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Cont: President Trump: Part 3

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dudalb said:
But they hold the balance of power in close votes. It is like the situation in some countries with a parliamentary system where the vote is so divided that an extremist party with just a few votes can hold the balance of power...
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The problem is, we have a two party system, we don't have extremist parties though we do have extremist factions. Currently the GOP holds 237 Congressional seats, the Democrats 193. To pass most legislation a simple majority, 218 votes, is needed. If all 35 Freedom Caucus members oppose a bill the GOP majority want, it can pass if 16 Democrats vote for it.

If the Republicans in Congress continue to refuse to try and work with Democrats then yes, they will only be able to pass bills that the Freedom Caucus supports. Note the Freedom Caucus isn't big enough to pass legislation without broad support, but they are big enough to block legislation they don't like.

It would appear that establishment Republicans have outmaneuvered themselves.
 
newyorkguy said:
The problem is, we have a two party system, we don't have extremist parties though we do have extremist factions. Currently the GOP holds 237 Congressional seats, the Democrats 193. To pass most legislation a simple majority, 218 votes, is needed. If all 35 Freedom Caucus members oppose a bill the GOP majority want, it can pass if 16 Democrats vote for it.

If the Republicans in Congress continue to refuse to try and work with Democrats then yes, they will only be able to pass bills that the Freedom Caucus supports. Note the Freedom Caucus isn't big enough to pass legislation without broad support, but they are big enough to block legislation they don't like.

It would appear that establishment Republicans have outmaneuvered themselves.
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One of my deep fears is that the Democrats might be developing their own version of the Freedom Caucus except on the other side of the political spectrum:a group of really hard line ideologues who value purity above all else.
 
dudalb said:
One of my deep fears is that the Democrats might be developing their own version of the Freedom Caucus except on the other side of the political spectrum:a group of really hard line ideologues who value purity above all else.
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The democrats are a right wing political party as are the republicans one is just further right than the other so I'm wondering what you mean by "purity"? And also of course the perennial question - evidence?
 
Bob001 said:
Gen. Flynn wants immunity in exchange for his testimony. This could get really interesting really fast.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/politics/michael-flynn-congress-immunity-russia.html
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That could be interesting but then again Flynn may just be looking after his own interests. He knows that he personally is up ****-creek without a paddle and sees this as an opportunity to get immunity. He may not have anything damning or even useful to say and so he may escape prosecution in exchange for useless testimony.
 
dudalb said:
One of my deep fears is that the Democrats might be developing their own version of the Freedom Caucus except on the other side of the political spectrum:a group of really hard line ideologues who value purity above all else.
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Except, as Darat mentions below, the Democratic Party are, by global standards, a right wing party. Their most left-wing representatives (there may be more left wing supporters but then again they are probably Greens) are probably centreist and "extreme centreist" isn't really that frightening.

Darat said:
The democrats are a right wing political party as are the republicans one is just further right than the other so I'm wondering what you mean by "purity"? And also of course the perennial question - evidence?
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I guess in this context it's a dogmatic adherence to a core set of principles and values. For example, the putative Oppression Caucus (which no doubt will be its name, it being the opposite of the Freedom Caucus ;) :D) may decide that single payer healthcare is the only way to go. They would then vote against any healthcare bill that doesn't result in single payer even if it's a vast improvement on the current situation.

But yeah, no evidence that such a group may be forming.
 
Remember Craig Cobb? He's the white supremacist who wanted to buy all of the property in a town in North Dakota and turn the town into a white supremacist community.
He now plans to rebuild a church and name it after Trump.

In an interview with the New York Daily News, white supremacist Craig Cobb said that he intends to rebuild a church that recently burned down in Nome, ND — and then name it after the president.

“The President Donald J. Trump Creativity Church of Rome,” said Cobb. “That’s the name, because it’s beautiful. President Trump is like a god emperor, can do no wrong.”
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God emperor...
I see a cabinet position in his future.
 
newyorkguy said:
I don't understand how a small group in Congress can have the effect the Freedom Caucus has. They don't publicly identify their members (which I find to be both undemocratic and a bit scary) but it's estimated to be about 35 members. How do 35 members in a 435-member group have such influence?
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When you have a bill that no democrats are going to vote for then you can afford to lose only so many republican votes. The HFC is large enough that they can derail a bill in such a situation.

Given that the president and other republicans don't seem interested in working with democrats (and democrats aren't particularly fond of working with republicans), that means few bipartisan bills and thus the HFC has a lot of power.

The pickle the republicans seem to have found themselves in is that giving into the HFC means the more moderate republicans will then refuse to vote, and there's enough of them to similarly derail a bill and they can't present a bill that will manage to get enough democrats on board that would override the HFC.

And that's just the house! A bill that pleases the HFC is going to have an even tougher time getting enough moderate votes in the senate than in the house.
 
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skyeagle409 said:
The cousin of the Watergate scandal is now knocking on the door.
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He is most likely askingg immunity for his dealings with turkey so he can get up there and say there were no dealings with Russia. Unless a Watergate official got immunity for crimes unrelated to Watergate, I don't know how similar it is.
 
bonzombiekitty said:
When you have a bill that no democrats are going to vote for then you can afford to lose only so many republican votes. The HFC is large enough that they can derail a bill in such a situation.
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It's almost as if eight years of portraying compromise with the other side as an unforgivable evil is coming back to bite them in the ass.

Back in 2012, I saw a church with a sign that said "Satan likes to compromise. God demands unconditional victory."
 
Armitage72 said:
It's almost as if eight years of portraying compromise with the other side as an unforgivable evil is coming back to bite them in the ass.

Back in 2012, I saw a church with a sign that said "Satan likes to compromise. God demands unconditional victory."
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Compromise is overrated. Too many people want compromise when it is clear the status quo is better than the compromised outcome.
 
bonzombiekitty said:
When you have a bill that no democrats are going to vote for then you can afford to lose only so many republican votes. The HFC is large enough that they can derail a bill in such a situation.

Given that the president and other republicans don't seem interested in working with democrats (and democrats aren't particularly fond of working with republicans), that means few bipartisan bills and thus the HFC has a lot of power.

The pickle the republicans seem to have found themselves in is that giving into the HFC means the more moderate republicans will then refuse to vote, and there's enough of them to similarly derail a bill and they can't present a bill that will manage to get enough democrats on board that would override the HFC.

And that's just the house! A bill that pleases the HFC is going to have an even tougher time getting enough moderate votes in the senate than in the house.
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The one thing that united them was a black man in the white house.

Now that's gone it show's they're not really actually a single political entity at all. (not that most parties are, I suspect, but malaise is deep within the GOP)
 
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