I can't remember who Chuck Todd is. This makes me a better person.
Yep, I was definitely wrong on this one. McCain's principles are still awful so who knows what they can cobble together with Capito and Heller apparently on board, but the speech means a little more in retrospect.
I was wrong on this also, but the assumptions that resulted in my error were necessary to keep me sane and probably still accurate more often than note.
More accurate than the note that is full of inaccuracies.
Me too in wrongness on this specific thing. but I don't think God likes us enough for this to be anything other than a minor blip in the march to awful.
Many of the "progressive media" folks I follow on Twitter were admitting the same last night.
"Minor blip" is probably right. You'll note that exactly as many Republican senators defected as were needed to kill it. A good portion of the remaining 49 are people who promised, not so many months ago, to not vote for a bill that wasn't "improved."
I was also wrong. I didn't appreciate how much McCain wanted to fuck with the nation to stroke his ego.
7: A bit disturbing that Capito, Flake, Heller, Portman (and others) didn't choose to hitch the free ride. ( I assume the calculus is not forestalling the Koch/Mercer primary without actually being linked to an absolute outcome in the real world.)
Heller and Flake have a lot to lose from crossing Trump. They're all still more afraid of a primary than a Democrat.
The PredictIt chart* for yesterday ("will Senate pass by July 31st") is kind of fun (for a change).
Go to the page and click "open chart" under the daily chart to get the hourly one.
Back before the first House vote, when it seemed sure to pass, I predicted that they'd get most of what they wanted on health care, i.e. in this Congressional term even if not necessarily right away. Earlier this week I was wondering how to say "I told you so" and not sound too happy about it. I guess I don't get to yet, and it's starting to look less likely that I will get to say it at all. This is a weird feeling.
I'm feeling obligated for introspective soul-searching about my kneejerk partisanship. If three Republican Senators voted against this, maybe all Republicans aren't evil party-before-country fascist fuckheads? Maybe there is some tiny element of truth to McCain's image? Maybe my attitude is part of the problem in some tiny minuscule way? Fortunately, every time this gets a tiny bit painful, I can distract myself by going to the front page of Google News and laughing at another new aspect of the shitshow.
They're all still more afraid of a primary than a Democrat.
That seems reasonable for Flake, but not for Heller - his junior colleague elected last year is a Democrat, he's only been elected once and by a margin of 1.16%, and his governor, also a Republican, was providing ample cover for a no-vote. Theirs is a contemptuous and savage culture, I guess.
I'm feeling obligated for introspective soul-searching about my kneejerk partisanship. If three Republican Senators voted against this, maybe all Republicans aren't evil party-before-country fascist fuckheads?
Absolutely are always wrong. But this was the most incredibly minimal, tiny, ridiculous bit of good behavior. It was enough to stop a complete disaster, but it was literally the very minimally least a sane person could do. I don't think you have to feel better about the Republican party at all.
That first sentence should have been "Absolute statements are always wrong." Not literally all Republicans are monsters. But close enough that that's the way to bet, still.
Portman won Ohio by lots more than Trump. That he voted for this is just because of his innate shittiness.
My boss (liberal, bothsidesey) is laboring under the impression leftists had been wishing McCain a slow painful death this past week.
15: Oh, I realize that, and 7 is a good point too. It really wasn't too painful or introspective at all, just, you know, a tiny bit.
"Wait for the show" nullifies any goodwill I could possibly feel towards McCain for this vote.
Mr. Kweku on Twitter noted that the Zinke call to Murkowski was one of the first instances of genuine semi-traditional political arm-twisting we've seen from the current administration. However, it too seems to have been inept:
Nevertheless, Murkowski persisted. In fact, she took it one step further and demonstrated that she has more leverage over Zinke than he has over her. As chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Murkowski indefinitely postponed a nominations markup that the Interior Department badly wants.
McCain is thanking God for giving him the chance to do this, and praying for one last favor -- to live long enough to be the deciding vote for conviction.
Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money got a laugh from me with the opening line: This blog is proud to have always recognized and admired John McCain's fiercely independent statesmanship under the heading An American Hero.
12: Whenever I begin to think this way I remind myself that the desire not to see others as irredeemably evil is the déformation professionelle of liberalism: "He was so nice to me on my birthday, and took me out, and told me he was sorry and that I was the best thing that had ever happened to him. If I'm extra careful not to say stupid things, maybe he'll try not to slap me around so much from now on."
Theirs is a contemptuous and savage culture, I guess.
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK.
laboring under the impression leftists had been wishing McCain a slow painful death this past week.
Some of them were, certainly, hoping that his cancer would prevent him from making ti back to the Senate.
It's not an admirable thought, and I believe that people who said that were behaving badly, but I don't feel apologetic either.
19 is probably right, but if he would have reached behind his back, pulled out a sign reading "No" while saying "Yippie-kai-a Moherfucker," I would have sent him a candygram.
Yes. I typed that exactly as I wanted to.
Anyway, given that insurance is priced on market expectations, getting this far may have done much of the damage that an actual repeal would have done.
If three Republican Senators voted against this, maybe all Republicans aren't evil party-before-country fascist fuckheads?
Maybe those three can be permitted to flee the Senate before it is consumed by fire, but they better not look back as they escape, or they will be turned into pillars of salt.
Canonically, there need to be at least 10 in order to spare them all.
The Lord said, "If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."
27 Then Abraham spoke up again: "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28 what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?"
"If I find forty-five there," he said, "I will not destroy it."
29 Once again he spoke to him, "What if only forty are found there?"
He said, "For the sake of forty, I will not do it."
30 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?"
He answered, "I will not do it if I find thirty there."
31 Abraham said, "Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?"
He said, "For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it."
32 Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"
He answered, "For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it."
33 When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
I get a lot of satisfaction out of using the word "canonically" and actually having it refer to the Bible.
That was out of a whole city. 3 out of 52 is probably a better ratio than 10 out of a city.
In conclusion, Abraham sucked at asking questions where you could generalize from the responses.
22: Nothing personal, but Lord do I hate all analogies of generalized, gender-neutral power relationships with the experience of intimate relationship abuse. (It might be possible to persuade me that they're instructive, though. Maybe one can make a point about the dangers of moral sainthood. Maybe there is a useful gender analysis here. I don't like it one bit as a punchline, though.)
It would take several millennia of working with a code of written laws before Jews would be good at lawyer-style questions.
17, 25: He's over 80 and seems to have a pretty bad kind of cancer. Wishing a slow, painful death on anyone is almost never justified, but it's likely for McCain whether we want it for not. If he had got a swift, painless death within the past week, it would have had exactly the same effect on the vote and would arguably be generous.
That's both cruel and wrong. If he dies, the governor gets to fill the seat. I'm pretty sure that whoever replaces McCain will be worse, at least if that replacement happens before the end of his term.
12: Maybe there is some tiny element of truth to McCain's image?
