Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[RedSpawn]

Seriously, dude, you need to start your own government plots thread instead of insisting on continued attempts to hijack this one.

 

How can I hijack a discussion group responding to quotes from this very discussion group topic? I haven't changed the content of the quotes I am responding to.

 

By the way, you didn't answer the question. If someone came to you and said they think the government is covertly keeping telephone metadata on millions of US Citizen's because of 09/11, would you think said person was paranoid, a nutjob, a conspiracy theorist, or a dissident?

 

Chances are, at a minimum, you would at least think they are paranoid EVEN WHEN the federal government is doing the very act that you think it would not do. Somehow, we believe that our own government wouldn't betray our trust until a brave person like Snowden shows us a very inconvenient truth.

 

Again, I am not suggesting Edward Snowden is a traitor or a hero, the courts can decide that matter. However, Snowden is a courageous person for showing us "REALITY" and the inconvenient truth we don't want to believe. I believe a good measure of citizens prefer to believe the comfort of partisan based propaganda (courtesy of fingertip technology) than to have to hold our government accountable to the Constitution.

[RedSpawn]

The Minority president:

 

Across the battery of questions in the survey, Trump’s hardcore base of support appears to be about a quarter of the public, give or take:

 

24 percent say that, since taking office, Trump has “acted in a way that’s fitting and proper for a president of the United States.” Seventy percent say Trump has acted in a way that is “unpresidential.”

 

24 percent approve of Trump’s use of Twitter. Just 13 percent strongly approve. Two-thirds disapprove of the president’s use of social media, and 53 percent strongly disapprove.

Compared with previous presidents, 23 percent think “Trump is doing a better job than most.” While 17 percent say he’s doing a “much better” job, 38 percent think he’s doing “much worse.”

 

3 in 10 believe Trump is “a positive role model for young people.” For perspective, 18 percent said the same of Bill Clinton in a Post/ABC poll conducted the week after the salacious Starr Report was released in 1998.

 

27 percent think “America’s leadership in the world has gotten stronger” under Trump.

 

26 percent believe it was appropriate for Trump’s son, Donald Jr., to meet last summer with a Russian lawyer who said she had damaging information about Hillary Clinton. (This includes just less than half of Republicans.)

 

Despite all evidence to the contrary, just over 3 in 10 Americans still do not think the Russian government tried to influence the outcome of last fall’s U.S. presidential election.

 

While 34 percent trust Trump to negotiate on America’s behalf with other world leaders, only 19 percent trust him “a great deal.” The other 15 percent trust him just “a good amount.” Two-thirds of the country does not trust Trump at all in negotiations, which is remarkable when you think back to how heavily he emphasized his negotiating skills during the campaign.

 

On health care, 24 percent favor the Republican plan over Obamacare. Seventeen percent “strongly” favor the GOP plan, which was not explained in detail.

 

source; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/07/17/daily-202-only-1-in-4-americans-strongly-support-trump/596be2fee9b69b7071abcb4a/?tid=pm_pop&utm_term=.b163797df2db

 

So why don't we start impeachment proceedings for Trump and waste more money and government time in a political process where Republicans own the House and Senate. Republicans are going to vote NOT GUILTY on the articles because impeachment is a political proceeding and not a criminal one.

[Winstonm]

So why don't we start impeachment proceedings for Trump and waste more money and government time in a political process where Republicans own the House and Senate. Republicans are going to vote NOT GUILTY on the articles because impeachment is a political proceeding and not a criminal one.

 

As you should know, the fact that the Republicans control Congress means there will be no impeachment proceedings until Republican re-election chances are dramatically damaged by Trump. I would estimate that would take poll approval numbers consistently in the 25-29% range.

 

Here is the reality of our situation. Change takes time. It is normal for people to be reluctant to admit they made a mistake. What this means is that what you will see with Trump voters is a slow move from support to non-support, not an overnight slap of the forehead, what-have-I-done moment but a slippage from strong support to mild support to weak support to neutral to finally disapproval - the good news is that this slippage is moving at a remarkably fast rate. It is not the 36% overall approval rating that is critical but the number of "strong approvals" that has dramatically dropped in 6 months.

