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You are here: Home / I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’m still mystified

I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’m still mystified

by DougJ|  July 24, 20178:41 am| 75 Comments

This post is in: Assholes

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It blows me away that, as Dave points out, McConnell won’t even tell the GOP Senators what the fuck he wants them to vote for this week. This piece by former GOP Senator David Durenberger is very good. He details how little is known about the bill and concludes:

A vote in these circumstances will rightly provoke anger and distrust unlikely to abate. Take it from me: A no vote on the Motion to Proceed this week is the only one that will be defensible in the years to come.

I have had my arm twisted by the best of them — presidents and Senate leaders and party whips alike. I know how uncomfortable it can be. Usually, they were able to attempt a convincing argument about what is good about the bill for the country or my state. But I never would have voted for something so far reaching without knowing the answer to all the questions above.

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Reader Interactions

75Comments

  1. 1.

    Cheryl Rofer

    July 24, 2017 at 8:44 am

    Susan Collins says the health care vote is Tuesday but she doesn't know what bill the Senate will be voting on. pic.twitter.com/u9ywb9GsjM

    — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 23, 2017

    But she doesn’t seem to say she’ll be voting no on the Motion to Proceed.

  2. 2.

    Another Scott

    July 24, 2017 at 8:55 am

    “I can’t do it anymore and I’m not satisfied, I can’t do it anymore …”

    Dare we hope?

    McConnell is doing it this way because it’s his only hope of passing anything related to gutting Obamacare and Medicaid. With luck, the 51 other Teabagger Presidents in the Senate will refuse to go along with this dangerous pig-in-a-poke nonsense.

    Grrr.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  3. 3.

    germy

    July 24, 2017 at 8:57 am

    …working “super hard” on health care.

    [TO CADDY]: “Stand clear and keep your eye on the ball!”

    [THWACK!]

  4. 4.

    Droppy

    July 24, 2017 at 9:01 am

    It seems like every republican senator must be the victim of some devastating blackmail. They always, always fall in line, even when they don’t know what is going on, and even when it is manifestly bad for them politically. I think there must be photographs of them committing incest or murder or being nice to a homeless person.

  5. 5.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 24, 2017 at 9:02 am

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Jesus, what a feather merchant.

    Given his grotesque habit of hyperbolizing statements of effort and success, has anybody looked closely at the Mooch’s funds in order to determine if he has a Madoff problem?

    And who would be fucking stupid enough to invest with an asshole like this? To imagine, we laughed at Baghdad Bob.

  6. 6.

    mai naem mobile

    July 24, 2017 at 9:02 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: they put themselves in the corner by screaming about O-Care. These are truly stupid people because they never figured on governing. On top of that theu didn’t figure on governing after acting like total assholes for 8 years.

  7. 7.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    July 24, 2017 at 9:03 am

    Remember, spending a year wheelin’ and dealin’ and having committee hearings, etc is “Shoving it Down Our Throat”.

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 9:06 am

    To not know what you’re voting on?

    Phucking bullshyt

  9. 9.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    July 24, 2017 at 9:08 am

    I guess we know Scaramucci’s job description now: to be a shameless sycophant to a degree that makes other sycophants ill with embarrassment. The Trump family think this stuff is normal human behavior for anybody not named Trump. I guess Scaramucci sees some long term career plan here but it beats me what. Does he think Trump is going to be some kind of Republican kingmaker after he’s indicted by the various state and federal grand juries?

  10. 10.

    low-tech cyclist

    July 24, 2017 at 9:13 am

    I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’m still mystified

    It’s Mitch’s Mystery Dance.

  11. 11.

    Karen

    July 24, 2017 at 9:13 am

    People have become insane; at one time they would disagree with you or agree to disagree, but now if you don’t agree you are personally attacked. If you pull out facts, some people are now resorting to death threats.
    Am having trouble wrapping my mind around a few people who “love” the new front man for White House and believe it was time for someone to “tell it like it is.”

  12. 12.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 24, 2017 at 9:15 am

    So this is what happens when you listen to somebody like:

    1) Mitch McConnell, who has shamelessly pandered for three decades to Appalachia for vote grubbing. He was marginally useful when he had pork to play with – you get some bipartisanship from that, a little horsetrading and a lot of sausage making.

    2) Paul Ryan, who operates under an unofficial policy concocted by a serial child molester by the name of Dennis Hastert. Again, in the absence of the earmark, we now have extremist ideological gridlock, as no member has motivation to vote against the desire of his base.

