Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Trekkin]

I'm currently watching the Sessions interrogation thing.

Firstly, there has got to be a better format for doing this type of thing. They are asking paragraph-long questions as fast as they can, demanding a Yes or No answer, then saying they don't have time to wait for an answer and just immediately moving on to the next question.

Second, I'm growing increasingly vexed by people saying they find something 'interesting' when what they mean is 'suspicious'.

"Interesting" is one of those words that has become inherently sarcastic; it's used mostly to allude to complexity without needing to understand anything about it. It means, in brief, "I don't care enough to understand this in any depth but I want you to think I'm smart enough to appreciate it."

Public hearings are the same kind of posturing. There's no dialogue, just a bunch of people trying to generate sound bites about how tough and righteous they are and compete for media attention. That's transparency for you: point a camera at a politician and they can't think of anything else but free publicity.

Don't let it get to you. The actual business of investigation and interrogation has always been and will always be conducted behind closed doors by qualified, trained, and properly incentivized professionals; expecting desperate clowns to do it in a spotlight that blinds them to everything else is just unreasonable.

[Dunamisdeos]

Anyone have a link to that "interrogation"?

It sounds more like an episode of CSI than something from real life.

[Baffler]

Assange has done a lot to hurt his own and his allies' credibility lately. It almost makes me wonder if all the conspiracy theories of his having been cut off or killed and had his communications hijacked have some truth to them, heh.

[scriver]

I'm currently watching the Sessions interrogation thing.

Firstly, there has got to be a better format for doing this type of thing. They are asking paragraph-long questions as fast as they can, demanding a Yes or No answer, then saying they don't have time to wait for an answer and just immediately moving on to the next question.

Second, I'm growing increasingly vexed by people saying they find something 'interesting' when what they mean is 'suspicious'.

Interesting.

"Interesting" is one of those words that has become inherently sarcastic; it's used mostly to allude to complexity without needing to understand anything about it. It means, in brief, "I don't care enough to understand this in any depth but I want you to think I'm smart enough to appreciate it."

Public hearings are the same kind of posturing. There's no dialogue, just a bunch of people trying to generate sound bites about how tough and righteous they are and compete for media attention. That's transparency for you: point a camera at a politician and they can't think of anything else but free publicity.

Don't let it get to you. The actual business of investigation and interrogation has always been and will always be conducted behind closed doors by qualified, trained, and properly incentivized professionals; expecting desperate clowns to do it in a spotlight that blinds them to everything else is just unreasonable.

[redwallzyl]

Welp, here we go again again again.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/564117257/at-least-3-reported-dead-after-shooting-at-school-other-locations-in-california


Also unrelated. fuck you too republicans! The fuck?!
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/14/563879136/house-gop-tax-plan-would-hit-grad-students-with-massive-tax-hike

[Lucus Casius]

Double victory for them.  Lower taxes on everyone they care about, make it impossible for people to get the graduate level education that they despise.  Bravo.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to figure out how I'm gonna afford eating these next few years.

[Dunamisdeos]

It probably won't go through. When Obama released the first draft for Obamacare the premium for me (as a full time student with a part-time job) would have increased my current health insurance payment at the time to 110% percent of my bi-weekly check. This did not last.

[smjjames]

Welp, here we go again again again.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/564117257/at-least-3-reported-dead-after-shooting-at-school-other-locations-in-california

In the article, the police were reportedly responding to a domestic violence incident shortly before it started. This domestic violence link keeps showing up again and again, too often to be mere coincidence. Also, if Republicans and conservatives think that it only happens in liberal enclaves like big cities, look again, it's a rural area like that Texas town.

On the tax stuff, the Senate has thrown a partial Obamacare repeal into it by including a repeal of the individual mandate. I knew Republicans hadn't given up the repeal fight, though I'm sure they are well aware that Dems will use that to their advantage.

It probably won't go through. When Obama released the first draft for Obamacare the premium for me (as a full time student with a part-time job) would have increased my current health insurance payment at the time to 110% percent of my bi-weekly check. This did not last.

Don't underestimate the Republicans penchant for doing dumb things. Besides, this isn't a first draft, it's probably THE bill that they'll pass. They're so desperate for a legislative achievement and nail down some electoral promises that they're willing to rush through this stuff.

[Dunamisdeos]

*bi monthly check

And yeah I hope there's enough decent people to block it, much like the last dogpile of healthcare reform attempts.

[Trekkin]

And yeah I hope there's enough decent people to block it, much like the last dogpile of healthcare reform attempts.

Or, as with the repeal debacle, enough extremists pulling in different directions to empty the set of bills that satisfy everyone. Thune's saying they have 50 votes on the floor, but look at what they're adding: repeal of the individual mandate? making fetuses capable of having 529 accounts because they're people? This just is not sustainable, especially not when they bring it to a conference with the House. At some point two Congressional fever dreams are going to collide.

[smjjames]

It's inevitable that they'll collide since they'll have to reconcile differences between the two (hence the title). They could just not reconcile the differences, but there's so many differences that it would matter which bill someone decides to follow the law of.

[Trekkin]

It's inevitable that they'll collide since they'll have to reconcile differences between the two (hence the title). They could just not reconcile the differences, but there's so many differences that it would matter which bill someone decides to follow the law of.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. There is only going to be one bill out of this process and it has to pass both chambers like any other legislation; if they fail to reconcile the differences enough for both chambers to pass the same bill, there is no bill.

[smjjames]

It's inevitable that they'll collide since they'll have to reconcile differences between the two (hence the title). They could just not reconcile the differences, but there's so many differences that it would matter which bill someone decides to follow the law of.

I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. There is only going to be one bill out of this process and it has to pass both chambers like any other legislation; if they fail to reconcile the differences enough for both chambers to pass the same bill, there is no bill.

I guess that's a slight misunderstanding on my part, nvm. Maybe I thought they'd go and try to pass both bills, as crazy as that sounds.

That is his point. Odds are either they'll get pass nothing, or the House will just pass whatever the hell the Senate passes just to "get something done".

Or that. Or pass both. They're desperate enough to flout the usual processes.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

As pointed out on 538 today, the House isn't much more stable than the Senate. Not only is there the impossible riddle of pleasing both the Freedom Caucus and the Tuesday Group, but the Clinton-region Republicans and the NY/NJ Republicans would both fuck themselves by voting for the bill as written.

[Trekkin]

I guess that's a slight misunderstanding on my part, nvm. Maybe I thought they'd go and try to pass both bills, as crazy as that sounds.

Or maybe you were thinking of the normal cross-chamber amendments process? That can sometimes look like passing both the House and Senate versions of a bill, even though it's only one final piece of legislation.

It's unlikely in this case, though. Of the three routes legislation can go through Congress, major legislation that's this complicated and important almost always goes to a conference committee, rather than being passed by both the House and Senate outright or being repeatedly amended in each house until an identical text passes both of them. Since it's doomed to a conference committee anyway, both houses are free to pass the most extreme lunacy they want and then go back to their donors and say "well, we passed the bill you wanted, but the other house made us compromise and this was the best those jerks would let us do."