Trumpling the Truth

[JimZipCode]

For the IGx libs, why should the IGx conservatives turn away from Trump?

No reason. Exactly the opposite, maybe: Trump will draw so much press coverage that the Repub legislature is going to be able to shove their agenda up America's ass without anyone calling attention to it.

So if you believe that Republicare is going to be good for the country; if you believe that the huge tax cut for the 1% that Republicare will make "revenue neutral" is good for the country; if you believe that the supply-side stuff that succeeded so brilliantly in Kansas over the last several years will succeed at least as well when spread across the whole country; if you believe that Merrick Garland would have been a bad justice (really??); if you believe that removing the environmental regulations that made the air in Cleveland/NYC/etc breathable and the Chesapeake Bay habitable over the last ~30 yrs will be a good thing; if you're comfortable with rolling back the Civil Rights Act of 1965 still further; if gerrymandering and voter suppression are positives; if only blue lives matter; if civil forfeiture is Constitutional; if whole depts of the Fed should be disassembled (Interior, Education, HUD, State); if climate science really is 100% bullshit -- then yeah, you should stick with your noble, high-minded leadership.

If Trump's many, many obvious deficiencies​ and disqualifications (even without Russia) weren't enough for you to turn away from him during election season, there's absolutely no reason for you to now. Ride that pony.

[tonkadtx]

So if you believe that Republicare is going to be good for the country; if you believe that the huge tax cut for the 1% that Republicare will make "revenue neutral" is good for the country; if you believe that the supply-side stuff that succeeded so brilliantly in Kansas over the last several years will succeed at least as well when spread across the whole country; if you believe that Merrick Garland would have been a bad justice (really??); if you believe that removing the environmental regulations that made the air in Cleveland/NYC/etc breathable and the Chesapeake Bay habitable over the last ~30 yrs will be a good thing; if you're comfortable with rolling back the Civil Rights Act of 1965 still further; if gerrymandering and voter suppression are positives; if only blue lives matter; if civil forfeiture is Constitutional; if whole depts of the Fed should be disassembled (Interior, Education, HUD, State); if climate science really is 100% bullshit -- then yeah, you should stick with your noble, high-minded leadership.

Meaningless platitudes and Democratic talking points. LOL.

If you believe judges shouldn't be allowed to legislate from the bench, by ruling "penalties" as taxes even when the law says , "this is not a tax". If you believe that judges shouldn't use phrases like "equal dignity" instead of basing their rulings on what the Constitution actually says. If you believe the EPA's shouldn't be using the Water Rule to take people's property or fine them in to bankruptcy. If you believe the FDA shouldn't be using swat teams to raid Amish dairy farms for selling raw milk. If you want a justice who will take an originalist view of the Constitution and defend the 2nd Amendment. If you believe the Civil Rights act stretches the commerce clause to breaking, and people claiming aggrieved victim status shouldn't be allowed to hop around from bakery to bakery until they find one they can sue for having different religious beliefs. If you realize 68% of homicides occurred in 5% of counties, overwhelmingly Democratic sewers. If you realize you can't gerrymander a senatorial or gubernatorial election.

See? Now we're rolling!

[tonkadtx]

Like using the IRS against political enemies?

I know this is a big article of faith with you guys, with the whole impeach Koskinnen movement and everything, but this didn't actually happen.

Listen, I know you're in the bag for the guy, but when liberal rags and NPR are admitting it, it's over.

CINCINNATI — A federal judge ruled this month in a lawsuit in the ongoing IRS Tea Party saga that there was "a strong showing" that the agency had discriminated against conservative groups because of their political stances.

And U.S. District Court Judge Michael R. Barrett wrote in a decision that a group suing the IRS "has made a strong showing of a likelihood of success" on its claim that its free speech rights were violated by the delay in processing the application.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... /94040806/

"Now, thanks to filings in a federal lawsuit in Ohio, there is such a list, with 426 names on it. And yes, it's top-heavy with conservative groups:

— 62 had Tea Party or Tea Party Patriots in the name

— a additional 14 had Patriots in the name

— 30 groups had 9/12 or Liberty in the name (9/12 refers to groups inspired by conservative television personality Glenn Beck)

In all, 282 conservative groups were on the IRS list, about two-thirds of the total number of groups that got additional scrutiny.

