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January 22, 2019 06:47 AM UTC

2018-19 #TrumpShutdown Day 32 Open Thread

  • 61 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“One of they key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace.”

–Donald Trump

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61 thoughts on “2018-19 #TrumpShutdown Day 32 Open Thread”

  2. #TrumpSlump is coming soon to a business near you.

    DAVOS, Switzerland — The world economy absorbed more bad news Monday: The International Monetary Fund cut its growth forecast for 2019. And China, the world's second-biggest economy, said it had slowed to its weakest pace since 1990.

    The IMF cut its estimate for global growth this year to 3.5 percent, from the 3.7 percent it had predicted in October and down from 2018's 3.7 percent. The fund cited heightened trade tensions and rising interest rates.

    The IMF is not alone in its pessimism. The World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other forecasters have also downgraded their world growth estimates.

     

  4. Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times has an interesting take on the possible effect of a female candidate running against *rump in 2020.

    Yet if male resentment has grown in the last two years, so has female anger. “The fate of the women candidates, both in the primary and the general, will depend on the enthusiasm of the women voters,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. This enthusiasm was volcanic in the midterms, and it’s hard to see what Trump could do in the next 22 months to dampen it.

    Besides, Trump, though dangerous, is also weak. In a recent survey, 57 percent of registered voters said they planned to vote against him. There’s a phenomenon in business called the “glass cliff,” in which companies in crisis promote women to clean up disasters caused by men. “Only if male leaders have maneuvered an organization into trouble is a switch to a female leader preferred,” said an article in the Harvard Business Review.

    We could soon find out if the same is true in politics. Trump could be the man to wreck the country so badly that Americans will be willing to let a woman save it.

      1. You are welcome!  Here's another that I like:  David Leonhardt discusses my current favorite, Kamala Harris, whose views for the most part line up closely with my own, more so than the other candidates likely to join the race, and I believe has a good shot due to the California primary getting pulled into an early slot on the calendar.

          1. The problem I've always wrestled with in choosing candidates, is that none of them agree with me 100%.  And I'm too lazy to run for office, but then people wouldn't vote for me anyway because they wouldn't agree with me 100%. 

            So I pick the ones that are the best fit, even if they make mistakes.  When is the last time you voted for someone that you agreed with 100% (and did they win)?

             

            1. Ok, I get not needing to agree with someone 100%, but surely there are lines people cross which should lose your vote, right? And actively fighting to deny a trans person surgery seems like one of those lines. So does SESTA/FOSTA and fighting to keep people in prison because of all the cheap labor you can get out of them, not because they're guilty or a danger to society. I don't get how you can support someone who has done those things.

              2. Harris would not be my first choice – Elizabeth Warren is. However, I see Harris'  prosecutorial background as a strength in an environment of lawlessness. I will vote for her if she is the nominee, of course.

                We have a lawless President and Senate leadership, as well as a coterie of spineless worms like Gardner, who enable the "leaders" to run amok, treating law like a choice, cherry-picking which parts of the Constitution they want to enforce, disregarding long standing norms of conduct as irrelevant, and actively engaging in propaganda to confuse and demoralize the people.

                We need a hard-ass law and order person to set the ship of state right. For the same reasons, as well as his advocacy for voting rights, I'm hoping that Eric Holder will jump in to the candidate pool. He, too, will have decisions as a prosecutor that I disagree with. But respect for the law and the Constitution have to trump all that, in my opinion.

                1. Harris's prosecutorial background is a bad thing because it's her ties to the prison-industrial complex and her ties to law and order governance. Harris represents more things being criminalized and more people in jail. She is not as terrible as Trump, but that hardly makes her anywhere near good. We do not need a law and order person running this country. A law and order person running this country would be bad.

                  Liberation from oppression is not done through criminalization, through prisons, through more cops. It's done through stripping away systems of oppression, and many of those systems of oppression were directly upheld by Harris as a prosecutor and as a senator.

                  As senator, she cosponsored SESTA, a bill which forced sex worker friends of mine off the internet, where they had more control over their clientele, and back onto the street where they're in more danger. That is what a law and order candidate looks like. That is not desirable.

                  1. You'll forgive me if I don't take your advice on candidates, because of your "All politicians are evil" stance.

                    Do you vote? Or is that, too, just "encouraging them"?

