mtutiger

It's all just incredibly nihilistic, when you get right down to it. The Chamber of Commerce thing is a great example... whether you agree with their general bent as an interest group, they do actually care about policy and have a POV. To paraphrase Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski, "say what you want about the USCOC, at least they have an ethos" Most of these clowns in Congress doing a "five minutes hate" on this bill don't care about any of that or really anything other than getting reelected and / or Presidential politics. Just a hell of a system we have. These guys aren't qualified to run a bake stand, let alone be sitting members of Congress.

Just to elaborate, I certainly remember Democrats voting on a bill that resulted in receiving a check with Donald Trump's ugly-ass signature on it, for instance... If the shoe were on the other foot, there's basically zero chance that a GOP Congress would have done that for a Democratic President. None. So no, I don't see the equivalency here.

There was quite a bit of compromise governing during the last Presidential election cycle (ie. the COVID year)

Be that as it may, it seems like a perfect recipe for conservatives to accomplish conservative things in a compromise bill. And the fact that they won't take it kinda says it all.

Yup. Governing is for the birds, performative outrage is where its at.

Trump is more of the symptom.... the reality is that we have a political system where it's better to have the issue fester as a means to gin up anger versus actually doing anything to fix the issue. That would require governing, which it is clear that the people running the House GOP have no interest in doing. Especially in an election year with a Democratic President. I would add that, if Trump were to win and the GOP won both parts of the Legislature, they could take even take this bill and make changes to it that would make it, in their eyes, even better. But again, they are so blinded by politics that they either cannot see it or just don't care about the issue as much as they say.

What a difference a year makes lol

This bill is a laundry list of items that GOP immigration hawks have hammered for years, all negotiated in a bipartisan fashion. And they will not do a thing, because they really don't care about the border. It's incredible

I would also add that the mocking disdain you see from figures on the right over concerns about Trump's rhetoric (Mike Lee being the best example, with his constant invoking of "I'll take the mean tweets") is also pretty frustrating when you are trying to project decent values onto your kids. But it's not 1997 anymore - even then, maybe all the concerns over "values" was just hogwash

Same. As a young parent, it angers me that there will come a day that my son will (inevitably) ask about stuff like that and I will have to explain it.

Indeed... His comments on Powell, his recent comment about how things are going so well because "people think he's going to be reelected", and that he wishes the economy would crash now because he doesn't want to be known as Herbert Hoover.... all very instructive and informative on a number of levels.

Bottomless cynicism lol

There's probably a non-trivial number of Trump voters that would agree with his assessment behind closed doors lol I detest how angry and heated politics has become and would prefer that he continue to try to hold to some level of decorum. But realistically, I don't think he'd lose much by starting to call him out more.

It's honestly kind of incredible - regardless of one's view on the conflict, there's absolutely no reason, at the level of a municipality, for alderman or school board members to be weighing in on this stuff. At least in Chicago, especially now living in the area, one gets the sense that the resolution is feel-good shlock that papers over the other serious issues facing the city at the moment. It reminds me of the GOP Congress at the moment - a lot of useless censures and impeachment inquiries, very little actual substance

Can someone explain what role the Chicago City Council has in this conflict? I'm at a loss on this one

The whole operation reminds me of family in The Righteous Gemstones - with absolutely none of the charm.

Jesus

Thread: Worth reading in its entirety, but the upshot being that the Trump campaign is likely to have a lot of money issues in 2024. Particularly with all the legal bills that Trump himself is facing

Congress is more in the theater business than the, you know, legislating business these days.

Case in point... just saying the quiet part out loud lol

Jon Voight????

I don't know if it's completely the intended goal, but there's a narrative that can be written about this Congress (particularly the House) being a "Do-Nothing" Congress, and there is historical precedent for winning a Presidential campaign with that kind of message (1948). It hasn't gotten much attention compared to the border bill, but the tax bill (including the enhanced CTC) could potentially play into that narrative as well depending on how that negotiation plays out.

It's been subtle, but it's interesting (and telling) to see how GOP messaging has drifted away from the economy and toward immigration over the past month or so.

Had to break my reprieve of the Political Board to see if anyone had brought her up... I don't know or really care about her music at all... but Good Lord, the past 24 hours after the Chiefs won has really brought about some deranged brain worms from the far right wing influencer crowd in regards to her. Just really really weird stuff, and I suspect it reads that way to the median American as well to the extent they are seeing it.

Strength of schedule is part of the issue too... the past couple of seasons, the Tigers have had really tough April schedules. They get the Rays and Rangers in the month of April, but the overall schedule starts off with the Jerk Sox, A's, Mets and Pirates, which isn't exactly murderers row.