They’re playing this slowly and carefully. I know it’s frustrating, believe me. Especially when Nadler has that subpoena in his back pocket for the full Mueller report. But there’s also the consideration of optics.
I think Pelosi et al. are trying to thread the needle carefully. More than ever the House needs to perform oversight of this administration and begin holding people accountable. But there’s also the concern of it being seen as petty politics to your “swing” voters. Which is a valid concern on some level, I guess.
The reality, in my view, is that the House doing its job and conducting oversight was/is inevitably going to blow up into a nasty battle. Neal issuing a subpoena for Trump’s tax returns will be the first shot fired. And then it’s all downhill from there until November 3rd, 2020…
The best interpretation I can come up with is that you think Republican action (or lack thereof) sets some kind of standard that, if only we could surpass it, would lead to sweetness and light.
Rs don’t attack their fellow Rs, they may sometimes be quoted anonymously, but I can’t image that a comment board exists anywhere that kind of criticism goes on so gleefully as it does here. That’s the issue. Support who you want, but trashing one’s party’s incumbents must be off limits.
Two reasons that wages are not going up: One, conservatives across the country have enacted laws and decrees (see Scott Walker et al.) and pursued actions at our conservative Supreme Court intended to limit the power of unions and their ability to raise money through workplace deductions. Union membership has also declined precipitously because of the outsourcing of manufacturing work to foreign countries, effectively lowering average wages drastically. Two, Congress has allowed the minimum wage to fall farther and farther behind the cost of living by not adjusting it upward.
Trashing one’s own party is fine? Fortunately, Rs who could spread the news probably don’t drop in here. No one said Rs have standards, but they do know to shut up and just stand behind their party.
It’s not up to anyone other than fellow Rs to guide their party into the light. Dishonesty on many fronts is what they do, but I never said I respect them for it.
And yet, if your instruction is that Democrats should make like Republicans and “shut up and just stand behind their party,” then whether you “respect [the Republicans] for it” or not is immaterial.
Interestingly under the law cited by the chair concerning handing in trump’s taxes… trump could be included in an arrest warrant if the forms aren’t turnred overby the stated date. Wouldn’t that get folks attention?
Tons of just that kind of data there. I think it’s fair to say that most of the newly created jobs are minimum-wage jobs or nearly so, e.g. low-skill service industry jobs (think fast-food and so on).
The kinds of jobs people work two or three of, just to make ends meet, yes.
I’d say that’s a pretty fair assessment. A colleague of mine did executive coaching for quite a few years, and a number of his clients were high-level financial industry CEOs and executives. Dimon was one of those. My colleague says most of them exhibit signs of fairly severe mental illness… in some cases completely psychotic, sociopathic and consumed with material greed. Again, Dimon was mentioned specifically among those.
All to say, I couldn’t possibly disagree with your viewpoint…
I’m really not at all convinced that’s a good thing. On the contrary, “Shut up and stand behind your party” is indeed what they do well, but at the expense of their constituents, their principles, and even the country itself, and all driven entirely by ideology. That’s not a very good recipe for healthy governance, is it?
It’s exactly that “lockstep” behavior that enabled a minority party to gain a majority position. It’s also about as maddening as it can be, from my POV. There was a time when partisanship took a backseat to good stewardship and both parties generally acted in good faith (competitive, but I remember when the “dirty tricks” approach was the exception, not the rule). There was still some respect on the floors of the House and Senate.
These days, that congenial attitude has given way to an almost intractable chasm of ideological differences, that is driven further apart by the bad faith behavior of party leaders (honestly, I don’t blame Republicans exclusively for this, but they are definitely leading this race to the bottom).
I always hope Dems can find more common ground to huddle around, and that they’ll stand on their principles more firmly, but I wouldn’t want them to go down that same road with the “lockstep” BS. That’s a plague on all our houses, in my view.
Because I also appreciate the debate, the exchange of ideas (rather than stiffening of ideological positions), and Reps who actually represent their constituents over party and ideology. Dems do that better than Republicans. And yet, people still vote for politicians who barely represent them at all, and certainly don’t give a rat’s ass about their needs or concerns (other than required to assure re-election).
Craven? Yeah… that’s a good word to describe the “grand old party”. Not so grand anymore, is it…
Honest question, how does that work? Trump has (supposedly) submitted tax forms. He may retain copies but the actual submission is the legal document. That document has been requested from IRS, not Trump. His agreement with the IRS is that the forms be kept private EXCEPT for legal requests. Trump has no standing to get in the middle of the House demand to IRS, only with IRS if he can prove they violated their agreement with him. So, how can the House hold Trump in contempt for IRS’s failure to produce? IANAL so maybe someone who is can explain.
Somewhere in the IRS code (26 of the fed code) as quoted by the chair of the House Ways and Means committee there apparently is a bit of language that says if the materials aren’t submitted that elected officials up the responsible chain of command can be arrested. It may be here:
IRC 6103(k)(6) allows the IRS to make limited
disclosures of return information in the course of official tax administration
investigations to third parties if necessary to obtain information that is not
otherwise reasonably available.
If I can find a better link in the next few minutes I’ll post it.
