U.S. Politics 2016 Seasonal Hiring Edition: "You're fired"

[mormont]

3 hours ago, Inigima said:

Guys, you don't have to countenance harassment. Don't get me wrong, I'm tired of the left being expected to apologize for everything and the right for nothing, but you can just let it go. Yeah, he's an elector and you're welcome to try to persuade him, but don't bombard his house with nonstop phone calls, especially after hours. Also, this guy is a GOP caucus chair, so your efforts to persuade people are probably better spent elsewhere.

100% agree on not countenancing harassment, and clearly there has been some. (Pointless, because the electors will not and should not change their mind, IMO.) But it's not clear to me from the information provided that the after-midnight call was to a home number: it is clear, though, from context, that it went to an answering machine or service, from which it has then been transcribed. I don't see a problem with leaving someone a message after hours.

[Dr. Pepper]

1 hour ago, butterbumps! said:

"America First!"    (Which apparently means avoiding intelligence briefings and refusing to acknowledge or investigate foreign interference in our country.   My heart swells with pride)

eta genuine question:  are the proud trump supporters ignorant of those facts, refusing to believe them, or just don't give A F because it's not Hillary sending emails?

Probably all of the above.  I think I'd also add in a bit of those supporters who just hate abortion and gays as well as those like Altherion who are looking to immanentize the eschaton.   

[Larry of the Lawn]

15 hours ago, WinterFox said:

Clearing quote

40 minutes ago, Commodore said:

 

 

 

40 minutes ago, Commodore said:

people setting the bar so low for Trump with these impossible times predictions

Sorry for quote funkiness.

 

Yeah, there is definitely something to that.  I think that under estimating Trump from the beginning really helped him won the election.  The media had the bar so low that all he needed to do was NOT ridicule a disabled person or commit sexual assaults for a week and his numbers would go up.

[Mr Fixit]

16 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Have you paid attention to any US politics in the last 50 years?  Both parties are pro-big business, but the Repubs have been pushing corporate tax cuts, corporate welfare, and for removal of even basic environmental regulations.  

Calling Dems the party of big business just allows everyone here to know that you don't know what you're talking about.

 

Republican policies are much more damaging to the working class while being pro-big business and rich people.  Do your home work.

Of course I know that both parties are pro-big business. The point was that Dems weren't campaigning on the platform of taxing the rich, reducing the income inequality, etc. because they, like the Republicans, don't want to tax the rich. Obama even made the temporary Bush tax cuts permanent! Especially with the Clinton ultra-Wall Street faction in charge, Dems would never ever center their campaign around the middle class concerns.

Dolts like Chuck Schumer openly said as much. Let me quote him: "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."

You think THIS Democratic party will campaign on issues close to the middle class? Maybe do your homework before trying to sound smug? 

[OldGimletEye]

2 hours ago, dmc515 said:

.snip

Yeah, I think it's hilariously funny that we've got conservatives, now asking liberals to operate at least within a couple of standard deviations from the reality based community and now suddenly there is this new found appreciation of empiricism.

This not to say that lefties don't do some dumb stuff, at times, but I think clearly there is a strong case to be made that there has developed a serious intellectual credibility gap as conservatives have gotten themselves a one way ticket to crazyville.

It's not so much I mind crazy getting called out, as fundamentally I don't want the liberal community to fritter away it's intellectual cred, but it seems to me that conservatives might want to clean up their own fucking house first. After all, these are the people that brought us things like:

1. Where is Obama's birth certificate?

2. Obama is a Muslim!!!

3. Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves!!!

4. The ACA is causing rampant premium inflation!!!

5. Dodd Frank is slowing down lending growth!!!

6. How about that Bush Boom! Isn't it awesome!!!

7. Hillary's emails!!! I want to keep talkin about Hillary's emails!!!

and so on and so forth.

As far as trying to explain endogeneity issues to conservatives, good luck, as they probably think that is a "liberal myth" as I doubt two stage least squares regression, or instrumental variable estimation, will be getting covered on Rush Limbaugh or World Nut Daily, or any other source of information trusted by conservatives, any time soon.

And of course, once again, even if the Russia hacking stuff and the fake news stuff didn't change the outcome of the election, it doesn't mean that those issues are not worth exploring and talking about.