  13. 13.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 9:24 am

    Blaming Parents Is an Unconscionable Response to Children Fleeing Violence
    The Trump administration’s idea of treating a refugee crisis as the fault of parents crosses a line of morality and decency.

    by Olivia Golden
    July 18, 2017

    This July 4th—a day to celebrate a nation with a rich immigrant history—brought a new and disturbing twist to the attacks on immigrant families by the Trump administration. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is now targeting parents whose children have fled to the U.S. from violence and persecution abroad (so-called “unaccompanied minors”), with the intention of deporting the parents and potentially prosecuting them for trafficking or endangering children. The administration’s policy is to criminalize parents if they have paid a smuggler to bring children to safety in this country, a policy change that threatens American values and the legal framework for protecting children.

    These threats to parents are personal for me. During my mother’s teenage years in the 1930s, as her family fled persecution in Germany, my grandparents first sent her to relatives in France and later to England while they stayed in Czechoslovakia until it was invaded. Were they acting to endanger or “traffic” her? Of course not. They were acting out of love to keep their child as safe as possible in a world that had become deadly, just like today’s parents of unaccompanied minors fleeing from danger in their home countries. In fact, the majority of unaccompanied children seeking protections in the United States today are coming from the Northern Triangle of Central America—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—a region where violence, poverty, and instability have skyrocketed in recent years.

    ……………………….

    Today, President Trump’s immigration executive orders are driving back progress even further. Rather than follow a process allowing children to live with their families while their legal case is considered, DHS proposes to exploit children’s disclosure of their parents’ information to raid, deport, and prosecute them. DHS locates the parents by “using children as bait,” in the words of one federal civil servant: when children provide their parents’ addresses after crossing the border, DHS uses that information to stage a raid. In other cases, parents may be detained when picking up their children from government custody.

    The likely damage goes far beyond just the unaccompanied children themselves, since these parents are often caring for other children, including U.S.-born citizen siblings who will also be left without a home if their parents are deported. Given what we know about the importance of stable family settings in children’s development, learning, education, and well-being, this approach is deeply damaging and costly—and may in the end be ruled illegal, given the history of litigation against unnecessarily housing children for lengthy periods in institutionalized care.

    But even beyond the direct damage to tens of thousands of children and parents, it is morally untenable to target parents for deportation and prosecution because they have been forced to make an impossible, desperate decision to save their children’s lives. At a time when the plight of child refugees—like the toddler who drowned as his family sought to escape from Syria—blares from news headlines around the world, many countries are divided about how to address their responsibilities to these smallest victims of violence and tragedy. But the idea of treating a refugee crisis as the fault of parents crosses a line of morality and decency.

  14. 14.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 9:25 am

    Which Will Come First for Trump Underlings? The Flips or the Pardons?
    by David Atkins
    July 22, 2017 10:13 PM

    Today brings news that investigators and federal prosecutors are putting the pressure on Paul Manafort to flip on his employers, including potentially the Donald Trump campaign.

    U.S. investigators examining money laundering accusations against President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort hope to push him to cooperate with their probe into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia, two sources with direct knowledge of the investigation said.

    Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team is examining Manafort’s financial and real estate records in New York as well as his involvement in Ukrainian politics, the officials said.

    Between 2006 and 2013, Manafort bought three New York properties, including one in Trump Tower in Manhattan. He paid for them in full and later took out mortgages against them. A former senior U.S. law enforcement official said that tactic is often used as a means to hide the origin of funds gained illegally. Reuters has no independent evidence that Manafort did this.

    The sources also did not say whether Mueller has uncovered any evidence to charge Manafort with money laundering, but they said doing so is seen by investigators as critical in getting his full cooperation in their investigation.

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 9:29 am

    “Post-Trump Stress Disorder” Will Haunt Americans for Years to Come
    by D.R. Tucker
    July 24, 2017 5:00 AM

    ……………………………………..

    Even if Trump goes away via impeachment or a re-election loss, these voters will not go away, nor will the so-called cultural anxiety that led them to cast their vote for the Donald. Of course, there is real cultural anxiety out there–the cultural anxiety felt by the targets of Trump’s tirades.

    The young American Muslim girl who just wants to walk to school without being harassed by someone who hates her hijab because Trump told them to will continue to have real cultural anxiety.

    The businesswoman being groped by a supervisor who thinks Trump’s treatment of women was not pathetic but copacetic will continue to have real cultural anxiety.

    The young black man who fears being pulled over by a cop who views him the way Trump viewed the folks who were wrongfully accused of the Central Park Jogger attack will continue to have real cultural anxiety.

    The Mexican-American child whose parent was kicked out of the country by a government that prefers to have those who are brown not stick around will continue to have real cultural anxiety.

    Even if Trump were to leave the White House tomorrow, he wouldn’t take the hate he has whipped up over the past several years with him. Trump, arguably more so than any post-Eisenhower Republican President who came before him, has erected a form of psychological Jim Crow in this country, making it virtually impossible for Americans to coexist across the barriers of identity and ideology.

