Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

2020 American Political Scene

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #46
    The Squad showing no love for Shillery.
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ras...-event-in-iowa

    Comment


    • #47
      Independent Federal Agencies

      Courtesy of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (http://cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/year...encies-in-2019)

      For the past year, the Revolving Door Project has been closely monitoring leadership positions at 39 independent federal agencies through the Independent Federal Agency Monitor. The Agency Spotlight monitors leadership positions at 39 independent federal agencies. Collectively, these bodies have a total of 174 members/leaders who require Senate confirmation.

      At the beginning of 2019, 41 of the 174 seats the Agency Spotlight tracks were vacant. Throughout 2019, 27 independent agency officials left their positions. As a result, at the end of 2019 43 seats sat empty. At the beginning of 2019, 37 of the seats tracked were expired. By the end, that number had fallen to 28.

      Nominations and confirmations continue to lag the pace at which terms expire and seats are vacated. Examples include the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).

      The Trump administration nominated a total of 56 individuals to independent agency leadership positions throughout the course of 2019. Of those, 10 nominations were either returned under Senate rules or withdrawn, leaving 46 nominations for Senate consideration. The Senate confirmed 33 of those nominations. The remaining 13 nominations are still pending. In one of the most egregious cases, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell failed to move three nominations for the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), all of which were voted out of committee between six and ten months ago, despite the Board having been leaderless since March of 2019. Without any members the MSPB has been unable to carry out its vital mission of protecting federal employees from abuse and partisan political interference.

      The following agencies have all lacked a quorum for some period of time in 2019:
      • The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) from January 2019 to May 2019
      • The Export-Import Bank (EXIMBANK) from July of 2015 to May of 2019
      • The Federal Election Commission (FEC) from August 2019 to present
      • The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) from March 2018 to present (it has had 0 members since March of 2019)
      • The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) from May 2019 to January 2020
      • The United States Postal Service (USPS) from December 2014 to August 2019
      • The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) from January of 2019 to present

      It should also be noted that, just as many vacant and expired seats remain, so does the imbalance in their distribution between parties. Many of these agencies’ boards are statutorily designed to be politically balanced. The number of Democratic versus Republican vacancies remains virtually unchanged since the start of the year. 2019 began with 15 Democratic vacancies and 16 Republican ones. It ended with 16 Democratic vacancies and 16 Republican ones.

      While these numbers are equal in an absolute sense, when viewed as a share of total Democratic and Republican seats, the imbalance becomes clear. At the end of the year, 16 of 55 (or 29 percent) of Democratic seats were vacant versus 16 of 85 (or 18 percent) of Republican seats.
      Trust me?
      I'm an economist!

      Comment


      • #48
        Al Qaeda in Arizona. Build that wall.
        https://www.foxnews.com/us/man-in-ar...r-by-iraq-feds

        Comment


        • #49
          Polling: Americans dissatisfied with the state of the union

          WASHINGTON (AP) — The turbulence of impeachment, a contentious presidential campaign and a global virus health threat confront President Donald Trump as he prepares to deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday night. But one thing about the Trump era has remained remarkably steady: public opinion on the president.

          Approval of Trump has stayed persistently in negative territory, and the country is more polarized now than it has been under any other president in recent history. Polls also show Americans express significant dissatisfaction with the direction of the country and even more so with the state of politics.

          Even with those downbeat numbers, Americans have largely positive views of both the economy and how Trump is handling it.

          A look at public opinion on the president and the state of the union.

          ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

          Trump is just the third president in U.S. history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. The Republican-controlled Senate, which is conducting the trial, narrowly rejected Democratic demands Friday to summon witnesses, all but ensuring Trump's acquittal. Final voting on his fate is scheduled for Wednesday, on the heels of Trump's prime-time speech the night before.

          Impeachment proceedings have closely split the public. In a January poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, slightly more said the Senate should vote to convict Trump and remove him from office than said it should not, 45% to 40%. An additional 14% of those questioned said they did not know enough to have an opinion.

          In the survey, 42% of Americans said they thought Trump did something illegal in his July telephone call with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and an additional 32% said he did something unethical.