                    1. Some politicians are worse than others. Trump is worse than most because of all his fascist tendencies. Harris is also worse than most (tho nowhere near as bad as Trump) for her law and order policies.

                      I do vote because I'm practical, but I'm critical of every politician I vote for. No one gets off the hook. And I would not vote for Kamala Harris or any other prosecutor or cop. Prosecutors and cops are an existential threat to oppressed groups.

                      As a queer person, they directly and adversely effect my life and the lives of people like me. When Harris cosponsored and helped to pass SESTA, she directly hurt friends of mine. When she fought to keep a trans woman in prison from transitioning, she directly hurt someone like me. Those are not minor issues. That's direct, open harm to oppressed people like me.

                    1. "Oppressed groups……"   Ahhhh. The "joys of victimhood."

                      Funny how when Dr. Stanley Biber made Trinidad, CO the sex change capitol of America, no one was complaining about people being denied their change surgery. Biber made patients wait a year and undergo all sorts of psychiatric and psychological testing and counseling. These days, people decide they want the change and they demand instant gratification. If they're denied, they become "victims."

                      Since there is no Reply button to click on, why do you care, Curmudgeon, about my comment?

                    2. Who's demanding instant gender reassignment surgery?  

                      And what the hell do you care if they did?

                    3. Oppressed?  Dead bird, whiny little white boys like you are the epitome of white privilege.

                    4. Have any of you ever looked at the trans murder rate? Or the trans poverty rate? Or, heck, the trans houselessness rate? All of those are in far excess of the cis equivalents. The trans people are even more overrepresented among child houseless people than adult houseless people. We also have a far higher suicide rate. We get discriminated against, our legal documents frequently refuse to acknowledge who we are. To deny oppression against trans people is to simply deny reality.

                    5. Why is it that the only time old white men only want to talk about the oppression African Americans have suffered is when they want to use it to minimize the suffering of another group? 

                  2. The argument that Harris may be bought off by the private prison industry is more compelling to me than whatever decisions she did or didn't make about sex workers and trafficking.

                    I've looked into her corporate donors a bit, and don't see overt evidence of prison industry contributions. Mostly, lawyers and media companies were contributing to her past campaigns.

                    She's made a commitment not to accept corporate PAC money.

                    I, for one, am not disputing that you, as a trans person, are oppressed in some unique ways. Ignore V's mean-spirited comments – it will only get uglier from here, and there is zero possibility of actual discourse….as you've undoubtedly figured out.

                    I also think that we need to legalize prostitution, so that sex workers are, for example, STD free, of age, not trafficked, getting appropriate addiction and counseling services, not abused, and registered with some kind of overseeing agency. Who knows where Harris might come down on that, but it would be on the side of the law, rather than on some religious moral judgement.

                    This would be a real boon to GOP legislators. If they could only be open and transparent about where and how  they get their sexual needs met, we wouldn't have the endless cycle of scandal and retirement. They might actually be able to keep their people in office.

                     

                     

                    1. Good luck ignoring the fa cts, privileged little white boy, as you rage about how black women oppress you.  MJ is dumb enough to buy that crap but it will be hard to find anyone else.

                      you really have no shame, do you, MJ?

                    2. I don't think she's bought off by corporate donors. I think she really believes in the prison industrial complex. In her heart of hearts, I think she believes that once you become a criminal or a sex worker, you no longer matter as a person and just about anything is justified in retaliation to this fact. She believes, I think, that trans people deserve rights, except when we're in prison or when we engage in sex work. It is a fucked up worldview which many, many people unfortunately share and does not require a single dollar of corporate money to instill in someone.

                    3. And don't forget, trans were slaves for 400 years…oops, that was black people. Tell me again, whiny whiteboy, how those mean black women oppress you.  Or do you just have a problem with black people, especially women, having power.

                    4. …You do know that oppression expresses itself in more than one way, right, Voy? Like, women are oppressed and were never slaves. First nations people are oppressed, despite not sharing a history of slavery with african american people. Working class people are oppressed, despite lacking a history of slavery as well.

        2. Too bad she was involved in the political assassination of Senator Al Franken.  Beyond a prank "groping" picture during a USO tour, he was also accused of "groping" a couple of women during photo ops with him over several years.  That was enough for Harris, Gillibrand and our own Senator Bennet to force him out, thereby depriving MN voters of their choice (twice) for Senator.

          I've noticed that Harris features "Democracy" as one of her key values.  I guess that depends on the situation for her.