The list also has 67 progressive organizations (16 percent of the total) and 21 nonpartisan civic groups, including three League of Women Voters chapters."

http://www.npr.org/2016/06/17/482500386 ... ive-groups

Included in the newly obtained IRS documents were handwritten notes from an unidentified source at an interoffice meeting in the Washington headquarters, which apparently took place in or around August 2011. According to an IRS court filing provided to Judicial Watch by the IRS, the notes were part of information taken from “four Chief Counsel employees (Victoria Judson, Janine Cook, Susan Brown, and Don Spellmann), Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division employee Nalee Park, and former IRS employee Sarah Hall Ingram.” The notes reveal Paz’ concerns about the Cincinnati office’s targeting of groups based upon ideology and party affiliation:

From the note - Holly – Cinci paralyzed by letting any issue go unaddressed. They think they know what the org is really doing, rather than looking at actual activities. Q’s were not activity based, but guilt by association questions – like q’s asking party affiliations …

They see approval of something that will turn out to be very bad org – terrified of that – that’s why they personally will need to have power to say yes. Agents felt if they could ask enough questions, they will find a problem. Agents were jumping to negative conclusions and assumptions – particularly where relationship with political groups or affiliations.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room ... sociation/

[Turdacious]

For the IGx libs, why should the IGx conservatives turn away from Trump?

No reason. Exactly the opposite, maybe: Trump will draw so much press coverage that the Repub legislature is going to be able to shove their agenda up America's ass without anyone calling attention to it.

So if you believe that Republicare is going to be good for the country; if you believe that the huge tax cut for the 1% that Republicare will make "revenue neutral" is good for the country; if you believe that the supply-side stuff that succeeded so brilliantly in Kansas over the last several years will succeed at least as well when spread across the whole country; if you believe that Merrick Garland would have been a bad justice (really??); if you believe that removing the environmental regulations that made the air in Cleveland/NYC/etc breathable and the Chesapeake Bay habitable over the last ~30 yrs will be a good thing; if you're comfortable with rolling back the Civil Rights Act of 1965 still further; if gerrymandering and voter suppression are positives; if only blue lives matter; if civil forfeiture is Constitutional; if whole depts of the Fed should be disassembled (Interior, Education, HUD, State); if climate science really is 100% bullshit -- then yeah, you should stick with your noble, high-minded leadership.

If Trump's many, many obvious deficiencies​ and disqualifications (even without Russia) weren't enough for you to turn away from him during election season, there's absolutely no reason for you to now. Ride that pony.

That's a lot of ifs.

If your argument wasn't so simplistic, you'd admit that there's tremendous redundancy and inefficiency in government bureaucracies. If you think using Kansas as a proxy for state tax and budget policy is efficient, then you don't appreciate the variation between states. If you think Republicare has a shot at getting through the Senate in it's current form, then I've got a bridge to sell you. If you think Republican members of the House and Senate up for election in 2018 haven't paid attention to what happened in 2010 and what's happening in their districts, then you don't understand the self-licking ice cream cone. I could go on...

[tonkadtx]

voter suppression

I forget this one. This is the most memetastic, liberal racist, racism by paternalism thing going for the Democrats right now. "Black people can't get idddddddddssssssss!!!!!" LOL!

There is a fucking DMV on 125th....

Most, voter id laws specifically provide for free state id. Dems are against them because the want to continue to facilitate voter fraud.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odB1wWPqSlE[/youtube]

If you want to talk about suppression other than the old voter ID red herring, please specify.

[Turdacious]

At the urging of longtime friends and outside advisers, most of whom he consults after dark, President Trump is considering a "huge reboot" that could take out everyone from Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon, to counsel Don McGahn and press secretary Sean Spicer, White House sources tell me. Trump is also irritated with several Cabinet members, the sources said [...]

The sources say Trump feels ill-served by not just his staff but also by several of his Cabinet officials. Trump has two complaints about Cabinet members: Either they're tooting their own horns too much, or they're insufficiently effusive in praising him as a brilliant diplomat, etc.

https://www.axios.com/scoop-trump-irked ... 37307.html
Should be interesting to see who wins in the shakeup: the Bannon wing (Tea Party types), the Priebus wing (traditional Republican types) or the Kushner wing (lifelong New York City Democrat types).

[dead man walking]

i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but donnie comb-over is definitely not an igx kinda guy.

he "eschews exercise because he believes it drains the body’s “finite” energy resources"

i doubt he has ever picked up a kettle bell or done a turkish get-up

[powerlifter54]

Like using the IRS against political enemies? Or arming drug dealers to encourage gun control legislation? Or Lieing about keeping your doctor? Or sending literally planloads of cash to our enemies? How about telling Vlad he could work with him more after the election? The White Obama ere was a disaster. Yeah, I know the market is doing fine, but that didn't save Hilliary.

