy Profumo]

Don't tell her, Pike!

[G-Man]

I feel that the fact that he can easily find out who voted against them is not so much the point as the implicit threat.

Well, yes, Haley's threat to tell on everyone is a bit of Trumpesque grandstanding and schoolground intimidation which should invite our ridicule. What is he going to do? Punish everyone in the whole world?

[Mr Beast]

He's threatening to withhold aid because the great citizens of his great country won't be taken advantage of any more.

[E10 Rifle]

Yes because those great citizens all give so much of a shit about where an embassy in a place most will never visit and know little about is situated.

[Lang Spoon]

If it wasn’t for China sitting there like a giant shitbag rubbing its hands I’d be quite enjoying this. Pretty soon no one will listen to a fucking thing the US says.

And if even Macron and Merkel are making disapproving noises over the Jerusalem move, maybe soon Israel will end up properly isolated, even more dependant on the US (and its secret best friends like the fucking Saudis).

[Lang Spoon]

Would be quite a thing if China decided to massively invest in the West Bank and Gaza. Doubt they’d meekly rebuild without complaint every time Israel acts the maggot like the EU does.

[Gerontophile]

Yes because those great citizens all give so much of a shit about where an embassy in a place most will never visit and know little about is situated.

I have to assume, that all semblance of "not all", and most certainly, "not all/not many/none of us" is in progress here, so much that we don't do it?

*And of course forgetting the most important: powerless.

[ad hoc]

My only positive here is that the more Trump publically supports the occupation and Israel in general, the more your average Israel cheerleading "liberal" will start to wonder if perhaps they are on the wrong side.

See also Morrissey.

[San Bernardhinault]

The moronic tax bill has passed both houses, and the President will now sign it.

I'm not inclined to call it a disastrous tax bill - it's not like I think $1.5tn of extra borrowing over a decade is a particularly big deal, and I'm all for not freaking out about increased deficits when borrowing is cheap. It's just silly, because that money is going nowhere helpful. Indeed, hopefully when Democrats have control of Congress and the Presidency in three years time, they can put the corporate tax rate back up and use that money for something useful now that the Republicans have decided they're happy with borrowing extra and have coded it in.

And, in fact, there are some little hints of progress in the bill - reducing the mortgage interest deduction is clearly sensible; it would be better if they kept titrating it down towards half a million or less. It's possible that reducing the SALT deduction is also sensible - I'm unsure on that because it reduces states' abilities to experiment, but reducing deductions is generally a good thing. Most of the most destructive stuff, like not allowing teachers to deduct expenses, and attacking tertiary education, seems to have come out of the bill. Really, the only genuinely bad things are the removal of the individual mandate, and the opening of Alaska to oil drilling. The rest is basically a massive and pointless bribe to Republican donors, but not actually that destructive by the standards of what Republicans generally want to do.