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“You cannot have this kind of whiplash,” Etheridge said. “If every four years tax policy changes drastically like this, we are not going to be able to build anything great in this country.”
No shit.if democrats ever get a trifecta again (highly unlikely) they'd better fucking pass actual laws rather than this budget bill crap.
That means actually having 60+ votes or ending the filibuster
does it tho? tommy dumb fuck tuberville single handily shut down military appointments for months. moscow mitch just decided not to have senate hearings for garland.
the dems need to kick schumer in the balls and while he’s down get some fuken things took care of. they need to figure out how to out-moscow moscow mitch.
strongly worded letters can get fucked. we need some ‘well what the fuck are you gonna do about it?’
i used to call myself a dem but that’s just embarrassing now. not sure what i am anymore, you know, aside from pissed and frustrated.
There are things they Democrats should have been doing in addition to what they've done, but they can't actually stop budget bills like this one unless four Republican Senators join them.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Feel free to downvote me if you want, but downvotes don't change the truth.
The filibuster is an absolutely necessary evil. Yeah, it sucks when the GOP use it to block Democrat policies. But it's also been used by Democrats to stop the worst of GOP's policies as well. Dems have been asking for the end of the filibuster for years now, and people like me have been saying that eventually the GOP would return to power and shove it right down our throats. I believe it was Mitch McConnell who warned Democrats of exactly that when they voted to remove the filibuster for judge confirmations. And then the GOP took control and we've been paying for it ever since, with McConnell saying "What did you expect? We told you we would do this." the entire time.
And the same thing would happen here. As bad as this Trump administration has been (and it has been BAD), imagine how much worse it would be if there were no filibuster. Even if Chuck Schumer had a spine, it wouldn't matter. He'd have no voice that would be heard. They'd have no power. No way to stop the GOP from doing literally anything they wanted. Their only purpose would be to show up and watch. To make sure that there was a quorum. That's it.
Granted, they're not doing a whole lot of anything now. But the filibuster is a tool that we can use to at least try to stop the worst of the worst. And it's basically the only tool we've got left. It may not do much, but the last thing you want to do is willingly give that last weapon over to your enemy.
We've already been down this road already, and have been paying for it ever since. The 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and Trump flooding the federal courts with his hand-picked cronies are a direct result of this. Why do people think it's a good idea to do it again?
An actual speaking filibuster, yeah.
Yes. This bullshit where a back-stabbing little "centrist" asshole like Joe Lieberman could raise a pinky finger and shit-can something like the public option [1] is nonsense.
At least make motherfuckers like him WORK for it. I want REAL filibusters to be required to have such a thing. Not the mere mention of someone indicating that they would filibuster something.
I like how you Think the Democrats are using the Filibuster right now!
Never said they were. In fact, I specifically said "Granted, they're not doing a whole lot of anything right now". But just because this group of Democrat leaders are feckless morons doesn't mean we just willingly hand it over to Republicans and prevent possible future Democrat leaders from at least having the option to use it in the future.
The only people who benefit from ending the filibuster are Republicans.
Ending the filibuster would need to be accompanied by a rapid plan to essentially erase the Republican Party in its current form: mass political education, deep and broad electoral reforms, vast increases in small-d democratic participation, and probably many more radical reforms that would essentially rewrite the country.
But this would probably also erase the Democratic Party too, so they'd never do it.
The problem is that the GOP plans are to just shit on everything and tell Democrats to just keep it that way because if they try to clean it up, the GOP are just going to shit on it again, so they might as well just let it stay shitty and let everybody just get used to it.
The other problem is that most of the time, Democrats agree.
Is the goal to ensure the US falls behind the rest of the world?
Yes — the racism and hate are more important to them.
Those are just tools for controlling the masses. The oligarchs want control and will burn this country down to keep it.
Also trump is a traitor and a tool of Putin who only cares about his money.
And the sweet, sweet short-term cash for the right people.
They do no believe the world is going to last, so their plan is to squeeze every bit of juice out of it as fast as possible before the End.
To be fair, the US has been behind the rest of the world in most things for quite awhile.
What they want is total control and fear-based loyalty.
No...
The goal is to obscenely enrich to the fullest extent possible any/all Fossil Fuel Robber Barons and all their "friends" (read: the ones that initiated these policies).
