u.s. politics: faygo to the polls

[GAROVORKIN]

2 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yes, the reality based community knows all about adverse selection problems. We’ve been trying to tell conservatives about it for years.

Making the mandate stronger could help stabilize things. But, conservatives didn’t want to go for that, instead they opted to sell fantasies like “buying insurance across state lines”.

The irony of ACA is we have Mitt Romney a Republican to thank for it . Mass health was the template for ACA. I think that at one point , the whole idea  of mandate health might have been a Republican notion

[OldGimletEye]

On 8/20/2017 at 5:27 PM, GAROVORKIN said:

The irony of ACA is we have Mitt Romney a Republican to thank for it . Mass health was the template for ACA. I think that at one point , the whole idea  of mandate health might have been a Republican notion

Yes and I believe cap and trade went down like that too.

Every time liberals say yes to the conservative solution, then conservatives say “no”.

It’s kind of like liberals are like Charlie Brown and conservatives are like Lucy. Every time liberals agree to something and get ready to kick the football conservatives yank it away.

About a year ago conservative economist Greg Mankiw, Martin Feldstein, along with James Baker, Hank Paulson and others, laid out a plan to deal with climate change, basically by imposing a tax on carbon. Now if liberals were to agree to this plan, perhaps because they might think that’s the only thing they might realistically get, I’m pretty sure conservatives would say “nope”.

[GAROVORKIN]

12 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yes and I believe cap and trade went down like that too.

Every time liberals say yes to the conservative solution, then conservatives say “no”.

It’s kind of like liberals are like Charlie Brown and conservatives are like Lucy. Every time liberals agree to something and get ready to kick the football conservatives yank it away.

About a year ago conservative economist Greg Mankiw, Martin Feldstein, along with James Baker, Hank Paulson and others, laid out a plan to deal with climate change, basically by imposing a tax on carbon. Now if liberals were to agree to this plan, perhaps because they might think that’s the only thing they might realistically get, I’m pretty sure conservatives would say “nope”.

I seem to recall that at one time we had bipartisanship in our government where both parties kind of sort of put the citizenry first. Perhaps im misremembering ? It seems that now  nobody wants to bend or compromise on much of anything.

[Wethers]

6 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

I seem to recall that at one time we had bipartisanship in our government where both parties kind of sort of put the citizenry first. Perhaps im misremembering ? It seems that now  nobody wants to bend or compromise on much of anything.

Didn't OGE state that the Democrats *did* compromise, by essentially taking on Romney's plan for health care and applying it nationally (oversimplifying) when what many (not all) on the left wanted was single payer?  And Republicans opposed it violently nonetheless.  How can you summarize that as "nobody wants to bend or compromise"?

[TrueMetis]

3 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

No, it's still apples and oranges. It's 1940 to 2017. It's an aggressive, militarized, foreign power that had occupied a large number of our allies to a fringe group of Neo-nazi dipshits who are cosplaying out a dead fantasy.

 

Sure we aren't at 1940's Germany yet. It's more like 1933 Germany.

[GAROVORKIN]

10 minutes ago, Wethers said:

Didn't OGE state that the Democrats *did* compromise, by essentially taking on Romney's plan for health care and applying it nationally (oversimplifying) when what many (not all) on the left wanted was single payer?  And Republicans opposed it violently nonetheless.  How can you summarize that as "nobody wants to bend or compromise"?

 

I was not aware of that. 

[OldGimletEye]

On 8/20/2017 at 5:53 PM, GAROVORKIN said:

I seem to recall that at one time we had bipartisanship in our government where both parties kind of sort of put the citizenry first. Perhaps im misremembering ? It seems that now  nobody wants to bend or compromise on much of anything.

After the disastrous presidency of Dubya and the onset of the financial crises one would have hoped conservatives would have revised some of their beliefs.

But, nope, they decided to just get crazier. And their decision to get crazier, in my opinion, is a large reason we find ourselves dealing with this alt-right nonsense.

Conservatives simply lost any interest in any sort of technocratic solutions facing the country, preferring instead to cling their free market fundamentalist ideology and still hawking tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

And we saw this play out over and over again, during the last ten years, as a result of the financial crises. The policy response was piss poor and it hurt many Americans and many of them will never recover. You had people like that dumb ass John Bonehead talking about private investment being crowded out, while Treasury yeilds were cratering. You had people like that other dumb ass Newt Gingrich saying that if Obama just did it like Reagan did it, all would be well, except Gringrich didn’t know or didn’t care that the Federal Funds rate was very different back in the 1980s as opposed to 2012. Conservatives sold “expansionary austerity” and it was bullshit. And then around 2011 they said the government could default on it’s debt and it wouldn’t cause any problems, even though there is very strong case that we were suffering from a safe asset shortage. And don’t even get me started about the fuckin gold standard.

And then of course, conservatives were talking nonsense about healthcare. They had no plan.

