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U.S. Politics: From Russia, With Love


TerraPrime

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11 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

If you say so.  i don't see calls for discussion of the performance of the candidate and the campaign every time russia comes up, even though both were deciding factors, but if it's your belief that they can only be discussed together, then i suppose that's you're prerogative

 I see much more utility in looking at the problem as a whole, as opposed to pinpointing one aspect of it. I guess you could say I'm a Big Picture guy.

 Trump%20Clinton%20Didnt%20Vote%20Piechar

or perhaps...

 donald-trump-wheel-of-fortune-catching-m

 

/Perspective is pretty important.

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13 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 I see much more utility in looking at the problem as a whole, as opposed to pinpointing one aspect of it. I guess you could say I'm a Big Picture guy.

 

Quote

i don't see calls for discussion of the performance of the candidate and the campaign every time russia comes up,

Ok.

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10 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

Ok.

I have to imagine that there will be a hugely successful book written about this election, as it really was a fascinating chapter in American Politics. I think the author here would be better served to have the a critique of the Clinton campaign, her failings as a candidate, and the short-sighted actions of the DNC maybe entail 3-4 chapters of a larger whole. Seems like the author is shooting for a partisan audience here by making the entire book center on Clinton. She's at best half the story here, and I'm not sure she's even the most interesting half.

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40 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Lots of reasons which has already been discussed. Money mattered less because the MSM gave Trump free media for every single rally, press conference or interview he participated in. The endorsement of the vast majority of the media means fuck all when the only thing the media actually discusses about you is emails or wikileaks. Clinton was a bad candidate who ran a subpar campaign. It contributed to her loss. I don't need to read the specific examples to hone the point. I just don't care enough as I already understand the broad strokes.

This is directly addressed in the article.

Quote

If you're wondering what might be the point of rehashing this now, the responsibility for opposing Donald Trump going forward still rests with the (mostly anonymous) voices described in this book.

 

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2 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I have to imagine that there will be a hugely successful book written about this election, as it really was a fascinating chapter in American Politics. I think the author here would be better served to have the a critique of the Clinton campaign, her failings as a candidate, and the short-sighted actions of the DNC maybe entail 3-4 chapters of a larger whole. Seems like the author is shooting for a partisan audience here by making the entire book center on Clinton. She's at best half the story here, and I'm not sure she's even the most interesting half.

I could really not care less about whether or not the book is successful.

There's some stuff in here that I hadn't seen before that seems relevant and interesting.  

 

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On top of all of Clinton's baggage, I think "I'm With Her" was a pretty bad slogan, and Clinton clearly was unable to ennunciate a clear vision for her campaign, and tried to outsource it to ehr staffers instead.

 

But if 80,000 people in three states had voted a different way, then we could be looking at an even more scathing book about the Trump Campaign. I mean, his opponent was one of the most hated people in the country, it was after two terms of hte same party in the White House, and the FBI even dropped a late October Surprise!

 

 

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1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

So I agree with Swordfish. The party needs to have this conversation, and if Bill and Hillary are going to continue to create enemy lists and shit like that, they need to get kicked the fuck out of the party.

Oh yeah, I agree 100% with that bit. You have to learn from a loss, or it is absolutely worthless. The DNC certainly needs to take a hard look at itself and adjust its' gameplan if it expects to win in the future. No argument there.

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3 hours ago, Swordfish said:

Because you lost to Donald Friggin Trump, at least in part due to a complete charley foxtrot on behalf of the leadership of the party?

I dunno.  I'm just spit balling here.

Seems like a party that's been taken behind the woodshed at virtually every level of government might be interested in some introspection, but I guess not. 

 

 

Yeah, I will take your interest in seeing a stronger Democratic Party with a grain of salt. But thanks all the same. 

And you're assuming the premise in your argument, which is that Clinton lost the election to Trump due in part to the leadership of the party. I dispute this and don't accept it without further analysis and details. 

As for introspection, I've read plenty already, thanks for caring though. I'm also actively doing something at the local level, too. But sure, I need a book and an article about a book to tell me. Yeah, that's the ticket. 

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So in which budget round is the wall going to get financed? If not now, will it ever? Obviously Congress doesn't believe for a minute that trump will get Mexico to pay for the Wall, because I would have thought "bridging" [lol] finance in the budget could have been agreed if there was a high degree of confidence the money would be recouped from Mexico.

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2 hours ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

On top of all of Clinton's baggage, I think "I'm With Her" was a pretty bad slogan, and Clinton clearly was unable to ennunciate a clear vision for her campaign, and tried to outsource it to ehr staffers instead.

