Re: Ball so Hard.
 

Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
- H. Simpson

Re: Ball so Hard.
 

Yes, but I have also noted I am as bad at assessing my ability to predict as I am at predicting. You rely on a very dicey acknowledgement.

Re: Ball so Hard.
 

If you are concerned that I might be giving too much credibility to anything you have written, you can rest easy.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

"Hillary will be more warlike" : https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.663a2389fe68

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Unsurprisingly, I consider the Gorsuch nomination to be by far the high point of the Trump presidency. From my perspective, he is far superior to whomever Hillary would have selected, but it is also to have a slight reprieve from the craphole that has been the rest of his term.

That said, while Trumpers and NeverTrump conservatives can agree on this, some NeverTrumpers are now being attacked for not being sufficiently enthusiastic about the pick. While a large part of me is relieved he didn't just nominate his sister, I don't think we should necessarily be applying the soft bigotry of low expectations to the Presidency, just because Trump is an idiot.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I don't get, on either side, the mandated enthusiasm or antipathy for judicial picks prior to hearings. I have no fucking clue whether he's a sensible guy with a degree from a decent school or whether he's a spineless automaton of the new order, and suspect half of those taking position don't either.

I am still ripped at the Rs for not even giving Garland a hearing and letting the process move forward, I'm not going to make a judgment on him until the hearing. And I'm happy if we delay the hearing a bit to make a point, but, frankly, I'd swap that bit of theater for a few republican votes to block Sessions in particular. But at the hearing, the questions I most want answered is does he have a spine: will he stand up to abuses of power, and also: does he have a sense of the Constitution as a document that protects civil rights.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

As GOP nominees, I have heard only good things about his temperament, including from a friend who knew him personally.

That said, I have been trying not to follow the coverage closely because the whole situation pisses me off so much. I don't have any love for Merrick Garland, but I am incensed by the way Republicans treated his nomination.

Everyone knows that a war between the establishment GOP (esp. Congress) and the Trump forces is coming, and the attacks you describe seem like early skirmishing.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Nah. What's coming is a total concession by the GOP establishment; they have already conceded 80%, giving up on free trade, for example, was a big one but the position was surrendered without a fight.

The only interesting question is whether or not there are only a few principled people or a significant number who check out of the GOP as that occurs.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump...atening-2017-2

I hope Mexico takes back Texas and New Mexico (and ok, fine, California too) in the upcoming war. I'm not sure I wanna be a USian anymore.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Bannon is coming for them, whether or not they like it.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I most agree with this, but I'd have to think about any deal that would block Sessions: http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/nei...urt-1791875408

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Sessions is less than a decade. This dude is 49 years old.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I don't want to be a part of Mexico, but I could do with a Republic of Texas. As a former New Mexican, I suppose one advantage to joining Mexico is that hopefully Houstonians could learn to pronounce San Jacinto.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

The theater I'd swap for the votes against sessions is holding back the vote and blocking hearings.

I'd base the vote on the hearings. If he can convince Dems, or at least some dems, he is not a stooge or extremist and will respect the constitution, and a reasonable reading of it, then Dems should vote for him.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

This time next year, either we will have beaten back some of this craziness and Bannon will be out of the White House or the entire Republican leadership will be goose-stepping to Bannon's beat. In the later case we are likely at war.

So Sebby, remember how you said you thought Hillary was more likely to get us into war than Trump? How do you feel now with explicit threats yesterday against Mexico and Iran and the buffoonery involving Australia? I note that, oddly, he always seems to threaten countries that don't have Trump properties.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Re Mexico and Australia, that's bluster. Re Iran, I'm troubled.

Re immigration ban, and Falwell's kid being appointed to fed higher ed task force, I'm upset.

But, he was hired to disrupt -- to reset the winners and losers. I guess he's more a man of his word than I'd assumed. Because at this rate, he's scrambling the whole chess board.

But I'm not flipping out about anything. Sole emotional reaction has been irritation and sadness about the stupidity of the immigration order.

It's hard to ascertain which is more interesting: Trump, or his most vehenent critics melting down in the oped pages. It's live, accelerating entropy on the right and left. The establishment cracking up is a wildly fascinating process.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Right. Apparently he's also the founder of Facists Forever at school. Okay.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I'm sick of Dems voting for his nominees. Is there a reason to? They'll get confirmed anyway.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

If you represent California or Massachusetts, no, no reason, politically, at all.

