U.S. Politics: High Nunes or Russian to Judgement

[DMC]

My favorite part is apparently Flynn wants to flip.  Juxtapose that with Scooter Libby, who was scapegoated, only got a commutation instead of a pardon, and still hasn't made a peep.  Elucidates how Trump has no real inner circle beyond his kids and Kushner.

[OldGimletEye]

So, the orange one is callin out individual suckservatives in the House "Freedom" Caucus.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/politics/freedom-caucus-donald-trump.html

Quote

In an early morning Twitter attack, Mr. Trump singled out members of the House Freedom Caucus, which scuttled his health care overhaul last week. “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast,” he wrote. “We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!”

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Trump was talking about the "epidemic" of opioid abuse this week. Does it occur to any of these idiots that around the time they suddenly restricted use of opioids that people heroin abuse in this country nearly doubled? Geez, I wonder about that one. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/30/us/31heroin-deaths.html

Obama was terrible on the Drug War--but I think the Republicans are outright monsters. 

[all swedes are racist]

48 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

Trump was talking about the "epidemic" of opioid abuse this week. Does it occur to any of these idiots that around the time they suddenly restricted use of opioids that people heroin abuse in this country nearly doubled? Geez, I wonder about that one. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/30/us/31heroin-deaths.html

Obama was terrible on the Drug War--but I think the Republicans are outright monsters. 

uh, sorry if I'm misinterpreting you, but are you blaming the addiction/overdose crime sis on lack of access to opioid painkillers?

[The Anti-Targ]

3 minutes ago, r'hllor's red lobster said:

uh, sorry if I'm misinterpreting you, but are you blaming the addiction/overdose crime sis on lack of access to opioid painkillers?

I hope you mean crisis when you say "crime sis".

[all swedes are racist]

6 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I hope you mean crisis when you say "crime sis".

no, I clearly was referring to the crime bros auxiliary division

[Ser Reptitious]

A little while back @Happy Ent asked if anyone could provide some sources outlining Bannon's overall outlook in a way that the man himself would probably agree with. This video might fit the bill: 

 

Very scary stuff, IMO! 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Haley and Tillerson hint U.S. softening stance on Assad. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-stance-assad_us_58dd7102e4b08194e3b889a1?yuiz3aswsmrd3ac3di&

SoS Tillerson stated Assads fate to be decided by the Syrian people. This is a departure from Obama and Kerry's previous approach which was insisting Assad should be forced out. I support the policy of staying out of the business of regime change, especially at the very moment millions of Americans are fuming over a foreign power interfering with their own democratic process. You dont want it done to you, quit doing so onto others imo.

[rotting sea cow]

2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Haley and Tillerson hint U.S. softening stance on Assad. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-stance-assad_us_58dd7102e4b08194e3b889a1?yuiz3aswsmrd3ac3di&

SoS Tillerson stated Assads fate to be decided by the Syrian people. This is a departure from Obama and Kerry's previous approach which was insisting Assad should be forced out. I support the policy of staying out of the business of regime change, especially at the very moment millions of Americans are fuming over a foreign power interfering with their own democratic process. You dont want it done to you, quit doing so onto others imo.

You will have a hard time convincing your State Dept.

 

[Fez]

6 hours ago, r'hllor's red lobster said:

uh, sorry if I'm misinterpreting you, but are you blaming the addiction/overdose crime sis on lack of access to opioid painkillers?

To be fair, over-access to prescription painkillers is what got the problem going, but there's growing evidence that stuff like Oxycontin changing its formula to make it harder to misuse was the catalyst for quite a few people to switch to heroin; making the problem even worse.

Not sure if that's what he was trying to say there though.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Was at a dinner party last night with a lot of originalists. It's always fun to shred them fools. 

[OldGimletEye]

Democrats should be more comfortable discussing economic growth

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2017/03/parties-and-pies

Well yes they should be. Because it turns out that even though Republicans talk about it more, they aren't just that good at it. But, boy, they sure do like to pat themselves on the back about it.

Also you know, the goal of full employment has traditionally been a Democratic goal and they should talk about it. The liberal Democrats that came out of the Great Depression understood the terror of unemployment. It's been the Democratic Party that has been the guardians of the FED's employment mandate. That should never have been taken out of the Democratic Party's plank in 1992 (thankfully it's back in), even if it appeased conservative sorts of people.

Quote

STEVE BANNON is right. This week, in a New York Times Magazinepiece otherwise dedicated to the President’s dance with Congress, he offered this: 

I think the Democrats are fundamentally afflicted with the inability to discuss and have an adult conversation about economics and jobs, because they’re too consumed by identity politics. And then the Republicans, it’s all this theoretical Cato Institute, Austrian economics, limited government—which just doesn’t have any depth to it. They’re not living in the real world.