    It’s a grotesque guarantee that Trump will do his best to keep this country psychologically segregated once he’s out of office. The rallies will surely continue, designed to harass either a Democratic successor or a Republican successor deemed insufficiently right-wing. The tweeting won’t stop until he’s physically incapable of operating a smartphone. Every effort to move this country forward–on energy, on health care, on guns, on economics–will be assailed by the ex-president and his execrable partisans, aided and abetted by such outfits as the Sinclair Broadcasting Group.

    Once Trump leaves office, our long national nightmare will not be over. That’s the reason we have to stay woke.

  16. 16.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 9:31 am

    Kushner appears to be saying he agreed and went to this meeting while failing to read emails saying what it was about — twice. https://t.co/kRLlbHLVku
    — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) July 24, 2017

    Kushner’s statement says he “did not read at the time” a long email chain from Don Jr about Russian meeting:https://t.co/SwzEPPWNhc pic.twitter.com/Oe7pwbUdDl
    — Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) July 24, 2017

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    July 24, 2017 at 9:31 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Who knew pork barrel politics made governing in a diverse society possible? Well, plenty of people, but they were shouted down by the righteously outraged who successfully pushed for its elimination. I don’t know how you reinstate it since the arguments in favor require abstract thinking and the ability to quell knee-jerk reactions.

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 9:32 am

    As Trump took office Scaramucci negotiated with a Russian investment fund under US sanctions https://t.co/iMUVeqieqH pic.twitter.com/FUvCXVzmb0
    — Mother Jones (@MotherJones) July 23, 2017

  19. 19.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 9:36 am

    Some frontpager needs to post this – please.

    found at TOD:

    Sheila
    July 23, 2017 at 6:45 pm

    ALEC unveils Const. Amendment to let Gov’s, Legislatures pick US Senators;https://t.co/SqvKDIZCcl via @progressnownm
    — Pretty Foot (@PrettyFootWoman) July 23, 2017

    The resolution reads in part:

    Section 1. The seventeenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

    Section 2. Senators shall be elected exclusively by the State legislature, upon a majority vote of legislators present and voting in a joint session. If a vacancy shall exist for more than one hundred-eighty days, then the Governor shall appoint the Senator to serve the remainder of the vacant term. This procedure may not be modified by state initiative or referendum.

    One only needs to examine the electoral map to understand why ALEC is pushing for a repeal of the 17th Amendment now.

    With the majority of states under GOP control, Republicans could snatch some 17 U.S. Senate seats from Democrats if the state legislatures are given the right to pick Senators.

  20. 20.

    MattF

    July 24, 2017 at 9:40 am

    Well, McConnell is now treating Republicans (almost) as badly as he’s treated Democrats. Surprise!

  21. 21.

    Mike H

    July 24, 2017 at 9:42 am

    But I never would have voted for something so far reaching without knowing the answer to all the questions above.

    That’s why you’re a former GOP senator, sir.

  22. 22.

    Calouste

    July 24, 2017 at 9:59 am

    @rikyrah:

    This procedure may not be modified by state initiative or referendum.

    Ooh, states’ rights!

  23. 23.

    Citizen_X

    July 24, 2017 at 10:01 am

    @rikyrah: Wow. Wow. Raise your hand, anybody who saw that coming. Okay, everybody put their hands down.

    They really hate those amendments in the teens, don’t they? (Oh, but they “love” the Constitution, of course.)

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    July 24, 2017 at 10:02 am

    @Droppy:

    It seems like every republican senator must be the victim of some devastating blackmail. They always, always fall in line, even when they don’t know what is going on, and even when it is manifestly bad for them politically. I think there must be photographs of them committing incest or murder or being nice to a homeless person.

    It’s probably any number of things (with multiple ones being applicable to certain senators):
    – blackmail of all kinds, as you’ve noted
    – financial threats from the Kochs, Mercers, RNC (“we’ll never fund another campaign of yours again”)
    – financial/primary threats from same (“we’ll fund any/every primary opponent of yours until you’re out of office”)
    – other financial threats (“you know that cushy K Street gig we told you was going to be waiting for you in 2018/2024/2030/etc? Fuggedaboutit”)
    – financial incentives (the reverse of all the above)
    – other threats such as threatening to unleash the Trumpkin hordes in all their gun-totin’ glory on Senator X’s next campaign event

    Frankly, given the amount of money involved (in the taxes on the wealthy that fund the ACA) and the ideological rabidity of the Randians, it wouldn’t surprise me if they were trying to ‘cash out’ certain Senators who were holding out – not just with the incentives listed above, but by telling them straight-up: “Yes, we know if you vote for this you’ll lose your seat. When you do, we’re going to set you up with a cushy think tank or lobbying job FOR LIFE – heck, set you AND your spouse up for life – if you’ll just vote to repeal”. And why not? They can always just help the next GOP candidate for that seat by carpet-bombing the Democrat.

