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2023 Republican Government Shutdown: Same Shit, Same Story


horn4life

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15 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

From my understanding McConnell is pretty much not removable as leader.  It’s legally possible because they set their own rules, but incredibly unlikely.

However, if GOP Senators really wanted to push McConnell, they could start publicly calling him out or step down if it got bad enough. 

That’s an insanely long way away though, almost unimaginable.

Thanks for the reply.  I found this old article and apparantly a simple majority of GOP senators can remove the leader at anytime.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/slate.com/news-and-politics/2002/12/how-do-you-get-rid-of-the-senate-majority-leader.amp

Edited by Horn Dog
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4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Yeah, this supports the argument that Trump has shut everything down to impede the Mueller investigation. 

 

2 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

I mean, right?  After that, how do you challenge his actions in court?

 

Seriously, I don't know.  I've never worked in a world without a functioning federal judiciary. 

 

2 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

I immediately assumed he was obstructing justice with the shutdown.  

It’s all he can do. 

I disagree with all of these.  You're giving him WAY too much credit here.

Look at his history.  When it came to getting what he wants -- which usually is "pay less for something than I agreed to pay" -- what is his historic tactic?  It's simply refusing to pay, and waiting for the desperate contractor to break.  Trump agrees to pay tile contractor $2 million to lay fancy, gaudy tile in Trump Tower.  He pays the first invoice for $200k, but then slow-plays the rest.  Tile contractor complains, but finishes the job because hey, it's a $2 million job, and it's Trump!  Trump then refuses to pay.  Tile contractor has a material supplier eating his ass for lunch, he has his employees who need to get paid eating his ass for lunch.  Contractor is desperate for cash -- he wants the remaining $1.8 million, but he needs cash NOW to pay his bills.  Trump holds out.  Tile contractor eventually agrees to take $1.2 million, which will cover his bills, but make no profit.  Trump pays it -- winning!  So much winning you're going to get tired of winning!  I got you a $2 million tile job for $1.4 million!  ART OF THE DEAL!

That's Trump's play here -- he's running the same play he's run a thousand times before.  Squeeze the other side, and when they've suffered enough, they'll give you concessions because they NEED whatever you'll give them.

Problem: Schumer and Pelosi aren't starstruck tile contractors.  And Trump's only hurting himself when he hurts the rest of the country.

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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

 

 

I disagree with all of these.  You're giving him WAY too much credit here.

Look at his history.  When it came to getting what he wants -- which usually is "pay less for something than I agreed to pay" -- what is his historic tactic?  It's simply refusing to pay, and waiting for the desperate contractor to break.  Trump agrees to pay tile contractor $2 million to lay fancy, gaudy tile in Trump Tower.  He pays the first invoice for $200k, but then slow-plays the rest.  Tile contractor complains, but finishes the job because hey, it's a $2 million job, and it's Trump!  Trump then refuses to pay.  Tile contractor has a material supplier eating his ass for lunch, he has his employees who need to get paid eating his ass for lunch.  Contractor is desperate for cash -- he wants the remaining $1.8 million, but he needs cash NOW to pay his bills.  Trump holds out.  Tile contractor eventually agrees to take $1.2 million, which will cover his bills, but make no profit.  Trump pays it -- winning!  So much winning you're going to get tired of winning!  I got you a $2 million tile job for $1.4 million!  ART OF THE DEAL!

That's Trump's play here -- he's running the same play he's run a thousand times before.  Squeeze the other side, and when they've suffered enough, they'll give you concessions because they NEED whatever you'll give them.

Problem: Schumer and Pelosi aren't starstruck tile contractors.  And Trump's only hurting himself when he hurts the rest of the country.

Perhaps you’re giving him too much credit.

I don’t think Trump wants anything but our system to crumble because it’s got him dead to rights.  He’s in survival mode now.

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Just now, Brisketexan said:

 

 

I disagree with all of these.  You're giving him WAY too much credit here.