Bannon is perhaps right in part and wrong in part. It's fine to talk about growth. But, if people are being held back in enjoying the fruits of that growth for bullshit reasons like racism or sexism, that's an issue and needs to be talked about and resolved.

A lot of this is just about: Life is hard enough for lots of folks. So let's not pile an extra amount of shit on top of them just because they way they came into this world.

Quote

Republicans are lost in theory, unburdened by empirical evidence. Democrats don’t seem to have much of a theory at all.

I dissent. There are plenty of models that back up Democratic views, such as the need for minimum wage, bank regulation, fiscal stimulus, and so forth. But it's true that often a model and and a nickel will get you a hot cup of jack squat. So empirical evidence is important too and often if fails to back up Republican claims, like say the wonders of cutting income taxes on the wealthy (and by the way, standard models don't really indicate whether said tax cuts will increase the wealthy's labor supply. Could go either way.)

Quote

Grossly simplified, there are two ways politicians talk to voters about economics. Think of a pie. Republicans promise economic growth, to make the pie larger: more pie for everyone.

Yes, yes, this what the Republicans and suckservatives always promise. But, it never pans out. It seems after all these years, if you want to bet on this, then you are betting on a Dutch Book.

Quote

Back to the pie. Unlike Republicans, Democrats promise to split the pie up fairly. Expanding access to affordable healthcare by increasing taxes on capital gains, for example, fits perfectly within this promise. 

It's fine to talk about growth. But if the 1%, 5% or 10% is getting all the gains from it, then should anybody else give a crap? So, how the gains get distributed is an important issue. And we shouldn't just assume that how it gets distributed is just the result of the first order condition of the firm's maximization problem.

Quote

Politicians normally present increases in the minimum wage as better pie-slicing. But late in the campaign, Mrs Clinton started talking about it as a way to give consumers more to spend, and to therefore encourage businesses to invest more to serve them. 

I believe in a non-Walrasian world (aka a realistic world. Quantity adjustments matter conservative sorts of people) its possible that minimum wage could help to boost aggregate demand. But, even it doesn't there is evidence that higher minimum wage doesn't have to have negative supply side effects. As such, it's worth advocating for.

Quote

 Rather, it’s that Republicans don’t have a monopoly on policies that make more pie. They just have a monopoly on talking about them.

It's kind of like Republicans talk about this awesome corvette they have. It runs fast and it rides smooth. It's awesome. You'll really like it if you take it for spin. And then you hop in and drive and find out that it runs like a Pinto.

Or maybe it's like a bunch of middle aged Republicans hyping themselves up as being the "Young Guns".

[Fez]

11 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

This has compounded the opiod addiction epidemic, because the medical and political communities essentially came up with a sledgehammer solution to a problem that required scalpel-like precision.

Not sure I'd go that far. The opioid epidemic has gotten rather strange in the past few years, in a way that almost no one talks about. If you look at stuff like the NSDUH data, the total number of people misusing prescription opioids is way, way down from its peak in 2010. The total number of people using heroin is up a lot percentage-wise, but in raw numbers doesn't even come close to the reduction in Rx opioids. There's still millions of people misusing opioids, but its a lot fewer than it had been.

However, when you look at data on overdoses (fatal and non-), those numbers have been skyrocketing; for both Rx opioids and heroin. So the problem is being contained to a smaller number of people; but the problem for those remaining people keeps getting worse and worse.

Actions like regulations restricting opioid prescriptions have been associated with the reduced number of people using, but I don't think you can associate it with the increased overdoses (at least, not based on current evidence). It still quite easy for people with legitimate needs to get opioid prescriptions (as it should be), and no regulations change the simple fact that heroin is significantly less expensive than Rx opioids.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Republicans are seriously the stupidest motherfuckers I've ever encountered. 

They dislike abortion for really dumb reasons.  Ok, whatever.  So the best cure for that is to make sure that women's reproductive health is radically funded.  Ya know, like lots of money towards birth control and education. Nothing stops an abortion like not getting fucking pregnant.  IUD's ftw.  Only, Republicans are so brain dead that they can't seem to make these connections and decide that abortions will decrease by making access to family planning that much more difficult.

Like, how do these people manage to get dressed in the morning without major assistance?

 

 

Yup, but keep in mind that most of those people actually believe that the first woman, who was made from a rib bone of the first man, tag teamed with a talking snake to defy god. Hence why they think you women are so nasty.......

