US Politics: the Lying Liars Who Lie edtion

[Paladin of Ice]

5 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Your party has engaged in all out war for the better part of 8 years. If you haven't seen all out war, you haven't bothered to open your eyes. If the Merrick Garland nomination refusal wasn't all out war, what is in your mind?

Really, Republicans and right wing media have been engaging in varying degrees of war since at least the early 90s. The only difference lately is that leftists have started to realize that not only is the fight real, but that they were on the edge of a complete rout. Only Trump's incompetence and divisions within the Republican party have kept it from already being a rout. (Also, because Trump only likes the showmanship aspect of "playing" President, he loathes the reality of actually being President and having to do work.)

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

For OldGimletEye. The Story of Supply Side Jesus. Lulz.

https://thinkprogress.org/bad-theology-conservative-benefits-1d42ef90b387?ICID=ref_fark

 

From the article: 

The first example came from Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS), who argued in early March that Jesus would support his criticism of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, as aspect of health care reform that extended insurance coverage to additional low-income Americans.

“Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” Marshall told Stat News, quoting the Bible. “There is a group of people that just don’t want health care and aren’t going to take care of themselves.”

He added that “morally, spiritually, socially,” some poor and homeless people “just don’t want health care.”

[Altherion]

4 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It started being used in the 1850s, and things went fairly well until the many, many changes to the rules that occurred starting in the 70s to curtail the power of the committee chairs and to "improve" things....but things as we see...did not improve but got worse and worse.

Compromise is important, running the country on straight majority rule for everything will be disastrous.

We already have many points at which there needs to be compromise: to pass a law one needs the agreement of both chambers of Congress as well as the lack of a veto from the President or a supermajority in both chambers. The filibuster effectively paralyzes Congress altogether except for things they absolutely must do (and even those are sometimes used for grandstanding) and things which are utterly uncontroversial.

The result is that most significant changes to law now come from either the Supreme Court or from the President and the many agencies of the executive branch. This produces a mix of nearly immutable laws and ones which can be changed the moment the Presidency changes hands. This is definitely not how the system was intended to work and I don't see how it is better than having Congress behave as described in the Constitution.

4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

The reason that they are unwilling to negotiate is that there is currently no reason for them to do so. With the removal of things like earmarks, getting things done against the common political view of the party has no benefit. This changed in the 90s - and with the removal of earmarks went a lot of the actual carrot for giving negotiations.

Give those back, give people in congress actual wins for voting on things, and you'll see a lot more compromise. 

That is an interesting idea, but I haven't seen either side proposing to bring the old system back.

4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

If you instead expect that the parties themselves are going to become more centrist without giving a reason why - good luck with that.

I actually expect the polarization to increase and not so much because of the party structure (though it doesn't help) as because the population is becoming more polarized.

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Multiple people have given you good reasons why the filibuster can be a net positive, but I'll add in one more: the Supreme Court.

That one is already toast -- even when the Democrats take over, there's no way they'll go back to allowing a filibuster of Supreme Court candidates.

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Personally, I wish there was always 3 liberals, 3 moderates and 3 conservatives. That way we'd get rulings that are likely the most precise, morally and constitutionally.  

You'd never get the liberals and conservatives to agree on what constitutes a moderate.

[OldGimletEye]

36 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

For OldGimletEye. The Story of Supply Side Jesus. Lulz.

https://thinkprogress.org/bad-theology-conservative-benefits-1d42ef90b387?ICID=ref_fark

Thanks for sharing this article about “Ayn Rand Christians”.

A few comments if I may:
 

Quote

Just like Jesus said, ‘The poor will always be with us,’” Marshall told Stat News, quoting the Bible.

Yeah, particularly if Republican’s get elected with their union busting, pro wage theft, and gold bug nuttery ways.

Quote

He added that “morally, spiritually, socially,” some poor and homeless people “just don’t want health care.”

And many Republicans just don’t fundamentally want to be decent people.