They simply care for nothing else like climate change, the planet, people (rank and file), etc... (unless you count working to accelerate the Biblical End Times).
🤡 🖕 💩 💩
Yeah.
The plan is to reduce us to third world poverty. Use the collapse as an excuse for total austerity. Then, in ride the billionaires to the rescue, and most of us will serve them, just to stay alive.
They'll ride in, but it won't be to save us. It'll be only exactly to the extent they can buy up the bankrupt economy. It's the post-Soviet Russian collapse wealth privatisation scenario.
I will happily serve the billionaires.
With a side of coleslaw.
Ewww, disgusting. Yucky coleslaw!! No thank yo...Wait, is it homemade or store bought?
German slaw with vinegar instead of mayonnaise.
To be fair, the us has been a 3rd world country with iPhones for a long time. They are just trying to seal the deal.
These fucking species-traitors are trying to speedrun the end of human civilization, and they've convinced 40% of the country to cheer them on while they do it.
Their paymasters are very unsure about wanting humanity to survive:
Douthat: I think you would prefer the human race to endure, right?
Thiel: Uh ——
Douthat: You’re hesitating.
Thiel: Well, I don’t know. I would — I would ——
Douthat: This is a long hesitation!
Thiel: There’s so many questions implicit in this.
Douthat: Should the human race survive?
Thiel: Yes.
Thiel and that freak Curtis Yarvin are some very weird and fucked up people.
The Democrats need to bring back "weird" and in a very big way. That shit was working. Shine a spotlight on these weird motherfuckers and ask the normal American voter - do you really want this?
Christ.
It's about making "liberals" (meaning anyone even slightly to the left of Ronnie Raygun, I guess?) cry for the dumbdumbs that vote for the oligarchs to sell the country off.
For the stupid base and a lot of the elites that run the conservative "movement"/Republican Party, cruelty is the point. Making a shit-ton of money is the main point for the people getting the stupid base to vote against their own interests...even if they fuck over their own descendants...
The Republicans not only hate freedom, hate this country and most of the people in it, hate the rule of law, and hate the Constitution, they also hate humanity.
They hate not being the ones in control. That's it. Because they can't handle being afraid.
It's fear not hate.
So many of them spend a lot of time and money on keeping the others in their group deeply afraid of their own shadow. So it's something caused by them. They aren't born that fearful, that kind of fear has to be curated.
Except for White Jeeeeezus!
Subsidies for coal and taxes on solar
Freedumb!
Do you smell that? Clean coal, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of clean coal in the morning. Smells like victory!
Is MAGA happening yet?
MAGA was all the people we hated along the way.
The term "maga" has no real meaning or guiding principles.
It's conservative Newspeak and sounds like baby-talk, which I think is no accident.
And the only thing that seems to outline what "maga" means is if it is something that makes Taco happy. Everything else is secondary, even if conservatives have completely reversed themselves on policies they supposedly held dear prior to learning how Taco feels on a given matter. The cons pretended to revere the military at one point. If Taco says those that serve are "suckers and losers", well, then, what Taco says is law, and cons have always been at war with the military, I guess. Until Taco needs a birthday parade...
Well in case you didn’t notice, I was ridiculing MAGA because everything Trunp does is worshipped by millions just because he does it - even if it’s something incredibly stupid and and/or tragic like logging National parks just to “stick it to Canada”.
Yes, sorry, I completely noticed. None of that commentary was meant as a poor reflection on you or what you said. I was just "yes-and'ing" your comment, I guess. :)
I wonder what the percentage is that: believe the lies/value $ above everything VS just wanting to opposite everything Dems want and just don't care they are killing people/the planet?
Like what % are actually making backroom deals and JDGAF that the planet is burning, and which are just asshole dipshits that see it as just getting fake GOP points to fuck everything because it's "sticking it to the libs!".
Edit - Also the bigger issue is that once these assholes make it easier for Big Business to fill the air/land/water full of forever chemicals and micro-plastics and all the other fun shit, good luck getting back to "healthy". It's going to take decades and $$$$$ to even turn around let alone "fix".
Well, that is similar to the question of how many church-goers actually believe in what they hear in church. How many are just pretending to have "Faith". I would think it to be that less than half are pretending. Say 60% true believers. I bet it's the same with the Climate change topic. So 40% of these conservatives actually believe in Climate change but don't care. $$$ more important.