Maybe. I'll be the first to congratulate myself for speculating earlier in the week that maybe, just maybe, McCain's brush with death (well, certain death) and outstanding access to health care might have caused him to pause and think hard for a couple of moments about the importance of health insurance blah blah blah. And so wouldn't it be AWESOME if he dragged himself back to D.C. in order to vote "no."
Also McCain has nothing to lose now.
20: Would that Murkowski had gotten pissed at Zinke before Bernhardt (a Westlands Water District lobbyist) had been confirmed for the Bureau of Reclamation. Just one week earlier would have done it.
Lord do I hate all analogies of generalized, gender-neutral power relationships ...
Just when I think I'm hot shit for my erudite quote of Genesis, lk shows me up by citing the little-known 151st Psalm.
36: In the long term, sure, Arizona is not going to have any better Senator for the foreseeable future. But the whole reason the past week has been such a roller-coaster is that this is effectively time-sensitive. Appointments don't generally happen quickly enough to help the AHCA.
For the record, as far as I can remember, the only comment I have had about McCain's illness here or elsewhere from when it was first on the news until this thread was that it seems like a twist on what happened to Ted Kennedy during the ACA fight. Ironic? History repeating itself with a tragic twist? Something like that. I'm not wishing anything on anyone.
It'll be, um ... interesting ... to see whether the Trump administration (in the form here of Ryan Zinke) actually try to follow through on their threats against Senators who voted No.
I figure they're stupid enough to try it.
Why did Jeff Flake and Dean Heller cave, by the way? Capito I never expected much from (she's not that bright).
I personally doubt it would take too long for a Republican governor to appoint a Republican senator to kill Obamacare. I could be wrong, but I'd bet they have a name or two ready.
Why did Jeff Flake and Dean Heller cave, by the way?
I read some stuff about calls from big donors. Plus probably the assurances of more (highly discretionary) money to fix whatever state problems came up as a result.
The governor of Arizona appears to be a Republican who wants to keep Medicaid expansion, similar to those in Ohio and Nevada, but I don't know that he could find someone to replace McCain who would maintain that commitment.
I found a newspaper blog post with 12 potential replacements for McCain. The "top tier" comprise the governor's chief of staff (maybe, I guess), then four congressmembers every one of whom voted for the AHCA.
So ... isn't there a Senate schedule according to which they can't just willy-nilly take up bills (again) whenever they like, but have to take them in order? I'm a little shaky on the particulars here.
I had some sense that if the Senate declares itself done at the moment on ACA repeal, and declares that it's moving on to tax reform, the latter is what's on their agenda, and that's it. They can't just keep going back and forth.
Yes? No?
Even if there is such a rule, I bet they could undo it if McConnell really wanted. No certainties to be had.
They have a huge agenda/schedule upcoming quite soon: a debt ceiling increase, 2018 budget, maybe a farm bill (or is it military spending), maybe a VA spending bill .... I've lost track.
I'm trying to get a sense of how soon they could take up this bullshit (ACA repeal) again.
46: Minivet, I love you, but I don't think that's true. I could be wrong. Now that we're over this particular hurdle, I'll have to reacquaint myself with these rules and deadlines and whatnot.
There's the rules, which I admit I don't know, and then there's McConnell's exploitation of the rules, which is well demonstrated historically.
Budget and debt ceilings demand some kind of action on a hard deadline, sure, but there's ample history of punting with CRs.
It's just crisis after crisis when you have elected shitheads.
I don't think there's any rule at all against taking up health care whenever McConnell thinks he's got he votes.
I expect the budget to take a strong whack at Medicaid.
39: It's trivially easy to convince me that something is in the Bible. There's a psalm about the analogy ban? Of course there is. Nothing new under the sun.
51: There are rules about requiring, what is it, 20 hours of floor debate once a motion to proceed has passed. If they're in the middle of going through that over, say, tax reform (aka 2018 budget), they can't interrupt themselves to move over to ACA repeal. They also can't interrupt themselves if they're in the middle of debating raising the debt ceiling.
They don't actually put in that many hours on the Senate floor. This hampers them tremendously when they're actually trying to do things.
I don't say that they it can't happen that they cram in an ACA repeal bill again, but they're extremely constrained by other deadline-specific items. That's all.
I think the only reasonably hard restriction on what they can do is that if they want to use next year's budget resolution for tax reform through reconciliation they need to be done with this year's reconciliation bill first.
There are rules about requiring, what is it, 20 hours of floor debate once a motion to proceed has passed. If they're in the middle of going through that over, say, tax reform (aka 2018 budget), they can't interrupt themselves to move over to ACA repeal.
I think they can actually interrupt it for other things. They interrupted the healthcare debate to pass the Russia sanctions bill.
I'm getting confused -- sorry -- but I was thinking that Republican tax reform = 2018 budget. But no, they want to do tax reform as a reconciliation bill ... against the existing 2017 budget?
The wording of 55 is confusing me somewhat:
if they want to use next year's budget resolution for tax reform through reconciliation
I don't understand: how do you do tax reform through reconciliation on a 2018 budget that hasn't been settled on or passed yet? You mean later, after FY2018 has passed (probably just a continuing resolution)?
Anyway, I think I was wrong to think that tax reform = 2018 budget. No, reconciliation to 2017 budget. I think.
No, 2018 budget for tax reform. But they need to finish 2017 reconciliation first. I think.
Yeah, okay, it will take a little while before columnists I listen to move along after ACA defeat to, ahem, re-explain this to me.
Off now, after frustration that I couldn't find that column from probably a month or more ago that had explained it so clearly. Boo.
53: I see what you did there.
Trump is replacing Preibus with a general? It never stops.
Has Kelly gotten agreement that Mooch report to him? That would have been smart.
And the Mooch's wife just filed for divorce.
62: I'm wondering if Kelly even knew he was being appointed.
For fuck's sake. I does anybody know any eastern European models who are really willing to overlook quite a bit?
67: I still think 66 is a valid answer.
Who will come looking to who for tips now?
On the CoS, I haven't even had enough time to get the name right. I kept saying "Rebius Prince".
And the Mooch's wife just filed for divorce.
She did! This reality show is amazing! I am astonished! There are people in these circles that have the sense to gtfo while they can, but not enough sense to avoid these circles altogether. People amaze me.
It was the poet Emily Dickinson who understood those circles best:
A-ha-ha, a-ha-ha, Gloria, how's it gonna go down?
Will you meet him on the main line, or will you catch him on the rebound?
Will you marry for the money, take a lover in the afternoon?
Feel your innocence slipping away, don't believe it's comin' back soon.
I wonder who's next? Sessions?
For reasons too complicated to report in a blog comment, Laura Branigan is the Emily Dickinson of the Russians.
Sessions has the backing of Congress, and isn't going to resign. The senate has already said they won't confirm a new AG this year. That doesn't mean Trump won't fire him, but it would be a much bigger deal.
There are people in these circles that have the sense to gtfo while they can, but not enough sense to avoid these circles altogether. People amaze me.
You put it perfectly. I am astounded by this phenomenon. I just can't make sense of the calculus.
