U.S. Politics: Alabama Jones and the Template of Doom

[ThinkerX]

14 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Who?  Sorry, honestly don't know to which you're referring.  To my knowledge McCaskill, Manchin, Heitkamp, and Donnelly are all healthy.  Maybe I'm wrong?

Not sure what you mean here either.  Are you talking about Cochran's seat?  He's from Mississippi, not Alabama (my Moore comment was a joke).  Not much of a distinction, I know.

Took a bit of googling, but here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/07/28/senator-mazie-hirono-who-has-stage-4-kidney-cancer-fights-back-tears-during-heartfelt-healthcare-lea/519347001/

Senator Maize Hirono of Hawaii.  Probably a safe Democratic seat???

 

Mississippi...wasn't there some commentary here right after Jones victory that were enough black women to vote, that senate seat might be flappable?

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Senator Maize Hirono of Hawaii.  Probably a safe Democratic seat???

Oh.  Ok.  Yeah, I'd say Hawaii is a pretty safe Dem seat.  Hope she gets better.

5 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Mississippi...wasn't there some commentary here right after Jones victory that were enough black women to vote, that senate seat might be flappable?

I don't know.  But Alabama is going to elect a GOP member in 2020 just as Scott Brown was ousted.  Neither Senate seat is ultimately poachable, they're just indications of the fury to come.

[ThinkerX]

12 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Oh.  Ok.  Yeah, I'd say Hawaii is a pretty safe Dem seat.  Hope she gets better.

I don't know.  But Alabama is going to elect a GOP member in 2020 just as Scott Brown was ousted.  Neither Senate seat is ultimately poachable, they're just indications of the fury to come.

So, you are saying if a large minority turnout starts looking likely in Mississippi, half the polling places (those in minority areas) mysteriously burn to the ground overnight?  (Ruled 'accidental' by the authorities, of course)

[Jace, Extat]

Jace is confused. Why isn't some Republican from a purple state shouting against this bill from the rooftops? They have a buffer in both chambers, doesn't someone wanna raise his (let's be real, it's a his) R cred for 2020?

[TheKitttenGuard]

No Democratic Representative voted for the bill.

Not one Democratic Senator up for re-election from a state Trump won voted for it, not even Munchin.

Not looking to minimize the awfulness but no Democrat voted for a Tax Cut. 

[Jace, Extat]

Is there anything other than (un?)common decency that prohibits a lame duck congress from doing a bunch of really heinous shit before being replaced?

I.E. could R's use reconciliation again in January of 2019 to make it illegal for women to vote or something?

[mormont]

11 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Oh yes, how could I forget. I shouldn't have. I guess my excuse is that I once flipped on Fox News and it did permanent damage to my brain, and now I forget stuff I shouldn't.

Now come on. If you had watched Fox News, ever, the one thing you wouldn't forget is Hilary's emails. 

[Jace, Extat]

1 minute ago, mormont said:

Now come on. If you had watched Fox News, ever, the one thing you wouldn't forget is Hilary's emails. 

That's not true! I forget about Hilrays Mail Server Datas all the times!

[DMC]

3 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

So, you are saying if a large minority turnout starts looking likely in Mississippi, half the polling places (those in minority areas) mysteriously burn to the ground overnight?  (Ruled 'accidental' by the authorities, of course)

No, I'm saying a Democrat winning in Mississippi has a snowball's chance in...well, Mississippi even without some type of Reichstag fire...or Mississippi Burning.

2 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Jace is confused. Why isn't some Republican from a purple state shouting against this bill from the rooftops? They have a buffer in both chambers, doesn't someone wanna raise his (let's be real, it's a his) R cred for 2020?

Well, on the Senate side because no GOP member is in danger of reelection next year.  On the House side I think you have a point, which Fez mentioned earlier.

1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Is there anything other than (un?)common decency that prohibits a lame duck congress from doing a bunch of really heinous shit before being replaced?

I.E. could R's use reconciliation again in January of 2019 to make it illegal for women to vote or something?

There are limitations on what (Byrd rule) the Senate can do via reconciliation, and they can only do it once per fiscal year (which means, yes, they'll have another whack at our balls before January 2019).  As to the first question, no, there are no conceivable limits on the Congress' potential for indecency, lame duck or otherwise.