Look at his history.  When it came to getting what he wants -- which usually is "pay less for something than I agreed to pay" -- what is his historic tactic?  It's simply refusing to pay, and waiting for the desperate contractor to break.  Trump agrees to pay tile contractor $2 million to lay fancy, gaudy tile in Trump Tower.  He pays the first invoice for $200k, but then slow-plays the rest.  Tile contractor complains, but finishes the job because hey, it's a $2 million job, and it's Trump!  Trump then refuses to pay.  Tile contractor has a material supplier eating his ass for lunch, he has his employees who need to get paid eating his ass for lunch.  Contractor is desperate for cash -- he wants the remaining $1.8 million, but he needs cash NOW to pay his bills.  Trump holds out.  Tile contractor eventually agrees to take $1.2 million, which will cover his bills, but make no profit.  Trump pays it -- winning!  So much winning you're going to get tired of winning!  I got you a $2 million tile job for $1.4 million!  ART OF THE DEAL!

That's Trump's play here -- he's running the same play he's run a thousand times before.  Squeeze the other side, and when they've suffered enough, they'll give you concessions because they NEED whatever you'll give them.

Problem: Schumer and Pelosi aren't starstruck tile contractors.  And Trump's only hurting himself when he hurts the rest of the country.

I don't disagree with any of that, but it doesn't take a big stretch of the imagination to think that when they were deliberating whether to shut it down, Stephen Miller probably whispered in Trump's ear that it would shut down the courts too. 

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7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

 

 

I disagree with all of these.  You're giving him WAY too much credit here.

Look at his history.  When it came to getting what he wants -- which usually is "pay less for something than I agreed to pay" -- what is his historic tactic?  It's simply refusing to pay, and waiting for the desperate contractor to break.  Trump agrees to pay tile contractor $2 million to lay fancy, gaudy tile in Trump Tower.  He pays the first invoice for $200k, but then slow-plays the rest.  Tile contractor complains, but finishes the job because hey, it's a $2 million job, and it's Trump!  Trump then refuses to pay.  Tile contractor has a material supplier eating his ass for lunch, he has his employees who need to get paid eating his ass for lunch.  Contractor is desperate for cash -- he wants the remaining $1.8 million, but he needs cash NOW to pay his bills.  Trump holds out.  Tile contractor eventually agrees to take $1.2 million, which will cover his bills, but make no profit.  Trump pays it -- winning!  So much winning you're going to get tired of winning!  I got you a $2 million tile job for $1.4 million!  ART OF THE DEAL!

That's Trump's play here -- he's running the same play he's run a thousand times before.  Squeeze the other side, and when they've suffered enough, they'll give you concessions because they NEED whatever you'll give them.

Problem: Schumer and Pelosi aren't starstruck tile contractors.  And Trump's only hurting himself when he hurts the rest of the country.

 

1 minute ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Perhaps you’re giving him too much credit.

I don’t think Trump wants anything but our system to crumble because it’s got him dead to rights.  He’s in survival mode now.

Why not both?  This is what trump knows.  He's not smart enough or with enough foresight to shut down the government to impede the investigation.  But, the people pulling his strings (Putin, Hannety, whoever) are playing on trump's history and thin skin to get him to shut down the government.  They're suggesting he keep it shut and the dems will have to cave.  Hannity's saying that the dems are just like the contractors trump stiffed in the past.  

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2 minutes ago, relapse98 said:

His first priority is Israel? Oh boy.

Well, makes sense.

For the twisted evangelical base, Israel is essential to their masturbatory eschatological fantasies.

The GOP and Trump have stomped down the gas pedal towards the end times.  So, it only makes sense to get Israel straightened out posthaste -- times a-wastin'!

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https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-taxes-shutdown-irs-20190115-story.html

Quote

This already was going to be a challenging year to fill out your federal tax returns after major tax-law changes took effect in 2018.

Then the political dispute over the U.S.-Mexico border wall sent most Internal Revenue Service workers home last month.

