[EmperorMagus]

https://twitter.com/...944911714410496

This looks like Sen. Jon Tester, who I'd never heard of before today, is testing the waters to wade into the 2020 race.

I personally think the more democrats that run in the primaries, the better the chances that someone tolerable will emerge as their nominee.

[worry]

Giving up even $1 bil for the wall is lame as hell and nothing to toot your horn about, and kind of exactly in the Republican-lite territory craven Dems love to swim in, but he's right about one thing: Republican leadership (Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell specifically, since he didn't name names) knowingly and deliberately gave Trump's shutdown the layup it needed. Even now McConnell could end it if he wanted to. He owns it almost as much as Trump does.

[Cause]

The US goveremnt shutdown is amazing to me. I don't think any other government in the world works like this.

Having just come from the US what amazes me is that I was warned about possible long queues at airports because so many TSA agents are calling in sick, either in protest or to do partime work etc. This surely compromises airport security. Since the whole shutdown is about border security this is mindboggling.

I'm amazed democrats haven't tried to pass a bill that specifically funds only the TSA. how could trump say no. The next day they should pass a bill funding only the coast guard. How can trump so no. They look like they are making progress. I imagine this would reduce trumps bargaining power, though he has little to begin with and go someway to reopening parts of government.

In the meantime its a shame to read about people running amok at yellow stone etc with the rangers not their to supervise. I read I think also about protected Joshua? trees being cut down etc. This will hurt all sorts of things in ways you cant even forsee.

I also find it funny though that Januaries unemployed numbers will go up since the furloughed workers will be counted. That will hurt one of Trumps favourite statistics at a time that the market is also failing.

EDIT- As an aside the TSA polices seem pointless to me. Though I believe they have a purpose I also think its largely ceremonial. That said security has a way of frightening people who know they are guilty in a way it doesn't people who know they are innocent.

Anyway my story - I walked around new York with a thermos every day. On the day I went to the airport I forgot it still was half filled with water. The scanner thing detected the water and my bag was seperated to the naughty pile. TSA agent tells me I'm not allowed to touch anything as he inspects my stuff. Proceeds to pull out my thermos from its side compartment. Says he knows there is water inside. He can throw it away or he can escort me out and give me back my thermos. I ask if he cant just pour it out right there (Japan had drains at the inspection points for just this purpose), he says no. I ask if I can quickly down it. He says I'm not allowed to touch it. I have two hours before boarding so I tell him ill go out and come back in. He escorts me twenty steps, we cross some imaginary line. He passes me the bottle. I drink it. Go back to the security line. Same officer waves me through about 2 min later. Utterly pointless.

I get that they don't want you to handle suspicious packages incase you decide to detonate the bomb etc. But he obviously made a judgment and deemed it non threatening or he wouldn't have passed it back to me literally twenty steps away surrounded by hundreds of people.

This post has been edited by Cause: 15 January 2019 - 11:24 AM

[Primateus]

Well, it does take two to tango, and the Democrats needs both Trump and McConnel to say yes. It doesn't matter if they fund one agency per day if Mitch McConnel refuses to put it up for a vote in the senate.

[Cause]

Primateus, on 15 January 2019 - 11:12 AM, said:

Well, it does take two to tango, and the Democrats needs both Trump and McConnel to say yes. It doesn't matter if they fund one agency per day if Mitch McConnel refuses to put it up for a vote in the senate.

but how could he refuse to vote to fund the TSA. The agency in theory responsible for stopping the next 9/11.

American politicians would sooner admit to fucking their brother then look like they don't support the troops.

[Primateus]

Cause, on 15 January 2019 - 12:00 PM, said:

Primateus, on 15 January 2019 - 11:12 AM, said:

Well, it does take two to tango, and the Democrats needs both Trump and McConnel to say yes. It doesn't matter if they fund one agency per day if Mitch McConnel refuses to put it up for a vote in the senate.

but how could he refuse to vote to fund the TSA. The agency in theory responsible for stopping the next 9/11.

American politicians would sooner admit to fucking their brother then look like they don't support the troops.

I think you greatly underestimate the immensity and power of their hypocrisy.

