US Politics: Everyone's Manipulating Everyone

[mormont]

9 hours ago, Swordfish said:

Conveniently, you left out the other example.

No, not really. I discussed the problems with requiring other forms of ID in general, not in specific, but they are addressed - repeatedly, in fact.

[Fragile Bird]

5 hours ago, Altherion said:

It failed because the wages and working conditions in most of South and Central America are inferior to those in the US even if the workers in the latter lack work authorization and because the dominant economic philosophy of the American establishment is neoliberalism (which views the free movement of labor as a good thing). At best, the elites may enforced restrictions on illegal immigration for 5-10 years after the law is enacted, but it will never be enforced for prolonged periods of time.

Geez, what a way to mislead. Neoliberalism is a helluva a lot more than the free movement of labor, it also includes privatization (wait and see how many private jails open up under Trump), fiscal austerity (lets see how much is gutted to move 50 billion to the military and reduce debt), deregulation (obviously a big part of Trump's world), free trade (a central part of neoliberalism which Trump absolutely does not believe in, no matter what he said tonight), and reductions in government spending (wait until that starts rolling through, the only jobs left are going to be in the military or making weapons). Exporting all that shit to South America destroyed South American economies for decades, which is why wages and working conditions suffered so badly in South America, not to mention US support of dictatorships. And not to mention the fact many economists consider neoliberalism at the root of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

[Altherion]

7 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Geez, what a way to mislead. Neoliberalism is a helluva a lot more than the free movement of labor, it also includes privatization (wait and see how many private jails open up under Trump), fiscal austerity (lets see how much is gutted to move 50 billion to the military and reduce debt), deregulation (obviously a big part of Trump's world), free trade (a central part of neoliberalism which Trump absolutely does not believe in, no matter what he said tonight), and reductions in government spending (wait until that starts rolling through, the only jobs left are going to be in the military or making weapons). Exporting all that shit to South America destroyed South American economies for decades, which is why wages and working conditions suffered so badly in South America, not to mention US support of dictatorships. And not to mention the fact many economists consider neoliberalism at the root of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

How was my post misleading? I didn't say that neoliberalism is solely concerned with the free movement of labor; I said that it considers free movement of labor to be a good thing (which it certainly does). It does the rest of the stuff in your post too, but that has little bearing on the mass scale failure to enforce immigration law.

[butterbumps!]

6 hours ago, Triskan said:

Man, if it turns out that SEAL is dead because of the admin's recklessness which seems quite plausible then that was quite the exploitation of the grieving widow.  

ETA:  Damn, Van Jones really disagrees with me and thinks it was an utterly amazing moment for Trump.  Love Van and will have to rethink.  

I thought it was exploitative too, and am baffled by what I see as Van Jone's over-the-top reaction.  I'm actually really confused by the response of the mainstream media in general this morning (NYT, WaPo, etc).  

He merely read a fairly anodyne (yet contradictory and totally quixotic) speech off a teleprompter without soiling himself, while using human props.   Why is the media falling over itself about how Trump is now "here to stay," "presidential now," "understanding gravity of the office," "two term material" (all my paraphrase)?   

[OldGimletEye]

3 hours ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

How can you cut taxes on everyone and every business and expand spending on infrastructure? 

Evidently, Trump thinks he can get GDP growth to average about 3.0% -  3.5% per year over the next ten years. This, evidently, forms the basis of his fiscal planning.

Except it's wishful thinking. Not sure what Trump is smoking, but If I were the sort of person to partake in mind altering chemicals, I'd ask him for some. It must be some really good stuff.

Personally, I don't necessarily oppose running some higher deficits for awhile. It would seem that core PCE was about 1.2% over the last quarter*. The FED still can't hit it's inflation target of 2%. This would seemingly indicate that there is still some slack in the economy.

What I really object to is Trump's mix of spending. Rather than spending the money on high yield investment projects, Trump is choosing to give tax cuts to wealthy individuals. I guess his strategy is to invest in the wealthy, cause, hey ya know, they are the "job creators!!!!".I'm pretty sure they don't need a lot of help right about now. Also, wealthy individuals are more likely to have lower marginal propensity to consume, so running deficits to give them tax cuts is inefficient. And of course it makes wealth inequality problems worse, which even the boys and gals at Davos seemed to have worry about.

And then of course when the time comes to alleviate inflationary pressures ie do austerity, Republicans will argue that it isn't taxes that should be raised, but instead Grandma's medicare benefits need to be slashed.

Then of course, I'm not thrilled about giving away American public assets to corporations. By doing this Trump's administration is probably thinking he's doing infrastructure in a cheaper manner. But, all he is doing basically is an accounting trick.

 

*At this time it might be a good idea for us to tell our elderly Republican uncles to ditch the eight tracks and their leisure suits and to throw away their Starsky & Hutch collection and get into the 21st Century. Rampant inflation doesn't seem to be around the corner.

[Seli]

7 hours ago, Triskan said:

 

 

I thought Bashear's response was surprisingly solid.  Thought it was a strange choice for the Dems, but he did pretty well.  