[Gertrude]

I'm hoping someone here can help me out. All the talk about tax cuts frames it as n% goes to the rich, etc. This means practically nothing to me. If the rich are making 75% of the income, then yes, they would get 75% of the cuts. I am looking for a breakdown of percentage of income that is cut per tax bracket. I saw one somewhere but for the life of me can't find it or word a google search to come up with that info. (even assuming that info isn't already outdated) Pretty sure the wealthy got an actual higher percentage cut than the middle, but would love to be able to pull that specific stat out when discussing this.

[Fez]

Other bit of good news last night, in a state Senate special election in Tennessee, the Democrat lost by 3 in a district Clinton had lost by 46 (!). Yes its a loss, but that's an even bigger swing than the Alabama Senate race. Makes me think Bresden mat have a shot in the US Senate race next year.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Gertrude said:

I'm hoping someone here can help me out. All the talk about tax cuts frames it as n% goes to the rich, etc. This means practically nothing to me. If the rich are making 75% of the income, then yes, they would get 75% of the cuts. I am looking for a breakdown of percentage of income that is cut per tax bracket. I saw one somewhere but for the life of me can't find it or word a google search to come up with that info. (even assuming that info isn't already outdated) Pretty sure the wealthy got an actual higher percentage cut than the middle, but would love to be able to pull that specific stat out when discussing this.

Here you might want to start with this.

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/distributional-analysis-conference-agreement-tax-cuts-and-jobs-act/full

 

[Gertrude]

Perfect, thank you.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Gertrude said:

Perfect, thank you.

Just a few things.

As somebody that has argued with conservative clowns, I pretty attuned to their conservative clownball tactics. So. I'll just say that if you bring these figures up, random conservative person is likely to say "that's a liberal institute" and then dismiss everything.

But, a couple of things:

1. The TPC is sponsored by the Brookings Institute. While it might be true that is a center left organization, but people like William Gale and Ben Bernake are hardly wild eyed lefties. It's hardly an extremist left wing organization.

2. Given the fact that equity ownership is concentrated among the wealthy, it stands to reason that most of the benefits would go to the wealthy. Also, the pass through provisions are more likely to be exploited by the wealthy or well off.

3. During this whole debate, conservatives have certainly ended up with egg all over their face. This nonsense goes beyond the Treasury department's sorry ass one page "analysis" but extends to Republican leaning academics that have tried to defend this nonsense with some pretty sorry ass analysis. People like Robert Barro and John Taylor are fairly well known Republican leaning academics, who teach at prestigious universities, that made a sorry ass attempt to defend this bill. Go read the whole Summers & Furman response to their nonsense, and see how Barro and Co. said, "oh wait, but we never said how long the adjustment process would take!" That is not a small detail. It implicates how much the bill will cost and welfare analsysis. And when called on their bullshit, Taylor & Co. made a pretty big retreat. The point here is that their is no reason to trust any sort of "conservative analysis" of this bill, particularly when their best and brightest have been trying to sell horseshit. As Krugman might say, "reality has a center left bias."

4. So basically, if some conservative sort of person tries to do the old, "uh, well that's just a liberal biased organization", ask them where one might find a credible conservative estimate of these numbers. They won't be able to give an answer, because there isn't any.

[LongRider]

I heard a GOP crongess critter from Florida on NPR make the usual crazy claims about the tax bill creating more growth jobs etc. Which he said would be needed because then they could tackle SS and Medicare 'entitlements which are destroying the country.'. That's right, destroying.

What a stupid cruel man. 

[Maithanet]

I thought this Politico article was interesting, even though I disagree with the premise. 

Quote

[Doug Jones] was boring. He was safe. He was Mr. Generic Democrat. And it worked...

Various progressive groups that have pressed the Democratic Party to shift leftward, such as MoveOn, Indivisible and the Working Families Party, have taken some credit for pouring resources into Alabama and boosting base turnout (just as they did after the gubernatorial victory of Virginia’s low-key Ralph Northam). But that only proves that activists on the left are perfectly willing and able to get behind a Generic Democrat, and tacitly ally with moderates, to defeat a distasteful Republican. No boldness necessary.