I have no doubt that McConnel and his fellow republicans will throw the troops under the bus in the blink of an eye if it means they can throw aspersions on the Democrats.

This post has been edited by Primateus: 15 January 2019 - 12:58 PM

[Cause]

In my country if you told 800 000 government employees they were not getting paid this week.....

they would set fire to the airport, they would scuttle the ships, the would have set forest fires, they would take management hostage and start necklacing them in the streets. The shutdown is simply unbelievable.

Also its disgusting when I read articles that says the coast guard advised its employees to have garage sales, and the federal agencies sent out an email for federal employees to ask landlords if they would accept things like painting the apartment in lieu of rent. I don't know what percentage of the 800 000 live essentially paycheck to paycheck but once you miss a mortgage payment, a credit card payment or rent payment their credit scores will be fucked for months/years regardless of them getting back pay at a later date. This whole thing is disgusting.

[Macros]

but its ok Cause, Mr Trump understands its tough

[Silencer]

Cause, on 15 January 2019 - 01:46 PM, said:

In my country if you told 800 000 government employees they were not getting paid this week.....

they would set fire to the airport, they would scuttle the ships, the would have set forest fires, they would take management hostage and start necklacing them in the streets. The shutdown is simply unbelievable.

Also its disgusting when I read articles that says the coast guard advised its employees to have garage sales, and the federal agencies sent out an email for federal employees to ask landlords if they would accept things like painting the apartment in lieu of rent. I don't know what percentage of the 800 000 live essentially paycheck to paycheck but once you miss a mortgage payment, a credit card payment or rent payment their credit scores will be fucked for months/years regardless of them getting back pay at a later date. This whole thing is disgusting.

To be fair, while I agree with the sentiment, I'm gonna point out the credit score thing is not true.

One missed payment won't do major, let alone irreparable damage to your credit score unless it's already marginal - and it normally takes several notices and something like 90 days in arrears before a default would occur, depending on the institution and details, but you would definitely need to be at least a month past due before it becomes a default.
Helping this, is that most financial institutions don't want to have accounts in default - collections activity costs money. Provided these employees are speaking to their banks, there will be procedures in place to mitigate the damage due to financial hardship (and let's be honest, this is one of the easiest to prove cases of financial hardship you could make). This could involve deferred or reduced repayments for an agreed period, or it could involve letting the account fall into arrears with no further action taken for a specific time period. Their bank will want to avoid the legal and labour costs of engaging in collections or administrating an account, as long as the people are upfront and open about it.
Further down the track, even given their account does default (let's just assume their bank is both evil and likes to spend unnecessary money, somehow) most major applications for credit, like a home loan, will provide people with an opportunity to explain a default. "I was a federal employee furloughed during Trump's shutdown" would probably be sufficient for any future lending provided there aren't other issues unrelated to this particular incident (though other issues in combination with this might be a very different story as the presence of the default would give the lender an easy 'out'). More likely to have an impact on consumer lending such as overdrafts and credit cards where the opportunity to explain defaults is less likely to be provided.

But all in all, while it is no doubt a concern, the perceived potential impact is probably much higher, as opposed to the actual impact when it comes to credit scores, especially if people are talking to their bank. I think a lot of the scare-factor around this aspect is due to the general obfuscation around credit reporting, especially in America. The effect of being kicked out of your rental property 'cause your landlord is an asshole and you don't have great tenancy laws though? THAT I would be worried about.

[LinearPhilosopher]

Silencer, on 15 January 2019 - 01:59 PM, said:

Cause, on 15 January 2019 - 01:46 PM, said:

In my country if you told 800 000 government employees they were not getting paid this week.....

they would set fire to the airport, they would scuttle the ships, the would have set forest fires, they would take management hostage and start necklacing them in the streets. The shutdown is simply unbelievable.

Also its disgusting when I read articles that says the coast guard advised its employees to have garage sales, and the federal agencies sent out an email for federal employees to ask landlords if they would accept things like painting the apartment in lieu of rent. I don't know what percentage of the 800 000 live essentially paycheck to paycheck but once you miss a mortgage payment, a credit card payment or rent payment their credit scores will be fucked for months/years regardless of them getting back pay at a later date. This whole thing is disgusting.