Calculus is hard because of that big funny "f" thing.
Bannon reports to himself, allegedly.
Reporting? Is that what the kids call it these days?
She report, he report, and we report.
I report, you report and they report.
Report, report, a lu-u report.
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Girl Talk show streaming right now.
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First typhoon of the season.
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Just making conversation, neighbor.
I thought you learned to control the weather.
I'm glad I make such a good impression, but unfortunately not.
If true, it wouldn't even be the most bizarre news I heard today.
Sessions has the backing of Congress, and isn't going to resign.
I would be shocked if Sessions resigned. Trump can't stop sitting on his own balls long enough to get anything done, but Jeff Sessions can use the Justice Department to Alabamafy the rest of the country and he's not about to pass up the chance. Plus, I'll bet he's every bit as vengeful as Trump and would stay in the position just to be a walking talking middle finger to Trump after the past few weeks.
Plus, he's probably got the pee tape.
If Trump starts threatening you and you control a few investigative agencies, you send somebody to find the pee tape.
"Rumors have been circulating" that Trump might replace Kelly with Sessions.
It's kind of amazing that the best case scenario, Republican infighting, actually seems to be happening.
I took that as the middle-case scenario. They're fascists, and what fascists do is infight.
It was always a possibility. They're not actually evil geniuses.
What was your best case scenario? By infighting I don't mean just the routine bickering of fascists and assholes, but actual inability to pass things like this.
On the bill, it was always true that a no on passage is more effectively a no than a no on proceeding. But did McCain always plan to vote no on passage? Did he expect to be the only one besides Murkowski and Collins? Did he convince McConnell he was a yes so that it would move along?
I didn't think his voting yes on proceeding was as shitty as most people thought it was, because of the potential of the bill failing outright, but if there was something they could have offered that would have made him vote yes, it was still a less than heroic gamble.
101: Fair point. I expected profound incompetence, but not quite this much, and not extending so far into the legislature.
About as a close as I got to stating a best case scenario, post election day.
Later in that thread I pessimistically (for now) thought Obamacare would go down anyway, and also made more comments whose coherence suggests I should only comment with a commitment to making a good faith effort at clarity, such as not running on because I don't want to start a new sentence, like I'm doing now.
I will only note that I concurred at the time with the link in 104.1.
I don't think infighting on Obamacare is a best case scenario. Infighting on the cabinet or something would be better. Obamacare, if Obama was a white Republican, would be moderately popular with the Republican voters who came out for Trump. Also, I'm not sure three senators defecting, counts as infighting. Certainly there are bunches of recriminations beyond just those three, but given how heavy Trump is on the fucknuttery side of things and how little practical support he has given to anybody Republican in Congress, I'm not overly optimistic about the level of fighting yet.
Not that I'm not more optimistic than I was a few days ago.
I don't think you can count it as "not total disaster" either, but I won't argue that point very strongly.
Following up on my previous confusion up at 57 over whether GOP tax reform efforts were to be part of 2017 budget reconciliation, or 2018, I've found two semi-recent pieces shedding a bit of light (it's for 2018):
Here:
Budget reconciliation requires passing a budget resolution, forcing Republicans to thread the needle between members' competing spending priorities and the larger contingents of tax cutters, deficit hawks, and defense hawks. This is hard, and because budget resolutions don't actually fund the government or go to the president's desk, and spending bills can be done without them, it's a step that's often skipped.
But this year Republicans have tied their hands. The budget resolution unlocks a path to tax reform, and depending on how the instructions for budget reconciliation are written in, it can also dictate how Republican actually implement tax cuts.
Passing a budget resolution is vital to the success of a Republican tax overhaul effort because it would allow a bill to pass the 100-seat Senate with only a simple majority. Otherwise, the legislation would require 60 votes in a chamber where Republicans have only 52 seats
It seems you can do "budget reconciliation" on a mere budget resolution (with no power of law). I hadn't realized that: I had thought it could only be done on an actually passed (with 60 votes) fiscal year budget.
So conservative hardliners are pressing for budget reconciliation on their 2018 budget resolution ...
And yet. I sense that I'm still misunderstanding or misreading something here. (How is budget reconciliation on a budget resolution even a "bill" if it doesn't go, eventually, to the President's desk?)
Update: No Budget, No Tax Reform: GOP Faces Reality of Remaining Agenda. Dated 4 days ago.
The House GOP budget [resolution] includes reconciliation instructions for a deficit-neutral tax overhaul, as well as $203 billion in cuts to mandatory spending. If the House and Senate both pass and reconcile their budgets with a set of reconciliation instructions, they can use the resulting process to fast-track a tax overhaul without the threat of a filibuster in the Senate and rely solely on GOP votes.
Yeah, it's not just Obamacare repeal; they can't seem to get anything done. The 2018 budget in particular is a huge mess that hasn't gotten much attention outside of the Beltway.
111: The budget isn't a bill, and it doesn't become law. It's a purely internal Congressional document used to set guidelines and targets for the appropriations bills, which do become law.
Working on the principle that the latest politics thread is always an appropriate place for everything-is-terrible themed comments, I need to relate that the most recent episode of Radiolab has me much more terrified for the future than all this stuff about how global warming is going to burn us all up sooner than we thought.
tl;dr: software that makes it possible to create convincing (false) video of anybody saying anything is quite nearly here. Once Russian hackers/Newscorp employees get their hands on it, I am defo fleeing civilisation. I understand you can live off eating lizards in the Australian outback. (oh but wait, the global warming, fuck.)
Software that enables fake audio is already here, but doesn't seem to have been deployed for political purposes yet.
Maybe we'll have the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill next week.
Aren't we supposed to be having a debt ceiling thing pretty soon?
Oh, end of September. Congress shouldn't have any trouble getting that done.
Maybe Trump can have the Long Island police beat them.
This is a real question. Is there any level of inappropriateness that the Trump admin can reach before Republicans like Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell start denouncing them on decency grounds? Scaramucci saying Bannon "sucks his own cock" and threatening to "fucking kill leakers" seems like it should have been close.
Suggesting that they raise taxes on the rich.
Would there be interest in some kind of Trump Attention Conservation feed? To help people screen out news that is merely people in the WH orbit behaving badly or embarrassingly to themselves or each other, as opposed to attempts to take away health care, cover up crimes, etc. Not sure how the logistics would work.
122 Even that wouldn't work. Ryan & McConnell won't leave Trump until RW media leaves him, and they won't so long as his fanbase keeps cheering. And they're following the thing as if it's professional wrestling: the end results don't matter in the least, so long as the right villains get knocked over the head with folding chairs every now and then.
Scaramucci saying Bannon "sucks his own cock" and threatening to "fucking kill leakers" seems like it should have been close.
Really? It doesn't seem remotely close to me. The president boasted about actual sexual assault and they were A-OK with that.
But sucking your own cock is gay.
