5 ms·

“Congress avoided two government shutdowns” is like saying “I avoided pooping in my pants twice today.” It’s factually true and objectively a positive thing, bu

by pavlov 3y ago

“Congress avoided two government shutdowns” is like saying “I avoided pooping in my pants twice today.” It’s factually true and objectively a positive thing, but there’s nothing really commendable about it. The debt ceiling is Congress’s own creation, and Congress itself approves the budgets that cause the increase in debt. There isn’t another parliament on the planet that behaves so absurdly, fighting shadow puppets set up by itself.

gmueckl 3y ago
There are plenty of dysfunctional/autocratic/kleptocratic governments based on constitutions that are somewhat democratic in nature. The US is just a high profile example of government structure slowly sliding into one of these failed states (faster if Trump gets another term).
- graycat 3y ago
  > (faster if Trump gets another term). I didn't keep track and don't have a good list, but a guess is that Trump did push through a lot of regulatory changes. If the media would publish a well documented list ...!! From all I've seen, I like Trump, but apparently a lot of people don't. I wonder where am I going wrong. Why do some people not like him? A guess is the now old collection of video clips from the MSM (mainstream media) still at https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908 https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908 Sooo, recently I watched several videos (still at YouTube) of episodes of Trump's old TV show The Apprentice. (1) From the business world I've seen, this guy was definitely, uh, different! In a way, tough to criticize since apparently he was very successful. (2) A surprise was the propensity of mess ups, in fighting of the apparently carefully selected candidates. When I think back, yup, I did see a lot of that but guessed it was incidental and would go away and wasn't too bad -- I was wrong, and Trump's TV show was closer to right. How Trump handled (2) was good to see, although maybe some of it was just "TV".
  - yterdy 3y ago
    Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior. But I don't know if the statement you quoted is correct either. Trump isn't the politician who has people tracking their stock trades because they so consistently outperform the market (that would be legislators, including Democrats, who trade on insider information, but face no consequences because the arbiters of such judgment are... themselves). Unfortunately, I'm not sure that even a second Biden term will save us.
    - graycat 3y ago
      > Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior. This is the first I've heard of her. So, just did a Google search on her: She has written a lot of stories for the "news" on a lot of subjects. Maybe ~10% of the stories are about Trump. There were some lists of story titles with URLs, but the URLs didn't point to the stories -- apparently were old and now broken. Her stories on Trump I could find didn't seem like they were on important issues. Then I saw her story on the "Russia" issue. Sorry, I long ago concluded that Trump did nothing wrong and, instead, the whole Russia Gate issue was a cooked up, made up, pile of nonsense trying to get Trump.
      - yterdy 3y ago
        If you'd actually read her long-form work (specifically, her books Hiding In Plain Sight and They Knew)... Humor her for the length of those, then see how you feel. Her thesis is that "Russiagate" wasn't cooked up; that Trump is, in fact, simply an agent of a class of wealthy oligarchs who don't have loyalty to anything but their own money; that people are drawn to him because their correct instincts about the dysfunction in DC are being misdirected to him as a savior, in a way that is identical to the way autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem have been put into power in the past in other countries. Give her work a chance. If you come out of it still supporting Trump, then I suppose you've made the right decision. But see why she's come to her conclusions first; I personally think that they're compelling. Otherwise, it's kind of weird to disagree with an argument you don't even understand.
        graycat 3y ago
  - ModernMech 3y ago
    > From all I've seen, I like Trump, but apparently a lot of people don't. I wonder where am I going wrong. Are you being sarcastic? Did you miss the part where he waged an attempted coup against the US government to remain in power? I mean... he was just found by a court to have committed rape. You don't see why people don't like him? Be for real.
    - graycat 3y ago
      > Are you being sarcastic? Did you miss the part where he waged an attempted coup against the US government to remain in power? I never understood that: I watched his speech. All I saw looked reasonable, appropriate, prudent. It seemed he was careful to advise no violence. That there was an "attempted coup" makes no sense to me. I watched his speech and saw nothing wrong. > I mean... he was just found by a court to have committed rape. I didn't and don't see that. But, if what you say is correct, then that would explain why some people don't like him. From your post, it looks like there is some deep bitterness about Trump. I don't see why, but okay. For one explanation there is that old collection of media video clips https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908 https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908 Apparently the media was totally convinced that those clips would doom Trump; maybe those clips are why some people don't like him. Watch the clips -- if anything, by now they are entertaining! They have much of the largest of the MSM (mainstream media) doing a big gang up, pile on of "bombshell", "done, no question about that", etc. that never happened. Maybe in low level town and city politics nearly everyone interested in politics at all has some really strong reasons to like the Democrat Party. If my startup works, maybe I'll discover that the local Democrats will do good things for me but the Republicans won't. Hmm.
      - ModernMech 3y ago
        I watched your video -- it's media personalities babbling. You should probably inform yourself about the coup, the speech wasn't it. Here is some actual info to start: The J6 commission report: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6-REPORT.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6... The Federal indictments: https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/trump-indictment.pdf https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/trump-i... The Georgia indictments: https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/CRIMINAL-INDICTMENT-Trump-Fulton-County-GA.pdf https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/CRIMINA... The Arizona indictments: https://mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f8b1e352e206/files/fa85cddf-ccc6-7dee-dd58-ff5e80d53b15/Indictment.03.pdf https://mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f8b1e352e206/files/fa... The finding of rape: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045.212.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.59... “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ... Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
xyzzyz 3y ago
There are plenty of countries with legal debt ceilings, some of them even in the constitution. That said, I'll grant you that I don't know of any that behave so absurdly about it. The trick is to stay clear very far from the limit, which is something that recent US governments are simply unwilling to do.