          2. itlduso — are you confusing Harris with Gillibrand? Or do you think she should have bucked the 32 other Senators that called for his resignation?

            Thirty-two Democratic senators — 13 female and 19 male — called on Franken to resign as allegations of sexual harassment against him continue to mount. Republican Sen. Susan Collins also called on Franken to quit.

            1. Yes, all of the 32 Senators who called on Al Franken to resign, including Harris, Gillibrand and Bennet are culpable in this travesty of democracy.   There were approximately 19 other Democratic senators who did not throw Franken under the bus.

               

          4. <sarcastic frat boy impression> Yeah, right on! Boys will be boys. Everyone has gotten way too serious. Just like the attempted assassination of the honorable Judge Kavanaugh by these shrill kill joys. They should sit down and shut up. </sarcasm>

            All that Minnesota voters were deprived of by Franken resigning was the chance to be represented by a Republican. He was not an overwhelmingly popular Senator before the problems he created started coming out.

            2. Oh, so being "popular" is a condition for retaining a Senate seat?!?

              And, you're wrong anyway.  Franken won reelection with 53% of the vote in 2014.  The Republican got 43%. 

              1. In America we have elections. So to retain a seat a politician has to be popular.

                Minnesota is not New Jersey where a Democrat can win despite being indited for corruption. I think more than enough women would have failed to turn out for Franken if he had tried to run again.

          1. My first choice is Klobuchar too but my second choice is Harris.

            I Told You So needs to get over this Al Franken thing. Hell, even Al Franken has moved on.

            2. While it's not scientific, and perhaps attributable to the newness of her announcement, this Kos online poll shows a lot of Democrats like Harris too (or she has a strong vote bot army 🙂

              3809 votes

              WHO IS YOUR CHOICE FOR PRESIDENT 2020?

              Beto O'Rourke

              8%

              291 votes

              Elizabeth Warren

              21%

              789 votes

              Kamala Harris

              34%

              1307 votes

              Joe Biden

              8%

              323 votes

              Cory Booker

              2%

              64 votes

              Bernie Sanders

              6%

              212 votes

              Tulsi Gabbard

              0%

              17 votes

              Sherrod Brown

              8%

              309 votes

              Other

              4%

              167 votes

              Unsure

              9%

              330 votes

    2. About a decade ago during a speech in Aspen Ted Turner mused that if we elected only women to office for the next decade our problems would be solved.  He couldn't have been more spot-on. 

  5. Supreme Court allows transgender military ban to go into effect

    The Supreme Court allowed President Donald Trump's transgender military ban to go into effect on Tuesday, dealing a blow to LGBT activists who call the ban cruel and irrational.

    The Justices did not rule on the merits of the case, but will allow the ban to go forward while the lower courts work through it.

    The four liberal justices on the Court objected to allowing the administration's policy banning most transgender people from serving in the military to go into effect.

    The policy, first announced by the President in July 2017 via Twitter, and later officially released by then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis in 2018, blocks individuals who have been diagnosed with a condition known as gender dysphoria from serving with limited exceptions. It also specifies that individuals without the condition can serve, but only if they do so according to the sex they were assigned at birth.

    2. OTOH, The Supremes kicked the stool out from under *rump on DACA

      The Supreme Court took no action on Tuesday on the Trump administration’s plans to shut down a program that shields some 700,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation.

      The move left the program in place and denied negotiating leverage to Mr. Trump, who has said he wanted to use a Supreme Court victory in the case in negotiations with Democrats over immigration issues.

    3. All they really did was kick the military ban back down to the 9th Circuit. The Sad-ministration jumped the gun by appealing District Court rulings to SCOTUS. The Justices will entertain the case again when it is ripe.

      1. That's not quite what happened, I believe.  The USSC just wiped out two of the three injunctions against the ban that had come out of court cases.  There is one that still stands, out of the 4th Circuit, but it seems very likely that court will shortly "get the gist" of the supremes' ruling and lift that remaining injunction.

  7. Snow day. Winter storm Indra was supposed to whomp us with a blizzard, but we barely got two inches of snow in Morgan County. I think we're  all indulging in wishful thinking, closing schools and campuses. People were getting worried what with  June in January, robins in the backyard, geese refusing to migrate south. We want our winter back!

    And finally, the snowpack is back to normal.

    So I'll take it.

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