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    July 24, 2017 at 10:03 am

    Hello moderators, what’d I say wrong to land in moderation at #24?

  26. 26.

    Mom Says I'm Handsome

    July 24, 2017 at 10:09 am

    @Betty Cracker: Score another notch in the belt of purity politics. While there are thousands of examples of how earmark abuse can lead to abysmal policies (a defense contractor in every congressional district, for instance), at least in the sphere of pork-barrel politicking your congresscritter could stand a chance of having his phone call to his colleague across the aisle answered. Now these fuckers have lunch in their own Sekrit Libtard Haterz Dining Hall and get scolded for being seen talking to The Enemy.

    I’ll take a little old fashioned Quid Pro Quo if it greases the machinery of gummint. How else are Demoncraps going to maintain their reputation for graft and corruption if the Repukes get all the goodies?

  27. 27.

    But her emails!!!

    July 24, 2017 at 10:10 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Who knew pork barrel politics made governing in a diverse society possible? Well, plenty of people, but they were shouted down by the righteously outraged who successfully pushed for its elimination. I don’t know how you reinstate it since the arguments in favor require abstract thinking and the ability to quell knee-jerk reactions.

    Two of the things that have become conventional wisdom which are most destructive of our political system are:
    1. Elimination of earmarks
    2. Term limits for legislative positions

  28. 28.

    Mom Says I'm Handsome

    July 24, 2017 at 10:10 am

    @Jeffro: Every single one of my comments ends up in moderation; yours don’t? Did you quid pro quo your way into the FP’ers’ good graces? Aerating Cole’s lawn, are we?

  29. 29.

    chris

    July 24, 2017 at 10:10 am

    @rikyrah: Also and too. Badass Betsy spoke to ALEC last week in Denver.

    http://www.alternet.org/activism/hundreds-protest-betsy-devos-ahead-alec-speech-denver

  30. 30.

    Vhh

    July 24, 2017 at 10:20 am

    @rikyrah: which is why he HAS to support Trump now: the Russkies own his a$$.

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    July 24, 2017 at 10:21 am

    While I await un-moderation of my absolutely astounding and insightful comment above…nickel bet that Trumpov vetoes the Russia sanctions bill heading his way.

  32. 32.

    gbear

    July 24, 2017 at 10:23 am

    I’m glad to see ex-senator Dave Durenberger getting a word in on this. He was the only republican that I ever voted for other than Arne Carlson for governor. Dave worked very hard on health issues while he was in office. It’s a shame that he screwed up and lost his senate seat over a stupid book deal.

  33. 33.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 24, 2017 at 10:26 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Elimination of the pork+slavish devotion to the Serial Child Molestor Rule+Ideological Extremism as Plural Viewpoint in the Gerrymandered Primary Base=Legislators Incapable of Governing

  34. 34.

    MattF

    July 24, 2017 at 10:33 am

    @Jeffro: Ya think? Apparently still hasn’t gotten the word from Moscow.

  35. 35.

    Cheryl Rofer

    July 24, 2017 at 10:33 am

    Liberated three comments. No idea why FYWP tagged them for moderation.

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    July 24, 2017 at 10:46 am

    Josh Marshall at TPM, “The Crisis Is Upon Us”

    As is so often the case, the reporting is both a symptom of the broader crisis and also a genuine service. We learn critical new facts, by dint of reporting skills and access. But they are presented in the nonsensical play-by-play speak of the access class. Note the reference to “Bob Mueller signaling that he plans an expansive, exhaustive investigation aimed at Trump, his relatives, and current and former political lieutenants.” This is presented as an escalation when in fact it is simply a statement of the nature of the investigation itself.

    Mueller is investigating Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election and whether the Trump campaign colluded or conspired or assisted in that effort. That is the charge and that inevitably requires looking at everyone involved in the Trump campaign (candidate, family, political lieutenants) and their finances, since finances would be the seedbed and playing field on which collusive bargains and deals would take place. This is elementary. The reporting itself is playing into the Trump legal team’s claim that the investigation is already exceeding its mandate and scope.

    Now, if three years from now, Robert Mueller indicts Trump and members of his family for defrauding American investors in a real estate deal on a golf course in California we may be in a different circumstance. This is simply how big investigations operate. The specific charge in this instance instructs Mueller to investigate the question at hand and pursue any crimes he finds along the way. So as a legal matter, there would be nothing wrong with that hypothetical. As a substantive or political matter, Trump supporters might have some argument that what began as a probe of the collusion question has become an open-ended scrutiny of every business transaction Trump has ever engaged in. But needless to say, none of this has happened. So unless and until it does, it’s all quite irrelevant. The President is saying himself and through his cronies that he will not allow any investigation.

