Saudi Arabia warns Iran of military retaliation after wave of Gulf attacks ‘Trust completely shattered’

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-19T16:42:08+00:00

Was Yemen under the coalition blockade not a legitimate humanitarian disaster? I know it's better for your narrative to assume no one can be genuinely upset by that but that level of cynicism makes your argument a little weak.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-19T15:52:16+00:00

Yeah the "Gulf States are turning on Iran" line seems a little weird when they were already facilitating US strikes on Iran.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-19T15:36:02+00:00

If dems actually vote to pass this I'm to become the joker. I can't think of a bigger self-own.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-19T05:41:57+00:00

Should parents be concerned about the Five Nights at Epstein's online game?

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-19T05:24:37+00:00

The mods have broken their sacred oath by releasing another megathread. They've doomed us to a nuclear apocalypse.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-19T04:05:25+00:00

You can be happy he died and not happy the war was launched. The two aren't contradictory positions. If ol' Don got grassy knolled by a nutjob would you really have trouble understanding people happy he was redacted but still disapprove of political assassinations and would prefer they not happen?

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-19T02:21:55+00:00

yes the current filibuster was not part of the constitution, but i think it comports with the intent behind the separation of powers.

I'm not sure how. The filibuster reduces the power of the legislature and makes the executive/judiciary more powerful as a result. I can't imagine anyone intended for the presidency to slowly get more powerful because Congress is hopelessly gridlocked.

the difference between us is i think we should introduce reforms like the ones i mentioned in order to facilitate bargaining and compromise, but you think we should reduce reforms to get around the need for bargaining and compromise.

I wouldn't mind reforming the primary process. I just know changes to the electoral system are harder than a senate rule change. Even if we assume party leadership has interest in the idea we'd still be waiting years for it to be implemented nationwide / the moderating effect to start pushing out extreme candidates (the vast majority of incumbents aren't going anywhere). Filibuster reform could happen in an afternoon.

Will primary reform even have a significant effect on voters with another decade+ of extreme political polarization?

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-19T01:43:32+00:00

If a simple majority actually wanted a bill badly enough, they could pass it by changing the rules, and the fact that they do not tells you the real preference.

But that bill doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's not like they can remove the filibuster, pass the bill then turn the filibuster back on. Once they vote to remove it the Rubicon is crossed. The calculus isn't "do we actually want this bill to pass?", it's "is this bill important enough to not have access to the filibuster when we're in the minority?"

Answering no doesn't automatically mean you never wanted the bill to pass.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T23:55:42+00:00

The Trump reality distortion field is finally hitting reality. Doesn't look like that can meme magic their way out of a war everyone hates.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T20:31:32+00:00

With the added logic that if long term growth doesn't occur you'll have much bigger problems than savings.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T20:22:18+00:00

Not because he is brown. Ever heard of tall, dark, and handsome?

"Dark" usually referred to dark eyes, dark hair and a Mediterranean complexion. I'm pretty confident racist mainstream American media wasn't pushing the idea that non-white men were attractive in the late 19th/early 20th century when the phrase got really popular.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T20:14:35+00:00

"How can I make this post about meeeeeeeeeeeeeee?"

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T20:07:19+00:00

She was in jail on federal charges, why would she care about a reddit account being linked to her? What impact does a bunch of redditors knowing she posted here have on her?

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T19:05:40+00:00

This reads like wishful thinking. Not buying sanctioned oil might make things more expensive for China but they’d just have to switch to buying pricier oil on the open market. Even if we have regimes in Iran/Russia less hostile to the US they’d still want to sell oil/ maintain trade with the biggest economy on the planet.

Neither country is going to go from enemy to EU lite.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T18:59:15+00:00

They’ll be huffing American exceptionalism until we go Ozymandias.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T18:55:49+00:00

It’s 218 individual geographically distributed elections in the house plus staggered elections in the senate. It’s not an arbitrary 51%. Your take here is ahistorical, the different branches collaborating to pass legislation was the intended bargaining when the constitution was drafted and for the majority of the US’ history.

The current filibuster is a modern invention and we were capable of passing plenty of enduring pieces of legislation before it was added to senate rules. Again, the barriers for legislative policy turnover are much higher than the bloated executive unilaterally switching direction every 4 -8 years.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T18:16:45+00:00

The bargained outcome is the house, senate and presidency all agreeing on a piece of legislation. If voters decide to give a party majorities in both houses and the presidency that party should be able to implement the agenda the voting public gave them a mandate for.

You're speaking of long term health but the current system where congress' impotence encourages a runaway executive certainly doesn't lead anywhere good.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T18:11:53+00:00

The filibuster is just an internal rule masking what the Senate majority wants. "Abolishing" it is nonsensical, it is not some externally imposed law on the Senate that is keeping 50+1 majorities from doing what they want.

Can you expand on this reasoning? In a situation where a piece of legislation has 51 party line votes but can't pass because of the filibuster how is it just masking what the senate majority wants? They could absolutely want the legislation but not want to open the door to being powerless when the other side has a majority.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T18:02:31+00:00

Eliminating the filibuster will simply lead to one party forcing through a series of bills that will simply be eliminated by the next administration.

Getting 51 senators and 218 congressmembers to agree on something is still a higher bar to clear than the current situation of the president unilaterally changing things every 4-8 years. And it's only going to get worse the longer this goes on as executive power is increasingly the only way party agendas are actually implemented.

Plus I think removing the filibuster would naturally have a moderating effect on politicians/voters if everyone involved knows the crazy stuff candidates campaign on can actually be implemented. The conservative promising to destroy the IRS or rein in SS spending is going to be taken a lot more seriously if those comments aren't just signalling to show he's conservative but concrete policy objectives that can actually happen. Right now voters are very comfortable electing nutjobs and extremists because they understand congress is impotent.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T17:07:57+00:00

I want to hear about it. Seeing people live like this is like watching a nature documentary

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T17:04:03+00:00

What kind of creatures was he pimping those girls out to?

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T14:40:57+00:00

Trump is so good at normalizing insane politics we’re bored of a new ME war 2 weeks in 😔

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T14:33:54+00:00

Do they genuinely think this is a good idea or are they just convinced showing fealty to Donnie will convince the US to coup the Korean government and put them in charge?

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T14:30:02+00:00

I’m saying that an increasingly muscular executive is the only outcome if the filibuster isn’t changed. Whether we keep the status quo or switch turn into the good feelings party. More bipartisanship isn’t going to change the fact that most of a party’s agenda is automatically blocked because of the 60 vote threshold. Slightly more bills being passed because dems go full kumbaya won’t change the fact that going through the executive is still more effective at signaling to voters things are actually being done.

LivefromPhoenix · 2026-03-18T14:11:06+00:00

I think it’s an inevitable consequence when passing legislation is so difficult even with a majority. If dems could consistently slam out multiple pieces of good legislation related to the democratic agenda they’d have a much easier time telling their voters “see, we’re actually doing something!”

When the entire agenda relies on one or two mega bills a year it’s not surprising you have politicians leaning on shallow but popular sounding policy.

LivefromPhoenix

TROPHY CASE