Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Can't Barr be impeached?

I added a paragraph to my post after you responded.

I'm looking for mechanisms short of impeachment, because things don't work well when the only escalation option is global thermonuclear war.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I have been thinking about what kinds of reforms this Trump era is going to bring, and some of them might involve Congress attaching more strings to how funds are spent by the Executive.

The budgetary process has been badly broken for a while.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

The budgetary process has been badly broken for a while.

Everything has been broken for awhile.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

Everything has been broken for awhile.

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.


Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What’s the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.


Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.
He’s even got a scroll to give him,
loaded with titles, with imposing names.


Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.


Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.


Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.


Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Everything has been broken for awhile.

If you are counsel to Speaker Pelosi, how do you advise her to collect information germane to the impeachment inquiry, given the White House's decision to stonewall most requests for information?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.


Why isn’t anything going on in the senate?
Why are the senators sitting there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.
What’s the point of senators making laws now?
Once the barbarians are here, they’ll do the legislating.


Why did our emperor get up so early,
and why is he sitting enthroned at the city’s main gate,
in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor’s waiting to receive their leader.
He’s even got a scroll to give him,
loaded with titles, with imposing names.


Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today
wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas?
Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts,
rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds?
Why are they carrying elegant canes
beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.


Why don’t our distinguished orators turn up as usual
to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they’re bored by rhetoric and public speaking.


Why this sudden bewilderment, this confusion?
(How serious people’s faces have become.)
Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly,
everyone going home lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians haven't come.
And some of our men just in from the border say
there are no barbarians any longer.


Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.

Is it possible a misspelled allusion to the author explains the mysterious intent of “Covfefe”?

Are we under the control of a mad genius, hiding deep literacy, and dropping subtle hints to the master plan all along?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If you are counsel to Speaker Pelosi, how do you advise her to collect information germane to the impeachment inquiry, given the White House's decision to stonewall most requests for information?

Send lawyers to beg judges, I guess. While adding the refusal to comply with valid subpoenas to the articles of impeachment for the president and drafting new ones for the individuals refusing to comply.

Those steps should amount to a lot of pressure, but may not to an administration that's used to getting away with saying no, as long as McConnell thinks his party is still better off backing the president.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Is it possible a misspelled allusion to the author explains the mysterious intent of “Covfefe”?

Are we under the control of a mad genius, hiding deep literacy, and dropping subtle hints to the master plan all along?

No.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Send lawyers to beg judges, I guess. While adding the refusal to comply with valid subpoenas to the articles of impeachment for the president and drafting new ones for the individuals refusing to comply.

Those steps should amount to a lot of pressure, but may not to an administration that's used to getting away with saying no, as long as McConnell thinks his party is still better off backing the president.

This is not a bad first response to Pompeo:



I'm not sure what gives Pompeo the ostensible authority to tell employees to ignore a facially valid subpoena.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

No.

This is either a super dry attempt to top my joke or you really need therapy for Aspergers Syndrome.

ETA: Fuck it... Look up the poet’s name.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

This is either a super dry attempt to top my joke or you really need therapy for Aspergers Syndrome.

You can try to "joke" by spouting blithering nonsense, but you really should know that it's pretty hard for anyone else to tell whether you are "joking" or not, because you do it so often in earnest.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

You can try to "joke" by spouting blithering nonsense, but you really should know that it's pretty hard for anyone else to tell whether you are "joking" or not, because you do it so often in earnest.

This is doubling down on dullardry. The reverse of topping the joke.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Everything has been broken for awhile.

I’d offer Jared Diamond or Niall Ferguson on this point, but they employ irony. This doorstop is more your speed: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Comp.../dp/052138673X

ETA: Some Cliff’s Notes from a review (and bringing it all back to Covf— er, Cavafy):

“Two phrases which Tainter borrows from economics are "marginal cost" and "marginal return". Eventually, the marginal returns from investment in complexity - meaning the returns currently available - inevitably level off and then decline, while the marginal costs stay the same or even increase. The only way central authorities can so on supporting such costs is through taxation or currency debasement, unsustainable measures in a system where benefits are perceived as declining. A system so weakened becomes vulnerable to popular revolt or invasion, or lacks the will and resources to overcome other disasters. Tainter describes, for example, how the "barbarians" who eventually overran the Roman Empire were in many cases welcomed and even assisted by the Empire's population, who increasingly saw themselves as benefitting little from Rome's "complexity", even as Rome's tax collectors became more predatory than ever.”

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I’d offer Jared Diamond or Niall Ferguson on this point, but they employ irony. This doorstop is more your speed: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Comp.../dp/052138673X

ETA: Some Cliff’s Notes from a review (and bringing it all back to Covf— er, Cavafy):

“Two phrases which Tainter borrows from economics are "marginal cost" and "marginal return". Eventually, the marginal returns from investment in complexity - meaning the returns currently available - inevitably level off and then decline, while the marginal costs stay the same or even increase. The only way central authorities can so on supporting such costs is through taxation or currency debasement, unsustainable measures in a system where benefits are perceived as declining. A system so weakened becomes vulnerable to popular revolt or invasion, or lacks the will and resources to overcome other disasters. Tainter describes, for example, how the "barbarians" who eventually overran the Roman Empire were in many cases welcomed and even assisted by the Empire's population, who increasingly saw themselves as benefitting little from Rome's "complexity", even as Rome's tax collectors became more predatory than ever.”

Things are broken because we have a federal political system that requires consensus, and we don't have consensus. We have been moving away from consensus since the end of the Cold War and when Gingrich started remaking the Republican Party.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Is it possible a misspelled allusion to the author explains the mysterious intent of “Covfefe”?

Are we under the control of a mad genius, hiding deep literacy, and dropping subtle hints to the master plan all along?

Coffee. Keyboard.