Trump announces deal to reopen federal government through Feb. 15

[Jingthing]

A bit of amusing "trump" shutdown nostalgia. It's over now so maybe we start to laugh about it?

 

Remember not so many hours ago "trump" and some of his clueless billionaire lackeys were suggesting being without a paycheck was no big deal to workers?

 

One of their lines was the workers could ask landlords and grocers to "work with them" and so on. 

 

Well, there were reports that some people were calling "trump" hotel in Washington, identifying themselves as among the impacted federal workers, and asking if the hotel would "work with them" on booking rooms.

 

Their reported answers were -- no, the "trump" hotel does not "work with" federal workers.

 

Funny, huh?

[heybruce]

9 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

Politicians make promises, then don't keep tnem. It is the nature of the game.

 

As for the popular vote, it is completely irrelevant. American election law has been based on the Electoral  College forever. Both candidates knew about it. Clinton especially has no excuse,, she had decades of Washington experience. To get beaten by a political neophyte must have been humiliating. Trump walked  into her world  and kicked her ass.

Your comment on politicians breaking promises should have been directed to the poster I was replying to, guest879.  He was the one expressing disappointment about one of Trump's many broken promises.

 

Also, he was the one who stated "the general public" voted for Trump.  I explained that was not the case. 

 

But I suspect you didn't really want to address my post, you wanted a "but, but, but...Hillary" diversion.

[heybruce]

8 hours ago, Kelsall said:

Trump did not realize that Pelosi's and Schumer's hate for him exceeded any love they might have had for the US.  It's all about the hate.  But beyond that he played it well.

 

All this ties into another upcoming event: RBG will assume room temperature very soon. Trump wisely reopened the government and will not allow it to be shut it down again as he does not want to give Pelosi an excuse to hold up hearings for RBG's replacement on SCOTUS.

 

It's called 3D chess and Trump plays it well.  Pelosi and Schumer continue to play checkers.

You don't seem to realize that Trump's love for Trump exceeds his grasp of reality.  Perhaps you have the same problem.

[DM07]

SO!
MUCH!
WINNING!
[emoji16]

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[Kelsall]

1 hour ago, Jingthing said:

A bit of amusing "trump" shutdown nostalgia. It's over now so maybe we start to laugh about it?

 

Remember not so many hours ago "trump" and some of his clueless billionaire lackeys were suggesting being without a paycheck was no big deal to workers?

 

One of their lines was the workers could ask landlords and grocers to "work with them" and so on. 

 

Well, there were reports that some people were calling "trump" hotel in Washington, identifying themselves as among the impacted federal workers, and asking if the hotel would "work with them" on booking rooms.

 

Their reported answers were -- no, the "trump" hotel does not "work with" federal workers.

 

Funny, huh?

Affected Federal workers were all offered zero interest no credit check loans to get them through for those not allowed to show up for work, it was a paid vacation.  Here is but one example of the offers made by many banks and credit unions. 

https://www.navyfederal.org/about/government-shutdown.php

[Hanaguma]

8 hours ago, JAG said:

Astonishing! I would suggest that the whole point of the electoral college is to represent the way in which the population voted. Yes the individual members represent their states, but if there is a clear national majority of votes for one candidate, in this case numbering some 3 million, I find it quite astonishing that the electoral college can decide for the other!

 

I am sure that was not the intention when the system was established.

 

If more people voted against than for you, then you simply cannot claim a democratic mandate, to build a wall or for any other of the policies on which you stood for election!

You would be wrong. The purpose of the electoral college is to balance power between high population and low population states, to avoid the tyranny of the majority. After all, the United STATES is the country, so the states are given extra political power. It forces a president to represent the entire country, rather than concentrating in a few high population cities. The same reason the Senate has two members per state regardless of population. 

 

As for your second point, it is common in parliamentary democracies to have the same situation. Witness Canada- last election, PM Trudeau won a majority government despite winning less than 40% of the popular vote.  Or the UK, where Theresa May won a majority government with only 42% of the popular vote. 

 

Get it?  

[Jingthing]

7 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

You would be wrong. The purpose of the electoral college is to balance power between high population and low population states, to avoid the tyranny of the majority. After all, the United STATES is the country, so the states are given extra political power. It forces a president to represent the entire country, rather than concentrating in a few high population cities. The same reason the Senate has two members per state regardless of population. 

 

As for your second point, it is common in parliamentary democracies to have the same situation. Witness Canada- last election, PM Trudeau won a majority government despite winning less than 40% of the popular vote.  Or the UK, where Theresa May won a majority government with only 42% of the popular vote. 

 

Get it?  

Wrong again. Hint to the history deprived -- SLAVERY.

