The correct answer is "both," although it's a more tortuous path for the executive branch to do it.

The other bit is because of how few days Congress actually worked, any reschedule, in order to avoid Republicans targeting it out of spite with the Congressional Review Act, would have had to happen prior to about this time last year.

And let's be honest - there is nearly nothing to point to in Obama's legacy that suggests he was likely to move quickly on policy. Even ACA, his signature achievement, took 13 months from the time he told Congress "let's do this" to the time he had a bill to sign. By the time he might have been willing to act unilaterally - and in an election year he may have shied from doing so in order to avoid seeming nakedly political - it was too late.

Although, on a tangent, after watching House Republicans rush through their second attempt this year at repealing ACA before the CBO could re-score it (it was, what, a week from the rumors of its revival to its final passage?), I gotta say they've lost the credibility to ever again accuse Democrats of having rushed ACA through Congress.

The two processes weren't remotely similar in terms of the time taken.

I mean, unless you want to count Republicans' six years of dog-and-pony votes that they knew wouldn't amount to anything (and so they didn't bother offering any kind of serious replacement when they were voting 50+ times to repeal) as somehow being part of the replacement timeline.

We knew the GOP budget was going to be bad. We didn't really know how bad. Now we know.

Food Stamps? Gawn.
Meals for Needy Kids? See ya.
Housing and education for low income families? Have a double dose of BOOTSTRAPS..

But they are also touching a huge third rail.

Yes, veteran's benefits are on the table to get a massive cut. That's one of the few powerful groups the GOP hasn't shit on lately, so guess what? ARE TROOPS ARE MOOCHERS!

I mean, there is handing your opponent a knife so he can stab you in the back, and then there's "Hi, We just took $400 billion a year away from the poor and those who served our country to give the rich a massive tax cut. VOTE FOR US!"

Republicans plan massive cuts to programs for the poor - POLITICO

From WaPo

One of the more interesting parts of his presidency is the lengths his administration goes to in order to pretend he isn't golfing every weekend despite everyone knowing he golfs every weekend.

We'll be Dickensian London in no time!

Man, everything Republican government wants to do is so counterintuitive.

You want to improve the economy? Put money in the hands of the spenders.

You want to fuck yourselves for the future? Keep banking on trickle down bullshit.

I can only hope the country wakes up next election and the end of this cabal of thieves is nigh. It makes no sense to destroy the potential of the lower class because they make up such a huge percentage of the country. You're gonna kill tourism, you're gonna kill consumerism, you're gonna see a jump in crime, and it's gonna be a disgusting place to live by the time this is all done. If they do indeed go for the veterans money I hope it finally serves as a goddamned wake up call for those who would continue to support this ignorant bunch of greedy fucks.

It really is tough to pin down what the dumbest thing he's said is.

Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador - The Washington Post

"In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” Trump said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange."

There must be some way to keep Trump away from real president stuff.

Pffft. Still just part of his master plan. 5-D CHESS!!!!!!!!1

You can bet our allies are going to be keeping the good stuff from Trump.

What, you mean rational, logical, and (at times) realistic?


As opposed to, you know, having them fucking earn it?




We've just endured eight utterly disgraceful & embarassing years of batshit insanity. It was ALREADY a "disgusting place to live" ... at least now there's SOME occasional semblance of sanity.

Fucking deal with it buttercups.

Not hearing much complaining about all the corporate welfare that gets tossed around. Not a peep from Republicans on farm subsidies either.

The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by "intelligence" like candy. Very un-American!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017

Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team "were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information." Not fit!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2016

It's simple: Individuals who are ‘extremely careless’ w/ classified info should be denied further access to it. https://t.co/XWuvfDugly

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) July 7, 2016

LOCK HIM UP!

But but but... No email was involved.

I'm interested in what was so horrible about living under the Obama administration? The 2% increase to the tax rate over the last three years of his term? Whispers that people you don't know might be receiving benefits they didn't earn? Obamacare was/is a fucking joke, but it was hardly the genesis of horrible & expensive American healthcare.

My personal complaints about Obama are legion, but they mosltly center around his general ineffectiveness if anything, and I feel like most of the social changes of the last 8 years were made at the state level, and the Feds simply chose not to get in the way, which used to be the conservative ideal, and shouldn't be laid at Obama's feet.

As far as I can tell, most of Jon's (and a lot of other conservatives) concrete complaints center simply around higher taxes (resulting from too many social programs?), and I get that on a purely objective level; giving the government, or anybody else, a sizable chunk of your money for relatively few returns is frustrating...but I don't think a ~2% higher tax rate is some kind of 'disgraceful & embarassing' yoke that is going to ruin every single day of your life, so fill in the blanks for me, aside from taxes what was so hard and disgusting about living under the Obama administration that an unhinged clown is actually providing you with relief? Was it just the idea that he was constantly promoting liberal ideas which you don't agree with (and which he didn't necessarily follow up on) on a world stage? I can kind of get that, but from my perspective I feel like Obama's threat to the conservative power base was a lot of pomp & circumstance with little actual intent to upset the status quo, whereas Trump has an obvious lack of tact and grace, but wants to try and stick his finger in every hole in the dike, and seems like he's much more likely to damage my daily life (and everybody else's).