You know, back in the Clinton era, there were all sorts of people clutching their pearls over what they would tell their children about the president getting a blow job. This time, I actually did find myself discussing with my teenagers whether sucking one's own cock is a physical impossibility (not theoretically impossible, but highly unlikely for a man of Bannon's age and build), and let me tell you I would have preferred that not to be a part of topical political conversation.
How can an adult man go through life being called "the Mooch" without breaking down and entering a monastery under a nice saint's name like "Juvenal"?
The great thing about Cockgate is that you can simultaneously insult Bannon's sexual prowess, the Mooch's ability as a communication director, Trump's ability to govern, and the whole Republican party for tolerating all of that. It's like Christmas without bitching about what the barista says when you buy a cup of coffee.
I have no idea how to make things better, so I'm happy that at least it's now impossible not to see the source of the problem without deliberate ignorance.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/party-unity-is-for-rubes
129
Wouldn't being able to suck your own cock add to your sexual prowess?
132: DIY skillz pretty much never add to someone's sexual prowess.
Of course Cockgate is nothing. Narcissosexuality is just normal for Republicans.
133: Even the Biblical guy they named masturbation after was having sex with a partner.
(Note to lurid: The guy was named "spanky".)
I came here to celebrate political good news and make crude masturbation jokes and I'm all out of good political news.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/party-unity-is-for-rubes
Two quick responses:
1) I feel like anybody who says that the Democrats should have done more when they had a 60-vote majority and doesn't note that they only had 60-votes for 6 months is either being disingenuous or, at best, indulging in a rhetorical flourish.
2) The article repeatedly references the electoral weakness of the Democratic party. The most notable weakness is in governor and state legislative races which aren't really controlled by the national party. Anybody who wants to challenge the Democratic party from the left can and should find leftists who want to run for state legislatures, but I don't think that should weigh heavily in a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of political unity at the national level.
I wonder how hard you have to look to find somebody who says both that the Democrats should have done more when they had 60 votes in the Senate and who also says Obamacare was attacked because the Democrats didn't try to be bipartisan?
137.2: And Democrats have been kicking ass lately in special elections for state legislative seats, in sharp contrast to their failures in congressional ones.
139 Nationwide? That is welcome news indeed
139 Nationwide? That is welcome news indeed
140: Yes, but most recently in New Hampshire.
either being disingenuous or, at best, indulging in a rhetorical flourish.
It's OK, Nick, you can just come right out and say "talking bollocks". This is a safe space.
137- 1 I have to note that needing 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate isn't a law. It is some comfort that the Republicans are having so much trouble getting anything done. I'd feel better still if the Dems had tried to slip card check and a minimum wage increase in, in keeping with their campaign promises.
2 I'm not really convinced by this argument since one of the things that came out about the Clinton campaign was that when she claimed she was raising money for the states it turned out she was just laundering it to put it back in her campaign.
Laundering money is a crime. Have you been reading Gowdy's newsletter?
Whenever the Democrats, especially a female democrat if Clinton, Pelosi, and Warren are enough examples to go by, the language used is always putting things in the worst possible terms. Whenever it's a Republican, unless they do something absolutely nuts like point out Bannon is sucking his own cock, care is taken to use the mildest possible words. This stuff filters up from the muck put out my the Koch brother et. al. and it goes throughout the whole discourse. And really, it needs to fucking stop.
OT: I'm now so multicultural that I'm getting spam in Hebrew. Topical spam, related to my work.
131: For the sake of credibility, people who want to give advice on how to win an election need to, you know, actually win an election.
OT: This is really right. Not just about Alex Jones being horrible, but about the profusion of "tactical" as a piece of marketing. I spend more time that I should looking at outdoor gear and there appear to be three markets: One focused on people who like high tech gear, one focused on hunters and people who want to look like they hunt when they walk in the woods, and one focused on people who will buy junk if you make it in camo and call it "tactical".
On a related note, I don't think I would ever buy a camo tent. I'm afraid I could get up at night to pee and not be able to find my tent.
149: you might enjoy "Zero History", one of William Gibson's recent books, in which the normal case of technologically sophisticated thieves, secret agents, corporate monoliths, hackers etc. are locked in a struggle not over the birth of an orbital AI or a search for a missing nuclear warhead, but over the plans for a new pair of cargo trousers.
Incidentally, in Spanish the phrase for "military specification" is also slang for "of the lowest quality possible". As in "oh, she was dating that guy Gus for ages. He was awful. Real military specification."
There is a fair bit of military-style stuff that is made better, but they don't appear to use the word "tactical" nearly so often.
They're going for the more strategic-minded customer.
The unfashionable wear tactical. The fashionable wear strategic. The truly chic wear logistics.
Logistic clothing presumably has lots of pockets. And (unfair RLC joke) a nice stretchy waistband.
(The Royal Logistics Corps, the largest corps in the army, was formed out of a whole lot of service/support units like the Catering Corps, the Ordnance Corps, the Royal Corps of Transport and so on. It did not take long for people to suggest that RLC actually stood for Really Large Corps; nor for people to suggest that the largeness reflected not only the sheer numbers of people, but also a certain individual-level largeness acquired from eating a lot of DFAC food and not doing a very energetic job.)
You always hear lots of people complaining about other people eating and lying around, but what they are missing is that food often tastes really good and moving around gets tiring.
Supposedly, at the end of World War II, my uncle found himself on a tropical island with access to beer and airplanes, but no ice. So they strapped the beer to the outside of the plane (these planes were PBYs, probably don't want to try this with a faster plane) and flew around up high until the beer was cold. Better logistics could have saved fuel.
I'm periodically baffled by the idea of camouflage hunting gear. That Alex Jones link isn't the first time I've seen it: my old job had some connection to boating safety and I'd periodically walk by a poster of someone duck hunting in a camouflage life vest and it would baffle me there too. Never been hunting in my life, but I grew up in rural Vermont, so roughly half my neighbors did. It was thoroughly ingrained in my head that during hunting season, if you were going out in the woods alone and stealthy, you had to wear something brightly colored to keep from being shot by a careless hunter.
On the one hand, I don't expect prudence from Alex Jones types. On the other hand, my old job didn't have much connection to Alex Jones types, but they still had that poster.
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NMM2 Jeanne Moreau. Sorry everybody.
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But there isn't just a single hunting season. Deer season is the problem as far as getting shot by another hunter and most, but not all, of the other seasons are during that time. You need camouflage for certain types of hunting (e.g. turkey season in the spring). I'm not sure about duck hunting.
But I was thinking of the stuff that nobody would worry about making in camo even if they were hiding from everybody. For example, I recall some comedian from my childhood making fun of camo wallets ("It's camo because I'm hunting." "You drop that in the woods and you will be.").
159 makes sense all the way through.
Why would you need to hunt turkeys? Around here they hunt you- they're often walking around in the streets and will go after people if someone gets too close. I walked past three this morning that were on the other side of the street.
159: Depends on the type of hunting. Ducks are super smart (going by camo trends anyway) and cued in to visual so you have to blend in (and decoys work). Deer, and other hunters, are idiots so you need orange. Also walking (orange because other hunters) vs. blinds (camo fine).