    The reference to building a ‘wartime cabinet’ captures every fiber of the grandiosity, nonsense and criminality of the Trump world. Pathological narcissism, slavering toadies and Godfather references – they’re all there. As I say in the tweet, Trump seems to envision himself as the Churchill of obstruction. But there’s no war. This is just organizing the White House around defying the rule of law as opposed to running the country. Play-by-playing that fact is no service.

    This is a crisis. It will escalate dramatically when Trump fires Robert Mueller. Then the Congress will become the only failsafe in the way to extra-constitutional rule

    Or as Marshall summed it up in a tweet:

    The mix of nonsense from the perps and numskull play by play by the announcers means this will get bad fast

  37. 37.

    Jeffro

    July 24, 2017 at 10:48 am

    @Mom Says I’m Handsome: LOL I have no idea why I get ‘modded’ most times. Occasionally I forget and correctly spell soshulism, but other than that…who knows?

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    July 24, 2017 at 10:52 am

    @Mom Says I’m Handsome:

    I’ve been reading a book called Six Frigates about the founding of the US Navy, and pork-barrel politics is literally as old as our Constitution. The six ships all had to be built in different seaports (including in George Washington’s home state of Virginia) to spread the business around and get Congress to vote for it.

  39. 39.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 24, 2017 at 10:52 am

    Abraham Lincoln: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

    Franklin Roosevelt: “Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.”

    Dwight Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.”

    Ronald Reagan: “Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

    George W. Bush: “As I begin, I thank President Clinton for his service to our Nation, and I thank Vice President Gore for a contest conducted with spirit and ended with grace.
    I am honored and humbled to stand here where so many of America’s leaders have come before me, and so many will follow. We have a place, all of us, in a long story, a story we continue but whose end we will not see. It is a story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, the story of a slaveholding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.”

    Donald J. Trump: “Sleazy Adam Schiff, the totally biased Congressman looking into ‘Russia,’ spends all of his time on television pushing the Dem loss excuse!”

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    July 24, 2017 at 10:53 am

    @Mom Says I’m Handsome:

    FYWP doesn’t always like apostrophes in nyms, so that may be the issue.

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    July 24, 2017 at 11:00 am

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:
    He already has his billion(s) so what’s his motivation here? Why demean himself so publicly in service to an obvious sociopath? Does he simply love the camera that much or is this supposed to lead to something else?

  42. 42.

    catclub

    July 24, 2017 at 11:09 am

    @rikyrah: The key point of the Plum Line article was shoving Don Jr under the bus to protect Kushner.

  43. 43.

    Iowa Old Lady

    July 24, 2017 at 11:16 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I thought about that when Trump complained that the Rs weren’t protecting “their” president. He doesn’t see himself as president of all the people. It infuriates me that Conway, for instance, constantly disses Democrats when we pay part of her salary. She works at the WH not the RNC. She works for all the people.

  44. 44.

    catclub

    July 24, 2017 at 11:17 am

    @trollhattan:

    so what’s his motivation here?

    All I can figure is that he is mercurial (of which there is much evidence that he is changeable), and has presently convinced himself that Trump is the best. never mind all the other times when someone else was the best.

  45. 45.

    Gelfling 545

    July 24, 2017 at 11:17 am

    @chris: “Badass Betsy” you misspelled dumb.

  46. 46.

    ? Martin

    July 24, 2017 at 11:18 am

    @trollhattan: What’s that tax cut worth to him? $100M? He’s a lobbyist for himself, working out of the WH.

  47. 47.

    Doug R

    July 24, 2017 at 11:24 am

    @Betty Cracker: It’s only pork barrel waste in every one else’s district. We just have to find the right balance between corrupt waste and letting areas have agency with their money.

  48. 48.

    gene108

    July 24, 2017 at 11:30 am

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    2) Paul Ryan, who operates under an unofficial policy concocted by a serial child molester by the name of Dennis Hastert. Again, in the absence of the earmark, we now have extremist ideological gridlock, as no member has motivation to vote against the desire of his base.

    What Ryan operates under is more extreme than what Hastert did as Speaker. With Hastert, you had to have a majority of Republicans on board, to get something passed. So if you had 230 Republicans in the House, you needed 116 Republicans to vote ‘Yes” and get the rest of the votes from Democrats.

    What Ryan is doing is setting things up so that bills can be passed only by Republican votes, thus freezing the Democrats out of having influence on any legislation.