Also, just for the record, someone who spent the Obama's administration silently suffering would absolutely have the right to folks to suck it up and question their maturity. Someone who immediately went into 8 years histrionics and repeatedly insisted Obama would be assassinated should probably keep that shit to themselves.

Maybe he shorted the stock market when Obama took office.

Anyone asking to lock up Trump for being careless about classified info but did not for Clinton is a hypocrite and should shut up. They have proven themselves to be partisan and unable to speak against their own party when it does something against their values.

Personally, I would love to see Trump prosecuted for anything he has done that is illegal.

Also, I don't think my life was clearly affected much by Obama other than Obamacare (which has affected me quite abit). I think most people who are saying how terrible their lives have been all because of Obama being in office need to check themselves. I doubt greatly most of them had it too bad, and they are just as hypocritical and partisan.

Personally, any of my disagreements with Obama generally came down to philosophical differences in how to run a government.

Obamacare has it's issues but it was still just making the individual health insurance market meet the same regulations we get with group health insurance. I don't see a lot of people wanting to overhaul their company's group plans.

Over-reliance on the insurance industry to create a competitive market seemed to be the biggest flaw in it. And funding Medicaid expansion with a tax on capital gains seems fine since the lower capital gains tax is such a sham. God forbid people pay a rate similar to the average middle class person.

Generally I agree with you. For seven years, I was on a corporate plan and didn't see a discernable difference in my coverage or costs prior to Obamacare.

It was once I got off of the corporate plan and had to get Obamacare that I found out what an awful mess it was.

You are paying on Obamacare around what your company was paying. The rates are similar. People just don't notice it when it's employer based because it's coming out of your check and your company is picking up a big chunk of the premium.

True. But now I was required to get it or pay a tax penalty. And the existence of Obamacare and the requirements to have it artificially supported a bloated pharma/healthcare industry, and encouraged abuse of the system around insurance, the costs of which were forced onto the consumers in their premiums. Premium fees rose far higher than median income increases, such that to get coverage at all, many if not most had to resort to plans (limited plans available, btw, in all markets) with deductibles so high you might as well not have a plan unless you are catastrophically hurt.

Don't get me started on Obamacare, please. Most people here don't have a clue what it is like to be in that system (and required by the government to be there, no choice).

New York Times is confirming the Russia-Trump story. This is.. I dunno.

Trump Revealed Highly Classified Intelligence to Russia, in Break With Ally, Officials Say - NYTimes.com

And Chief: I think that, more than anything is why we're going to have to go to single payer to fix the thing. Healthcare is one of the things that really shouldn't have a profit motive.

Premiums have gone up in employer plans too. I agree on it pushing the cost on to consumers but no one is willing to stand up to doctors, pharma, or insurance companies. I don't think that's an Obamacare specific thing although it does kick the can on those bigger issues down the road.

As for forcing people to pay, that's part of taxes. Everyone has access to health care in this country even if you don't have insurance. If you have no insurance and clutch your chest and faint while out for a walk, an ambulance is going to come and doctors will treat you at the emergency room. That's been going on for decades. Now instead of people skipping health insurance and making other people pay when that happens to them, we force everyone to pitch in (since everyone has the access).

The alternative is not requiring it and those who don't pay for it die on the street when they have an emergency. Society decided awhile back we didn't want that.

You can't talk about healthcare reform without looking at what the costs actually cost and what is charged by hospitals. My son had some extra blood work (mostly vitamin levels and some extra enzymes) done recently for part of his treatment plan. The EOB showed that the billed cost was $1500. The "Insurance Discount" was $1410. That left about $90 that was actually covered by the insurance company. Had there been no insurance, the hospital would have generously given me a self-payer discount of 48%, so just over $750 would have been my responsibility. It's neither here, nor there in the discussion of ACA, but the fact that this kind of pricing even exists and is acceptable is really beyond reason.

That conclusion forces us to assume that those two things are equal. Are they?

Is Clinton's handling of classified information on a private email server that may have been subject to access by the wrong people, namely the Russians, the same as the President directly passing along classified information to the Russians?

Again, he's the President and it's his prerogative, per his position, but damn, if Obama or Clinton had done that we'd be on the precipice of a Congressional meltdown.

So, a poorly secured e-mail server = direct communication of the information?

Anyone who considers these situations equivalent is a hypocrite and should shut up.

They should both share a cell.

I've asked this question at many times here.

My guess:
Attack on values/traditions that frame the people who love their county, state, god as racist, ignorant and expendable. At the heart, I suspect the cultural importance of pride and tradition plays a big part.

But both sides...

So we prosecute a murderer but not a rapist?

A crime is a crime. Equivalency doesnt matter.

Exactly. If any of you can point me to where you decry against Clinton's actions with emails/servers/etc., then you have good cause to go after Trump too. If you didn't but now you're all in a huff about Trump, you're a partisan hypocrite.