It's funny, in conjunction with the link that Turd posted in the other thread: conservatives are quick to chide liberals for believing uncritically everything they hear about Trump, but simultaneously regurgitate every talking point that Rush or Fox & Friends has given them over the years about Obama & Hillary, without any reflection at all. Yeah, ok.

• Like using the IRS against political enemies?

I know this is a big article of faith with you guys, with the whole impeach Koskinnen movement and everything, but this didn't actually happen.

• Or arming drug dealers to encourage gun control legislation?

Conflating two things, one of which didn't happen (but yes was discussed, maybe even "planned").

• Or Lieing about keeping your doctor?

Did Obama lie, or did he try and fail to keep a campaign promise? I'm sure keeping your doctor was in the first draft proposal. I'm sure Obama wanted it. We didn't get it. I'm sorry it pissed you off so much.

• Or sending literally planloads of cash to our enemies?

You mean the money that was owed to them? The money we settled on to avoid the world court judgement against us that would have septupled the amount with penalties going back over 30 years? That money? Is the objection that we paid cash, or that we paid it at all?

And now we begin to see more clearly why you lost.

[JimZipCode]

Listen, I know you're in the bag for the guy, but when liberal rags and NPR are admitting it, it's over.
...
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... /94040806/
...
http://www.npr.org/2016/06/17/482500386 ... ive-groups

Included in the newly obtained IRS documents were handwritten notes ...

Welp, looks like I have some reading to do. Last time I checked in with this issue – maybe last year? – the story was garden variety incompetence and understaffing. Something about new tax laws leading to a proliferation of new organizations claiming tax-exempt status, and the understaffed IRS (whose budget had been cut a bunch of times) looking for shortcuts to identify which ones to actually research (investigate?) to verify they were entitled to the status. So the staff used keyword searches which unintentionally caused a greater number of conservative organizations to be hit than non-conservative.

If new facts have emerged, my whole opinion might be out of date.

[JimZipCode]

If you believe judges shouldn't be allowed to legislate from the bench...

No one who thinks the phrase "legislate from the bench" has any actual meaning, or somehow thinks it describes something that "liberal" judges do more than "conservative" judges, has anything to say on this subject that's worth paying attention to.

[Grandpa's Spells]

Trump apparently skipped the email server and divulged code word intel directly to the Russian FM and Ambassador while bragging about how great his intelligence services are.

[dead man walking]

voter suppression

I forget this one. This is the most memetastic, liberal racist, racism by paternalism thing going for the Democrats right now. "Black people can't get idddddddddssssssss!!!!!" LOL!

There is a fucking DMV on 125th....

Most, voter id laws specifically provide for free state id. Dems are against them because the want to continue to facilitate voter fraud.

If you want to talk about suppression other than the old voter ID red herring, please specify.

the federal judiciary doesn't agree with you

. . . a federal appeals court ruling that struck down key parts of the law as an unconstitutional effort to “target African-Americans with almost surgical precision.”

. . . the appeals court had struck down the state’s voter-ID requirement as baldly discriminatory.

The law, enacted by the Legislature in 2013, imposed an array of voting restrictions, including the new voter identification requirements.

The appeals court ruling struck down five parts of the law: its voter ID requirements, a rollback of early voting to 10 days from 17, an elimination of same-day registration and of preregistration of some teenagers, and its ban on counting votes cast in the wrong precinct.

The court found that all five restrictions “disproportionately affected African-Americans.” The law’s voter identification provision, for instance, “retained only those types of photo ID disproportionately held by whites and excluded those disproportionately held by African-Americans.”

That was the case, the court said, even though the state had “failed to identify even a single individual who has ever been charged with committing in-person voter fraud in North Carolina.” But it did find that there was evidence of fraud in absentee voting by mail, a method used disproportionately by white voters. The Legislature, however, exempted absentee voting from the photo ID requirement.

[nafod]

Trump... bragging.

Pretty much the beginning and end of every Trump fuckup.

[DrDonkeyLove]

If you believe judges shouldn't be allowed to legislate from the bench...

No one who thinks the phrase "legislate from the bench" has any actual meaning, or somehow thinks it describes something that "liberal" judges do more than "conservative" judges, has anything to say on this subject that's worth paying attention to.

What would be the lib equivalents of Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges? Citizens United? DC v. Heller? Hobby Lobby?

I don't know if there's every been such a thing as "the law" but if there was, I doubt it exists any more. At least around the margins, as a non-lawyer, it looks to me like there's conservative law and liberal law. Since Bork SC justice nominations have devolved to the point of fully partisan death matches.

Part of our internal cold war and the 2nd great unraveling is my fear and expectation.