[Winstonm]

Furthermore, the most disheartening reality is that we somehow placed this man Trump in a position he could not envisage in his wildest dream - above the normal constraints of law and law enforcement. Who is going to arrest and prosecute the president of the United States? We can only hope for a reckoning - with hell riding with it. Who's our huckleberry?

[ggwhiz]

As you should know, the fact that the Republicans control Congress means there will be no impeachment proceedings until Republican re-election chances are dramatically damaged by Trump. I would estimate that would take poll approval numbers consistently in the 25-29% range.

 

That is an overall view but as GOP Senators as well as Congress continue to get blowback in their home districts during the recess and we get closer to 2018 they will start counting seats. I don't think it will take numbers as low as you chose or a long time given that it will take some time to right the ship under President (ugh) Pence but he's a smooth talker and could pull it off given enough lead time.

[y66]

From Health Care Overhaul Collapses as Two Republican Senators Defect:

 

WASHINGTON — Two more Republican senators declared on Monday night that they would oppose the Senate Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, killing, for now, a seven-year-old promise to overturn President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

 

The announcement by the senators, Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas, left their leaders at least two votes short of the number needed to begin debate on their bill to dismantle the health law. Two other Republican senators, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine, had already said they would not support a procedural step to begin debate.

 

With four solid votes against the bill, Republican leaders now have two options.

 

They can try to rewrite it in a way that can secure 50 Republican votes, a seeming impossibility since the defecting senators are not suggesting small changes to the existing bill but a fresh start. Or they can work with Democrats on a narrower measure to fix the flaws in the Affordable Care Act that both parties acknowledge.

 

Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, conceded Monday night that “the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failure of Obamacare will not be successful.” But he said he would move to pass a measure to repeal the Affordable Care Act now, then work on a replacement over the next two years. That has almost no chance to pass, either, since it could leave millions without insurance and leave insurance markets in turmoil.

 

But President Trump was not ready to give up. He immediately took to Twitter to say: “Republicans should just REPEAL failing ObamaCare now & work on a new Healthcare Plan that will start from a clean slate. Dems will join in!”

What else is new?.

[RedSpawn]

From Health Care Overhaul Collapses as Two Republican Senators Defect:

 

 

What else is new?.

If Congress can only be this adamant about military spending bills which are $93 billion more than Trump requested for 2018.

 

I like the repeal and replace later idea. It's built on a foundation of trust that politicians haven't earned.

[y66]

From the NYT Editorial Board:

 

Republican legislative leaders are in a bind. While they appear to have failed for now in their goal of destroying the Affordable Care Act, their eagerness to shower tax breaks on the wealthy at the expense of health coverage for millions of Americans has crimped their ability to pass other fiscal legislation.

 

This is not a lament. It’s just as well that they haven’t done anything big, given their goals. But it is a stunning demonstration of incompetence that, with control of the House, the Senate and the White House for six months, Republicans have not only failed to enact any major bills but have also created a legislative logjam that is bound to get worse.

 

This is largely because congressional leaders have tried to overcome solid Democratic opposition by using “reconciliation” rules — which prevent a Senate filibuster when applied to certain legislation on revenue, spending or the debt limit. But until the health care reconciliation measure is either passed or abandoned, they cannot use those rules to pass other legislation, like broad tax cuts for the wealthy that are a key element of their agenda.

 

With Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas announcing their opposition to the health bill on Monday night, and with only two weeks before the summer break, passage of a bill that some Republicans believe would cut coverage too deeply and others believe would not cut taxes or benefits enough seemed doomed.

 

But Republican infighting and, by extension, legislative disarray won’t stop there. When Congress returns in September, lawmakers will have less than a month to pass budget bills before the 2018 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. If they miss that deadline, they risk a government shutdown.

 

To complicate matters, soon after the next fiscal year starts, the debt ceiling will need to be raised, which will be a difficult vote for Republicans who have threatened in the past to default rather than approve more borrowing. During most of the Obama years, Republicans used legislative tactics to delay or block Democratic bills, precipitate government shutdowns over Democratic budgets and risk default rather than raise the debt limit in a timely way. Now they are in charge, and yet legislation is stalled, a shutdown may be impending and a raise in the debt ceiling is again in doubt.

 

After years spent as obstructionists, obstruction seems to be all they know. Now they’re obstructing themselves, a good thing since it may limit their ability to do harm.