[OldGimletEye]

Ayn Rand Christianity in action.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/31/gop-lawmaker-the-bible-says-the-unemployed-shall-not-eat/

Quote

One lawmaker is citing a godly reference to  justify changes to SNAP: Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) recently quoted the New Testament to question the strength of the program’s current work requirements.

I think it's hilarious funny that the party that complains about unemployed people getting benefits, has done everything possible to prevent more employment over the last eight years (other than you know, cut taxes for the rich!!!). They have fought both fiscal and monetary policy to achieve those goals.

Perhaps, the Republican Party and suckservatives should be invited to have a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up.

The battle for the healthcare isn't over most likely. It would be prudent to be on the look out for the next Republican con.

http://www.newyorker.com/business/adam-davidson/how-trump-could-still-undermine-obamacare

Quote

Such death spirals are rare because it is easy to identify when they’ve begun and it’s easy to fix the issue before the worst damage is done. President Donald Trump, however, seems to yearn for a death spiral for the Affordable Care Act. He tweeted that Obamacare “will explode,” and, in an interview with the Washington Post, said that “the best thing is to let Obamacare explode” so that he can then “make one beautiful deal for the people.”

 

[LongRider]

10 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Quote

He tweeted that Obamacare “will explode,” and, in an interview with the Washington Post, said that “the best thing is to let Obamacare explode” so that he can then “make one beautiful deal for the people.”

 

Jebus H Fuggin' Keerist, isn't this the same Orange Shitgibbon who said, and I quote, "Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated." ?  Why yes, yes it is.  Perhaps it was so complicated because it just wasn't beautiful enough. 

[PrettyPig]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

President Donald Trump, however, seems to yearn for a death spiral for the Affordable Care Act. He tweeted that Obamacare “will explode,” and, in an interview with the Washington Post, said that “the best thing is to let Obamacare explode” so that he can then “make one beautiful deal for the people.”

It's pathological, seriously.   His desire to see the ACA collapse and fail is stronger than his desire to be successful by providing something palatable for the party/his supporters.    Trump's personal 'win' is watching Obamacare 'lose'.     He's the pyromaniac setting fire to his own house:   yeah, sure, everything goes up in smoke and ash, but ohmygod, look at the beautiful flames...

 

[MerenthaClone]

14 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I guess clean coal is a really good example of the downfall of reality based politics. But perhaps also demonstration of how message delivery can be more harmful than the message.

I haven't read or heard directly what Hillary said about the future fortunes of the coal industry. But it seemed like she more or less told coal miners that "coal is dying, get over it". Perhaps a bit of sympathy for their situation, some gratitude for the historical contribution their generations made to the economic prosperity of the USA, and an optimistic outlook for new directions that did not consign future generations to jobs that put life and limb at risk on a daily basis might have helped Hillary in those states.

So, what, "coal is dying" but more nicely?  "Coal is dying, but here are plans that we've made to help you get a new job and career?"  Because that's literally what she did.  Repeatedly.  She could probably have campaigned harder in PA which would have brought that more to the forefront, but from Pittsburgh, it was pretty clear that one candidate was promising to magically bring back coal and the other was planning to try to invest in job retraining.  It was very clearly a case of reality losing out to pleasant lies. 

 

12 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

Republicans are seriously the stupidest motherfuckers I've ever encountered. 

They dislike abortion for really dumb reasons.  Ok, whatever.  So the best cure for that is to make sure that women's reproductive health is radically funded.  Ya know, like lots of money towards birth control and education. Nothing stops an abortion like not getting fucking pregnant.  IUD's ftw.  Only, Republicans are so brain dead that they can't seem to make these connections and decide that abortions will decrease by making access to family planning that much more difficult.

Like, how do these people manage to get dressed in the morning without major assistance?

 

Their goal is to punish women for having sex.  Its pure morality police bullshit, stop looking for rationality.  

[MerenthaClone]

19 minutes ago, PrettyPig said:

It's pathological, seriously.   His desire to see the ACA collapse and fail is stronger than his desire to be successful by providing something palatable for the party/his supporters.    Trump's personal 'win' is watching Obamacare 'lose'.     He's the pyromaniac setting fire to his own house:   yeah, sure, everything goes up in smoke and ash, but ohmygod, look at the beautiful flames...

 

He's smart enough to know that a major terrorist attack and ACA collapse will probably be good for his career.  He's not able to adequately conceal this fact.  

[LongRider]

13 minutes ago, MerenthaClone said:

He's smart enough to know that a major terrorist attack and ACA collapse will probably be good for his career.  He's not able to adequately conceal this fact.  

a. Allow ACA fail

b. Major terrorist attack on US soil

3. ??????????????

4. Profit!!!!

 

Seems about right.