I can't remember if turkeys get camo or not.
163: I bet if you shot at them, the neighbors would complain. The turkeys further out are much more wary.
164: If you're in a blind, why do you need camo? I've never known many duck hunters so I have no idea.
166: So you look cool, duh. But also you don't have to be a blind to hunt ducks, you can just sit/lay around in camo.
My husband was out duck hunting in a olive green coat and his friend made him put a camo shirt over the jacket so the ducks would be fooled. But does stretched out camo work as camo? Anyway, they only saw like 3 swans (illegal) and one duck and didn't get anything.
Why would you need to hunt turkeys? Around here they hunt you- they're often walking around in the streets and will go after people if someone gets too close.
Possibly those are bears.
I guess the point is if you're in a blind you don't need to wear orange (except maybe for walking to/from blind) so you just wear normal hunting clothes. Which are all camo.
I learned this previous deer season that red and black plaid used to be the 'don't shoot I'm a hunter' colour back before the bright neon clothes* were available.
Wisconsin just added neon pink to their appropriate blaze colour in an attempt to lure more women into hunting. Which.
I prefer 'undocumented', racist.
I think maybe bow hunters, even for deer, wear camo. And that is part of the reason they get to go out before rifle season.
144/145: "Launder" I assume it's meant as shorthand for stories like this, basically saying it was meant to fundraise jointly by and for HFA and state/local campaigns. Bad choice of words, in the context of the tarring/equivalency campaign. But now the year is over and all the reports are made so we can actually follow up on it.
From fec.gov, from 7/1/15 to 12/31/16, contributions to HVF were $527m; operating expenditures $145m; transfers to affiliated committees $378m. Drilling into the $378m, $103m of that went to the DNC (not sure where that would have ultimately gone); $167m to HFA; and the remaining $115m* fairly evenly across 38 state Democratic party funds, between $2m and $4m each. So an argument could be made that they were keeping too much either for the Clinton campaign or for general bloat, but it was definitely not a sham.
* Transfers total $378m in the overall report but the line items add up to $385m. Maybe other transfers were shown elsewhere.
Meant to say at the end of the first sentence of 172: "..., but was in practice sucking it all up for Hillary for America."
Drilling into the $378m, $103m of that went to the DNC (not sure where that would have ultimately gone)
AFAICT the DNC raised a total of $351m during that campaign, of which $209m was transfers from "affiliated committees" - the largest by far of which was HVF. It spent $347m; $160m was operating costs, and $152m was "transfers to affiliated committees", like DSCC, DCCC and a load of state campaigns. Hillary got about $1m total, half the amount that Obama for America got.
So, yeah, roger gonna roger.
The Senate isn't going into recess, is it? Or does the recent Supreme Court ruling remove this kind of petty shit from the RA power?
How do Trump and the Freedom Caucus expect people to be evil at their peak capacity if they never get any time off to rest and kick puppies?
I'm not sure which specific form of petty shit 176 is referring to, but last I knew, Democrats had made clear that they would keep the Senate in pro-forma session through August to avoid any attempt on Trump's part to make a recess appointment to replace Jeff Sessions.
Did SCOTUS rule on the constitutionality of recess appointments? I thought just a lower court. But I see that they did. So no, Republicans/Trump can't try that.
Ok, under Canning, 10 days is presumptively too short for the RA power. So they'll have to do something to make sure the recess is not more than that.
Additional clarification would be helpful, Charley.
What can Senate Republicans possibly do to ensure Democrats don't keep the recess at bay for as long as Dems like? That is not a rhetorical question.
Are you really thinking that Trump would try a recess appointment to replace Sessions? I understand, assume nothing -- and it certainly would be a mistake to expect Trump to actually cave to anything -- but are you reading something in particular that's causing a live concern?
And ...
NPR tells me that Scaramucci has resigned.
It's funny, someone at DKos wrote, oh, about a week ago, that they figured he'd last about a week. Heh.
But Canning was over whether these officials were duly appointed NLRB members such as was needed under statute to constitute a quorum and make rulings. It seems like firing staff is more a purely executive action - isn't it possible that an acting AG everyone agrees is temporary could still have authority to fire Mueller, with no regard to whether they're a recess appointment? (Which of course could still be impeachable conduct on the president's part.)
From the wiki; "In May 2016, Politico analyzed Federal Election Commission filings and found that the state parties retained less than one percent of the $61 million raised by the Hillary Victory Fund. While $3.8 million had been transferred to the state parties, 88 percent of it was transferred back to the national committee, usually within 1-2 days, by the Clinton staff member who led the Fund. This let the national committee intake money from individuals beyond the limit they could receive from individuals directly."
http://www.mahablog.com/2016/04/04/is-the-hillary-victory-fund-a-fraud/
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/clinton-fundraising-leaves-little-for-state-parties-222670
If you think those numbers are wrong you might want to flag the wikipedia article.
It's hard to argue with Margot Kidder writing into Counterpunch, that's for sure.
I see a lot of those articles/criticism linked on the Wikipedia page for HVF; the most recent link there is May 2016. But I think Wikipedia frowns on that level of original research - some journalist would need to do a followup.
Given the amount of money being thrown around by the other side (3rd party money with none of this reporting), it is very safe to assume if there were anything there, a reporter would have found it in October 2016.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Victory_Fund
The fact that the Democratic Party can go to things like Counterpunch and tell them to fuck off while the Republican Party can't do that to things like Brietbart is why Trump ran as a Republican but couldn't as a Democrat.
190: That's a single $61 million in a $7 billion election.
I never saw a rebuttal to this politico claim and I never had any reason to think they stopped doing it. If the Clintons continued to transfer 88% of the ~3 mill they were giving to state parties it'd be a substantial chunk of change. Since HRC had total control of the DNC any monies transferred to them were effectively hers as well.
That wiki article is six months out of date. The FEC is the place to look for what happened after May 2016 (so, during the actual general election campaign). It gets the figures right - as I did and as Roger didn't.
https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00162578/?cycle=2016
The FEC filling is consistent with the Politico report being right and a continuing practice.
194: The response the campaign gave in the Politico piece was that they were going to make more transfers to state/local parties and hadn't yet. The data shows they did, in substantial amounts (and as ajay showed, a large piece of DNC dollars ultimately went to other races than Clinton's as well). Do you think Politico would find it worth the space if they reran the numbers after the fullness of time and found there was nothing, or much less, to criticize?
I don't have any reason to think that that "ultimately" is correct. It looks like my state party got ~3 million from affiliated committees in 2016 and sent nearly that back out to affiliated committees.
183 -- No, the questions answered in Canning apply to any uses of the RA power. Breyer writes well -- give it a read: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-1281_mc8p.pdf
Parsi, they need House approval to go on recess for more than 3 days, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Senate rules make a true recess difficult in the absence of unanimous consent. I don't hae time to look this up, but Senate bare majorities have some real limits on their power.