[Commodore]

imo policies and events matter far more than candidates and arguments

Iraq War, 2008 financial crisis, and ACA are biggest reasons for party control changes

Trump has already won power so apocalyptic predictions about what will happen if he uses it are too late (I suppose it's possible to create enough popular sentiment that Trump is afraid to use his power).

Trump will do stuff, and the effects either will or won't be popular.

The political benefit of "I told you so" is outweighed by the downside of chicken little predictions that don't come to pass.

[Larry of the Lawn]

13 minutes ago, Mr Fixit said:

Of course I know that both parties are pro-big business. The point was that Dems weren't campaigning on the platform of taxing the rich, reducing the income inequality, etc. because they, like the Republicans, don't want to tax the rich. Obama even made the temporary Bush tax cuts permanent! Especially with the Clinton ultra-Wall Street faction in charge, Dems would never ever center their campaign around the middle class concerns.

Dolts like Chuck Schumer openly said as much. Let me quote him: "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."

You think THIS Democratic party will campaign on issues close to the middle class? Maybe do your homework before trying to sound smug? 

Obama extended the Bush tax cuts only as a compromise when his tax plan, which had increases on individuals making more than $250,000 was rejected by Congress, because he didn't want to burden the middle and working classes during the recession.

Look at Clinton's tax plan.  It featured similar increased taxes on the superwealthy.  Trump's featured minor cuts for the working class and drastic cuts for the rich.  

Look at Clinton's education plan to make college free for middle and low income families.  Her campaign was drastically more targeted to the 99% than the rich, and significantly better in that regard than Trump's.  

 

Trotting out one quote from Schumer does nothing to change the actual platforms that the parties ran on.  

Eta: don't want a strident response?  Then don't come in here saying stuff that is demonstrably false and gaslighting to boot.  

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

As far as trying to explain endogeneity issues to conservatives, good luck, as they probably think that is a "liberal myth" as I doubt two stage least squares regression, or instrumental variable estimation, will be getting covered on Rush Limbaugh or World Nut Daily, or any other source of information trusted by conservatives, any time soon.

LOL, actually I'd think the Limbaugh crowd would prefer SEM (structural equation modeling) - all the boxes and arrows would make them feel like it's a Glenn Beck chalkboard conspiracy.

19 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

And of course, once again, even if the Russia hacking stuff and the fake news stuff didn't change the outcome of the election, it doesn't mean that those issues are not worth exploring and talking about.

Exactly.  Plus there are plenty of potential testable theories on the propagation of fake news that can and will be explored within the discipline.

19 minutes ago, Commodore said:

imo policies and events matter far more than candidates and arguments

As an institutionalist I agree entirely.  In fact, the vast majority of political scientists trend towards the minimalist approach towards campaign effects, especially in terms of persuasion.  We just didn't want to believe the traditional economic voting models that said the incumbent party was likely to lose.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

SEM are quite complex, and there's a lot of data involved in creating them. So I doubt Beck and Limbaugh are even remotely capable of producing a legit LISREL model.

[Suttree]

45 minutes ago, Mr Fixit said:

 The point was that Dems weren't campaigning on the platform of taxing the rich, reducing the income inequality, etc. because they, like the Republicans, don't want to tax the rich.

What were you saying about homework?

[Commodore]

The problem with the tax code is the swiss cheese of deductions and credits means you need higher rates to raise the same amount of revenue, and you need to modify your personal behavior to take advantage of the deductions. It's insidious social engineering. 

I'm encouraged by what Kevin Brady is proposing (file taxes on a postcard), it remains to be seen how much Trump will sign on to. And it can be passed through reconciliation if needed. 

There is an army of lobbyists and special interest who all want their particular deductions, so reform is very difficult. 

[OldGimletEye]

23 minutes ago, Commodore said:

The problem with the tax code is the swiss cheese of deductions and credits means you need higher rates to raise the same amount of revenue, and you need to modify your personal behavior to take advantage of the deductions. It's insidious social engineering. 

I'm encouraged by what Kevin Brady is proposing (file taxes on a postcard), it remains to be seen how much Trump will sign on to. And it can be passed through reconciliation if needed. 

There is an army of lobbyists and special interest who all want their particular deductions, so reform is very difficult. 