Still not sure what to think on healthcare.  Trump said 'repeal and replace' but offered little in specifics.  

Apparently he implemented ACA successfully in a red state. So he was aimed at likely voters and repeal victims in similar states.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, butterbumps! said:

I thought it was exploitative too, and am baffled by what I see as Van Jone's over-the-top reaction.  I'm actually really confused by the response of the mainstream media in general this morning (NYT, WaPo, etc).  

He merely read a fairly anodyne (yet contradictory and totally quixotic) speech off a teleprompter without soiling himself, while using human props.   Why is the media falling over itself about how Trump is now "here to stay," "presidential now," "understanding gravity of the office," "two term material" (all my paraphrase)?   

The speech was serviceable, which, considering how low expectations had been, makes it a huge success.

Of course, he also made a lot of grand promises with no specifics on how to accomplish them, which will inevitably lead to backlash once he and Congress fail achieve them.

[denstorebog]

Yeah, I'm also pretty baffled about the press' collective brain anyeurism today. Now Trump is suddenly a president for unity, and Democrats are the party of the past for sitting down throughout the speech. This is 24 hours after Trump blaming generals for Ryan's death and suggesting that the anti-semitic attacks were false flags. Wtf is going on? This stuff is coming from even WaPo, and while I understand that they might want to ease up a bit on Trump after a month of relentless attacks, glorifying him and encouraging everyone to look forward is an incredibly dangerous game to play.

All outrage over / investigation into Trump's current scandals, mainly Russia, loses a whole lot of momentum and relevance when even the opposition press starts talking about moving forward just because the shit-gibbon read a Bannon/Miller production off a teleprompter without setting his hair on fire. It lends a lot of credence to the Spicer/Conway line of arguments that people are ready to move on.

One commentator over at The Hill said it right: Fascism has two faces, and tonight we saw the pretty, uplifting one. If the press goes apeballs over an hour of that, I'm not very optimistic about keeping disapproval alive as a tool for the Nov 2018 elections.

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, butterbumps! said:

 He merely read a fairly anodyne (yet contradictory and totally quixotic) speech off a teleprompter without soiling himself, while using human props.   Why is the media falling over itself about how Trump is now "here to stay," "presidential now," "understanding gravity of the office," "two term material" (all my paraphrase)?   

You'd think by now, that everyone would know, that Trump is a prolific bullshit artist.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 hours ago, Triskan said:

Man, if it turns out that SEAL is dead because of the admin's recklessness which seems quite plausible then that was quite the exploitation of the grieving widow.  

Yeah, that moment was uncomfortable, and it felt like they used her as a prop to change the conversation.

1 hour ago, denstorebog said:

Yeah, I'm also pretty baffled about the press' collective brain anyeurism today. Now Trump is suddenly a president for unity, and Democrats are the party of the past for sitting down throughout the speech. This is 24 hours after Trump blaming generals for Ryan's death and suggesting that the anti-semitic attacks were false flags. Wtf is going on? This stuff is coming from even WaPo, and while I understand that they might want to ease up a bit on Trump after a month of relentless attacks, glorifying him and encouraging everyone to look forward is an incredibly dangerous game to play.

All outrage over / investigation into Trump's current scandals, mainly Russia, loses a whole lot of momentum and relevance when even the opposition press starts talking about moving forward just because the shit-gibbon read a Bannon/Miller production off a teleprompter without setting his hair on fire. It lends a lot of credence to the Spicer/Conway line of arguments that people are ready to move on.

One commentator over at The Hill said it right: Fascism has two faces, and tonight we saw the pretty, uplifting one. If the press goes apeballs over an hour of that, I'm not very optimistic about keeping disapproval alive as a tool for the Nov 2018 elections.

It's not surprising that he's getting a lot of praise. It was an OK speech, and given how low the bar is for Trump, anything that exceeds "not terrible" is counted as a win for him, though I suspect that if any other politician gave that speech they'd be getting destroyed for how completely unrealistic it was. "Everybody gets everything they want, and it's for free." 

10 hours ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

The things he mentioned:

HSA's and tax credits only work if you have the money upfront, for those without the ability to put the money into an HSA and pay upfront won't get a tax credit.  Not sure how that will help those in the most need.

I work on the business side of a major hospital chain, and there isn't a single person I've spoken with that thinks Trump's/the Republican's plan will result in anything other than a complete disaster. 

10 hours ago, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

How can you have coverage for pre-existing conditions without mandating everyone have coverage? Younger people won't get coverage until they get seriously ill.  There us nothing to stop people from gaming the system and that would drive up cost

Well, per Ryan and McConnell, there isn't going to be a federal protection for pre-existing conditions under the Republican plan, so they won't have to mandate that everyone has coverage. 

[Ormond]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

The speech was serviceable, which, considering how low expectations had been, makes it a huge success.

Of course, he also made a lot of grand promises with no specifics on how to accomplish them, which will inevitably lead to backlash once he and Congress fail achieve them.