 

Quote

 

Five myths about the electoral college

By George C. Edwards III

November 2, 2012

1. The framers created the electoral college to protect small states.

The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a variety of reasons for settling on the electoral college format, but protecting smaller states was not among them. Some delegates feared direct democracy, but that was only one factor in the debate.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-electoral-college/2012/11/02/2d45c526-1f85-11e2-afca-58c2f5789c5d_story.html?utm_term=.25a0d25d6ead

[DM07]

You would be wrong. The purpose of the electoral college is to balance power between high population and low population states, to avoid the tyranny of the majority. After all, the United STATES is the country, so the states are given extra political power. It forces a president to represent the entire country, rather than concentrating in a few high population cities. The same reason the Senate has two members per state regardless of population. 
 
As for your second point, it is common in parliamentary democracies to have the same situation. Witness Canada- last election, PM Trudeau won a majority government despite winning less than 40% of the popular vote.  Or the UK, where Theresa May won a majority government with only 42% of the popular vote. 
 
Get it?  

"...the tyranny of the majority"???
The horror of it!

...and by the way: the electoral college was all about slavery!

Better luck next time!

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[samran]

9 hours ago, Kelsall said:

 

 

It's called 3D chess and Trump plays it well.  Pelosi and Schumer continue to play checkers.

So for those of us not as smart as you, in which part of this 3D chess game does Mexico start paying for this wall? 

[samran]

26 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

You would be wrong. The purpose of the electoral college is to balance power between high population and low population states, to avoid the tyranny of the majority. After all, the United STATES is the country, so the states are given extra political power. It forces a president to represent the entire country, rather than concentrating in a few high population cities. The same reason the Senate has two members per state regardless of population. 

 

As for your second point, it is common in parliamentary democracies to have the same situation. Witness Canada- last election, PM Trudeau won a majority government despite winning less than 40% of the popular vote.  Or the UK, where Theresa May won a majority government with only 42% of the popular vote. 

 

Get it?  

Um.... Theresa May leads a minority government... 

[Hanaguma]

True that Dr. Edwards is no fan of the Electoral College. Methinks he has an ax to grind against it, which somewhat influences his writing.  Others look at the debates that occurred when the framers of the Constitution, particularly Wilson and Madison, and saw it as a way to allow some democratic representation without direct election. But those are long and involved historical arguments.  

 

Reality is that many political systems allow a non-majority candidate to win an election for various reasons. Hence JAG's claim is not accurate.

[Hanaguma]

1 minute ago, samran said:

Um.... Theresa May leads a minority government... 

....oops, you're right, she just missed it. Still she formed a government in spite of not winning a majority of votes. We have to go all the way back to 2015, when Cameron won a majority with less than 40% of the popular vote. My bad.

[bristolboy]

1 hour ago, Kelsall said:

Affected Federal workers were all offered zero interest no credit check loans to get them through for those not allowed to show up for work, it was a paid vacation.  Here is but one example of the offers made by many banks and credit unions. 

https://www.navyfederal.org/about/government-shutdown.php

"Affected Federal workers were all offered zero interest no credit check loans to get them through..."

No they weren't all offered zero interest lonas. That is a falsehood. A few credit unions did that. Some banks waived penalties for late payments.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/18/here-are-the-banks-and-credit-unions-helping-federal-workers-.html

[Basil B]

Lets hope they get their back pay before the 15th Feb when probably they will be laid off or made to work without regular pay cheques again.

[bristolboy]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

You would be wrong. The purpose of the electoral college is to balance power between high population and low population states, to avoid the tyranny of the majority. After all, the United STATES is the country, so the states are given extra political power. It forces a president to represent the entire country, rather than concentrating in a few high population cities. The same reason the Senate has two members per state regardless of population. 

 

As for your second point, it is common in parliamentary democracies to have the same situation. Witness Canada- last election, PM Trudeau won a majority government despite winning less than 40% of the popular vote.  Or the UK, where Theresa May won a majority government with only 42% of the popular vote. 

 

Get it?  

One of the distortions perpetrated by the right is that the purpose of the electoral college was to balance power between high population states and low population states. No. The purpose was to give the slave states extra power by allowing each slave to count for 3/5 of a vote when it came not only to the Presidency, but in reckoning how many House members each state would have.

[Jingthing]

Lets hope they get their back pay before the 15th Feb when probably they will be laid off or made to work without regular pay cheques again.

I heard even the checks they are already will be delayed at least a week from the reopening. Got to be both the stupidest and the longest shutdown on US history. Thanks a billion "trump"-- he won nothing and nothing is exactly what he deserves.