On page 39 of the Canning opinion, reference is made to the President's power to command a recess. So, it's not like Schumer has a veto pen.
It is literally impossible to rebut every possible negative interpretation of a decontextualized campaign report. When the information linked above in 172 does do the rebuttal, you don't care and pivot slightly. This is how the Republican Party wins elections. They use any platform for nonsense and spread it to the wind knowing that whether or not it sticks somewhere does not depend on how true it is.
201: I would think that calling a recess for the purposes of dumping Sessions would cause more political turmoil within Trump's own party than if the recess were one taken by Congress itself.
I admit my look at the year-end reports in 172 did not speak to money would go both to and from the state party in such proportions. It might be a bit arrogatory on the part of the national party apparatus. But there was and still is a huge cottage industry in the media around Clinton "concerns", so I would not give a super-qualified article like the Politico one the benefit of the doubt.
Especially from a year ago when it starts being spit back out onto the interwebs after Trump has the worst week ever. There are three or four of these things I've seen today.
I wonder if Trump will pardon Arpaio? Also, Arpaio (former Arizona sheriff) was just convicted.
Also, I wonder if a pardon via Twitter is valid.
206: Shoot. I assumed this must be a state court, but it's federal district.
206: Ah, that's a shame for Arpaio. Had he been acquitted, he could have been Trump's next communications director.
183/200.1: Maybe I'm not following this, but if the idea is just to get someone into the AG slot to fire Mueller, I don't think Trump's options are limited to Senate confirmation or the recess appointment power--he can fire Sessions and get an acting AG in, with all the powers of the office, under the DOJ succession statute (or the DOJ succession EO/Vacancies Reform Act, after the people covered by the succession statute resign), no?
Yes, but it would make Chuck Grassley sad.
I know Arpaio was a big Trump supporter, but give how loyalty is a one-way street for Trump, Trump may do nothing.
202- I double checked 172, This is the only link I saw in 172 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/clinton-fundraising-leaves-little-for-state-parties-222670.
I assumed that the data in 172 is true, but the fact that money was transferred to the state party doesn't mean it wasn't sent back to HRC in one form or another.
I'm glad to say Trump has had nothing but bad weeks in the press since he took office. I hope that means he won't get much done. Is it OK if I don't always want to talk about the particulars of Steve Bannon sucking his own cock?
It's not that I'm squeamish, I'm just more interested in the amounts of the bribes Trump is getting for selling out American foreign policy to the highest bidder.
re: 160
I suspect Moreau, and Sam Shepard are both in that (not very long) list of people where M-ing to them may well have been a thing.
213.2: Transferred back after 12/31/2016? That would be in the next report. But "prove this report from 14 months ago that was never followed-up wrong" is absurd.
210: On further research, it looks like the acting AG in the absence of an appointment is determined by reading down a list, but the list is specified in an executive order Trump can change (already has once). So if he gets his act together, I think he could make an EO where the designated successor is someone he thinks will work with him, before firing Sessions. It would be pretty blatant but I don't see it as impossible. Under his existing EO from February, after Sessions come:
1. Deputy AG: Rod Rosenstein
2. Associate AG: Rachel Brand
3. "Any officers designated by the Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 508 to act as Attorney General" (that law says the AG "may designate" Solicitor General and Assistant Attorneys General; but has he?)
4. US Attorney for the Eastern District of VA (Dana Boente)
5. US Attorney for the Northern District of IL (Joel Levin - acting)
6. US Attorney for the Western District of MO (Tom Larson - acting)
209: Could still pardon him. There's a vacancy at Homeland Security.
216: Right. #3 in that list I think is empty (there's no SG quite yet and unless I'm forgetting no confirmed AAGs, so nobody who could be designated). He can change #4-#6 but under the VRA would be limited to people who had been confirmed by the Senate for some other position. Not a huge bench but I'm sure he can find someone to act as AG long enough to fire Sessions if that's really what he wants.
215- https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00162578/?cycle=2016 if the Clintons had the ability to get any given State Democratic Executive Committee to disburse monies that money doesn't have to show up in the Hillary Victory Fund's accounts to be spent by or on her campaign.
On a related note.
So I've read that Ivanka's foundation got 100 million from the Saudis at the same time as Trump's visit there. A quick google search later I find that snopes has debunked this claim. This quote from the Snopes article does seem potentially naive,"It is difficult to envision how any individual in an industrial country could personally benefit from a facility to provide assistance to women in developing countries."
I guess I believed it because it seemed consistent with what I knew about the Trumps.
So maybe I am making a similar mistake taking Politico seriously about the Clintons.
I'm going to go ahead and renew my plea that if anyone has a good explanation for how HRC made ~100k in a few months of cattle future trading they should tell me.
Actually, 218 is incomplete--the VRA would also allow certain senior (but not Senate-confirmed) appointees within DOJ who've been there 90 days to serve as acting AG.
216,218- I saw some story last week that said there was an EO earlier this year that effectively made the bench a few thousand people deep, essentially anyone who's been a full time employee of DOJ for at least six months.
if anyone has a good explanation for how HRC made ~100k in a few months of cattle future trading they should tell me.
The spam algorithms were trained on 20 year old data apparently.
I'm sure it would be very easy to find somebody just as racist as Sessions who is more pliable and still eligible.
This story. 221 is correct, it's 90 days and GS-15 or higher, and it covers a whole lot of people.
Congress should change the VRA so only GLG20s are eligible.
I'm just more interested in the amounts of the bribes Trump is getting for selling out American foreign policy to the highest bidder
I'm assuming that you're unaware of this,* but from your posts, it appears distinctly like you're yet more interested in that in cheering on a civil war among Dems.
* We're all presenting, in our posts, an inadvertently distorted version of ourselves. Except Moby: that's really him.
225: in theory, sure, but most of those are career people who long predate Trump and aren't going to be reliable enough to put in the acting AG slot. It's his early senior political appointees he'd have to go with and that's got to be closer to a dozen or two. Still, sure, if he really wants to he can find someone.
I AM UNFILTERED AND AUTHENTIC IN EVERY RESPECT.
ALSO, CHIMPEACH THE... OH, HELL. UNFILTERED, BUT TIRED. VERY VERY TIRED.
227-
Yeah 2 does seem like a more useful project than 1. ;)
Yeah it is somewhat distorted. My proudest accomplishment this month was phone-banking to block Trump care, and getting Capito to (briefly) come out against it. This whole conversation is a distraction from what I wanted to do today; study the charms in Exalted third edition, but I guess ultimately a more productive pursuit.
Is it wrong to feel a little sad The Mooch is out so soon? I feel like he was going to be an entertaining character, plus simultaneously picking fights with Priebus and Bannon seemed to be a recipe for maximum WH chaos.
On the other hand, now that he's out do you think Spicer regrets resigning?
There's a bigger writeup of the ambiguities on Lawfare. It looks like the EO I was referencing has also been superseded.
Maybe Trump had Scaramucci resign from communications director so he could fill Sessions's spot as AG...
