U.S. Politics: Who's Cohen Down?

[Martell Spy]

American Voters Are Turning to Direct Democracy

In many states, the most important policy changes this year won’t come from legislation, but from ballot initiatives.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/04/citizen-ballot-initiatives-2018-elections/558098

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But faced with these new problems, many voters are turning to old solutions. Through citizen-led ballot measures, voters in many states can use the power of direct democracy to bypass state legislatures and create new laws. These measures have been instrumental in recent years in pushing forward major legislation on health care, election reform, drugs, and other policy areas that have hit an impasse in statehouses. In 2018, these initiatives—and efforts by legislatures to stop or negotiate them—will be critical factors in determining who really controls government, and just exactly how it works.

 

[DMC]

Wasserman has an interesting analysis of the new FEC fundraising report, causing seven ratings changes (all in the Dems' direction) at CPR:

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The newest FEC filings spell danger for Republicans. In the most recent fundraising period, Democrats outraised Republicans in at least 60 GOP-held seats, more than twice the 23 seats Democrats need for a majority. Meanwhile, the reverse is true in just five Democratic-held seats. That's going to force the NRCC and Congressional Leadership Fund to bail out a lot of cash-strapped GOP candidates come the fall.

 

[Maithanet]

17 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Wasserman has an interesting analysis of the new FEC fundraising report, causing seven ratings changes (all in the Dems' direction) at CPR:

If you estimate who will win the house using Cook's current ratings with the following formula: 

Solid = 100% win

Likely = 90% win

Lean = 75% win

Toss up = 50% win

Then based on the current rankings, Democrats win 217.6 seats and Republicans win 217.4.  So you might say that victory is in the bag  

[Bonnot OG]

3 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

If we're still generalizing the "greatest generation" makes the boomers look good by comparison.

The greatest generation was trash as well. They just had some amazing PR thanks to WWII.

[Fragile Bird]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

However, one can make a nuanced generalization in which they say, as a whole, the Baby Boomers were a shortsighted, selfish and greedy generation while also recognizing that of course not every Baby Boomer is a bad person and that there were many great Baby Boomers. But at this point it’s inarguable, history will not remember them kindly. It’s also unfortunate for them to succeed  the Greatest Generation. As a history teacher, I’m sure you’re well aware that we retrospectively evaluate leaders and groups based on who preceded and succeeded them.

Lol, I hate to tell you this, but when you will be your father's age the generations behind you will loathe and despise you too, just like every generation has loathed and despised the generation ahead of them as ruining everything. And the oldest generation has looked down at the young and found them weak, spoiled and foolish. I don't think I need to start rolling out quotations from 2,000 years ago to support my statement.

The Baby Boomers, in case you didn't know, are the generation who said they'd make the world a better place, different from the world ravaged by war by their parents. In case you forgot, Boomers banned lead in gasoline, closed the hole in the ozone layer by banning CFCs. Leaded gasoline and CFCs were both created by the same chemist in the 1920s, quite a record. Stopped the wide-spread use of PCBs, designed more fuel efficient cars, created recycling systems, expanded the use of solar panels. Invented the systems to create easily accessible computers and other technology. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, both boomers. I could list a million things boomers have done to make a better world. I could also list a million things they did to make a worse world too. And  the biggest thing they are hated for are financial things that no individual boomer can be blamed for, housing prices. 

Sword of Doom and Darth Richard II are in for a big surprise as they age and become hated in turn.  

[Fragile Bird]

I just saw a story on my Facebook page that I hadn't noticed being covered here (I could have missed it), but the Republicans plus 7 Democrats voted to take over the 2 trillion plus surplus in Social Security, the money that's there to pay future SS pensions, by passing a law that says government budgets must be balanced and surpluses go back to the government. Trillion dollar deficits solved!

I don't know how correct that story is. Can someone who knows more about this comment? Fez?