Now, with the government partially shut down as tax-filing season approaches Jan. 28, there’s growing concern about whether a skeletal staff of IRS employees can handle the workload.

The Trump administration said Tuesday that it would call about 36,100 additional IRS employees back to work — without pay — to process tax refunds.

But even if the shutdown ends soon and the agency gets back to full staff, the damage to this tax season might already have taken place because of less training time for IRS employees, difficulty hiring seasonal workers to help process returns and a slowdown in getting crucial IRS guidance to tax preparers.

“It’s the biggest tax reform change in 30 years. There are going to be many, many millions more questions that are asked. You’ve got a shutdown. You’ve got fewer employees,” said Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS workers.

Quote

But an outcry about the effects of delaying issuing tax refunds led the Trump administration to declare last week that it was changing course. The Office of Management and Budget cited a law that it said created permanent appropriations for the payment of tax refunds, and the IRS announced it “will be recalling a significant portion of its workforce” back to work.

“We are committed to ensuring that taxpayers receive their refunds notwithstanding the government shutdown,” IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said last week.

A revised shutdown contingency plan released Tuesday increased the number of employees exempted from the shutdown to 46,052, or about 57% of the IRS workforce.

To process refunds, Reardon had estimated, the IRS needed to recall about half of its furloughed employees. They’ll be required to work without pay until the shutdown ends.

Quote

“People are not happy, as you might imagine, about potentially going back to work without being paid,” he said. While being furloughed is difficult enough, going back to work requires spending money on work-related expenses while getting no paycheck.

“What does it take to get to work: fuel, child care?” he said. “All of these things cost money — money that you might not have.”

The union filed a lawsuit last week saying that forcing federal employees to work without pay violated the Constitution and that the Trump administration was using a too-broad definition of essential government services that required working without pay.

 

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Overall, the IRS issued about 112 million refunds in 2017. The average refund was $2,895, according to the IRS.

People expecting refunds tend to file early, while those who have to pay taxes usually wait until closer to the April deadline.

Any Trumpkin who gets a late refund better shut the fuck up about it.  

And with Trump and his unintended consequences, I fully expect refunds to be delayed.  

Plus, everybody and their brother who is expecting a refund is going to file as early as possible, on the off-chance the government shutdown continues and IRS employees bail for other jobs.  

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Just now, hayden_horn said:

so i was at heb, waiting to buy a sixer of lone star in the express aisle. i glance over to the self-check aisle and see a uniformed TSA officer buying a handful of items obviously for her dinner. 

then i witnessed a guy about to check out notice her, and he took his few items over to her and (i couldn't hear what he said, so this is assumption) "let's combine these and let me pay for them."

i watched as she scanned her items, then he scanned his and paid for all of it. 

now it wasn't much - she probably had $10 worth of items.

but it kind of made my day. people are still good out here.

NPR had a good story on this tonight. Worth a quick listen:

https://www.npr.org/2019/01/15/685656065/some-travelers-expressing-gratitude-for-tsa-workers-amid-shutdown

 

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16 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

I'm watching old episodes of The Office right now and this dumb shit sounds exactly like something Michael would pull.  What an idiot.

He has all the inanity of Michael Scott, with a lot of evil from another character mixed in with it.

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8 minutes ago, retread said:

He has all the inanity of Michael Scott, with a lot of evil from another character mixed in with it.

I've often thought of him as the love child of Chauncey Gardner and Archie Bunker.

Edited by bolverk
but with money
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46 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

so i was at heb, waiting to buy a sixer of lone star in the express aisle. i glance over to the self-check aisle and see a uniformed TSA officer buying a handful of items obviously for her dinner. 

then i witnessed a guy about to check out notice her, and he took his few items over to her and (i couldn't hear what he said, so this is assumption) "let's combine these and let me pay for them."

i watched as she scanned her items, then he scanned his and paid for all of it. 

now it wasn't much - she probably had $10 worth of items.

but it kind of made my day. people are still good out here.