Quote

if a man will not work, he shall not eat,

Well he’s probably not going to work when we're in a fuckin’ liquidity trap and all the Republican Party can do is talk about confidence fairies and you’ve got idiots like Boehner running around talking about how the stimulus “crowded out private investment” while interest rates are cratering and you’ve got idiots like John Cochrane claiming that “a dollar spent by the government is one that can’t be spent by the private sector...”

The idiocy is just over the top.

Quote

While many interpreted scripture to mean that all poor people should be served, others delineated between “deserving” and “undeserving” poor.

Let’s be frank here. When Republicans talk about “deserving” and “undeserving” what they often mean is “white” and “non-whites”.

Quote

When, sweeping social programs created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal cemented a national system — and an ideology

When asked about his ideology, Roosevelt is allegedly to have said, “Democrat and Christian and that is all.”

Quote

“believed [the system] weakened families by encouraging out-of-wedlock births, sex outside of marriage, and the ability of men to escape the responsibilities of fatherhood.”

Conservatives seemingly get the causation here backwards. It’s often poverty that causes lack of marriage. In fact, it would seem, that marriage has lately become a luxury of the well off and is in decline in the working classes, most likely caused by widening wealth inequality. Interestingly enough, these so called “Christians” have little to say about that.

Quote

they can achieve physical and financial success through their Christian faith — especially giving money to their pastor

Somebody, tell these guys, no they’ll achieve physical and financial success by giving OldGimEye money. Why in the hell not? LOL.

Quote

The wealthy pastors who head up these churches, many of whom own large homes and private jets purchased by their congregants, serve as an implicit spiritual exemplars: i.e., they are wealthy because of their faith. 

And I thought the big bucks was in fake news. Why didn’t my high school counselor tell about me these things? I think I’m gonna sue for high school counselor malpractice or something.

Quote

Can we in good conscience make the banker, who in this case is a good hard-working person, pay for the faults of the sleeper with bad credit? Is that the knee-jerk Christian position? Let us just force people to be ethical. Let us force an ethical outcome. Let us force justice.”

Fuckin’ absolutely. Particularly when his errors or fraud helps to blow up the economy.
 

Quote

He went on to repeat the axiom that government assistance programs keep people poor by making them dependent: “

The fuckin’ fraud (Ryan) disorted a lot of academic work on the matter which doesn’t neatly align with the story he is trying to sell.

[LongRider]

23 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Somebody, tell these guys, no they’ll achieve physical and financial success by giving OldGimEye money. Why in the hell not? LOL.

               I'm a believer!  Where do I send my check?  

 

edt; what a hot mess these bible thumping R's are.  Pence is right there too.  Forget about taking care of citizens, lets spend money on bombing some brown people who don't believe in Jeebus and then give the millionaires and billionaires some more redistributed wealth.  It's what Jeebus Rand would do.

[Zorral]

 

Quote

 

When, sweeping social programs created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal cemented a national system — and an ideology

When asked about his ideology, Roosevelt is allegedly to have said, “Democrat and Christian and that is all.”

 

And, let us never forget, that African Americans were deliberately left out of most of those programs, just as they were left out of the GI Bill, etc. in the WWII era.  Because the white Dems of those days would not ever go for THAT!

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Zorral said:

 

And, let us never forget, that African Americans were deliberately left out of most of those programs, just as they were left out of the GI Bill, etc. in the WWII era.  Because the white Dems of those days would not ever go for THAT!

Roosevelt (and Eleanor too who was a wonderful person I think) is a hero of mine. But, they're can be little doubt that the New Deal worked largely for the benefit of white men. In my view, a significant reason why the New Deal coalition came flyin' apart in the 1960s was because liberals started to say, "You know, the ethical thing to do here is to share the 'socialism' with women and minorities".

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Nasty LongRider said:

               I'm a believer!  Where do I send my check?  

 

I guess OldGimEye Ministries? LOL.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Thanks for sharing this article about “Ayn Rand Christians”.

A few comments if I may:
 

Yeah, particularly if Republican’s get elected with their union busting, pro wage theft, and gold bug nuttery ways.

And many Republicans just don’t fundamentally want to be decent people.