The Mooch can now go spend more time with his family.
231: Duncan Black: "A bit weird to introduce the Mooch character and then kill him off so quickly."
I'm going to go ahead and renew my plea that if anyone has a good explanation for how HRC made ~100k in a few months of cattle future trading they should tell me.
And remember, that's in 1979 dollars.
The Mooch is now employed at the Export Import Bank.
Isn't that the government agency that Republicans who can't suck their own cock want to close?
The Ex-Im job is from before he was appointed Communications Director. He may well be going back to it.
The White House says he isn't, but they're known for lying about everything.
Jeanne Moreau and now Sam Shepard too is just...damn.
244 to 214 and 160.
The Mooch mishegas is beyond hilarious.
231 Not wrong at all. I was hoping the Mooch would stick around for a few months to provide maximum amusement.
And I bet Spicer is cackling over this as he reaches into his mini fridge and grabs another diet Pepsi.
||
Should I bother to contest a speeding ticket, by showing up at court to plead "not guilty"?
On the one hand: yeah, I was speeding; I almost always do, in Hamilton Co., NY. Whenever I drive the speed limit in the ADKs, some guy with a MAGA baseball cap and a gun rack attached to his 4 by 4 attempts to run me off the road. To exceed the posted speed limit is to drive defensively in upstate New York.
On the other hand: guy in front of me, with NY license plate, was driving even faster than me; and I swear to God I only got pulled over for my NJ plates.
I'm thinking I might tell the judge I thought I was "driving at the speed of traffic," but should I even bother? There's not much traffic here, after all.
|>
I've never thought I would try to plead not guilty to something for which I was admittedly guilty, but this is very clearly one of those things a mediocre white man would totes do and I suspect I'm a significant outlier.
248: Well, I'm just a mediocre white woman, of course, but I'd like to avoid the points, if possible. Were I guilty of an actual crime against humanity or society, I like to think that I would fess up and pay the price; but you know, driving 60 in a 40 MPH zone about half a mile from a 55 MPH zone, where the locals routinely exceed speeds of 70 MPH?: eh, I'm more than willing to pay the ticket, but some part of me wants to show up at court and put up a bit of a fight, you know?
That seems like a really long extra trip for something very unlikely to yield any positive results, unless it's on the way somewhere for you (which I assume, looking at the map, is the main reason you'd be in that area).
The courthouse is about 4 miles from our camp, and the date is set at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday evening. I could totally show up!
If a black bear doesn't get to me first!
Last week I, for real, found bear scat in the laneway, about five feet away from my parked car. Which I guess explains my dog waking me up at 4 a.m., frantically barking and then shaking like a leaf; and then stubbornly sitting at the front door, attempting to prevent me from even contemplating an exit.
My dog Lucas is quite sexist and paternalistic, really, with his protectiveness. And I'd be embarrassed to admit how much I love him.
Good thing we're just figments of your imagination.
Totally show up for it. Lots of things can happen: you can make your speech about prevailing conditions on the road; the ticketing officer might not show up; the judge might let you plead nolo, which might not put the points on your license; and who knows, the horse might learn to sing.
I am turning into a conspiracy theorist. Any chance Scaramucci was just hired for a week to distract attention from this stuff by running around effing and blinding like a maniac while the testimony was being delivered.
256- Seems possible to me. Watch out though, you might be getting dangerously close to thinking Trump isn't an idiot.
And mostly 1977 cows.
Not so. They were cattle futures. So, presumably, 1979 dollars, but 1980 cows.
256: I am always a bit sceptical of arguments like that because they presume a level of strategic thought that Trump just doesn't seem capable of attaining. Pick any week in the last several months and you'll find a) some lunatic Trump action grabbing the headlines and b) some other highly damaging story, probably to do with Russia, happening.
257: wait a minute, though, roger, IIRC you don't believe Trump did anything wrong with respect to Russia. You think it's all a big lump of nothing concocted by the deep state.
You have no idea what I think, and quit replying to me.
Of course, the job market was so bad for those of us who graduated that year. Most of us voted for Reagan because we couldn't find work and because "It's mooing in America" really struck a cord.
It certainly resonated more than the "moolaise" that Carter was talking about.
Kicking somebody while they are down seems wrong, unless
you're kicking the Mooch.
Regarding the duck hunt subthread, in the Mark Brandenburg the other day I saw someone selling dayglo orange hunting gear with a camo pattern printed on it. Presumably that's for when you want to be seen, but not that much.
Even if deer are colorblind, I think the theory is that a solid block of any color looks a bit out of place in nature, hence orange camo. It doesn't meet the legal visibility requirements in some states, for what I assume are good reasons.
255. Is NY one of the states where the ticketing officer doesn't have to show up? (MA is, for example.) In that case they just send a random officer from the local police, so you can't escape that way.
OT: In case anybody needs another reason to not help somebody move.
I really should know -- I dealt with this professionally until last fall -- but it's different in different contexts. I think the cop does need to show up for a speeding ticket, but if he doesn't on the day scheduled, it can get put off to a later date.
267: in that case they could be more daring and go for a fluoro colourway dazzle pattern. bring!
Friends help you move, real friends help you move bodies but still might wonder if it wouldn't be easier to lift the freeze after removing the contents.
Is it wrong to feel a little sad The Mooch is out so soon?
I'm ambivalent on several levels about the news over the past couple weeks.
As someone who cares about rational, good government, the past couple weeks has been slightly more horrifying than the previous seven months, and that's a high baseline. But "horrifying" is vague.
First, it's bad in some ways but not in others. Republicans incompetently implementing their policies isn't great, but probably isn't nearly as bad as Republicans competently implementing their policies. Republicans mismanaging the nonpartisan functions of government is messy and a low but real chance of catastrophe. Romney/Ryan would divert Department of Energy resources into studies about how great fossil fuels really are; Trump is just neglecting them to the point where they don't have a CFO. It's a different kind of bad. And second, compare it to our expectations between the election and the inauguration. Back then it seemed reasonable to expect two out of three of dictatorship, nuclear war, or pathological even-handedness from the media. But six months in they don't seem nearly as likely. (Given DoE mismanagement, maybe I should expect another Three Mile Island, but not those three apocalyptic scenarios, at least.) So that's reassuring.
Other perspectives? As a fan of comedy, this is entertaining. As a leftist, this is comforting and reassuring. It vindicates my prejudices. It makes me think that the next major election just might not be completely hopeless after all. Yeah, they've gerrymandered and disenfranchised for all they're worth and still have a lot of supporters, but they really have tarnished their image by now and are showing no signs of stopping. So, like I said, ambivalent.
As an aside, while writing this I binged on archived threads from between November and February to refresh my memory of what was actually going on back then. Today is going to be a bad day and that was probably exactly the wrong way to start it.
The first para of the link at 269 is so bizarre it took me a minute to make it make sense.
I'm glad Scaramucci is out, precisely because he's too much of a distraction from the actual news.
dayglo orange hunting gear with a camo pattern printed on it. Presumably that's for when you want to be seen, but not that much.