          A slim majority of Republicans, 54%, thought Trump did nothing wrong with Ukraine's leader, but that share declined slightly from 64% in October. Roughly one-third of respondents said they think Trump did something unethical but not illegal, and just about 1 in 10 that he did something illegal.

          ___

          THE STATE OF THE ECONOMY IS STRONG

          Still, the president has consistently been lifted by Americans' assessment of his handling of the economy, which boasts a low 3.5% unemployment rate and steady job growth. In January, 56% of Americans approved of the Trump's job on the economy, according to an AP-NORC poll. That was higher than the share approving of his handling of trade negotiations, foreign policy or health care.

          In the same poll, 67% said they considered the economy to be in good shape, up slightly from 61% who said that in September of 2019, and only about one-quarter expected economic conditions to worsen over the next year.

          That relatively bright assessment of the economy even extends to many Democrats. About half of Democrats rate economic conditions positively, and roughly 3 in 10 approve of Trump's handling of the issue.

          ___

          PERVASIVE DISSATISFACTION

          Just as Trump will outline his goals for the remainder of his term on Tuesday night, Americans have their own idea of what should be a priority this year. An AP-NORC poll in December found Americans identified in an open-ended question the economy, health care, immigration and the environment as top issues for the government to address in 2020.

          Few expected the government to make progress on the issues most important to them.

          In the same poll, just about 2 in 10 Americans said they were satisfied with the way things are going in the country today. Nearly 6 in 10 were dissatisfied. Looking ahead, more expected things would get worse, not better.

          Republicans were far more likely to express satisfaction with the state of the country, compared with Democrats, 40% to 11%. A slim majority of Republicans, 54%, anticipated improvement over the next year.

          Among Democrats, 76% said they were dissatisfied, and 66% expected things to get even worse.

          ___

          POLARIZATION

          That partisan gap in assessments of the country is even wider in assessments of the president.

          Eighty-nine percent of Republicans and just 7% of Democrats approved of Trump on average during the third year of his presidency, according to polling by Gallup. The 82 percentage points separating the two parties in their views of the president was greater than for any other year of any other presidency.

          That persistent polarization has led to unusual stability in Trump's approval rating. While approval ebbs and flows from poll to poll, Trump's rating have remained within a roughly 10 percentage point range for three years. Trump's approval rating is unlikely to change with partisans staunchly in their camps. There's not much room for improvement among Republicans, and he's unlikely to gain any support from Democrats.

          ___

          REELECTION YEAR PRECEDENT

          Other presidents' approval ratings have reached lower levels than Trump's, but Gallup polling shows Trump's averages register lower than the averages of most recent presidents. Over the past three months, approval of Trump averaged about 43%. That's lower than for most other recent presidents over the same time period in their first terms.

          Barack Obama is one exception. Over the same period before his reelection bid, average approval was also about 43%. But Obama’s approval rating never dipped below 40% in Gallup polling, and Obama saw his rating improve slightly as his reelection approached. While Trump's approval rating has never exceeded 46% in Gallup polling, Obama concluded his first term with an average rating just below 50%.
          ___________________________
          “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

          Comment


          • #50
            Doctor confronts Vice President Mike Pence over Medicaid cuts in Iowa

            At a campaign stop in Iowa, Vice President Mike Pence was confronted by an emergency room doctor from Michigan who questioned the Trump administration's handling of Medicaid and Medicare.

            In the clip, which has been viewed nearly three million times on Twitter, Dr. Rob Davidson -- also the executive director of the Committee to Protect Medicare -- pressed Pence about the state of health care insurance programs, as the vice president made his rounds shaking at the Drake Diner in Des Moines.

            "I'm worried about plans they talked about last week of maybe cutting the Medicare and then the roll out today of cutting Medicaid," Davidson said during the event on Thursday. "I work ... with one of the poorest counties in Michigan and my patients depend on expanded Medicaid. So how is that going to affect my patients?”

            Pence brushed off the question, saying "I haven't heard about cuts to Medicare."