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just saw a story on my Facebook page that I hadn't noticed being covered here (I could have missed it), but the Republicans plus 7 Democrats voted to take over the 2 trillion plus surplus in Social Security, the money that's there to pay future SS pensions, by passing a law that says government budgets must be balanced and surpluses go back to the government. Trillion dollar deficits solved!

This was part of the (obviously symbolic and failed) balanced budget amendment vote last week.  Pretty dumb symbolic vote, as SS advocates have already produced a list of shame:

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When Social Security runs a surplus, Social Security holds the funds in trust. Social Security currently has a $2.9 trillion accumulated surplus. In the guise of a so-called balanced budget amendment, 233 members of the House of Representatives just voted to pretend that the accumulated surplus does not exist.

Ninety-seven percent of Republicans just voted to steal those past contributions. They voted, in effect, to not pay back hardworking Americans when those funds will be needed to pay their earned benefits. (Ninety-six percent of Democrats voted to honor their commitment to the American people.)

 

[Bonnot OG]

38 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Lol, I hate to tell you this, but when you will be your father's age the generations behind you will loathe and despise you too, just like every generation has loathed and despised the generation ahead of them as ruining everything. And the oldest generation has looked down at the young and found them weak, spoiled and foolish. I don't think I need to start rolling out quotations from 2,000 years ago to support my statement.

The Baby Boomers, in case you didn't know, are the generation who said they'd make the world a better place, different from the world ravaged by war by their parents. In case you forgot, Boomers banned lead in gasoline, closed the hole in the ozone layer by banning CFCs. Leaded gasoline and CFCs were both created by the same chemist in the 1920s, quite a record. Stopped the wide-spread use of PCBs, designed more fuel efficient cars, created recycling systems, expanded the use of solar panels. Invented the systems to create easily accessible computers and other technology. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, both boomers. I could list a million things boomers have done to make a better world. I could also list a million things they did to make a worse world too. And  the biggest thing they are hated for are financial things that no individual boomer can be blamed for, housing prices. 

Sword of Doom and Darth Richard II are in for a big surprise as they age and become hated in turn.  

Same Steve Jobs that had no issue with sweatshops mass producing his products?

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

43 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just saw a story on my Facebook page that I hadn't noticed being covered here (I could have missed it), but the Republicans plus 7 Democrats voted to take over the 2 trillion plus surplus in Social Security, the money that's there to pay future SS pensions, by passing a law that says government budgets must be balanced and surpluses go back to the government. Trillion dollar deficits solved!

I don't know how correct that story is. Can someone who knows more about this comment? Fez?

It's funny how little press this actually received. I honestly think we should all be raising holy hell over this.  This is our retirement plan, that we pay into, held in trust for when we get old. I have contributed 33 of the past 35 years, and it's now a sizable amount (plus what my employers have contributed in my name) and that's before interest.

If Congress wants the government out of the SS business, they can return to us everything paid into it in our names.

If they want to STEAL our money, so they can have a huge tax break, I say we burn the place down.

[Week]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Lol, I hate to tell you this, but when you will be your father's age the generations behind you will loathe and despise you too, just like every generation has loathed and despised the generation ahead of them as ruining everything. And the oldest generation has looked down at the young and found them weak, spoiled and foolish. I don't think I need to start rolling out quotations from 2,000 years ago to support my statement.

http://college.usatoday.com/2016/11/09/how-we-voted-by-age-education-race-and-sexual-orientation/

When more than half of my generation votes for someone like Trump (racist, misogynist, sexual predator, and a charlatan) -- I'll vilify them myself.

More than half of my race and gender voted for Trump and I do actively vilify them. It's fucking abhorrent and it is deserved. Do I prejudge all white people and/or men? No. Do I prejudge all Boomers? No. However, by an large, the average boomer or the average white person and/or man in American has some pretty noxious beliefs and any fragility around expressing that obvious truth is a defense of the complicity with the worst of us.

[maarsen]

5 hours ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

The generation you are praising is one that voted more heavily for Donald Trump and one many other posters are waiting to die.

The Greatest Generation gave us the M.I.C , Nuclear build up, and Vietnam. The shortsighted, selfish, and greedy policy is called Reaganomics.