[tonkadtx]

It's interesting you picked North Carolina, Virginia's was upheld, Indiana's was upheld, various other states laws have been upheld. North Carolina's was upheld, and then overturned on appeal. So obviously, a large part of the Federal Judiciary agrees with me.

The court found that all five restrictions “disproportionately affected African-Americans.” The law’s voter identification provision, for instance, “retained only those types of photo ID disproportionately held by whites and excluded those disproportionately held by African-Americans.”

LOL. Driver's Licenses. I guess there are not a lot of African Americans driving in North Carolina.

even though the state had “failed to identify even a single individual who has ever been charged with committing in-person voter fraud in North Carolina

I notice there is the typical parsing of words, "charged" with voter fraud. "Convicted" of voter fraud, etc. In order to be charged, a Prosecuter would need to be willing to bring a case. I contend the do not have the political will to do so.

North Carolina elections officials found that about 500 ineligible voters cast ballots in the 2016 general election – not enough to change the outcome of any race, according to an audit released Friday.

http://www.wral.com/report-500-ineligib ... /16657687/

The state Board of Elections revealed Wednesday that more than 35,000 people may have double voted by casting ballots in North Carolina and another state during the 2012 election.

The Board of Elections was careful to say they don't have proof of fraud, but they have good reason to look closer.

"They verified there was voter fraud," said Susan Myrick, with the conservative think tank NC Civitas.

http://abc11.com/news/new-evidence-of-v ... ged/23005/

[dead man walking]

It's interesting you picked North Carolina, Virginia's was upheld, Indiana's was upheld, various other states laws have been upheld. North Carolina's was upheld, and then overturned on appeal. So obviously, a large part of the Federal Judiciary agrees with me.

tx, wis, pa voter i.d. were overturned, i believe.

as for va vs nc, according to the wa po "the three-judge panel in the Virginia case determined that the facts of the case before them “are in no way” akin to the situation in North Carolina."

[TerryB]

Trump apparently skipped the email server and divulged code word intel directly to the Russian FM and Ambassador while bragging about how great his intelligence services are.

You're seriously going to equivocate on a SoS hiding and exchanging confidential info on a private, off the books server, with a President talking to an ambassador (according to unnamed source(s), of course).

[TerryB]

Trump... bragging.

Pretty much the beginning and end of every Trump fuckup.

*highfive*

you nailed it, bro! What a dipshit the President is!

[JimZipCode]

And now we begin to see more clearly why you lost.

We ALL lost. I just seem to have realized it a few months ahead of some of you.

[DrDonkeyLove]

And now we begin to see more clearly why you lost.

We ALL lost. I just seem to have realized it a few months ahead of some of you.

Losing was the only option.

[Turdacious]

20170517_Bildt.PNG (35.83 KiB) Viewed 4902 times

Ouch.

[Grandpa's Spells]

20170517_Bildt.PNG
Ouch.

[JimZipCode]

Up is down and black is white.

Ann Coulter is critical of Trump:

• http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/14/ann-c ... ere-right/

And Slate praises "a Trump nominee who knows what he's doing":

• http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... _what.html

• (US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer)

I don't know what to believe anymore.

[Turdacious]

Looks like they're about to fuck up Ronan the Accuser.

[Turdacious]

A widely held tenet of the current conventional wisdom is that while President Trump might not be popular overall, he has a high floor on his support. Trump's sizable and enthusiastic base -- perhaps 35 to 40 percent of the country -- won't abandon him any time soon, the theory goes, and they don't necessarily care about some of the controversies that the "mainstream media" treats as game-changing developments.

It's an entirely reasonable theory. We live in a highly partisan epoch, and voters are usually loyal to politicians from their party. Trump endured a lot of turbulence in the general election but stuck it out to win the Electoral College. The media doesn't always guess right about which stories will resonate with voters.

But the theory isn't supported by the evidence. To the contrary, Trump's base seems to be eroding. There's been a considerable decline in the number of Americans who strongly approve of Trump, from a peak of around 30 percent in February to just 21 or 22 percent of the electorate now. (The decline in Trump's strong approval ratings is larger than the overall decline in his approval ratings, in fact.) Far from having unconditional love from his base, Trump has already lost almost a third of his strong support. And voters who strongly disapprove of Trump outnumber those who strongly approve of him by about a 2-to-1 ratio, which could presage an "enthusiasm gap" that works against Trump at the midterms. The data suggests, in particular, that the GOP's initial attempt (and failure) in March to pass its unpopular health care bill may have cost Trump with his core supporters.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do ... _cid=538fb