Well he’s probably not going to work when where in fuckin’ liquidity trap and all the Republican Party can do is talk about confidence fairies and you’ve got idiots like Boehner running around talking about how the stimulus “crowded out private investment” while interest rates are cratering and you’ve got idiots like John Cochrane claiming that “a dollar spent by the government is one that can’t be spent by the private sector...”

The idiocy is just over the top.

Let’s be frank here. When Republicans talk about “deserving” and “undeserving” what they often mean is “white” and “non-whites”.

When asked about his ideology, Roosevelt is allegedly to have said, “Democrat and Christian and that is all.”

Conservatives seemingly get the causation here backwards. It’s often poverty that causes lack of marriage. In fact, it would seem, that marriage has lately become a luxury of the well off and is in decline in the working classes, most likely caused by widening wealth inequality. Interestingly enough, these so called “Christians” have little to say about that.

Somebody, tell these guys, no they’ll achieve physical and financial success by giving OldGimEye money. Why in the hell not? LOL.

And I thought the big bucks was in fake news. Why didn’t my high school counselor tell about me these things? I think I’m gonna sue for high school counselor malpractice or something.

Fuckin’ absolutely. Particularly when his errors or fraud helps to blow up the economy.
 

The fuckin’ fraud (Ryan) disorted a lot of academic work on the matter which doesn’t neatly align with the story he is trying to sell.

Yeah, these guys have misinterpreted Jesus to South Park levels of ridiculousness. How can you call yourself Christian yet buy into this tortured reading of the source material? 

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, these guys have misinterpreted Jesus to South Park levels of ridiculousness. How can you call yourself Christian yet buy into this tortured reading of the source material? 

God works in mysterious ways.

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah, these guys have misinterpreted Jesus to South Park levels of ridiculousness. How can you call yourself Christian yet buy into this tortured reading of the source material? 

One of the hallmarks of religions capable of growing to global scales is that their foundational texts and ideas can be interpreted to mean very nearly anything.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

One of the hallmarks of religions capable of growing to global scales is that their foundational texts and ideas can be interpreted to mean very nearly anything.

Which should make them effectively meaningless. If your takeaway from the core message of Jesus is "the poor are just looking for a handout" then you should not be allowed to interpret text in any form.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Anyone else catch Bill Maher tonight? Seems like his apology tonight was almost as bad as the initial joke. Really tortured and kind of half-assed. 

[SerHaHa]

5 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Roosevelt (and Eleanor too who was a wonderful person I think) is a hero of mine. But, they're can be little doubt that the New Deal worked largely for the benefit of white men. In my view, a significant reason why the New Deal coalition came flyin' apart in the 1960s was because liberals started to say, "You know, the ethical thing to do here is to share the 'socialism' with women and minorities".

Heh, I wonder how the USA, and with it the rest of the world, would have turned out had JFK not been killed, and spent 2 full terms in office, followed by his brother perhaps. 

Regarding Jesus and liberals, the Democrat party, etc, I've also always found it curious that Carter spent his Sundays teaching Sunday school at his church.  I don't think being a "believer" and being a kind, ethical, and generous person are necessarily at odds.  Those were different times perhaps...

 

Quote

Conservatives seemingly get the causation here backwards. It’s often poverty that causes lack of marriage. In fact, it would seem, that marriage has lately become a luxury of the well off and is in decline in the working classes, most likely caused by widening wealth inequality. Interestingly enough, these so called “Christians” have little to say about that.

This I agree with too - back in the 40s, 50s, and even into the 60s, most families could purchase a home, a vehicle, and have several children, and support all of the above on the wages of just one person.  Today, even with both partners in the work force, owning a home, much less providing for things like children's future education, is a very tough stretch, a majority surviving month to month and amassing huge debts just to even TRY to do what was easy a generation or two ago.