 

[James Arryn]

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

Boomers across the country, in churches and outside churches, provide out of their own funds and time, endless service and assistance to refugees.  Boomers are care takers of both their elderly Greatest Generation parents, and their own children and their grandchildren, with time, space and their own funds.  They are the ones who provide produce to community food banks.  They do voter registration.  They do endless things all day long and hold down full time jobs -- when they can get work -- because so often they are supporting the generations before them and those that come after them.  Boomers are no more and no less selfish, greedy and mean than any other generation.

Back in the day they were looked at with the same expressions of hope and awe that are now directed to the Parkland School adolescents.  So all you all in generations that came post the Boomers, think about how YOUR generation will appear to those after yours, when you are the same age then as Boomers are now, and you have worked, supported and gone sleepless as much as so many of them have.

To hold them responsible for all the evils in the world (recall Zucherberg, etc. are NOT boomers but your own generation(s)) any more than anyone else is ignorant and silly.

 

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

 

 

I think many of the wrongs attributed to Boomers were more a result of volume than quality...ie, when they were kids we had the ‘cult of the child’ era, when they became adults kids were kicked to the side (almost literally) and we moved on to the ‘cult of the adult’ era, etc. And much of that largely happens however they behave, simply because societies are going to cater to that large of a demographic. 

That said, there are specific ways in which you can read pretty clear selfishness into the whole when you explore it in person to person generalitional treatment. Maybe it’s a result of being catered to so much, of having their values become THE values in ways no generation before or arguably since witnessed. But just in terms of things like time devoted to parenting, material support for child education, and other actual person-to-person choices made by individuals, the B.B. generally got the most and gave back the least. When you can say that as a general rule the Greatest Generation put far more time into the Baby Boomers than the Baby Boomers put into...is it X?...amyways, their children, I think we can safely call that trend selfishness.

Now, it isn’t in isolation. A lot of it is because of the explosion of divorce rates, the huge surge in working women, and therefore the massive decrease in time available for children, but it’s worth noting that progress isn’t isolated either, and things like the huge upsurge in divorce rates can be viewed as the result of, right or wrong, a generation much more aware of their own personal wants/needs than of those that came before them, and concurrently less concerned for the immediate effect on their children. Everything is double edged, and the B.B. arguably made decisions with the big picture in mind, ie even if my kids get less of me, they will grow up with greater freedom because of what i’m doing. And there is something to that.

But...there are troubling illustrations that it was often more banal and just ‘I got/want mine’. Funding for child related programs was statistically the most slashed at exactly the same time that children were being left on their own more. The educational tack in response to the HIV virus was a very low-cost (time and resource wise) top-down Sex Will Kill You! directive which directly conflicted with the BB’s own view on their own sexuality/identity when they were coming of age. The drug argument was equally streamlined for cost-effectiveness, and Just Say No often came accompanied with no broader examination or at best an economic ‘we dud it, thus know better’ captioned wisdom.

BB children were burdeneded with WAAAAY more educational debt than they themselves endured because BB’ers simultaneously uncut/underfunded education while as hirers demanding degrees at a much higher degree than had been asked of them. And while actually putting their kids on the horns of this dilemma they themselves created/never faced, pretty much all polling from the time shows that BBers rationalized all of this by labelling their children as lazy, unmotivated slackers. This generational negative stereotype ironically precedes the modern view of B.B.ers as selfish by several decades. And it’s also the generation that, w/e it’s roots, when sitting in the driver’s seat politically/financially went to the Church of Reagan/Thatcher Greed is Good/Tough Love. (I know they weren’t alone, but their shift was the significant one).