by pavlov 3y ago

gmueckl 3y ago

There are plenty of dysfunctional/autocratic/kleptocratic governments based on constitutions that are somewhat democratic in nature. The US is just a high profile example of government structure slowly sliding into one of these failed states (faster if Trump gets another term).

graycat 3y ago
> (faster if Trump gets another term). I didn't keep track and don't have a good list, but a guess is that Trump did push through a lot of regulatory changes. If the media would publish a well documented list ...!! From all I've seen, I like Trump, but apparently a lot of people don't. I wonder where am I going wrong. Why do some people not like him? A guess is the now old collection of video clips from the MSM (mainstream media) still at https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908 https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908 Sooo, recently I watched several videos (still at YouTube) of episodes of Trump's old TV show The Apprentice. (1) From the business world I've seen, this guy was definitely, uh, different! In a way, tough to criticize since apparently he was very successful. (2) A surprise was the propensity of mess ups, in fighting of the apparently carefully selected candidates. When I think back, yup, I did see a lot of that but guessed it was incidental and would go away and wasn't too bad -- I was wrong, and Trump's TV show was closer to right. How Trump handled (2) was good to see, although maybe some of it was just "TV".
- yterdy 3y ago
  Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior. But I don't know if the statement you quoted is correct either. Trump isn't the politician who has people tracking their stock trades because they so consistently outperform the market (that would be legislators, including Democrats, who trade on insider information, but face no consequences because the arbiters of such judgment are... themselves). Unfortunately, I'm not sure that even a second Biden term will save us.
  - graycat 3y ago
    > Kindly read or listen to any long-form work by Sarah Kendzior. This is the first I've heard of her. So, just did a Google search on her: She has written a lot of stories for the "news" on a lot of subjects. Maybe ~10% of the stories are about Trump. There were some lists of story titles with URLs, but the URLs didn't point to the stories -- apparently were old and now broken. Her stories on Trump I could find didn't seem like they were on important issues. Then I saw her story on the "Russia" issue. Sorry, I long ago concluded that Trump did nothing wrong and, instead, the whole Russia Gate issue was a cooked up, made up, pile of nonsense trying to get Trump.
    - yterdy 3y ago
      If you'd actually read her long-form work (specifically, her books Hiding In Plain Sight and They Knew)... Humor her for the length of those, then see how you feel. Her thesis is that "Russiagate" wasn't cooked up; that Trump is, in fact, simply an agent of a class of wealthy oligarchs who don't have loyalty to anything but their own money; that people are drawn to him because their correct instincts about the dysfunction in DC are being misdirected to him as a savior, in a way that is identical to the way autocratic, kleptomanic strongmem have been put into power in the past in other countries. Give her work a chance. If you come out of it still supporting Trump, then I suppose you've made the right decision. But see why she's come to her conclusions first; I personally think that they're compelling. Otherwise, it's kind of weird to disagree with an argument you don't even understand.
      - graycat 3y ago
- ModernMech 3y ago
  > From all I've seen, I like Trump, but apparently a lot of people don't. I wonder where am I going wrong. Are you being sarcastic? Did you miss the part where he waged an attempted coup against the US government to remain in power? I mean... he was just found by a court to have committed rape. You don't see why people don't like him? Be for real.
  - graycat 3y ago
    > Are you being sarcastic? Did you miss the part where he waged an attempted coup against the US government to remain in power? I never understood that: I watched his speech. All I saw looked reasonable, appropriate, prudent. It seemed he was careful to advise no violence. That there was an "attempted coup" makes no sense to me. I watched his speech and saw nothing wrong. > I mean... he was just found by a court to have committed rape. I didn't and don't see that. But, if what you say is correct, then that would explain why some people don't like him. From your post, it looks like there is some deep bitterness about Trump. I don't see why, but okay. For one explanation there is that old collection of media video clips https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908 https://youtu.be/f1ab6uxg908 Apparently the media was totally convinced that those clips would doom Trump; maybe those clips are why some people don't like him. Watch the clips -- if anything, by now they are entertaining! They have much of the largest of the MSM (mainstream media) doing a big gang up, pile on of "bombshell", "done, no question about that", etc. that never happened. Maybe in low level town and city politics nearly everyone interested in politics at all has some really strong reasons to like the Democrat Party. If my startup works, maybe I'll discover that the local Democrats will do good things for me but the Republicans won't. Hmm.
    - ModernMech 3y ago
      I watched your video -- it's media personalities babbling. You should probably inform yourself about the coup, the speech wasn't it. Here is some actual info to start: The J6 commission report: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6-REPORT.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/pdf/GPO-J6... The Federal indictments: https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/trump-indictment.pdf https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/trump-i... The Georgia indictments: https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/CRIMINAL-INDICTMENT-Trump-Fulton-County-GA.pdf https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/CRIMINA... The Arizona indictments: https://mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f8b1e352e206/files/fa85cddf-ccc6-7dee-dd58-ff5e80d53b15/Indictment.03.pdf https://mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f8b1e352e206/files/fa... The finding of rape: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045.212.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.59... “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ... Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

xyzzyz 3y ago

There are plenty of countries with legal debt ceilings, some of them even in the constitution. That said, I'll grant you that I don't know of any that behave so absurdly about it. The trick is to stay clear very far from the limit, which is something that recent US governments are simply unwilling to do.