The slogans are strangely emblematic of the campaign as a whole: generic, inoffensive and almost wholly devoid of meaning. Slogans from past campaigns (Wikipedia, dedicated site) tried to be funny, used rhyme ("I like Ike"), puns, alliteration ("Patriotism, Protection, and Prosperity") and innuendo ("We Polked you in '44, We shall Pierce you in '52", "They can't lick our Dick"), referenced contemporary issues ("Vote for 8 Hour Wilson") and the accomplishments of their candidate ("Tippecanoe and Tyler too" which also references a song), disparaged the opponent ("Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine! The continental liar from the state of Maine!") and summarizes the vision, plans and/or aspirations of the campaign.

So... with knowledge of all of the slogans that came before and almost certainly a small army of marketing personnel with all of the modern tools of the trade, what does the Clinton campaign come up with? "I'm With Her", "Stronger Together", "Forward Together", "Fighting for us" and probably some others which are even less memorable. "I'm With Her" is arguably the best of the lot because, if one thinks about it for a bit, it implicitly references the fact that Clinton is the first woman to be the candidate of a major party and have a plausible chance at the presidency. It's not much, but every other one is so utterly generic that it can be used by literally any politician in any era. Sad. :)

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5 hours ago, Mexal said:

I think they are and have been introspective. I don't think they need a scathing book that's not about introspection but selling how terrible the Clinton campaign was. I'm sure there are legitimate issues in there (Clinton's lack of message being the major one) but suggesting the entire democratic party hasn't introspectively looked at this election or their lack of reach to white middle class voters, even after there was 1000 articles after the election saying that very thing, seems disingenuous to me.

As a side note, I haven't seen anyone blame the entire election on outside factors. I've seen most people say "Clinton ran a terrible campaign, was a terrible candidate but also had x, y, z go against her. All are reasons why she lost but not any single one."

really? because I don't believe I have seen that, at all. where is the dem's "autopsy report"? what have they done to change messaging, or shift on policy positions? all I see is assigning blame and passing the buck

 

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Still more woes at FOX.  FOX fans in the comments section are blaming 'liberals' (as they were with O-Reilly,) going so far as to cite 'leaked emails.)  That this was self inflicted, stemming from internal culture, is something they cannot accept.

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fox-news-faces-new-racial-discrimination-lawsuit/ar-BBAn4nv?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=msnclassic

 

Troubles at Fox News compounded yet again on Tuesday, with the emergence of new allegations of racial discrimination at the company coming less than a week after the ouster of the network’s star Bill O’Reilly.

Eleven current and former Fox News employees filed a class-action lawsuit in New York against the network, accusing it of “abhorrent, intolerable, unlawful and hostile racial discrimination.”

Sign up for the Morning Briefing Newsletter. 

The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in the Bronx, expands a complaint filed at the end of March by Tichaona Brown and Tabrese Wright, two black women who worked in the Fox News payroll department. In particular, the suit contends that Judith Slater, the company’s longtime comptroller, engaged in racist behavior and made racist remarks and that senior executives ignored her actions. A third Fox News employee, Monica Douglas, joined the lawsuit earlier this month. Fox News fired Ms. Slater in February.

“When it comes to racial discrimination, 21st Century Fox has been operating as if it should be called 18th Century Fox,” the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Douglas H. Wigdor and Jeanne M. Christensen, said in a statement, referring to Fox News’s parent company. “We sincerely hope the filing of this race class action wakes 21st Century Fox from its slumbers and inspires the company to take a conciliatory and appropriate approach to remedy its wrongs.”

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Eff refighting the last war.  Moving on to more recent stupidity.  Can we talk about the proposal for the 15% rate on pass through income (otherwise known as the "Make Zabzie's Children independently wealthy" proposal)?  Leaving aside the fact that it can't pass (wonky types described the whole package as a magical unicorn), it's horrible, terrible, no good tax policy.  Actually, the whole damn proposal is terrible tax policy.  First of all, any proposal like that would need to be permanent to be effective.  That's not really possible.  The 15% rate (and remember, I'm no friend of taxes) would turn us in the biggest tax shelter and money laundry in the world.  You add together the blessings of our corporate law and a rate like that and folks would run, not walk, to park dirty money here.  The accumulated earnings tax would become very real again.  The IRS, to the extent it gets funding, would have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what a "reasonable" salary for professionals is.  The structuring possibilities would be endless, because I am relatively certain that the drafting of any such provisions, however good it is, won't be nearly good enough.  Add to all of that the fact that the people who will benefit most have the least use for marginal dollars (I mean, I'm imagining Scrooge McDuck here at this point), what you will basically see is capital accumulation and concentration, an influx of overseas cash from questionable sources, and the rest of the country doing what?  It's just dumb, dumb, dumb.  I could go on and on and on.  But I won't.  Ugh. 