If you represent Montana and get elected not because you are a Democrat but in spite of being a Democrat, yes, there are good reasons to vote for them.

Of course, there's also the idea that it would be good to consider nominees after fair and reasonable hearings where they were asked and actually answered hard questions, but that idea is of course a joke in our system today and we aren't going to get back to it for a longgggg time.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Of course he could send some troops across the border to Mexico and dare Mexico to do anything about it. That's just the kind of thing he'd do.

You do realize that once his favorability hits the 20s war is pretty much inevitable?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You do realize his plan to combat those ratings is to say they're fake news, or rigged. He doesn't need to go to war to blunt that issue.

I'd also like to see who answers these polls. This "data" sounds a lot like the "data" on which I concluded with certainty that Hillary would win.

I think a lot of us who think we know this country need to perhaps face up to the fact that Bannon makes a decent point: We have a narrative of what we want the US to be which is distorting our view of its actual character.

We're two countries. Two very different countries.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Maybe, I guess. Not sure that many votes are moved one way or the other by whether you voted to confirm someone who will get confirmed anyway.

But that doesn't explain, for example, Klobuchar, who is mostly voting for them.

ETA: Of course the conventional wisdom says she wants to run for president, but again I don't see the advantage in having cooperated. And she will be a terrible candidate.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Not a chance. The GOP (and Dems as well) doesn't give a fuck about trade except to the extent its corporate owners won't give to its members who don't support trade. Once corporations adapt to the New Normal, they'll require different favors from the parties. The GOP simply has to wait for corporate America to adjust to populism, which it will.

And the Dems will jump on board as well, just as soon as it's safe to be a populist. This is why companies hugely dependent on globalization are freaking out the most. The clock is ticking. They only have so much time to upend Trump, before trade nationalization becomes the rule.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You understand that you're predicting against the money, right? You really think that's going to happen?

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Yup, and yes.

ETA: We won't ever go full populist. Trade will continue. But it won't be like it was. Never underestimate the nihilism of corporations. They're running parallel models right now. Of course they hope to avoid decreased global trade. But they've got a plan to adapt running forward at the same time.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Also known as "companies".

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Not those who service or sell to people exclusively or mostly here. There are a lot of those out there. Most small businesses, for instance.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Check their supply chains.

When you walk into a store selling home-made ice cream from their own cows, you're going to discover their John Deere tractor has foreign parts, they're importing fancy waffle cones from Italy, the berries in their ice cream come mostly from Canada, and the sweeteners are all from Mexico. The coffee they serve comes from a country on the banned list.

And that's entirely ignoring the migrant workers out in their fields who maybe aren't on the side of the wall Trump wants them on.

You can't shit without touching global supply chains.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I'm still amazed at how much gets hidden by this shit show.

I mean, there are more black people in Beyonce now than there are in the Cabinet, and no one cares.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I sort of get the impression that is why Ben Carson is getting a pass by some Dems.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I steal from the best. Period.

How 'bout this one, though.

WTF.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

I think that's all surmountable. But you know how corp america's going to adapt most significantly: more investment in automation.

"I'm stuck buying the parts made here? Well, lets make them cheap as possible by making those robots more productive, fast!"

Trump is going to accelerate automation, undoing everything he intends by paring globalization. Welcome to The Long Darkness.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

Okay, understand, I was bored of this whole thing a month ago, but now I'm going to post- think about that. A post ago you said small businesses that sell only to locals, now you're talking about investing in automation. Let me promise you, small businesses aren't investing in automation. I'm not saying you need to get to clarity that Flower will praise, but you need to get this shit a little bit straighter.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

If they sell stuff, trade is in their supply chain. If they use stuff in performing their services, trade is in their supply chain.

But more importantly, small businesses that might not rely on trade have nowhere near the clout that big business has.

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

What the fuck is it with a job in the House or Senate that is so amazing that people will completely give up any sense of a hint of integrity to retain their seat? Power? Prestige? Attention? All of the above? I don't fucking get it.

If I were in the Senate as a Republican, I would rather go down in my next primary if I also went down in history as the only Republican who stood up to this fucking idiot.

TM

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

You are incurably stupid.

TM

Re: I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.
 

This is a damn good question.

Does anyone have an answer?

Re: Falling Prices Brought to You By China
 

Man, when prices start going up in Walmart there are going to be some pissed real 'mercans out there.