    If 218 Republicans aren’t on board, Ryan won’t try to bring it up for a vote.

    Boehner kind of flirted with this from time-to-time, but on important stuff like budgets and the debt ceiling, he was willing to work with Democrats to get the votes needed to keep the government running.

  49. 49.

    TriassicSands

    July 24, 2017 at 11:33 am

    @mai naem mobile:

    These are truly stupid people because they never figured on governing.

    The key word in your sentence may be “governing.” The Republicans — and Trump — don’t want to govern. They want to rule. Ruling simply requires telling others what to do and they obey. It’s a lot simpler than governing.

  50. 50.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    July 24, 2017 at 11:35 am

    @trollhattan: He already has his billion(s) so what’s his motivation here? Why demean himself so publicly in service to an obvious sociopath? Does he simply love the camera that much or is this supposed to lead to something else?

    Yes, and… I think at a certain point it becomes about trophies for people like this. People are speculating he wants to be WHCOS, that’s a pretty small club and means more in his world than among normals. Moving up Forbes lists, getting his picture took with Merkel and Putin and Abe and maybe even old Betty or the Pope! A bigger suite in Davos, better tables in Manhattan….

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    July 24, 2017 at 11:39 am

    @Citizen_X:

    They really hate those amendments in the teens, don’t they?

    Everything past the 12th.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 11:41 am

    @catclub:

    @rikyrah: The key point of the Plum Line article was shoving Don Jr under the bus to protect Kushner.

    I thought that was obvious weeks ago. LarryO did a few nights where he detailed Kushner, and why he would have no problem doing that to Dolt45 Jr., by giving the history of his father, and why his father went to jail.

  53. 53.

    gene108

    July 24, 2017 at 11:51 am

    @rikyrah:

    One only needs to examine the electoral map to understand why ALEC is pushing for a repeal of the 17th Amendment now.

    With the majority of states under GOP control, Republicans could snatch some 17 U.S. Senate seats from Democrats if the state legislatures are given the right to pick Senators.

    Among right-wingers, wanting to repeal the 17th Amendment is a thing they think will make government work better. I’ve heard right-wingers talk about repealing the 17th Amendment for over 10 years now. What they say is, if the Senate is directly accountable to state legislatures, the Senate will work harder to further state rights or a states interests or something.

    It’s screwy logic, as all you’d have is a few powerful state legislators being king makers for appointing Senators, which would lead to a lot of corruption.

    But anyway, I’m no longer surprised right-wing fever dreams become reality these days.

    On a side note, some Republican controlled states are pushing for a new Constitutional convention to recreate the Constitution as Jesus and Ayn Rand would’ve done. I think 10 states have signed onto it.

  54. 54.

    cmorenc

    July 24, 2017 at 12:02 pm

    @rikyrah: To pass ALEC’s proposed change to election of US Senators by state legislature, their only politically feasible route is by calling a constitutional convention by Constitutional Convention (need approval of 2/3 of state legislatures) – because the regular amendment process (requiring 2/3 vote of both US House and Senate + 3/4 of state legislatures ain’t gonna happen). However, should ALEC / the GOP succeed in getting 2/3 of the states to call for a constitutional convention, there is no limit to what changes could be proposed.

    HOWEVER, any changes proposed by said constitutional convention still need ratification by 3/4 of the state legislatures, even though only 2/3 are required to successfully call for the convention. That means they need 38 rather than just 34 legislatures to approve any changes proposed by the convention – just as with amendments going the regular route. Even though proponents claim they have 28 state legislatures on-board, even if so the extra 6 to get to a convention is a steep climb, and the extra 4 on top of that to get any convention-proposed changes ratified is far steeper still.

  55. 55.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 12:12 pm

    Kellyanne Conway makes her case against Bob Mueller
    07/24/17 11:31 AM
    By Steve Benen

    Kellyanne Conway spoke with CNN’s Brian Stelter yesterday, and while they covered a fair amount of ground, I was struck by this exchange on speculation that Donald Trump may look for ways to get rid of Special Counsel Bob Mueller:

    STELTER: [M]any people are afraid if this president fires Robert Mueller, we will be in a constitutional crisis. Why doesn’t the president just want Mueller to prove that Trump is right, that Russia was a hoax? Why doesn’t he want Mueller to go ahead and confirm that for him?

    CONWAY: Well, isn’t Mr. Mueller and his band of Democratic donors doing that? Are they trying to do that?

    In context, it wasn’t altogether clear what point Conway was trying to make. It sounded as if Conway was looking for a way to use the phrase “Mr. Mueller and his band of Democratic donors” and so she just forced into the conversation.