And they talked nonsense about financial regulation.

They hawked a ton of conspiracy theories.

They completely ignored and even mocked legitimate issues about police brutality and minorities.

And now here we are, with a bunch of alt right goobers and Nazis. I can only think we are at this point because conservatism decided to go crazy and would not stop after being warned, even by some in their own ranks, to stop.
 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

46 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 

Tort reform  and limiting the damages paid alone  won't significantly reduce medical costs.

There are many changes that need to be made, that was an example. Anyway there are lots of countries with good, accessible healthcare for way lower costs than yours, so I don't see why you couldn't just do what they do. 

It could save your country an incredible amount of money every year. You could triple the size of your military, or let NASA colonize the Solar System, or essentially eliminate taxes on the top 1% entirely. That's the scale we are talking about. So much more fun stuff than just feeding that money to your healthcare monster. 

[Red Tiger]

1 hour ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 

I was not aware of that. 

Read this

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

[GAROVORKIN]

9 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

Read this

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

Makes for very sobering reading.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 hours ago, larrytheimp said:

Dude, everyone else already is taking advantage of violence as a tool.  If you want to be the guy that's telling your oppressed allies "keep suffering a little longer, remain holier than thou, take the high road, etc" so be it.  I don't think anyone is calling for the execution of white supremacists or anyone bass on political ideology.  But there are a lot of us saying 'fuck you' to the notion that these people need to be defended.  There are a lot of us wondering why this is the hill you're choosing to die on.

 

And yes, I believe that anyone that voted to repeal the ACA is a violent person and I can see no reason to think otherwise.  They have literally threatened friends and family of mine with pain, suffering, and likely an earlier death than need be.  And then when this same administration calling for this coddles these fucking white supremacists that would love to see my family dead or gone I have absolutely zero fucks given for anyone trying to defend them or call for moderation or anyone ringing the 'both sides' bell.  One of these sides has already conducted genocide. Go fuck yourself.

Go back to the U.S. Politics thread of August 11th (this was the night of the neo-nazi tiki torch parade) and read Sword of Doom's posts. This is exactly what he called for. If I could quote a dead thread, I would, but it's closed. That's what I'm railing against. I'm not shocked to see someone express this idea, what bothers me most is that other "liberal" posters here agreed with him. 

 

/Thanks for the suggestion, I think I will. 

[SpaceChampion]

This wins the whole damn war:

Note: twitter user Reetae merely did the voice over taking the text of a series of tweets by Adam Rawnsley (who also made the original video), who followed up Michael Stahlke's first tweet in the thread.

[Red Tiger]

2 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Makes for very sobering reading.

Indeed.

[LongRider]

4 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

This wins the whole damn war:

Note: twitter user Reetae merely did the voice over taking the text of a series of tweets by Adam Rawnsley (who also made the original video), who followed up Michael Stahlke's first tweet in the thread.

I've seen this pix floating around today and the adding of the voice over is pure genius.  Thanks for sharing.  

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

10 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

This wins the whole damn war:

Note: twitter user Reetae merely did the voice over taking the text of a series of tweets by Adam Rawnsley (who also made the original video), who followed up Michael Stahlke's first tweet in the thread.

That is classic. Pitch perfect.

[SpaceChampion]

Here's the original (I think) if you want to follow the whole thread:

 

[SpaceChampion]

Another useful twitter thread if anyone still believes BLM is violent:

 

[Inigima]

I've wondered since the election if I would need to flee the country for my own safety because of neo-Nazis and their ilk. This is not theoretical for me or for millions of other people. I think a lot of you still regard Nazis as an abstract thing, a concept of evil to be reckoned with rhetorically. They are not. They are a real physical force, they are alarmingly powerful all the way up to the most powerful office in the country and maybe the world, and they want me dead.

I'm glad people are out there punching Nazis. The instant they think they can, they will do a lot worse than that to people like me. And people like you will let them. So spare me your platitudes.

[GAROVORKIN]

16 minutes ago, Inigima said:

I've wondered since the election if I would need to flee the country for my own safety because of neo-Nazis and their ilk. This is not theoretical for me or for millions of other people. I think a lot of you still regard Nazis as an abstract thing, a concept of evil to be reckoned with rhetorically. They are not. They are a real physical force, they are alarmingly powerful all the way up to the most powerful office in the country and maybe the world, and they want me dead.

I'm glad people are out there punching Nazis. The instant they think they can, they will do a lot worse than that to people like me. And people like you will let them. So spare me your platitudes.

 

They are condemned by their malevolent politics to forever be a fringe group. They can never come to power here in the states because there are  way too many people who hate and oppose them and know them for what they truly are. 

[Inigima]

I don't know if you've noticed but there's a Nazi apologist in the Oval Office. He doesn't even have to do it himself, he just has to turn a blind eye to it. They now know he is doing just that.