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@Ktchong: 'The US does **** in South and Central America that comes back to bite us in the ass', what's new? Or 'Reading WAY TOO MUCH into it'. Also reminds me of how some decided to interpret one of the recent Star Wars movies with the Empire basically being white supremacists and reading it something like liberals fighting against Trump. Anyways, Mnuchin is warning that we could hit the debt ceiling in early September, before Congress gets back from August recess. Both Pelosi and McConnell want to get it done, which is good, but with Congress's propensity to procrastinate, they're really risking things here.

So, Labor Secretary Acosta has resigned over the epstein plea deal furor. Trump is going to have what, 20 acting directors/secretaries in major positions now. I wonder if it's even constitutional to have that many acting directors/secretaries at once, not to mention the other issues that come with the acting status.

Funny that he tried to pick a fight with a Playboy journalist rather than the regular networks. The fact that Playboy even has a WH correspondent is new to me since one doesn't normally associate them with politics. Gotta keep up on the juicy gossip I guess.

Are you talking about the totality of history? Because monarchaic regiemes were the norm through most of history. So, China lasting as long as they have by not being "democratic" Isn't saying much. You might as well apply that to the European nations who were mostly monarchaic for many centuries.

That didn’t take long.

Didn't Russia effectively join at the last second against Japan? I doubt they'd have been able to do more than the US had already done, given that they were already beaten bloody from the fight with the Germans.

Mike Gravel is also wrapping up, but he wasn't one of the more serious runners. Looks like Tom Steyer will jump into the race, though it sounds more like a gimmick/stunt. Then again, didn't Trumps candidacy start off as a sortof gimmick/stunt? This is interesting, CNN is going to conduct a live draw for the qualification for the second set of debates. While the transparency is a good thing, I just hope they keep it all business. edit: Politico article has some context to it. Looks like the fact that NBC took heat over doing it offcamera led to CNN deciding to be transparent where NBC wasn't. Unless CNN planned on being transparent in the first place, but either way, doesn't change the fact that NBC took heat over not being transparent.

Sillyness aside, yeah, it looks inevitable at this point that Boris Johnson is going to become PM and it's going to be a Brexit crash-through. Especially given that the change in EU leadership won't actually happen until Novermber. Speaking of economic disaster, we have a triple whammy of fiscal deadlines coming up in September and the chances of avoiding all of them don't look good. Defaulting on the debt seems like the least likely thing to happen, but then again.....

@GD: Um, okay, I wasn't trying to bash you over the mistake earlier, if you forgot, fair enough. For the Russia thing, I wasn't sure myself, though I did hear or read something before about diplomatic support.

I wouldn't be surprised if they gave some assistance as the Civil War theatre extended from the Pacific to the Atlantic, though the eastern theatre saw most of the action and the western theatre usually gets pretty much ignored in Civil War documentaries. Can't seem to find anything on wikipedia, yet.... edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire–United_States_relations#American_Civil_War Seems to have been something they did that wasn't actually support, but was percieved as support?

I'd call taking a major part in the last campaign in the Revolutionary War more than a handful. Not to mention being responsible for the decisive naval battle during the same campaign. Not sure where you're getting that French soldiers did not participate.

He changed it to independent, slightly surprised he didn't change it to Libertarian given his well known Libertarian-ness.

That's one of the main arguments against it that were given when Trump wanted to do something similar last year. Basically along the lines of "Strong countries have no need to try to impress, they impress just by being*. Only countries with weak militaries (and in some cases, nostalgia for empire) feel the need to over/compensate." *speaking of impressive, the new italics are barely noticeable.....

Not really, no, I'm sure he would have done it anyway just to prevent another President from claiming that title, because that's the kind of person he is NK is gonna have a hell of a diplomatic whiplash when the next President comes in and does diplomacy the normal way. Though they can probably see it coming.

Saw something about that over the weekend, but yeah, barely mentioned. It's not clear whether they beat him up because he was a journalist or he was beaten up because 'Conservative (who just happens to be a journalist)! Beat him up!', either way, it's a pretty clear example of the extreme fringes and matches the Horseshoe Theory of politics pretty well, to an extent anyway. As for a 'modern day Robespierre', while he was pretty progressive for his day, as you said, the angry people aren't so angry and the country isn't in such dire straits that a revolution is sparked.

Ovious politically biased poll is obvious....

Theres lots of SCOTUS reform ideas flying around atm, from packing the court, to term limits, to that, and everything in between. Really should get aired out in a debate at some point.