            Davidson went on, adding that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently announced plans to cut Medicaid by letting states file for waivers to receive block grants.

            "So that would essentially cut the amount of money going to the states," Davidson continued. "So it would cut federal Medicaid funding. Is that a good idea?"

            Pence reverted back to his record during his tenure as the governor of Indiana, pivoting away from his current position as a member of Trump's cabinet.

            The doctor was referring to the Trump administration revealing on Thursday plans to allow states to cap Medicaid spending for many poor adults, which would likely shrink the number of people receiving health benefits through the program.

            In an interview with ABC News, Davidson claimed the encounter was impromptu and that he was in Iowa for a press conference related to his committee.

            Davidson said he found the interaction "indicative of where they're moving with healthcare in general," adding that he thought Pence wasn't prepped to handled questions about his administration's healthcare policies.

            "It just seems to be an overall pattern of them taking healthcare away from people," Davidson told ABC News.

            The doctor expressed concern over Pence's reluctance to engage about the Trump administration health care policies, and coupled with the president saying recently that he saved pre-existing conditions despite fighting to dismantle those protections in the courts, Davidson said health care misinformation could be a major issue this election.

            "They're just making things up for campaign purposes, I think they say things that are wildly ludicrous," he said, adding. "I think it's really incumbent on so many of us... to lay out what's really going on."

            When asked what he thought people should take away from the viral interaction, Davidson said he thinks more people working in health care need to speak up.

            MORE: Proposed Trump administration policy pushes for transparency in health care costs

            "I think the burden is on us to step out of the exam room every once in a while and go on record as supporting policies that improve the lives of our patients," he said.

            The administration has yet to detail a health care plan ahead of 2020, even after Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last June that he'd release one in the "next two months."

            The vice president's office did not respond to a request for comment.
            _____________

            Gotta pay for those massive tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations somehow.

            And then there's Trump's usual pathological dishonesty....weren't we supposed to have a big beautiful replacement for Obamacare?

            And a Wall that Mexico was going to pay for?

            And an infrastructure bill?
            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

            Comment


            • #51
              Fortunately for Trump the two leading Dem contenders right now are Biden & Sanders. Its like those two old guys in the Muppet Show, but not funny. Take a deep breath folks, this seems unlikely to end soon.
              sigpic

              Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

              Comment


              • #52
                Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                Al Qaeda in Arizona. Build that wall.
                https://www.foxnews.com/us/man-in-ar...r-by-iraq-feds
                Do you even read what you post?

                "They didn’t say how long Al-Nouri had been living in Arizona, how he entered the U.S., or what he did for a living."
                Trust me?
                I'm an economist!

                Comment


                • #53
                  Biden kisses 19 year old on the lips.
                  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ign-event.html

                  While holding hands and she hikes up her skirt!
                  Last edited by surfgun; 03 Feb 20,, 04:34.

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Originally posted by DOR View Post
                    Do you even read what you post?

                    "They didn’t say how long Al-Nouri had been living in Arizona, how he entered the U.S., or what he did for a living."
                    The answer to that question is "Fuck no".
                    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Tops, please analyze if you would the Joe Biden photo in the Daily Mail link.

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                        Biden kisses 19 year old on the lips.
                        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ign-event.html

                        While holding hands and she hikes up her skirt!
                        Obviously, you don't bother to read what you post.
                        Trust me?
                        I'm an economist!

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          What, do you think the incestuous nature makes it less creepy? Or is that more natural to you (DOR)?
                          Last edited by surfgun; 03 Feb 20,, 12:19.

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Originally posted by surfgun View Post
                            What, do you think the incestuous nature makes it less creepy? Or is that more natural to you (DOR)?
                            That bothers you then? Make you look at Joe Biden with disgust, perhaps? Even makes him unfit to run president?
                            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              This more so.
                              https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7XUC6_HZHuY

                              https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0xX_2zxlrL8
                              Last edited by surfgun; 03 Feb 20,, 19:31.

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                So sexual assault and hiding of higher education grades, i.e. character as the anchor in the 2nd vid mentioned, bothers you greatly?
                                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X