they dragged Huma in (via Weiner) to Hillary and "HerEmails™", then any "clearance" that Ivanka has should also be suspended due to her association with Kushner and "role" in the WH.

and may have most stuff on more portable devices (phones/tablets). Maybe hit "the cloud" to get the info.

One law for Dems, no law for Reeps.

Im sick of the double standards.

when Trump gets home tomorrow the collective sh*t is going to hit the fan. And not necessarily for them, for the free press and for anyone of us not in the 'red hat' camp.
This notion of deploying "Street Fighters" what the hell is that?? Trump is going to be angry tomorrow about all the news reports that occurred while he was gone.

I'm new here, so I can't start a thread yet, but are the good folks on here contacting their reps about the draconian budget cuts and proposed healthcare bill? I don't know what to do at this point, and I'm quite honestly scared. Sorry for the long post.

In all cases, a President's budget is DOA... and as I saw noted by one lawmaker, it is basically "an outline" of a President's priorities, but is never verbatim enacted. And as is their job, CONGRESS is the one that develops the "real" budget and appropriations.

So yes - any with RW nuts as representatives, they need to hound them to keep OUR priorities front and center.

And welcome to DU!

I'm in a state with too many Freedom Caucus members. I did call my Republican Senator and gave nothing but my name, they are now bombarding my email looking for support...
I hope the budget proposal is truly DOA, but I cannot trust that at the end of all the reworking of it by Congress, that so many people are still going to be hurt deeply.

there were almost 1,000,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, the state GOP gerrymandered the Districts after the 2010 census so that there are 13 GOP and only 5 Democratic members in our congressional delegation (PA).

It will be a slog but we have to also make sure there is turnout during the off-year elections.

The one thing that may help is that the Senate margin between parties is much closer so the most draconian budgets can often be torpedoed or at least softened there.

The breakdown here (OH) is 12 GOP and 4 Democrats.

I haven't yet looked in to exactly how gerrymandered we are over here. I know we are, the extent would possibly make me vomit.

(and still lives there).

We have gerrymandered crap here like the infamous 7th Congressional -

?1479424265

It snakes through 5 counties to avoid smaller, high-minority population urban areas (outside of Philadelphia) in order to pick up a higher percentage of more conservative ex-burban and rural voters. Those bypassed small urban areas are then diluted via incorporation into other districts (e.g., 6th Congressional and 16th Congressional).

When you look at the SE PA rim counties of Philadelphia, there should be (based on past Presidential votes) at least 6 total for Democrats vs the current 3 (where 2 primarily incorporate Philadelphia's population and 1 is immediate rim). I.e., we should have the 1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 13th Congressional.

I need to find out more. Is there a certain site that breaks this down for each state or do I need to go on a fishing trip?

Thanks BRDS, I have much to learn.

Thanks for taking the time to educate me and point me in a helpful direction. Much appreciated.

And Ohio is still one of the most gerrymandered states--however, there are people working to fix it (but more working against it) Here's a recent story http://www.cleveland.com/datacentral/index.ssf/2017/03/gerrymeandering_sharply.html

This is also very helpful. Tyvm!

Same strategy they use over and over. Propose something outrageous and terrible and then 'compromise' down to something really bad instead. And half the voters take it as them delivering a good deal because the outrageous stuff didn't happen. Yet.

Start with everything you want and then negotiate it down.

Not just starting high and negotiating down, but starting with a policy or position that is completely batshit crazy and negotiating down to a place they should never have been allowed anywhere near. The direct effect has been to push the supposed 'middle point' to deep into Republican territory. The additional side effect has been that a lot of their voters hear so much crazy shit coming out from the GOP that they start to believe that stuff is not only possible but achievable, and now here we are.

It's long past time that when they propose insane nonsense we just walk away from the table and tell the country exactly why. The only other alternative is starting negotiations with something huge of our own ("you want to cut Medicare? Ok, well we want Medicare for all. Let's begin talking..&quot .

I did post - "Start with everything you want" and in their case, the "you" is them (since they control everything) and we KNOW what they "want" would be the most draconian nightmarish scenario that they can come up with.