Economics, thanks to not just the Repubs but the Dems too - stupidity from our leaders, bankers, etc, crosses all borders - is what caused the family unit to "break down" as much, or more IMO, than anything else.  Wealth inequality is responsible for the change in the family dynamic, not the reverse, again IMO.  What I see, hear, and read from the Christian programs/etc out there, is that in virtually every case they hold liberals, progressive politics, and the like, responsible for the family unit breaking down.  Ridiculous. 

[Altherion]

21 minutes ago, SerHaHa said:

This I agree with too - back in the 40s, 50s, and even into the 60s, most families could purchase a home, a vehicle, and have several children, and support all of the above on the wages of just one person.  Today, even with both partners in the work force, owning a home, much less providing for things like children's future education, is a very tough stretch, a majority surviving month to month and amassing huge debts just to even TRY to do what was easy a generation or two ago.

Economics, thanks to not just the Repubs but the Dems too - stupidity from our leaders, bankers, etc, crosses all borders - is what caused the family unit to "break down" as much, or more IMO, than anything else.  Wealth inequality is responsible for the change in the family dynamic, not the reverse, again IMO.  What I see, hear, and read from the Christian programs/etc out there, is that in virtually every case they hold liberals, progressive politics, and the like, responsible for the family unit breaking down.  Ridiculous.

This is debatable. Economics certainly plays a role in it, but there are societies which, while poorer and with greater wealth inequality,  nevertheless do not exhibit this break down. There is a significant cultural component as well and it is not obvious whether it is greater than the economic one (especially since they feed off of each other).

[LongRider]

6 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

Regarding Jesus and liberals, the Democrat party, etc, I've also always found it curious that Carter spent his Sundays teaching Sunday school at his church.  I don't think being a "believer" and being a kind, ethical, and generous person are necessarily at odds.  Those were different times perhaps...

Jimmy Carter, principled man that he his, split with Southern Baptist Convention in 2000 over their literal interpretation of the bible and their subjection of women.  Would any of the today's R pols do that?  no.

Quote

Jimmy Carter, a third-generation Southern Baptist and the first United States president to call himself a born-again Christian, has reached what he calls ''a painful decision'' to sever ties to the Southern Baptist Convention, saying that parts of its ''increasingly rigid'' doctrines violate the ''basic premises of my Christian faith.''

Mr. Carter's decision, announced on Thursday in a letter that is being mailed this week to 75,000 Baptists nationwide, comes four months after the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, declared its opposition to women as pastors.

In the same doctrinal statement, adopted last June, the group advocated a literal interpretation of the Bible. Two years ago, the group called for wives to be submissive to their husbands.

''I have seen an increasing inclination on the part of Southern Baptist Convention leaders to be more rigid on what is a Southern Baptist and exclusionary of accommodating those who differ from them,'' Mr. Carter said today in a brief interview. ''In the last couple of years, this tendency of the Southern Baptist Convention leadership to ordain their creed on others has become more onerous for me and more difficult for me to accept.''

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/21/us/carter-sadly-turns-back-on-national-baptist-body.html

[LongRider]

 

[OldGimletEye]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/opinion/the-gop-plan-to-unleash-wall-street.html

Quote

Republicans in the House of Representatives passed the Choice Act on Thursday, a sweeping deregulation of the financial sector. It passed 233-186, with no Democratic support. One Republican, Walter Jones of North Carolina, voted no. This bill rolls back or weakens most of the protections put in place since the 2008 financial crisis through President Barack Obama’s Dodd-Frank Act.

 

Quote

Before the crisis, consumer protection was fragmented across 10 regulators, and because it was everyone’s job, it was nobody’s job. This meant no agency built the expertise or interest in standing up for consumers and, worse, there would be a race to the bottom in enforcement, with financial firms seeking out the most lax regulators. The C.F.P.B. solved these institutional problems by consolidating enforcement in a dedicated agency.

That feature is exactly what the Choice Act targets. The act would gut the C.F.P.B.’s supervisory authority, sending it back to regulators who missed the crisis and recreating the broken pre-crisis regulatory structure. With this authority, the C.F.P.B. has returned about $12 billion from bad bank behavior to 29 million citizens. The Choice Act would repeal the C.F.P.B.’s ability to stop unfair, deceptive and abusive acts and practices — an authority that was essential, for example, in going after Wells Fargo’s creation of fake accounts for its clients.