There’s a lot that smacks of ego-centricity and general lack of care for what followed. It might simply be that BBers were the ‘spoiled child’ generation. Their parents saw war and Holocaust and nuclear bombs and so both made and prioritized children to a previously unknown degree. Those children grew in a time of plenty, and were largely unburdened with debt, and so had/took the time to explore individualism and their own wants/rights/freedoms in ways that had never been done before, and ‘opened up’ society. But, in so doing they went to the opposite extreme with their children, and it could be argued that they took for granted that the advantages they had enjoyed would be equally enjoyed by their children without realizing that their differing priorities from their parents would lead to much different situations for their children. They could cut educational spending because, well, it hadn’t really been a problem for them. Etc. It’s not malicious, it’s just...spoiled. 

And so when faced with their children’s ‘pessimism’ re: their relative prospects...ie, the first generation in a long time who could expect to be less relatively affluent than the one before it...the BB’ers threw up their hands and said ‘slackers’, which from what I can tell is hippies without hope. With cause. 

[Martell Spy]

Officials Confirm That Trump Bombed Syria to Validate His Tweets

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/the-u-s-bombed-syria-last-week-to-validate-trumps-tweets.html

 

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Last week, the United States launched an act of war against a sovereign government because failing to do so would have cast doubt on the credibility of the statements that Donald Trump makes while livetweeting Fox & Friends.

That may sound like hyperbolic snark, or the premise of an Andy Borowitz column, but it is a plain description of the rationale behind last Friday’s missile strikes in Syria, according to multiple military and administration officials.

 

 

[Yukle]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

However, one can make a nuanced generalization in which they say, as a whole, the Baby Boomers were a shortsighted, selfish and greedy generation while also recognizing that of course not every Baby Boomer is a bad person and that there were many great Baby Boomers. But at this point it’s inarguable, history will not remember them kindly. It’s also unfortunate for them to succeed  the Greatest Generation. As a history teacher, I’m sure you’re well aware that we retrospectively evaluate leaders and groups based on who preceded and succeeded them.

Since generations are the topic du jour, what do they call the generations down under in the land overrun by drop bears?

The terms in Australia seem to be the same.

Generalisations aren't helpful.

For instance, the generation that eradicated smallpox doesn't deserve to be criticised by the generation who believes vaccines cause autism.  

Cultural trends always look different when you can look back on them. The say that a generation is bad because they plundered the environment is fair criticism - except can you actually think of a period of human history since the agricultural revolution where humanity has not pillaged and ruined its planet? This isn't unique to any people, of any age.

Similarly, there has never been a period of consistent stability in human history that has affected the whole world.

Yes, the Viet Nam war and Korean war were both horrendous. Look back 100 years earlier, though, and the world was being ripped apart by colonial wars between great powers in Asia and Africa. Go back another hundred years and the great powers were massacring indigenous people in the New World.

There really isn't much difference between any time period as to atrocities that humans have committed. Every generation tends to look to an earlier time period as an ideal that has now been lost.

It's ridiculous to assume that people are their leaders, too. To go with the example of Trump, it's not even true that a majority of Baby Boomers voted for him. It's the USA, and voting is not protected by any stretch. It's accurate to say that a majority of Baby Boomers whose local governments sought to make it easy for them to vote, while barring non-whites from easily voting, not providing disability support, not providing English-as-a-second-language assistance and only making voting easy for those whose jobs can be left during the week without incurring a pay penalty that affects living hand-to-mouth. So, sure, of those who voted, they supported Trump. But the USA has a critical and catastrophic moral failure every election to make voting fair and universal.

That's not a generational problem, that's a problem with the oligarchy that the USA uses to run its society.

One which, it is important to note, was established by a generation who kept slaves, didn't recognise women as citizens or children as human. Or indigenous people as human.

Really, other than being born at the same time, Baby Boomers have nothing in common, and are as varied - from the outstanding best to the villainous worst - as if you took a random sample from any other point in time.