I went after Clinton, and I am just as pissed at Trump. I don't allow partisanship to determine for me what is right and what is wrong.

The only reason I don't go off on you about shit like this is because I know how pointless it is. It's cool man. You do you.

I don't really think either deserved to go to prison. Tough to prove that there was criminal intent in Hillary's e-mail fiasco. Also tough to prove there was some criminal intent with Trump here as he was likely more concerned with bragging than spilling state secrets.

You don't have to think everything bad deserves jail time. I can think Hillary did something self-serving and potentially detrimental to the country without thinking it's illegal. I can also think Trump gave intel to a foreign enemy to boost his ego without thinking it's an illegal act.

I think Clinton Screwed Up. I think Donald Trump is a complete and utter screwup. I would still prefer Clinton's screwup over Trump's on going gaffe carousel.

I think I'd be happier if it was President Pence right now. And that's a scary thing, because Pence would be a HELL of a lot more effective in pushing the GOP agenda then Herr Trumpenstein.. I mean, considering all the stories coming out and the blatant denial of reality coming from the White House, I think we're close to "underwear ON THE HEAD" Trump.. and that's not good.

What about people who chanted LOCK HER UP at Trump rallies who haven't a peep to say about the fact that he's blithely handing over "great intel, the best intel" to Russians despite explicit warnings from the ally we got it from that if he shared it with them, they'd stop sharing their take with us?

I mean, the law allows the President broad latitude to declassify stuff, but unilaterally declassifying code-word intel to share with a nation whose motives in the theater in question don't mirror ours (and may be directly adverse in some ways) despite the protestations of the ally who gave us that intel in the first place is a level of careless handling that goes beyond external e-mail servers.

Remember, Russia's interests in Syria extend to propping up Assad; they consider both the rebels and ISIS to be of a piece. They don't necessarily share the West's vested interest in that mole's continued survival. Which is why our ally reportedly said "keep this shit close held." And Trump ignored that because it made him look good to share that he gets "great intel, the best intel."

But sure, this is exactly the same thing. Both sides are bad, so vote Republican.

I don't see those people here in this thread. The only two besides me to comment on this from the right (or at least "not left") side of the aisle here is tarcone, whom by his example (murderer/rapist) suggests he is perfectly aware both sides are wrong and EF, who flat out says both belong in a cell.

I see a whole lot of left leaning posters who I know for a fact did not raise one peep against Clinton's handling of classified info last year. I guess it didn't suit the narrative back then.

It would be nice if for once I was dealing with left leaning posters who called themselves on their own BS. But that is precious rare. I certainly see it enough on the Republican side to call it out. I don't know who I hate more; the super-conservative religious right who are further from my interests than most Dems, or the Trumpites who refuse to see the catastrophy for this country that is that man being elected President.

Be careful getting down from that horse, bud. It seems mighty high.

P.S. cartman was being tongue in cheek.

You don't "know for a fact" shit. IF you care to go back through my posting history, you can find numerous instances of me calling out Clinton for making poor choices and stupid decisions. But I don't have to prove anything to you. Why should I do more work than you care to put in to put aside YOUR OWN preconceived biases. You won't because you are happy in your ivory tower of "but I callz it like I seez it... they're both idiots!" Maybe so, but only one of them is the leader of the free world.

Why is the bias of "you're all partisan hacks" any better than "Trump is a moron"? Bias is bias, just as crime is crime. I think we could all agree that some crime is worse than others... this is not "crime is crime". Tarcone equivalized rape and murder there, but I think this is closer to involuntary manslaughter vs. tax evasion. I know which crime I think is worse. Yes, they are both crime, but there are definitely degrees of damage to society involved.

I don't usually rage post, but when I do....I regret it immediately afterwards. Oh well, it's staying.

Yes, I know in real life I said several times Clinton's email fiasco made her unfit for presidency and she deserved to be jailed. I probably did in this thread somewhere as well. Unfortunately even with that, I felt she was less dangerous to this country than Trump, which has certainly proven to be the case.

We had a couple shitty candidates to choose from.

We've seen this movie before. Why on EARTH do his people say stuff like this.

McMasters, Monday night: "Story is false. Colonel Jessup didn't order the Code Red.

Teh Donald, Tuesday morning: "YOU'RE GODDAMNED RIGHT I DID!!!!!1"

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

And this is what worries me...that he truly believes he can do or say anything he wants and there are no consequences for it. And when people scoff, he acts like a petulant child.

So, if the President can declassify any info at any time, can he actually commit treason?

I was wondering about that, too. All indications are that, yeah, he can declassify stuff.

She e-mailed classified info to people with clearance on a private e-mail server. Colin Powell has admitted to doing the same thing as secretary of state. Is it dumb, yes. Is there an actual law against it? No. And reports have Trump's staff doing the same over "secure" IM clients.

I don't really see how sharing classified info with people with clearance is the same as sharing classified information with a foreign power, but I feel like false equivalency is the name of the game these days. If A did something wrong, B can do whatever that's worse because everyone does bad things at some point.