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[Hanaguma]

59 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

One of the distortions perpetrated by the right is that the purpose of the electoral college was to balance power between high population states and low population states. No. The purpose was to give the slave states extra power by allowing each slave to count for 3/5 of a vote when it came not only to the Presidency, but in reckoning how many House members each state would have.

Like I said before, it's a debatable matter depending on where you start to look, from the Constitutional Congress onwards.

 

The larger point is that many countries elect leaders to majority governments with less than 50% of the popular vote. You are missing the forest for the trees.  This is one of the common whines about Trump and it needs to be countered with facts. 

[JAG]

2 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

You would be wrong. The purpose of the electoral college is to balance power between high population and low population states, to avoid the tyranny of the majority. After all, the United STATES is the country, so the states are given extra political power. It forces a president to represent the entire country, rather than concentrating in a few high population cities. The same reason the Senate has two members per state regardless of population. 

 

As for your second point, it is common in parliamentary democracies to have the same situation. Witness Canada- last election, PM Trudeau won a majority government despite winning less than 40% of the popular vote.  Or the UK, where Theresa May won a majority government with only 42% of the popular vote. 

 

Get it?  

Yes, I get that the electoral college has avoided a "tyranny of a majority", by selecting the candidate chosen by a minority of the voters instead of the candidate chosen by the majority. Perhaps we could call it a "tyranny of the minority". Whichever way you look at it the fact remains that Mrs Clinton (for whom I have little time personally) won considerably more votes than Mr Trump. Some 3 million more. Yet the electoral college failed to recognise that. You may call it whining, I think it is a very pertinent point, for which I have yet to hear a convincing justification.

 

Both Mr Trudeau and Mrs May became Prime Minister of their respective countries because they (or rather their parties) won a greater number of the parliamentary seats (and of the popular vote) nationally than any of the other party leaders. That is a very different matter to being installed as President despite winning significantly fewer votes than the rival candidate. The two are simply not comparable.

 

Get it?

[Hanaguma]

4 minutes ago, JAG said:

Yes, I get that the electoral college has avoided a "tyranny of a majority", by selecting the candidate chosen by a minority of the voters instead of the candidate chosen by the majority. Perhaps we could call it a "tyranny of the minority". Whichever way you look at it the fact remains that Mrs Clinton (for whom I have little time personally) won considerably more votes than Mr Trump. Some 3 million more. Yet the electoral college failed to recognise that. You may call it whining, I think it is a very pertinent point, for which I have yet to hear a convincing justification.

 

Both Mr Trudeau and Mrs May became Prime Minister of their respective countries because they (or rather their parties) won a greater number of the parliamentary seats (and of the popular vote) than any of the other party leaders. That is a very different matter to being installed as President despite winning significantly fewer votes than the rival candidate. The two are simply not comparable.

 

Get it?

But now, you're moving the goalposts. Previously you said, and I quote,

 

"If more people voted against than for you, then you simply cannot claim a democratic mandate"

 

Which is it? 

 

Not to mention that Trump did win a few fewer votes than Clinton, about 2% fewer, mainly due to Democratic strangleholds in California and New York.  It's about as significant as a hard core GOP supporter saying that Trump has a mandate because he won 30 states, and Clinton only won 20. Both numbers are interesting but irrelevant. It's like losing at chess by checkmate but claiming that you didn't "really lose" because at the end of the game you had more pieces left on the board.  

 

I'm no fan of PM Trudeau in my home country (can't stand him to be honest), yet he won the election and is my Prime Minister. Such are the rules of politics. 

[bristolboy]

All this exchange about the electoral college began as a deflection. Supporters of Trump claim that because he won in 2016 that constitutes a mandate for the wall. They conveniently ignore the elections of 2018 in which the Republicans made illegal immigration the central issue. How did that work out?

According to the latest Fox News Poll, it's a pretty small minority of voters who think that the situation at the border is an emergency. And the majority of voters who actually live in congressional districts bordering on Mexico clearly don't believe that there's an emergency.

And yet, somehow the lack of that wall justifies a partial shutdown of the government?

[joecoolfrog]

13 hours ago, Kelsall said:

Trump did not realize that Pelosi's and Schumer's hate for him exceeded any love they might have had for the US.  It's all about the hate.  But beyond that he played it well.

 

All this ties into another upcoming event: RBG will assume room temperature very soon. Trump wisely reopened the government and will not allow it to be shut it down again as he does not want to give Pelosi an excuse to hold up hearings for RBG's replacement on SCOTUS.

 

It's called 3D chess and Trump plays it well.  Pelosi and Schumer continue to play checkers.

Even the right wing media have acknowledged that Trump lost , no amount of bravado and face saving changes that simple fact.