It's for when you want to blend in among the other deer hunters.
The silliest camo pattern has to be the US Navy's "Navy Working Uniform" which was a blend of light grey, dark grey and blue designed, apparently, to blend in against the sea. The designers did not apparently consider that sailors, when at sea, are normally aboard ships and on the rare occasions when they aren't it is because they have fallen off, and so don't really want to blend in, or because they are working on land, which isn't blue.
274: If you're a fan of comedy, please read 265.
277.2: What about submariners working on deck?
279: if they're on the casing, they are standing on a very large black thing, and so really it doesn't matter whether they personally are camouflaged or not. If they aren't on the casing, they've fallen off, so probably want to be as visible as possible.
But, I imagine the thought process was more like "people expect members of the military to wear camo so we'd better make some for the Navy."
280: A very large black thing that is close to the water. The sailor might be the highest point on the sub, so camo could matter. But mostly 281.
281: almost certainly. They have now ditched it and are going to army woodland cam.
Reading up on it, apparently the rationale was not "we will hide against the sea" but "sailors keep accidentally bumping into freshly painted things and getting paint on their clothes, so we will give them uniforms that are the same colour as the things most likely to have wet paint on them, so the stains don't show". I imagine that a similar calculus operates with parents of young children.
Wiki adds: "The uniforms are primarily composed of a 50/50 nylon and cotton blend, which eliminates the need for a "starch and press" appearance and reduces the possibility of snags and tears from sharp objects (thus making the garment last longer). However this blend combines high flammability with the strength to hold onto the sailor's body while burning", which doesn't sound great. So the sailors look smart, or possibly melty.
The Royal Navy used to have uniforms with a lot of polyester in them, and then after 1982 it got rid of them.
I don't know why the navy keep painting stuff, but dad said they always did.
I though warships were mostly painted white inside. Hence presumably the traditional white uniforms.
The sailor might be the highest point on the sub, so camo could matter
Because the rest of the submarine could be hiding behind the horizon, with only the top peeking over?
I've never been on an active warship, but all the WWII ones I've been on (n = 4) are grey inside and out.
287: Yes. That's the point of a sub. Sneaky.
277. According to wikipedia it's designed so as to not show up the egg they've dribbled down their front at breakfast, or something like that.
I though warships were mostly painted white inside.
They used to be, but they found it made it too easy for polar bears to hide in the corners.
That'll stop being a problem before the navy stops having uniforms.
I imagine that a similar calculus operates with parents of young children.
"They're always getting covered in fingerpaint, might as well ship them off to the naval academy."
The naval academy trains officers. They get uniforms which I suspect are harder to keep clean.
At sea everyone wears the same uniform, so it's harder for enemy paint to pick out the officers and stain them, leaving their men leaderless and demoralized.
266: The man from Yorkshire is not being seen.
Hey, I know things in this thread have way moved on, but as anyone who's followed my semi-confused comments here on Republican tax reform efforts and how that's tied to their 2018 budget resolution will have noticed, I'm into the weeds on it.
I can report that David Dayen (good writer, he) has provided updated enlightenment.
If there's no 2018 budget resolution, Republicans can return to the health care reconciliation bill [under the existing 2017 budget resolution] at any time before the end of next year. Circumstances could change, votes could flip and, not to be ghoulish, but John McCain could no longer be a U.S. senator. Republicans can wait out that process. But if they pass a 2018 budget resolution with reconciliation instructions [in order to pass tax reform with only 50 votes], it would nullify the 2017 resolution. That would mean the health care bill is dead.
So that would appear to be the choice: health care or taxes. But there's a third option: If Republicans could strike a tax deal with broad bipartisan support, they wouldn't need a budget resolution to enable a 50-vote threshold in the Senate. They could build a big-tent tax policy while keeping the 2017 reconciliation bill on ice and waiting for the winds to shift on health care.
More follows on what a bipartisan compromise on tax reform might look like, with speculation on what Dems could agree to, noting in particular that it would require something like Steve Bannon's idea to raise taxes on the rich, which, uh. In conclusion:
That has put them in this quandary. If they want a Republican-only tax bill, they'll have to give up on seven years of dreams to repeal Obamacare. If they want to keep repeal on the back burner, they'll have to work with Democrats on taxes. Because Republicans don't want to do either of these things, they may end up with nothing.
And sorry for such lengthy blockquoting - necessary to relay the gist of the matter.
296: but does it really matter, hein? If one is seen, or not seen? In the end one dies never the less.
Thanks parsimon for the update in 297.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who's interested. For what it's worth, Dylan Matthews notes that Nobody really knows how long reconciliation lasts.
Meaning the 2017 reconciliation window. End of the fiscal year (Sept. 30)? Until a 2018 budget resolution is passed? Nobody knows. It's .. quite remarkable ... that our government is so unclear on itself.
I should clarify: the Dayen piece said Republicans could return to a healthcare reconciliation bill until the end of next year - meaning end of 2018 (essentially until a new Congress is sworn in). Apparently it's not clear whether that's the measure.
255: Thanks, Doug. I've decided to show up for it, though I doubt I can give a speech. In part, I'm just curious about courthouse proceedings in the most sparsely populated county in America east of the Mississippi.
The only other time I've gone down to the courthouse was in Ottawa, after someone stole my GST rebate cheque right out of my mailbox (the GST is a Canadian federal tax, btw), and took it to the local pool hall, and cashed it in, claiming I was his "girlfriend." When I went to court, and heard this guy claim me as his own (I had never laid eyes upon him before in my entire life), I was a little bit astonished, but I had to sort of admire his sense of bravado. The police officer, a Sergeant Lachance, who had convinced me to go to court in the first place, was convinced "this fellow was a very bad actor, indeed." My fraudulent "boyfriend" was found guilty, of course, and had to pay a fine, which I doubt he could afford to pay. It was sort of comical, but mostly quite depressing.
Canada sends people literal physical cheques?
America does. I can't even e-file my income taxes because somebody identity thefted me.
But Canada has this whole "America without the crazy" branding thing going on.
304: Yeah, we're backward like that. It's a function of the Precambrian underdevelopment of the Canadian Shield, no doubt.
Actually, nowadays you can sign up for direct deposit, of course. But when my parents died, 4.5 years ago, me and my sisters soon discovered that our parents hadn't used the Internet for anything important at all (though our mum had an email account where she forwarded memes about loving daughters and cute puppies, and such). Everything had been done by snail mail, or else had been neglected for about the past twenty years!
But Canada has this whole "America without the crazy" branding thing going on.
Trust me, there are some serious crazies in Canada. It's just that they, thankfully, never manage to achieve critical mass, and therefore never manage to pose any real electoral threat. We can thank French Canada for that, I guess. Les Québécois have always outnumbered the millenarian Protestant sects by a factor of about 2.5 or 3 to 1.
Have people already forgotten Rob Ford? Now there was a Canadian crazy for the ages.