She probably could've used a sixer of Lone Star. 

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15 hours ago, Pescado_Rojo said:

Vets won't even stick up for other vets from their own service if they dare speak out against the cheeto. 

Veteran friend of mine says 70 percent of his fellow vets are morons. He had ten years in and did two combat tours and is a graduate of the Army War College, so what does he know about shit? 

But nothing makes me ragier than seeing vets pile on someone like McRaven and defend Cadet Bone Spurs, and I have seen plenty of vets do just that. 

15 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

It’s not like the coast guard has any work related to border security or immigration enforcement, so fuck ‘em. Right?

(loud whisper: this isn’t about “border security”)

Now is the time to form the Surly Cocaine Cartel. I've got some connects south of the border and on the Ship Channel. Let's roll. Nobody's looking.

12 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Kentucky should have its statehood revoked.  Let’s throw in Oklahoma as well to keep things an even number.

Would it shock you to learn that Mitch is an Alabama native who headed north to Kentucky? A rare reverse carpetbagger. (To be fair, he moved to KY at 14, but he's far more Bama than Kaintuck)

12 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Surprised to see Cotton on that list.  He’s as trumpy as they come.

Been tellin' y'all, the rats are gonna throw the captain off the ship. His purpose is at an end and he is now a hindrance. 

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You want a perfect storm of TSA absenteeism due to the shutdown and a major airport?

Monday morning after the Super Bowl.  It's in Atlanta this year.  There will be thousands of media members present.  And wealthy game attendees, since that's all that goes to the game.  Sure the .05 percenters have their own private flights....but....the rest are going to rely on commercial.

Ought to be epic.

 

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9 hours ago, bolverk said:

Any updates on security lines at ABIA? I've got to fly out Friday evening and have heard that, in addition to IAH, DAL & DFW lines are getting really bad.

I’m on third trip of year. Have flown from Austin to Boston, JFK and Dulles. Haven’t seen any difference. 

 

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Serious question, I haven't been able to find the answer. 

Is TSA actually mandatory for airline travel? I'm not talking from a fundamental safety perspective I mean can planes literally not fly if TSA doesn't check the passengers? 

Just to posit how crazy he is, would there be any way he could give an executive order to bypass security and allow planes to keep flying? 

I know if ATC stop showing up the music stops.

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29 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

It’s amazing that there is no mechanism for the minokrity party to call a vote on a bill in the senate. 

I was thinking about this sort of thing last night. It almost seems like there should be a rule or amendment mandating that if he House or Senate passes a bill, then it must be voted on in the other chamber. Yay or nay, there has to be a vote. Maybe our Founding Fathers thought gridlock at this level was ok. I think that they never thought we’d actually see partisanship like today. 

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16 minutes ago, immamac said:

Serious question, I haven't been able to find the answer. 

Is TSA actually mandatory for airline travel? I'm not talking from a fundamental safety perspective I mean can planes literally not fly if TSA doesn't check the passengers? 

Just to posit how crazy he is, would there be any way he could give an executive order to bypass security and allow planes to keep flying? 

I know if ATC stop showing up the music stops.

No one wants to be the President who passed an executive order that planes could fly without security/TSA, because you're on the hook for the first bad thing that goes wrong. 

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1 minute ago, SubliminalHorn said:

I was thinking about this sort of thing last night. It almost seems like there should be a rule or amendment mandating that if he House or Senate passes a bill, then it must be voted on in the other chamber. Yay or nay, there has to be a vote. Maybe our Founding Fathers thought gridlock at this level was ok. I think that they never thought we’d actually see partisanship like today. 

I don't see anything precluding the forcing of an up/down vote in Jefferson's Senate rules.  But I only did a superficial skim. https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/SDoc103-8.pdf

There should be a mechanism for the minority part to force a vote, it shouldn't even require that the other chamber pass a bill imo. 

 

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  • Pancho changed the title to 2023 Republican Government Shutdown: Same Shit, Same Story


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