He is now caught between the Republicans , who know he is dragging them down , and his diminishing but frenzied base who expect him to deliver on his fantasies.

Oh and the Dems control Congress , his disaproval numbers are soaring and he is potentially facing all sorts of legal problems.

All those are wins as well I suppose !

[JAG]

52 minutes ago, joecoolfrog said:

Even the right wing media have acknowledged that Trump lost , no amount of bravado and face saving changes that simple fact.

He is now caught between the Republicans , who know he is dragging them down , and his diminishing but frenzied base who expect him to deliver on his fantasies.

Oh and the Dems control Congress , his disaproval numbers are soaring and he is potentially facing all sorts of legal problems.

All those are wins as well I suppose !

Utterly exhausting "wins" perhaps?

[keemapoot]

10 hours ago, joecoolfrog said:

Even the right wing media have acknowledged that Trump lost , no amount of bravado and face saving changes that simple fact.

He is now caught between the Republicans , who know he is dragging them down , and his diminishing but frenzied base who expect him to deliver on his fantasies.

Oh and the Dems control Congress , his disaproval numbers are soaring and he is potentially facing all sorts of legal problems.

All those are wins as well I suppose !

Yeah, this is really strange seeing the right win media turn on Trump on this issue when they have been absolutely falling over themselves fawning over him for two years. Ann Coulter even appeared on Bill Maher's show and trashed Trump. However, Trump's biggest fan, at Trump's biggest fan club, Fox News, Sean Hannity has called for this to stop. So, I expect this to be a temporary aberration and things to return to normal soon.

[Katia]

4 hours ago, keemapoot said:

Yeah, this is really strange seeing the right win media turn on Trump on this issue when they have been absolutely falling over themselves fawning over him for two years. Ann Coulter even appeared on Bill Maher's show and trashed Trump. However, Trump's biggest fan, at Trump's biggest fan club, Fox News, Sean Hannity has called for this to stop. So, I expect this to be a temporary aberration and things to return to normal soon.

Yeah, but didn't Coulter essentially call him a pussy?  So she doesn't think he should've caved, yes?  It's like saying you're against Jack the Ripper... because he didn't kill enough people for your taste.  IOW, she doesn't think he has gone too far off the deep end, she thinks he hasn't gone far enough... not exactly what I'd call a good example of other right-wingers turning against him (I don't know about the rest of them).

[heybruce]

Extreme factions on the left, right, and on other fringes that defy description consider compromise as a betrayal of ideals and a sign of weakness.  These factions have too much influence, they should be ignored.

[keemapoot]

51 minutes ago, Katia said:

Yeah, but didn't Coulter essentially call him a pussy?  So she doesn't think he should've caved, yes?  It's like saying you're against Jack the Ripper... because he didn't kill enough people for your taste.  IOW, she doesn't think he has gone too far off the deep end, she thinks he hasn't gone far enough... not exactly what I'd call a good example of other right-wingers turning against him (I don't know about the rest of them).

Yeah, she doubled down on him caving, calling him a pussy. She is really out there with this extreme Trumpism stuff. She is more Trump that Trump himself. To put it in context though, Bill Maher just laughs it all off and actually is good friends with her. It's all just outrageous right wing entertainment with her. Keeps her in the chips.

[Sheryl]

Extreme factions on the left, right, and on other fringes that defy description consider compromise as a betrayal of ideals and a sign of weakness.  These factions have too much influence, they should be ignored.

+1

Especially since compromise is the essence of the democratic legislative process.

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[Berkshire]

On 1/28/2019 at 12:39 PM, keemapoot said:

Yeah, she doubled down on him caving, calling him a pussy. She is really out there with this extreme Trumpism stuff. She is more Trump that Trump himself. To put it in context though, Bill Maher just laughs it all off and actually is good friends with her. It's all just outrageous right wing entertainment with her. Keeps her in the chips.

It's sort of funny seeing what's going on with the extreme right.  Here you have Ann Coulter who's not a bit shy about holding Trump to his promises.  Then you have the Trump minions who will protect him at all cost.  It played out on Fox News...

 

[Moments after former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took to Fox News to tell President Trump to ignore Ann Coulter, the right-wing pundit went on a tear, firing off nearly a dozen tweets insulting both Gingrich and the president.]

 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ann-coulter-goes-scorched-earth-on-newt-gingrich-in-battle-over-trump?ref=wrap

 

And according to Coulter....

 

[“Trump voters have fallen into 2 factions: The Tell the Truth faction and the Kiss the Emperor’s Ass camp,” she wrote. “Newt and I have picked different camps.”]

 

I wonder which camp the TV trumpets are with.  I'm guessing same as Newt.