[Winstonm]

Has the Republican party become the enemy? From Politico:

 

 

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/how-the-gop-became-the-party-of-putin-215387

 

How did the party of Ronald Reagan’s moral clarity morph into that of Donald Trump’s moral vacuity? Russia’s intelligence operatives are among the world’s best. I believe they made a keen study of the American political scene and realized that, during the Obama years, the conservative movement had become ripe for manipulation. Long gone was its principled opposition to the “evil empire.” What was left was an intellectually and morally desiccated carcass populated by con artists, opportunists, entertainers and grifters operating massively profitable book publishers, radio empires, websites, and a TV network whose stock-in-trade are not ideas but resentments.

[y66]

Stupidity, boorishness and unenlightened self interest are the enemy. At the moment, the Republican party happens to have more of all 3 than any party can bare. :) But it's not like they have a monopoly on stupidity.

[Winstonm]

Trump is calling the democrats "obstructionists" after Trumpcare failed. He keeps using that word but I don't think it means what he thinks it means. B-)

[Zelandakh]

Trump is calling the democrats "obstructionists" after Trumpcare failed. He keeps using that word but I don't think it means what he thinks it means. B-)

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.

[Al_U_Card]

If Congress can only be this adamant about military spending bills which are $93 billion more than Trump requested for 2018.

 

I like the repeal and replace later idea. It's built on a foundation of trust that politicians haven't earned.

If it means money in the pockets of a given politician's backers, then expect them to back it to the hilt. (Pork-barreling 101.)

[Winstonm]

Another shoe - how many is this now?

 

When President Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin went for more than two hours, well past the scheduled half-hour, it was a major news event. But it turns out that wasn’t even the end of the conversation between the two men.

 

Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, first reported the second meeting Tuesday. Other outlets also reported the news, and the White House confirmed it to Reuters. (BuzzFeed journalist Alberto Nardelli had previously reported about a meeting.) Trump reportedly met with the Russian leader for an additional hour of informal chats after a dinner of G20 leaders—though the White House in a statement reported late Tuesday by NBC’s Hallie Jackson called the encounter “brief” and denied it constituted a second meeting. While the first meeting was small—the only attendees were Trump, Putin, the Russian foreign minister, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and one interpreter from each country—this was even smaller: just Trump, Putin, and a Russian interpreter. Trump did not have his own interpreter.

[ldrews]

Another shoe - how many is this now?

 

Do you remember how many shoes Immelda Marcos had?

[Zelandakh]

Do you remember how many shoes Immelda Marcos had?

Do you really want to compare the Trump regime with the highly corrupt kleptocracy of the Marcoses?

[y66]

From The Health Care Collapse Is a Victory for the Truth by David Leonhardt:

 

After Donald Trump won the presidency, many Americans despondently wondered whether facts mattered anymore.

 

Trump, after all, won the presidency despite a constant stream of falsehoods. He launched his political career with a lie about Barack Obama’s birthplace and just kept on lying, about almost every imaginable subject. He also admitted to being a sexual molester. He refused to release his tax returns, unlike every other modern nominee. And yet he was elected president of the United States. There was, and still is, ample reason for despondence.

 

But the events of the past few months, and especially the last few days, offer some reason for encouragement. They have demonstrated that facts still matter and that truth has some inherent advantages over falsehood. That’s the No. 1 lesson to take from the collapse of the Republican health care bills.

 

In trying to pass a bill, Trump and his Capitol Hill allies had some big advantages. They controlled every branch of the federal government, and they were willing to ignore decades-old congressional traditions, such as holding public hearings when writing major legislation.

 

They had only one big weakness, in fact: They weren’t dealing in reality.

 

They had spent years making up untruths about Obamacare. They said it was written behind closed doors, even though it wasn’t. They said it was a big-government takeover, when it was actually a combination of conservative and liberal ideas. They said it was collapsing, when in fact it has mostly worked well — and its flaws, while real, are eminently fixable through bipartisan legislation.

 

Those arguments served Trump, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan very well when they were running political campaigns. Once they took power, however, they had a problem.

