The Real timschochet

What were the terms of the wager?

Best NYC apocalypse movies: 6. Cloverfield Kind of a silly film but we do get Lady Liberty’s head lopped off. 5. Godzilla (1998) In which our favorite reptile gets bored with attacking Tokyo and heads for the Big Apple instead. Critics panned it but I enjoyed him stomping through Times Square. 4. King Kong The original or any of the remakes, take your pick. What else is the Empire State Building there for if not to climb? 3. I Am Legend Will Smith fights off hordes of zombies on the Brooklyn Bridge? Yes please. 2. The Day After Tomorrow Such a cheesy movie but I loved it. Watching the New York Public Library freeze over- great stuff. 1. Escape from New York How could this not be #1 with a bullet?

I think we need a new Kurt Russell movie.

He should be next. Not because of ideology but because of energy. Frankly, young people have more energy that old fogies like Schumer, Pelosi, and myself. Time to move on.

So regarding what Mamdani can and cannot do, I got this from an article in National Review by Jim Geraghty, a center-right guy who is usually pretty accurate: https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/republicans-have-good-reason-to-worry/ You have to scroll down to the middle of the article to get to it, but here is a summary: 1. Property taxes can only be raised by the New York City Council, not the mayor. 2. Personal income taxes can only be raised by the state legislature in Albany, not by the mayor of NYC. 3. Bus fares are controlled by the MTA, a quasi-government authority. The mayor has some influence over this but does not control it. Mamdani has promised free bus fare but this will be difficult to achieve. 4. He can get more city run grocery stores established through Economic Development Agency which he controls but they will be a limited number. Right now there are 4. Even if he establishes a dozen more, while it will be beneficial to some very poor people I can’t imagine it will impact the lives of the average New Yorker. So my suspicion is this based on what I’ve read: very much like Trump, a lot of what Mamdani will do his first year will be for show: it will make much news, please his supporters and inflame his detractors. But very little about New York City will actually change.

They’re not going to end the filibuster. And the reason that Trump keeps repeating that they should is so that, when things continue to get worse, he can start blaming Republicans.

Why don’t you make a prediction about it? That way you can deny it later on.

Hey you guys forget that it’s one of the classic Disney movies. Hayley Mills makes everyone in the town feel a lot better.

I agree in part. Trump will be inclined to do this but I think Republicans will talk him out of a lot of it. Not because they’re in any way opposed but because they’re terrified of public opinion. Trump doesn’t care about polls, but they do.

Look all of this is important (what happened Tuesday) even though the MAGa folks will deny it. But ultimately it won’t change the facts which are these: unless prices somehow come way down over the next year, Democrats are going to win big time next November. If prices come way down, the GOP has a shot to hold the House. Not a great shot but a shot. Everybody knows this on both sides. It’s why Republicans are starting to suggest, softly, to Trump that he needs to cool it on tariffs and what ICE is doing (the two biggest drivers of our current inflation and, in terms of ICE, the main reason why Latinos are now voting Democrat as seen on Tuesday). But they won’t say it loudly (except maybe Greene who doesn’t care) because they’re terrified of the MAGA base, especially about the ICE part. That’s why Republicans are probably screwed.

I think I wrote that Hillary was our greatest female political figure in American history and that remains true though Pelosi comes close. Due to sexism the sample is, unfortunately, pretty small. I doubt I ever would have written that Hillary is a good politician. She is pretty awful at that, as both 2008 and 2016 clearly demonstrated. As for Pelosi, I don’t think my assertion is even that debatable. Sam Rayburn was generally regarded as the greatest speaker mainly because of the New Deal and Lend-Lease , but he had strong majorities through most of his time and never had to fight the battles Pelosi did. She exceeds him IMO.

My guess is he probably will fail on affordability, because the main causes for that are out of his power to control or influence. But let’s see.

She will go down as the greatest speaker of the house America has ever had.

It’s delusional that you continue to believe that the current anti-free trade, anti-immigrant, pro-corporatist Republican Party is at all connected with capitalism.

That doesn’t make any sense. Care to be more specific?

What happened to the other Jack Smith thread? I asked @HellToupee a question he apparently couldn’t answer and the thread got removed?

If she entered the country illegally how did she get a work permit? And if she wasn’t a violent criminal why were they after her in the first place? And if they don’t know or care where she worked why this mention of her work permit? And if she is here illegally how did they know that she sent for her kids? Exactly how did she send for her kids? And how did they know about her in the first place? Im guessing there is much more to this story.

Their fried plantains (“maduros”) are tasty? (Works for me.)

Once again you’re collectivizing here- despite your insistence that you’ve worked with “good” Muslims. I don’t disagree with you about the different histories of Christianity and Islam. Your point about the lack of an Islamic reformation is a powerful one. But it doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of Muslims who come to live in this nation and other western nations adopt our culture and our values while maintaining their identity and religious beliefs, just as all cultures do. It’s not the other way around. They do not threaten us. Mamdani himself is proof that you’re wrong. As you continually point out he was raised as a child in an anti-western culture. But he has lived most of his life in this country and look at the result: he is pro-democracy (he is a Democratic socialist, an ideology incompatible with Islamist beliefs), pro-women, pro-LGTBQ, pro-diversity. When it comes to any clash of values in the mind of Mamdani, we, meaning the West, have already won. Just as we win everyone of these battles with immigrants from all over the world. They conform to us, and strengthen us.

One great question asked by one of the conservative justices (I think it was Gorsuch): Trump is claiming that the “emergency” gives him broad powers to impose tariffs without any restrictions based on the 1977 law. Gorsuch asked, under that interpretation could a future Democratic President decide that climate change is an emergency and tariff all gasoline fueled cars completely out of existence without Congress weighing in? The answer of course is yes. Trump is claiming all authority to himself in the name of the emergency. I doubt Trump helped his argument by threatening to tariff Brazil if Bolsonaro went to prison, and tariffing Canada because of a commercial he didn’t like. But I don’t know if these instances were brought up or not.

I’m going to correct this- I now think it’s going to go 6-3 with Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh in dissent.

Then don’t bring up 1500 years.

Ultimately @HellToupee your problem is not that you’re a bigot (though in this instance you’re expressing very bigoted views) but that you’re a collectivist. In both the case of Muslims and undocumented immigrants, you’re categorizing groups of people and blaming them for evil acts rather than blaming the individuals who cause those acts. And you’re very selective when you do this. You would never blame Christianity for the acts of a few wacko Christians and you would never blame MAGA for the act of a crazy Trump supporter. Nor should you. This country of ours is supposed to be about individualism. Your collectivism is no different from Mamdani’s socialism. In many ways it’s worse. You are actually more of a Marxist than he is.

And what about the Muslims that don’t do those things? Are they savages as well?

You really don’t want to go back 1500 years when comparing Islam to Christianity. Trust me on this.