I guess he might have a good chance at a cabinet or something within the adminstration, wouldn't be the first time a presidential candidacy was a launch pad for an admin position. He hasn't exactly been able to shine in the debates yet, whether that's just pure inexperience or a consequence of the large field. Williamson needs to dial down the hippy love a notch or two.... though I'm not sure how much of that is subconscious bias and how much of it is that she really needs to dial it down. I mean, even a guy who was laying it as thickly as she was would still need to dial it down a bit to get taken seriously. Pretty much everybody else except Biden did reasonably well and didn't do too terribly. That half-hearted hand raise at an obvious softball question shows how badly he's doing IMO. That's just what he identifies as I guess? Kamala Harris embraces the prosecutor/lawyer label and it hasn't hurt her as far as I can tell, so, just calling yourself a lawyer isn't as toxic as it might sound (yes, I'm saying this while speaking to a (retired? I think you or someone said you were retired in a recent post? If not, my bad) lawyer XD )

Andrew Yang, he's a silicon valley entrenpuer. edit: Ninja'd, but anyways..... I saw on the 538 liveblog that he spoke little because he was sticking to the debate time rules (inexperience?), but he, like Williamson (the author shadysands is referring to), didn't get many chances to speak either. TBH though, the debate format of 10 people all at once just doesn't work all that well. It didn't work well in 2016 and it still doesn't work well. I know the DNC is trying to appear as inclusive as possible after the debacle of 2016, but theres gotta be a better way to handle debates and large fields like this.

Huh, apparently McConnell called making DC and Puerto Rico states 'socialist'. This is what pisses me off about the usage of the word socialist in modern political discourse, it gets used as a replacement for 'idea that I don't like', even for things that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with socialism. edit: Is it me or are they intentionally avoiding giving Williamson questions or chances to talk? I know the candidates only have so much time to talk, but they could be doing it more evenly. At least they seemed to be during the first half hour.

What? Gromnir was just explaining the nitpicking. Figured you'd probably still watch it to see the potential trainwreck, heh. At least it didn't turn out to be an absolute trainwreck, though it wasn't hugely enlightening either. Maybe if they were doing it excessively compared to the others, but otherwise you do have a point. Most of the 'waving around the uniform' was on foriegn policy, so, she was just playing to a strength of hers. Anyways, seems like most people came out of the debates okay with no major issues, De Blasio and John Delaney came out as losers for speaking time though, ouch. Also, is it me or did De Blasio come off as stiff for some reason? Seemed like his movements were stiff for some reason. @gromnir: Yeah, any effects from this got dilluted because there are so many candidates on stage and most of them had good debate moments and not really enough cross candidate debating, though there was a bunch with the O'Rourke-Booker-Castro trio.

It depends what they are mostly. Apparently some of them are for funding state agencies (which ones, it doesn't say), so, if they're critical ones, it could very well become a problem, but it's not a problem yet. I guess Trump thought there'd be more contentous stuff or more attacking of him because the only tweet so far is BORING!

@gromnir and @skarpen: The heck are you two nitpicking over the difference between case file and paper? Though I'd agree that 'case paper' isn't typically used, you can still refer to a stack of papers as a 'case file'.... I don't suppose anybody else is watching the first round of the first Democratic debates tonight?

China wants to lodge a protest for the country with the longest history as a nation. Though really, both China and Egypt have equally ancient histories. India also shares the same continuous history as a nation-state in one form or another. Still, regionally, Egypt and Iran (Persia) are the ones by far with the longest histories as nations or nation-states. The Israel-Palestine region can pretty much trace it's nation-state history back to since early Jewish times. Turkey would probably be in fourth place, while it's got plenty of history to boot (at times being part of Persia), the turkish nation-state is relatively young, the Seijuk Turks started migrating into the region in the 11th century. re coalition of the willing (or what meagre support Trump could get): Israel would definetly join, though their support would likely be limited to whatever air assets they can provide along with intel and special forces. Saudi Arabia would probably 'coax' it's regional allies into joining. Other than that, yeah, we won't be expecting much else to join, not likely NATO support for sure. I suppose Britain might join if they decide they can multitask with Brexit going on, but, you know, Brexit.

He probably won't get a real friendly reception from the Republicans though, I fully expect some of the Republicans to attempt to make him look politically motivated and theres certainly attack lines with stuff like the FISA warrants, various conspiracy theories and whatever grievances that they have. Or at least they'll, at minimum, portray it as a waste of time, though some Republicans probably do have things they want to legitimately ask. Also, is he doing BOTH committees on the same day? At least that's what it sounds like from the article. Those hearings tend to become 'most of the day' sort of things. edit3: Apparently so. Edit: I checked and Eric Swalwell is on the Judicary committee, so, I guess we might expect an attempt to shine, though it won't likely be as much showboaty as it would in the Senate. EDIT2: AND the Intelligence committee, he's gonna double dip, heh.