[Martell Spy]

The Urban Housing Crisis Is a Test for Progressive Politics

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/the-urban-housing-crisis-is-a-test-for-progressive-politics.html

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The state’s legislature killed a bill to alleviate the housing crisis. The bill, S.B. 827, would have forced cities to allow denser construction of housing within walking distance of mass transit. The reform would have brought multiple benefits: the social benefit of reducing housing costs by increasing supply; the economic benefit of opening the major bottleneck to job creation (and with it, more tax revenue); and the environmental benefit, allowing more people to live in energy-efficient apartments that don’t require driving everywhere.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

5 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/the-u-s-bombed-syria-last-week-to-validate-trumps-tweets.html

From the link:

Quote

As it happened, Trump’s strikes proved sufficiently innocuous for “liberal” foreign policy wonks to feel comfortable endorsing them — even as they acknowledged the campaign’s illegality and strategic incoherence.

And yet, the fact that such Establishment figures blessed Trump’s decision to wage an illegal war in defense of his tweets only makes the development more unnerving.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Lol, I hate to tell you this, but when you will be your father's age the generations behind you will loathe and despise you too, just like every generation has loathed and despised the generation ahead of them as ruining everything. And the oldest generation has looked down at the young and found them weak, spoiled and foolish. I don't think I need to start rolling out quotations from 2,000 years ago to support my statement.

LIES! FAKE NEWS! Our generation is going to save the world. We're going to punch climate change in the face. We're going to save the whales AND the snails! Free Tibet!! Support our teachers!!! 

Jokes aside, it's funny that you mentioned 2,000 years. I remember reading in college a quote from an Egyptian Pharaoh from much further back than that lamenting the next generation by claiming they'd be the end of the kingdom (I think it came from the Old Kingdom era, which it means it could be over 4,000 years old). There's nothing knew about it.

Quote

The Baby Boomers, in case you didn't know, are the generation who said they'd make the world a better place, different from the world ravaged by war by their parents. In case you forgot, Boomers banned lead in gasoline, closed the hole in the ozone layer by banning CFCs. Leaded gasoline and CFCs were both created by the same chemist in the 1920s, quite a record. Stopped the wide-spread use of PCBs, designed more fuel efficient cars, created recycling systems, expanded the use of solar panels. Invented the systems to create easily accessible computers and other technology. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, both boomers. I could list a million things boomers have done to make a better world. I could also list a million things they did to make a worse world too. And  the biggest thing they are hated for are financial things that no individual boomer can be blamed for, housing prices. 

Obviously you can find pros and cons, but the latter is more true. My generation is totally screwed right now. The Boomers, unlike previous generations, left the country worse off which led to Gen Xers doing the same, and I'm certain my generation will leave our kids worse off. Bleak times, FB.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/14/economics-viewpoint-baby-boomers-generation-x-generation-rent-gig-economy

 

[Jace, Extat]

24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

LIES! FAKE NEWS! Our generation is going to save the world. We're going to punch climate change in the face. We're going to save the whales AND the snails! Free Tibet!! Support our teachers!!! 

Jokes aside, it's funny that you mentioned 2,000 years. I remember reading in college a quote from an Egyptian Pharaoh from much further back than that lamenting the next generation by claiming they'd be the end of the kingdom (I think it came from the Old Kingdom era, which it means it could be over 4,000 years old). There's nothing knew about it.

Obviously you can find pros and cons, but the latter is more true. My generation is totally screwed right now. The Boomers, unlike previous generations, left the country worse off which led to Gen Xers doing the same, and I'm certain my generation will leave our kids worse off. Bleak times, FB.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/14/economics-viewpoint-baby-boomers-generation-x-generation-rent-gig-economy

 

Don't worry, if we run outta money we can just print more!

[Jace, Extat]

The slack jawed fool just managed to string together five basic sentences to extend his drowning for another news cycle.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Not the story you want, but the one you need in 2018:

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The Wu-Tang Clan has a new homey — and his name is James Comey.

The ousted FBI director met the straight outta Staten Island rappers backstage at CBS' “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday, where they joked about recovering some long-lost treasure — their “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” album.

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/music/wu-tang-jokingly-recruits-their-new-homey-comey-recover-mystery-n867026

7 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Don't worry, if we run outta money we can just print more!

Brilliant, even though I think most of the money in the West is digital these days. Find your inner Lex, Jace!