Can the same strategy work in 2020? Polls already show that a generic Democrat would beat Trump handily. Might as well give the people what they want.

 

The article argues that rather than deciding between a firebrand candidate like Booker or Gillibrand, an establishment candidate like Biden or a very lefty candidate like Sanders, they should instead embrace a decent, milquetoast candidate.  They offer up Tim Kaine, Doug Jones and Amy Klobuchar as examples.  The advantage of this strategy is that Trump is so bad, liberals are already fired up.  Democrats should instead focus on someone who is difficult to attack, and who won't turn off any portions of the electorate.

I disagree with this quite wholeheartedly.  While I think Klobuchar might be a good candidate, I think that what Democrats need most is a candidate who inspires them to believe that America can do better.  I'm looking for someone with general Democratic policies (I can be pretty flexible here), but who can help bring the party together and weather the shitstorm that the 2020 election will undoubtedly be.  IMO a bland inoffensive democrat will just get swallowed up in Trump theater, and it'll be All Trump, All the Time for the entire election cycle. 

So my question to you boarders is, what do you think are the qualities that you're looking for in the 2020 Democratic nominee?  Who best embodies those traits? 

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I heard a GOP crongess critter from Florida on NPR make the usual crazy claims about the tax bill creating more growth jobs etc. Which he said would be needed because then they could tackle SS and Medicare 'entitlements which are destroying the country.'. That's right, destroying.

What a stupid cruel man. 

Well if we get all the growth, that Republicans are claiming, it would appear many of Medicare and Social Security funding issues are solved. So what's the problem?

Anyway, if any sorry ass conservative makes these twin claims, they should be asked whether they'd support the CBO re running the numbers assuming a GDP growth rate of 3.0%. Using that assumption, many of the longer term fiscal issues would go away. Conservatives can't have it both ways, though they are trying too.

And again, Republicans always do this and it drives me crazy. They always say, "Social Security and Medicare" as if both programs face the same set of long term fiscal issues. The fact is that is not the case. Social Security is relatively an easy fix. It's Medicare that is the bigger problem, largely though because of the US's sorry ass overpriced and ridiculous healthcare system.

Also, if you go back to the 1930s, you'll find conservatives running around claiming how Social Security would destroy the economy. Yet, after world war 2, that didn't happen. Conservatives and Republicans just pulling the same old sorry ass tactics they've always done.

[mormont]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-42424666

Quote

 

The US says it "will be taking names" during a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution criticising its recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Permanent representative Nikki Haley warned member states that President Donald Trump had asked her to report on "who voted against us" on Thursday.

 

The fuck?

Is this supposed to intimidate people? Is this how the US conducts international diplomacy these days? 

Quote

 

The Palestinian permanent observer at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said he hoped there would be "overwhelming support" for the resolution.

But on Tuesday, Ms Haley warned in a letter to dozens of member states that encouraged them to "know that the president and the US take this vote personally".

 

Of course he will. He takes everything personally. That's because he's a twit. 

[Fragile Bird]

I just don't understand why you guys would reduce the tax credit for charitable donations. Especially if the plan is to reduce entitlements.

I thought the bleating point for the GOP was that Americans look after Americans?

Also, is the tax deduction for political donations treated the same way? Please don't tell me the credit for a political donation is greater.

[James Arryn]

If you’re one of the one posters who both continuously support Trump and complain about the 1%, you remind me of an American version of that late British Empire political phenomenon called the ‘Nabobs’. For those new to the term, it was coined with regards to either recently immigrated or children of recently immigrated folk from elsewhere in the empire who came to Britain complete with far more right-wing pro-British/Empire enthusiasm than held by most folk from Britain itself, and was usually accompanied by a sense of superior exposure to alternatives, like ‘I’ve seen what it’s like over there, you don’t know how great Great Britain is until you do,’ kinda talk.

Made most interesting because these folk emerged at almost the exact same time as anti-colonial leaders/thinkers etc. who would eventually change things were experiencing the frustrations with the imperial experience that would form their foundation. Meaning people from the same time, place and experience were drawing completely opposing lessons from the exact same classrooms. An early version of thought bubbles, maybe. But anyways, just as with religion and other ethos, Americanism and/or Imperialism is often most staunchly proclaimed by the more recently ‘converted’.