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9 hours ago, r'hllor's reformed lobster said:

really? because I don't believe I have seen that, at all. where is the dem's "autopsy report"? what have they done to change messaging, or shift on policy positions? all I see is assigning blame and passing the buck

Well, the official autopsy will be coming tomorrow though that doesn't really make a difference. The republicans did an autopsy report and then ignored every single thing in it yet still won. But ignoring that, everything I've heard from Dem leadership, about building a message, connecting with working class, fighting in all elections, building excitement and grassroots campaigns, seems to be in line with what they need to do. You can't completely change the policies that are consistent with their values, especially when ~3 million more people voted for you then the guy who won but they can and will tailor their message to focus more on economic populism which is what appeals to white, working class voters. Ellison and Perez are a pretty good team for this at a national level. 2018 will be a big test.

 

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1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

It's just dumb, dumb, dumb.  I could go on and on and on.  But I won't.  Ugh. 

Good news is that according to Paul Ryan's Senior Tax Counsel George Callas, passing the tax plan outlined now is virtually impossible, because reconciliation won't allow for it. Here are his words (links to Slate, but this is a direct quote of Callas):

Quote

What the reconciliation rules say—they don’t say that tax cuts have to sunset in ten years. They say that you cannot have a deficit increase beyond the 10-year window...A corporate rate cut that is sunset after three years will increase the deficit in the second decade. We know this. Not 10 years. Three years. You could not do a straight up, unoffset, three-year corporate rate cut in reconciliation. The rules prohibit it. You might be able to do two years. A two year corporate rate cut—I’ll defer to the economists on the panel—would have virtually no economic effect. It would not alter business decisions. It would not cause anyone to build a factory. It would not stop any inversions or acquisitions of U.S. companies by foreign companies. It would not cause anyone to restructure their supply chain. It would just be dropping cash out of helicopters onto corporate headquarters.

So unless they are willing to nuke the filibuster (doubtful) or can get 8 democrats to sign on (impossible), even 100% Republican support cannot get this tax plan passed for more than 2 years. 

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10 hours ago, Altherion said:

The slogans are strangely emblematic of the campaign as a whole: generic, inoffensive and almost wholly devoid of meaning. Slogans from past campaigns (Wikipedia, dedicated site) tried to be funny, used rhyme ("I like Ike"), puns, alliteration ("Patriotism, Protection, and Prosperity") and innuendo ("We Polked you in '44, We shall Pierce you in '52", "They can't lick our Dick"), referenced contemporary issues ("Vote for 8 Hour Wilson") and the accomplishments of their candidate ("Tippecanoe and Tyler too" which also references a song), disparaged the opponent ("Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine! The continental liar from the state of Maine!") and summarizes the vision, plans and/or aspirations of the campaign.

So... with knowledge of all of the slogans that came before and almost certainly a small army of marketing personnel with all of the modern tools of the trade, what does the Clinton campaign come up with? "I'm With Her", "Stronger Together", "Forward Together", "Fighting for us" and probably some others which are even less memorable. "I'm With Her" is arguably the best of the lot because, if one thinks about it for a bit, it implicitly references the fact that Clinton is the first woman to be the candidate of a major party and have a plausible chance at the presidency. It's not much, but every other one is so utterly generic that it can be used by literally any politician in any era. Sad. :)

You are, obviously, ignoring the fact that  her campaign and her slogans did lead to 3 million more votes. So, evidence showed that her slogans are at least as effective as was needed to win the popular vote by a good number. The fault lines were in the swing states and the lack of time to repair the damage from the last Comey letter, which was 7 days or so before the election. 

 

People kept refusing to acknowledge that polling outfits across the board showed a relatively congruent picture of the trends. There were a few local polls that suggested differently, but they were outliers. You can fault her campaign for not listening to polls to make strategic decisions based on statistical outliers, I guess. 

 

"Stronger Together" is a code message for her supporters, that this is going to be an inclusive campaign and administration, to contrast itself with the GOP campaign and party ideology. It's within-group signalling while not coming out to say "We're for the minorities." Just like "Make America Great Again" is an implicit message of "Make American Great Again like when them darkies weren't so uppity." 

 

But yeah, I'm sure you have better insight than focus group studies and professional calibrations for demographics. 

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“The tax plan will pay for itself with economic growth”

Even without significant knowledge of economics, it is clear that slashing a tax rate from 35% to 15% requires some significant economic growth to offset the costs. Especially since saturated markets like the US don't have a whole lot of room for growth compared to say more developing countries.

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