To be fair, while I agree with the sentiment, I'm gonna point out the credit score thing is not true.

One missed payment won't do major, let alone irreparable damage to your credit score unless it's already marginal - and it normally takes several notices and something like 90 days in arrears before a default would occur, depending on the institution and details, but you would definitely need to be at least a month past due before it becomes a default.
Helping this, is that most financial institutions don't want to have accounts in default - collections activity costs money. Provided these employees are speaking to their banks, there will be procedures in place to mitigate the damage due to financial hardship (and let's be honest, this is one of the easiest to prove cases of financial hardship you could make). This could involve deferred or reduced repayments for an agreed period, or it could involve letting the account fall into arrears with no further action taken for a specific time period. Their bank will want to avoid the legal and labour costs of engaging in collections or administrating an account, as long as the people are upfront and open about it.
Further down the track, even given their account does default (let's just assume their bank is both evil and likes to spend unnecessary money, somehow) most major applications for credit, like a home loan, will provide people with an opportunity to explain a default. "I was a federal employee furloughed during Trump's shutdown" would probably be sufficient for any future lending provided there aren't other issues unrelated to this particular incident (though other issues in combination with this might be a very different story as the presence of the default would give the lender an easy 'out'). More likely to have an impact on consumer lending such as overdrafts and credit cards where the opportunity to explain defaults is less likely to be provided.

But all in all, while it is no doubt a concern, the perceived potential impact is probably much higher, as opposed to the actual impact when it comes to credit scores, especially if people are talking to their bank. I think a lot of the scare-factor around this aspect is due to the general obfuscation around credit reporting, especially in America. The effect of being kicked out of your rental property 'cause your landlord is an asshole and you don't have great tenancy laws though? THAT I would be worried about.

Ima chime in my 2cents here being that i've spent about 2.5 years working in accounts receivable.

Saying that collection effort are costly isn't exactly accurate. It's a pain to administer in terms of time spent on the account and given how short staffed you always are, you'd much rather not deal with someone who is behind a a small amount of $. You'd much rather spend time on your big $ accounts. That why most companies employ third party collection agencies. And while if you are a small company you may have to pay a certain fee of % upfront, most big companies (espcailly if you're a financial instituation who will be providing the agency with a significant chunk of its business) can negotiate for contract where the agency is only paid a % of the amount collected. So it doesn't cost the company much (if anything its a cost savings, as it reduces your write off expense).

Still everything else is on point.

[worry]

Anyone else here sick of the got-dang liberal media?

[Malankazooie]

Ha! Power move by Pelosi. Disinviting Trump from giving State of the Union address. Let the twitter childishness commence!

[worry]

[Malankazooie]

Lol! Return salvo by Trump; writes letter to Pelosi cancelling her planned trip. This soap opera is writing itself people. Break out the snacks and enjoy the entertainment.


[EDIT] The letter <Spoil tagged for size>

Spoiler

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 17 January 2019 - 07:41 PM

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

...... does he not have secretaries writing/checking his letters? Or does he just refuse the basics of grammar regardless?

[Primateus]

Is...is that really his signature? I mean, really?

I've seen a lot of bad signatures, but this one? it's just doodles. Sure, lots of signatures are just doodles, but at least they look like something.

[worry]

Like all Fox News viewers, he has a FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: RE: FWD: RE: Killary Did Benghazi 2019 Update email where his brain should be.

[worry]

"Unknown"

[Gorefest]

Primateus, on 17 January 2019 - 09:24 PM, said:

Is...is that really his signature? I mean, really?

I've seen a lot of bad signatures, but this one? it's just doodles. Sure, lots of signatures are just doodles, but at least they look like something.

It's like a twelve year old trying to draw a black metal logo.

[Cause]

Primateus, on 17 January 2019 - 09:24 PM, said:

Is...is that really his signature? I mean, really?

I've seen a lot of bad signatures, but this one? it's just doodles. Sure, lots of signatures are just doodles, but at least they look like something.

What I love is that he uses a sharpie!