Fez, what do you make of the special elections in Connecticut yesterday? Is it insignificant because no seats changed hands? Or are those who say it shows a big anti-Trump swing because the "most Republican seat" in the Connecticut state senate was won by them by only 10% instead of the 35% they had in November correct?

http://ctmirror.org/2017/02/28/borer-keeps-115th-house-seat-in-democratic-hands/

 

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 

 

[denstorebog]

Didn't even catch that Van Jones clip before now. I have no real prior knowledge of the man, but

What. An. Absolute. Piece. Of. Shit.

Seriously. What a fucking douche.

He just normalized the shit out of a egotistical maniac, a sexual harasser, a monster who is toying with basic democratic freedoms on a daily basis, "VanJones" and "New Trump" are trending on Twitter right now. Because of an hour of blabbering in front of a teleprompter.

Thanks, Van Jones. You fucking shitstain.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Fez, what do you make of the special elections in Connecticut yesterday? Is it insignificant because no seats changed hands? Or are those who say it shows a big anti-Trump swing because the "most Republican seat" in the Connecticut state senate was won by them by only 10% instead of the 35% they had in November correct?

http://ctmirror.org/2017/02/28/borer-keeps-115th-house-seat-in-democratic-hands/

I think it is another sign of a potential shift in favor of Democrats. There's now been 10 special elections for state legislative seats since Trump won (3 in CT, 1 in DE, 1 in IA, 1 in MN, and 4 in VA) and although none of them have resulted in seats changing hands (Democrats have won 6, Republicans have won 4), I believe that in all 8 of elections where there were 2 major party candidates (Democrats ran unopposed in 2) the Democratic candidate has shown a better result compared to the last election for each district.

What happened in Virginia was especially encouraging. In two of the districts there, Democrats didn't even file a candidate last election; and this time one race was lost by 14 points, the other by only 5 points.

As always, I wouldn't read too much into it; special elections can be weird due to low turnout, and state legislative districts can have local quirks. But it does make me hopeful for the congressional special elections in April. And also, there's currently another 20 state legislative special elections scheduled to happen this year; so we'll get plenty more opportunities to see if the trend line continues. Then in November comes the real test, the gubernatorial and legislative general elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Robert McDonnell and Chris Christie winning those races back in 2009 was the first real sign of a backlash to Obama, and Democrats winning those races this year would send a clear message to Republicans that they are in danger of a reverse 2010. 

I expect to Democrats to pickup New Jersey due to Christie fatigue (he's term-limited though), but I really wonder about holding Virginia (McAullife is term-limited); especially since the Clinton-Sanders primary is currently playing out all over again between Northam and Perriello. 

[Cas Stark]

Dems will definitely pick up New Jersey governorship, so we residents can go back to seeing our property taxes increase every single year, along with the rest of the fees and taxes levied by the state.  LOL.

[Jaxom 1974]

@Fez, where are you looking for your info on the Virginia Governor's race/primaries?  I've seen but one article this far.  I honestly haven't figured out what newspapers are worth a damn in Virginia as of yet either.

[the Greenleif Stark]

1 minute ago, Cas Stark said:

Dems will definitely pick up New Jersey governorship, so we residents can go back to seeing our property taxes increase every single year, along with the rest of the fees and taxes levied by the state.  LOL.

At least all the public workers in our state will be making out well, the NJEA has been backing Murphy for like a year already, so you know he's promised them more of my tax dollars

[Mlle. Zabzie]

If I had to guess, Virginia will go R this time.  But you never know.  

[Cas Stark]

6 minutes ago, the Greenleif Stark said:

At least all the public workers in our state will be making out well, the NJEA has been backing Murphy for like a year already, so you know he's promised them more of my tax dollars

LOL.  NJEA made me hate teachers, seriously, and both my parents are teachers.  NJ is the absolute worst, most corrupt, poorly managed state I have ever lived in, by a wide margin.  

[Mexal]

I had a hard time watching coverage after the speech and this morning. I get praising him because his tone was better but he still spouted a lot of shit that is demonstrably false, made claims with no plans to achieve and more or less said they were going to spend, spend, spend which means none of this will actually get done with a Republican owned Congress. So good job?

Not to mention the Ryan Owens moment. While that was a pretty amazing moment for Carryn Owens and it'll be something she'll be able to tell her kids as they grow up to help them be strong in the face of their father's death, it came less than 12 hours after Trump blamed Obama and the Generals for his death and NBC News reported no significant intelligence was gained from the raid. So while it was amazing for her and I guess for others, it feels massively exploitative given the President is blaming everyone and everyone for the failure of the raid except himself.

And now administration is going to put off signing the new travel ban because of all the positive press. Once again, another example where they prove that national security isn't at stake and that everything they're doing is politically motivated.

So yea, good speech but it doesn't change his message or the lack of anything concrete coming out of the Trump White House. And the ridiculous contradictions between words (we're going to do more in the world but we'll slash the State Dept budget by 30%) and actions still remain there.