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[Rolan7]

That's covfefe in chief to you!
-Trump, addressing his detail.

[Paxiecrunchle]

Spoiler: A dramatization of Trump's casus belli with North Korea (click to show/hide)

Your image is broken.

[Rolan7]

Correct, but Culise corrected it (:

Spoiler: A dramatization of Trump's casus belli with North Korea (click to show/hide)

For the curious.  The image's extension was all wonky.  I probably substituted in the wrong one, but it was close enough for my browser to at least parse it as an image.

[Frumple]

... so anyone noticed the house has shat out its tax attempt? It's almost interesting, as it seems to fuck just about everyone outside of the extremely rich even more so than normal for GOP taxation bullshittery. There's cuts in there for the regular level of folks, but they're a substantially smaller portion of those that get benefits and a number of the deduction removals just kinda' screw over chunks of the working and middle class (never mind full on poor folks).

So far some of the highlights I've noticed, just since goddamn waking up this morning... takes a hilariously massive dump on higher education, to the point implementation could pretty easily cripple R&D on a nation wide scale. Fucks over people that adopt. Blatantly fucks over the parts of the country already disproportionately contributing to our tax coffers. Fucks veterans, killing the deduction that's pretty damn likely to have been a major aid towards getting them employed. Fucks over people with major medical expenses. Swathes of it are farcically tilted towards providing benefit in areas where the majority or supermajority of ownership lies in the hands of the top .01% of the country's earners, and to hell with the rest of us, a net hike on individual payments to marginally offset a massive cut in ones going to various sorts of business entities. _{and yes, I probably should link to all that but it's five in the morning and by the time I'm awake and done with stuff I have to do today, I'll probably have forgotten. It's not hard to scan the news for most of it, though.}

It's like someone took a caricature of criticisms of republican positions on taxation and saw it as a good idea, but not going far enough, and then took out their twirling moustache before deciding which parts to take further.

[martinuzz]

If Trump really is a Russian plant, he's doing a great job.

Work on destroying education system - check
Polarize the country to the brink of civil war - check
Cripple intelligence, military and diplomatic services by replacing seasoned and experienced staff with nitwits- check
Make the rest of the world hate the US because climate change denial - check
But her emails - check

Putin must be so proud

[sluissa]

If Trump really is a Russian plant, he's doing a great job.

Work on destroying education system - check
Polarize the country to the brink of civil war - check
Cripple intelligence, military and diplomatic services by replacing seasoned and experienced staff with nitwits- check
Make the rest of the world hate the US because climate change denial - check
But her emails - check

Putin must be so proud

As much as I would love the reveal if this were the case, this has about as much credibility as any of the other "4D chess" ideas people come up with as reasons for Trump being Trump.

[Frumple]

Eh... nah, there's definitely more credibility for some kind of putin angle along those lines. Putin actually is/was a spook, and likely had various degrees of exposure to that kind of work. An extent of history and capability. Wouldn't necessarily be actual direct control, but working to get an incompetent in control of a competing entity is definitely out of the sorts of play books putin likes to draw from.

Trump on the other hand has bugger all in his past as support for an any dimensions chessmastery, and his competence is storied at this point. Notably less credibility for something from that angle.

[Trekkin]

It's like someone took a caricature of criticisms of republican positions on taxation and saw it as a good idea, but not going far enough, and then took out their twirling moustache before deciding which parts to take further.

Or it's like they're used to proposing insane things in order to please their donors and don't want to admit that they could actually happen now. The Obamacare repeal catastrophe cost them a lot of megadonor money, and they're desperate to give them a return on investment. Skewing cartoonishly far right is one way to show they're willing to do that, and they can just hope someone else in the process takes the fall for killing it so they can look like they're doing what they were paid to do and hopefully get financially ready for 2018.

[scriver]

I dunno, I feel "is a Russian plant" is a different thing from the more likelier "was supported by Russia in hope of gaining influence with the US and/or causing weaknesses".

[Zangi]

I dunno, I feel "is a Russian plant" is a different thing from the more likelier "was supported by Russia in hope of gaining influence with the US and/or causing weaknesses".

Isn't that what our spooks are investigating now? 
Its like Murrica has groomed a buncha people who would believe just about anything they see as reality as long as it in some way confirms their bias.  Throw in how people consume news/media these days...  Resulting in foreign entities who want to influence the political process and/or throw out propaganda having been given the keys and welcome mat to do just that.

It is kinda interesting how such a mixing pot turned out to be like this...

[Starver]

I dunno, I feel "is a Russian plant" is a different thing from the more likelier "was supported by Russia in hope of gaining influence with the US and/or causing weaknesses".

I think the probable attempt was "buff ultimately-failing Challenger Trump to cast enough doubt around enough ultimate-victor Forgone-Conclusion Clinton, and end up with a weakened anti-Russia President". To many people's surprise, they over-muddied the contest and ended up with an unfortunately soiled pro-Russia President instead.

But Putin is a chessmaster (figuratively...  some sources suggest he hates the game itself) and a black-belt judokua (for real, unless you believe it's all just been Kayfabed), so maybe it was even a full and successful Batcomrade Gambit, rather than a Springtime For Stalin.

[RedKing]

It's like someone took a caricature of criticisms of republican positions on taxation and saw it as a good idea, but not going far enough, and then took out their twirling moustache before deciding which parts to take further.

Or it's like they're used to proposing insane things in order to please their donors and don't want to admit that they could actually happen now. The Obamacare repeal catastrophe cost them a lot of megadonor money, and they're desperate to give them a return on investment. Skewing cartoonishly far right is one way to show they're willing to do that, and they can just hope someone else in the process takes the fall for killing it so they can look like they're doing what they were paid to do and hopefully get financially ready for 2018.

And typically in Congressional politics, the House is the chamber where stupid shit gets passed, because they know the grown-ups in the Senate will stop the truly bad ideas. Senators have less accountability to their base because of their 6-year terms, whereas Representatives have to have something every two years to point to with their constituents -- "See?! I *tried* to make it legal to hunt queers, but them damn Democrats stopped me! Send me back to Washington to keep up the good fight!" (Or conversely, "See?! I *tried* to make quinoa a mandatory part of the American diet, but...." etc.)


On Putin-Trump, it's also become a case of Nice Job Breaking It, Comrade!, given that instead of a weakened anti-Russia President, he's got a weakened President who may or not be pro-Russia, depending on his mood, what he had for breakfast, and what he heard on Fox and Friends that morning. And who seems intent on destabilizing a number of areas in much closer proximity to Russia than to the US. I don't think "trigger potential nuclear strikes on NK" was on Putin's to-do list.

And if the Democrats are able to ride a huge tidal wave of popular anger back into office, he may find himself facing a strong Democratic government with a bone to pick with Russia.

[Frumple]

Hell, never mind the dems in that scenario, you'd have good odds of pervasive bipartisan support for kicking the shit out of them to varying degrees of metaphorical once the GOP's elected figurehead doesn't have blowing putin as a desired policy goal, or is at least sufficiently marginalized the party's craven shit bumper stops being hit because of it.

Also yeah, Virginia got rocked, apparently. First openly trans congresscritter get?

[misko27]

Looks like the polls were leaning Republican, given they said it would be close and it wasn't. A reminder that polls don't consistently screw over the GOP (remember 2012?)

Also, the turnout at the polling place I work at was pretty incredible. We had something like 3000 voters, far more than anything I usually see. Granted, it was a Mayoral Election, but that's still an order of magnitude more than our usual election.

[smjjames]

You also had the state Constitutional Convention thing (which has been done every 20 years since 1977 apparently), so, that may have been an additional factor.