    Regardless, there have been multiple reports of late about Trump World looking for ways to undermine and discredit Mueller’s ongoing investigation, and Conway was effectively sharing what she’d come up with: some people on the special counsel’s team have contributed to Democratic candidates for public office.

    Conway made a similar pitch to Fox News late last week, and on Twitter last month.

    It is, by any fair measure, a tough sell. This investigation is, after all, being led by Mueller, a lifelong Republican. Unless Conway and her colleagues are prepared to argue that Trump can only be investigated by an entire team made up exclusively of other Republicans, Mueller working with some attorneys who’ve supported Democratic candidates isn’t exactly scandalous.

  56. 56.

    Frankensteinbeck

    July 24, 2017 at 12:21 pm

    @gene108:
    One correction: Boehner ran this as a hard rule, and Ryan is only continuing his insane policy. Boehner caved on debt and budget votes and allowed Dems to vote when he had to pass SOMETHING and his caucus gave him the middle finger.

  57. 57.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 12:27 pm

    We must drive calls to Capito today. She has to hear that her constituents OPPOSE repeal! (202) 224-6472
    twitter.com/i/web/status/8…
    —
    (@igorvolsky) July 24, 2017

  58. 58.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 12:29 pm

    Watch How the House Republicans Jerk Around Their Base
    by Martin Longman
    July 24, 2017 9:53 AM

    The House of Representatives is supposed to return to legislative business today at 2pm. The wheels on their bus aren’t exactly turning smoothly so it’s hard to be sure what their plan is since it keeps changing. They’ve abandoned the plan I called the dumbest ever back on July 14th, to pass this year’s appropriations bills in one giant package that their members would not have even been able to read. Instead, they appear to have scaled that back to what they’re calling a “minibus” bill (as opposed to a omnibus one) that will only include defense spending, an Energy and Water bill that involves our nuclear weapons, the money for veterans, and funding for the border wall.

    ……………………………

    During their Thursday colloquy on the House floor, Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., asked Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., to explain the process under which the consolidated “minibus” appropriations bill would be considered.

    McCarthy said that the minibus will be considered under a structured rule and that “we assume that there will be hundreds of amendments,” and that that is why he expects there will be late votes next week.

    Hoyer asked McCarthy if he expects “we will bring the other eight [appropriations] bills to the floor in September.”

    McCarthy replied: “I do intend to bring the rest of the appropriations bills through this floor and get them done to send them to the Senate.”

    Hoyer noted that McCarthy mentioned earlier in the colloquy that the minibus would include funding for a border wall and that the Homeland Security bill is not in the appropriations package, and then asked him which bill the funding would be included in.

    McCarthy said that the funding “will be an amendment made in Rules for the bill.”

    Hoyer asked McCarthy to clarify as to whether the funding for the border wall would be an amendment automatically adopted as part of agreeing to the rule for the bill or if the amendment would be one made in order for floor consideration in the Committee of the Whole.

    McCarthy said that he “can’t promise what the Rules Committee will do.” He continued: “The Rules Committee will find the right place to apply it, and we’ll be able to have the discussion on the floor.”

    Hoyer said that he would hope McCarthy will make it known to the Rules Committee that “we ought to have that as a free-standing amendment, not incorporated in a rule that the vote for the rule or a vote against the rule is in of itself a vote on the wall itself.”

    I don’t know if you understand that or not, but it looks like they’re going to try to sneak the wall funding into the rule under which the overall bill will be considered rather than having it actually included as an itemized appropriation. In a way, it makes no difference. But doing it this way helps members who oppose the funding make the argument that they never voted for it directly. It may also make it impossible to strike the funding out using an amendment, making the only way to kill the funding to defeat the entire minibus bill. Conversely, conservatives who don’t like the levels of spending in the four appropriation bills will be able to argue that they did vote for the wall funding. And this will be important to them because the funding will surely never pass in the Senate or become law.

  59. 59.

    zzyzx

    July 24, 2017 at 12:32 pm

    @rikyrah: Not worried about 67 Senators voting for that.

  60. 60.

    TriassicSands

    July 24, 2017 at 12:41 pm

    @rikyrah:

    It sounded as if Conway was looking for a way to use the phrase “Mr. Mueller and his band of Democratic donors” and so she just forced into the conversation.

    Eureka, rikyrah, I think you’ve hit on the truth there. Imagine someone of Kellyanne Conway’s towering intellect and integrity resorting to mere talking points. Unthinkable!

  61. 61.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    July 24, 2017 at 12:41 pm

    I’m sitting in the (packed) auditorium of Oakton High School in Vienna, VA, for the Brazilian brother-in-law’s citizenship ceremony. Many other almost-citizens and family members.

    Lots of backing and forthing. The candidates are being checked in by row. My niece (almost 3) and nephew (15 months) are sporting their “Future Voter” stickers, courtesy of the voter registration desk outside.