I agree there are a lot of problems with tax expenditures as it is way of increasing federal spending without looking like your doing spending.

If were going to spend money on something, then perhaps it would be more prudent to just cut a check,in many cases -- that way how much we are spending on various things could be better tracked and more transparent.

Of course, none of this means supply side horseshit actually works, unless, you know, somebody wants to make an ardent defense of the "Bush Boom".

As far as the term "social engineering" goes, isn't that a favorite term of old skool Dixiecrats who didn't like Civil Rights Bills? Or maybe its the favorite term of alt-right guys. I can't remember. So many guys using the term these days and all.

Also, to the extent the term "social engineering" is a viable concept, wasn't like the biggest social engineering attempt in the last 20 years done by George Bush with his attempt to turn Iraq into a democracy? And what did conservatives have to say about Karl Marx Bush's attempt there? Or was just getting some tax cuts more important than complaining about George Bush's little ol' social engineering experiment?

[TrackerNeil]

On 12/18/2016 at 11:13 AM, Commodore said:

Events matter most, but the basic approach is not that hard. Eschew the SJW identity politics  and gun grabbing talk and focus on "GOP wants to help rich people and take away your bennies"

And why would Democrats take strategy advice from a conservative?

[Gertrude]

19 minutes ago, Commodore said:

The problem with the tax code is the swiss cheese of deductions and credits means you need higher rates to raise the same amount of revenue, and you need to modify your personal behavior to take advantage of the deductions. It's insidious social engineering.

This is the absolute truth. I am not an accountant nor have I educated myself about tax codes beyond what I need to know for myself, but it seems like the discrepancy between what people/companies actually pay and what their tax bracket is on paper makes it difficult to talk about or understand. You always hear about large companies getting so many subsidies and deductions that they pay no taxes, yet you also hear the complaints about the high corporate tax rates. It's an issue where both sides are right to a degree. It all comes down to who is in a better position to take advantage of the code, and that's not right.

[OldGimletEye]

5 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

This is the absolute truth. I am not an accountant nor have I educated myself about tax codes beyond what I need to know for myself, but it seems like the discrepancy between what people/companies actually pay and what their tax bracket is on paper makes it difficult to talk about or understand. You always hear about large companies getting so many subsidies and deductions that they pay no taxes, yet you also hear the complaints about the high corporate tax rates. It's an issue where both sides are right to a degree. It all comes down to who is in a better position to take advantage of the code, and that's not right.

Both the employer deduction for healthcare and the mortgage deduction are pretty regressive.

And I agree with your point on corporate tax stuff. That deductions and everything make a lot of things not very transparent.

[mcbigski]

28 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

And why would Democrats take strategy advice from a conservative?

They won't.  So it's safe to offer it...

[Kalbear]

7 hours ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Saudi Arabia didn't ruin Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the election though, which I suspect is the real human rights violation he is concerned about. 

The claims about Russia being worse on gay rights especially are downright bizarre. Saudi Arabia punishes homosexuality with floggings, long prison sentences, or chemical castration, and if someone gets caught a second time he is immediately executed. Whereas in Russia it isn't even illegal. 

Not particularly. I thought this before Clinton and afterwards. You can try to ascribe partisan views about it all you like, and that's fine, but it'd be better to actually address the points.

Homosexuality is not illegal in Russia, but it is heavily ostracized via extralegal means. There was a fairly illuminating article about it I read recently about a gay couple in Russia and what that means for them. 

[TrackerNeil]

18 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

They won't.  So it's safe to offer it...

Maybe Democrats should take that advice--that way, we can win the White House while losing the popular vote. Twice in a row!

[Kalbear]

8 hours ago, Hereward said:

I'm afriad you're totally wrong here. Russia is terrible on all these indicators, but Saudi Arabia is worse on every single one. If you don't believe me, ask Freedom House.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_in_the_World

Thanks, and that's fair. I will point out that both countries are ranked as 'not free' in all categories across the board by that site, so it's not like Russia is particularly good in this. I'll also point out that it doesn't do extremes; killing dissidents extralegally several times is the same as jailing dissidents, as an example. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

4 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

Maybe Democrats should take that advice--that way, we can win the White House while losing the popular vote. Twice in a row!

Nitpick.  Bush won the EC and popular vote in 2004.