 

They didn’t have a real-world health care plan. They had a set of talking points. When they tried to turn those talking points into a bill, the result was a disaster. It would have taken insurance coverage from millions of people and worsened coverage and raised costs for millions more, many of them Republican voters.

 

Experts from across the ideological spectrum belittled their bill. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office dispassionately explained the damage it would do. Groups representing doctors, nurses, retirees, hospitals, insurers and people with cancer, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and birth defects all opposed the bill.

 

In the House, Ryan and his leadership team were still able to jam through legislation, in a display of partisan loyalty. In the Senate, the famously crafty McConnell kept most of his 52 caucus members on board. But he could not lock down the 50 he needed.

 

He had a reality problem.

 

Too many Republican senators understood that the bill’s defenders could make up fictions about it for only so long. And those defenders certainly tried. In the last few days alone, both Vice President Mike Pence and Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, made blatantly untrue claims about the bill’s contents.

 

But, thank goodness, a handful of senators understood that they wouldn’t be able to create their own reality forever. Eventually, real people would lose real health insurance and be denied real medical care for their illnesses.

 

“I did not come to Washington to hurt people,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, of West Virginia, said Tuesday, helping to doom the latest bill. Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, explained, “This just creates more chaos and confusion.” Susan Collins, of Maine, cited the “deep cuts” to Medicaid coverage — the same cuts Pence and Price had tried to deny.

 

I remain worried that Trump may somehow make another run at shrinking health insurance coverage. But his basic problem isn’t going away. Facts still matter.

 

They’ve won a resounding victory this week.

[RedSpawn]

From The Health Care Collapse Is a Victory for the Truth by David Leonhardt:

Very good article. The theme of this article ties in directly to the other topic I resurrected. Republicans (and Democrats) create their own political reality which usually does not reconcile with the sentiments of Main Street. And the spirit of intelligent public discourse and compromise has been lost.

[ldrews]

Do you really want to compare the Trump regime with the highly corrupt kleptocracy of the Marcoses?

 

You are so partisan that you cannot even recognize a joke. Sad!

[Winstonm]

A comparison of slogans from Lyndon Johnson's presidency versus Donald Trump's presidency:

 

LBJ: War on poverty, civil rights, Great Society

Trump: fake news, witch hunt, Crooked Hillary

 

Sad!

[RedSpawn]

A comparison of slogans from Lyndon Johnson's presidency versus Donald Trump's presidency:

 

LBJ: War on poverty, civil rights, Great Society

Trump: fake news, witch hunt, Crooked Hillary

 

Sad!

I think this is less of a reflection of Trump and is indicative of the "dumbing down" of the American constituency and our toxic political environment rife with incendiary language.

 

We live in a microwave society with microwave attention spans. We prefer convenient sound bites instead of interesting discourse over weighty complex issues.

[Winstonm]

I think this is less of a reflection of Trump and is indicative of the "dumbing down" of the American constituency and our toxic political environment rife with incendiary language.

 

We live in a microwave society with microwave attention spans. We prefer convenient sound bites instead of interesting discourse over weighty complex issues.

 

Don't allow yourself to give Donald Trump a free pass. It reflects directly on the schmuck.

[billw55]

Hmm. For years the GOP congress churned out "repeal the ACA" bills, knowing full well they were going nowhere. It was all for show, to impress their far right constituents.

 

Now such a bill might actually get signed into law. Which would mean that some of their near right constituents would lose health coverage. And we are seeing quite a different song and dance ... leading to the same result. Could it be that the R establishment does not actually want to repeal the ACA? That they are once again putting on a show for the hard right?

 

I'm not normally a conspiracy guy but I do wonder.

[RedSpawn]

Don't allow yourself to give Donald Trump a free pass. It reflects directly on the schmuck.

And the campaign slogan of his opponent was Together Stronger.

 

And Trump's campaigns slogan was Make America Great Again.

 

I'm not impressed by either one....which is how I have always felt about the illusion of choice in the 2016 Presidential campaign.

[Zelandakh]

You are so partisan that you cannot even recognize a joke. Sad!

As a non-American, I have no shoe in the race to be partisan about. Your "joke" seems to be for no reason than to avoid addressing the latest Trump omission regarding Russia and as such deserved to be mocked. Much as do your positions in several areas but that is typical when dealing with an extremist like yourself.