  62. 62.

    TriassicSands

    July 24, 2017 at 12:46 pm

    @rikyrah:
    @zzyzx:

    Not even Manchin is going to vote for that one. Unless he doesn’t realize it would cost him his seat. Or maybe he’d make a deal, he’ll support the amendment if they agree to have the WVA legislature elect him in perpetuity to his senate seat. That might work.

  63. 63.

    Jacel

    July 24, 2017 at 12:46 pm

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: We are far past the time when every reference to the Hastert Rule should be corrected to the Convicted Child Molester Rule.

  64. 64.

    rikyrah

    July 24, 2017 at 12:49 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    I’m sitting in the (packed) auditorium of Oakton High School in Vienna, VA, for the Brazilian brother-in-law’s citizenship ceremony. Many other almost-citizens and family members.

    Awe…

    WELCOME TO AMERICA!!

  65. 65.

    TriassicSands

    July 24, 2017 at 12:50 pm

    @gene108:

    Among right-wingers, wanting to repeal the 17th Amendment is a thing they think will make government work better.

    If by “better” you or they mean increase the power of the Republican Party to ram legislation down the throats of all Americans, then, yeah. If by “better” you mean will allow the Republican Party to reduce the Democratic Party to permanent, impotent minority status, then, yeah.

  66. 66.

    randy khan

    July 24, 2017 at 12:54 pm

    Apparently Senator Barasso has saId that the bill that’s officially going to be going to the floor will be the bill that passed the House. If the motion to proceed passes, then it becomes amend-o-rama time. So, in other words, a total nightmare.

    I’ve called my two Democratic Senators to provide positive reinforcement. I’ll give some Republicans a call later.

  67. 67.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    July 24, 2017 at 1:02 pm

    @Jacel:

    To be fair, he didn’t get convicted of the molesting – only the money bits. I like calling him a serial child molestor, myself.

  68. 68.

    GregB

    July 24, 2017 at 1:02 pm

    The white whale of the stolen election is weighing on Red Don’s ego. If the truth is found out about how he conspired to steal this election his whole game is blown.

    It is eating him up because it is the truth.

    The true election story is the Tell Tale Heart beating under his floor boards.

  69. 69.

    TenguPhule

    July 24, 2017 at 1:04 pm

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    But she doesn’t seem to say she’ll be voting no on the Motion to Proceed.

    Fuck Susan Collins with Rusty spiked pike. That’s your fucking moderate Republican, the same as the rest of them only with better PR.

  70. 70.

    Raven Onthill

    July 24, 2017 at 1:11 pm

    “McConnell won’t even tell the GOP Senators what the fuck he wants them to vote for this week.”

    That’s the point. If they vote for this incredibly unpopular bill, they’ll vote for anything.

  71. 71.

    TenguPhule

    July 24, 2017 at 1:19 pm

    @rikyrah: Why not just call it the “Declaration of Civil War on Democracy Amendment”?

  72. 72.

    No Drought No More

    July 24, 2017 at 1:34 pm

    The republican party has been the party of rule or ruin my entire life. In the past 14 hers alone, those people stole a presidential election (or two); they lied the country into war; attempted to privative social security, that on the eve of the great crash of 2008; subverted our justice department under the auspices of attorney general Alberto Gonzalez; an subverted our democracy for 8 years because the country elected a black man (who mother was caucasian) to be POTUS.

    That’s just the past 14 years, and I’m merely scratching the surface. When I was a kid, Richard Nixon also committed bald faced treason by subverting the Paris Peace talks. Although we didn’t learn that until much later, it’s easy to see now that particular crime (there was more to come!) was just par for the course for the republican party.

    Trump is no anomaly. The GOP is the party of rule or ruin. It is who they are, and what they do. I say it’s about time Americans took their blinders off, and began to wise up about them.. Which is what’s happening, and it’s a fantastic, uplifting thing to watch the sleeping giant begin to wake up and smell the coffee..

  73. 73.

    jonas

    July 24, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    At this point, McConnell could probably just take a huge dump on a paper plate, call it a health care bill and call for a vote and we would be in about the same place, legislatively.

    He’d probably pick up a few votes for the plate of shit vis-a-vis what they’re currently offering as a health care bill to boot.

  74. 74.

    frosty

    July 24, 2017 at 1:47 pm

    @cmorenc: Thank you for that clarification. A potential constitutional convention is one of those nagging worries. It’s good to hear that the bar is a little higher than 2/3 of the states.

  75. 75.

    jonas

    July 24, 2017 at 2:14 pm

    Uh, oh. I think I got stuck in moderation for using a slightly rude word to describe McConnell’s bill. Little help, FP’rs?

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