 

Quote

That feature is exactly what the Choice Act targets. The act would gut the C.F.P.B.’s supervisory authority, sending it back to regulators who missed the crisis and recreating the broken pre-crisis regulatory structure. With this authority, the C.F.P.B. has returned about $12 billion from bad bank behavior to 29 million citizens. The Choice Act would repeal the C.F.P.B.’s ability to stop unfair, deceptive and abusive acts and practices — an authority that was essential, for example, in going after Wells Fargo’s creation of fake accounts for its clients.

Wallison tried to pin the whole crises on the Community Reinvestment Act, which was bull shit.

Republicans we remember what you did last summer.

Also, even if the Community Reinvestment somehow caused a market distortion, I’m not sure how according to Republicans that would cause the mispricing of assets if were assuming a efficient market hypothesis framework here. Republicans got some ‘splainin to do here.

Quote

When Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas and the House Financial Services Committee chairman, introduced the Choice Act, he noted, “Although it was painful and somewhat chaotic,” the Lehman bankruptcy “to some extent worked as it should have worked.”

Once again, there is no good reason, to believe Bankruptcy will work in all case. The plan is simply not credible and lacks time consistency.

If the country is faced with another financial crises, it’s very unlikely any political leader will let a complete meltdown happen. In other words, you’ll get more no-string attached bailouts. The boys down at Wall Street are smart enough to know this.

Quote

It removes the F.D.I.C.’s role of reviewing banks’ living wills — new procedures that make banks and regulators plan for a potential bank failure, presumably because the F.D.I.C. demands that they be stronger. 

Without living wills, it makes the bankruptcy only option more implausible.

Also, even if you believe, that a simple equity requirement is sufficient, Hensarling’s plan of 10% is too low. Anat Admati, for instance argues for an equity requirement of about 30%. The Minnesota Plan has about a 15% requirement (though it has more than a simple equity ratio).

Anyway, moving on:

Me thinks, we’re not about to see a wave of Republican “moderates” re-take control of their party. That would require enough guts to stand up to Rush Limbaugh. And I just don't think they've got in them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/09/republicans-are-predicting-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-tea-party-in-kansas/

Quote

Kansas’s moderate ascendance may portend problems for Republicans in Washington, where many in the party, including President Trump, are pushing to adopt federal tax policies similar to the ones Brownback has installed in Kansas. But while Brownback had hoped what he called Kansas’s “real-live experiment” in conservative economic policy would become a national model, it has instead become a cautionary example.

 

Quote

“This state does not need more money, and the people of Kansas do not need to keep feeding the government monster with year after year of increased taxes,” Kobach told supporters in a speech announcing his candidacy. “Kansas does not have a revenue problem. Kansas has a spending problem.”

I’d say Kansas has a “conservative problem”.

Quote

“I can no longer support him,” Speer said of Brownback.

Say, whaaa…. Disappointed in the “Brownback Boom”?

Quote

“What happens in Kansas breaks so significantly with Republican orthodoxy on taxes,” said Stephen Moore, a former adviser to both Trump and Brownback.

What a flamin’ fraud.

[LongRider]

Here's a real gem from the article posted above:

Quote

Yet Dan Cox, the institute’s research director, said that Brownback’s defeat did not augur more victories for Republicans pursuing more moderate economic policies. He said Republican policymakers and their advisers around the country are likely to view the example of Kansas as a failure of implementation, rather than one of principle, and they will argue that Kansas’s experiment would have succeeded had the legislature reduced spending even more.

in other words, 'they ain't conservative enough' and the 'the cut taxes policy didn't fail, it was failed by those moderate RINO's'                           

[OldGimletEye]

Just now, Nasty LongRider said:

Here's a real gem from the article posted above:

in other words, 'they ain't conservative enough' and the 'the cut taxes policy didn't fail, it was failed by those moderate RINO's'                           

LOL. 

Conservatives. They're hopeless.