US Politics: Everyone's Manipulating Everyone

[Fez]

11 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

@Fez, where are you looking for your info on the Virginia Governor's race/primaries?  I've seen but one article this far.  I honestly haven't figured out what newspapers are worth a damn in Virginia as of yet either.

When the Washington Post remembers that politics can happen south of the Potomac, their coverage is usually pretty good. The best in-state paper for politics is the Richmond Times-Dispatch though.

1 minute ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

If I had to guess, Virginia will go R this time.  But you never know.  

I think either Democrat is the slight favorite, with Northam maybe a little better than that. Virginia is a very blue-ish shade of purple these days, with Democrats currently holding all 5 statewide elected offices. Republicans haven't won a state-wide race in Virginia since their sweep in 2009; Democrats won them in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016.

There's also that streak that from 1977 until 2013, when McAullife broke it, that whichever party held the White House always lost the Virginia governor's race. Which, because of how much Virginia is impacted by the Federal government, suggests that the state is highly susceptible to the backlash that every modern President faces. Or maybe its a coincidence that means nothing.

[the Greenleif Stark]

17 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

LOL.  NJEA made me hate teachers, seriously, and both my parents are teachers.  NJ is the absolute worst, most corrupt, poorly managed state I have ever lived in, by a wide margin.  

That's a fact

 

I have a few family members that are NJ teachers.  My mom votes Republican across the board in all elections, voted for Trump, except in NJ Gubernatorial elections, which she votes for whom ever the NJEA tells her too, which is always Democrat.  Good thing Christie is such a great governor, he only increased our gas tax to "fund the road repairs" and is spending 300 million on renovations to the capital building, when the original bid was for like 30 million.  You literally can't make up the BS and corruption in NJ, its incredible, talk about no hope, I'm seriously considering hopping the river over to PA

[Cas Stark]

2 minutes ago, the Greenleif Stark said:

That's a fact

 

I have a few family members that are NJ teachers.  My mom votes Republican across the board in all elections, voted for Trump, except in NJ Gubernatorial elections, which she votes for whom ever the NJEA tells her too, which is always Democrat.  Good thing Christie is such a great governor, he only increased our gas tax to "fund the road repairs" and is spending 300 million on renovations to the capital building, when the original bid was for like 30 million.  You literally can't make up the BS and corruption in NJ, its incredible, talk about no hope, I'm seriously considering hopping the river over to PA

HaHa.  PA is like the wild west, they have no regulations, no one recycles, but it's cheap.  Don't even get me started on the gas tax and the fact that the roads are constantly under repair and yet, never improve because there is no quality control on anything.  They fix something and a year later it's full of cracks.  I could go on and on.  No one even understand the regulations, not even the government officials, try finding out what the rules are on doing any construction to an existing home, impossible, random.  I could rant about this state for days.

Massachusetts is a well run high reg. state, I would highly recommend it, if you can afford the taxes.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

29 minutes ago, Fez said:

When the Washington Post remembers that politics can happen south of the Potomac, their coverage is usually pretty good. The best in-state paper for politics is the Richmond Times-Dispatch though.

I think either Democrat is the slight favorite, with Northam maybe a little better than that. Virginia is a very blue-ish shade of purple these days, with Democrats currently holding all 5 statewide elected offices. Republicans haven't won a state-wide race in Virginia since their sweep in 2009; Democrats won them in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016.

There's also that streak that from 1977 until 2013, when McAullife broke it, that whichever party held the White House always lost the Virginia governor's race. Which, because of how much Virginia is impacted by the Federal government, suggests that the state is highly susceptible to the backlash that every modern President faces. Or maybe its a coincidence that means nothing.

Yes - I think it is largely a coincidence.  I actually think it will depend on the relative turnout of Fairfax and Arlington counties v. turnout in the rest of the state.

[OldGimletEye]

5 hours ago, denstorebog said:

Yeah, I'm also pretty baffled about the press' collective brain anyeurism today. Now Trump is suddenly a president for unity, and Democrats are the party of the past for sitting down throughout the speech.

Out here in redneckville, a couple of conservative sorts of people I know were complaining about those mean old Democrats not giving the Republicans and Trump their way.

That of course that summoned forth the snark.

Trump and the Republicans are going to come running right at things like the ACA and Dodd-Frank, among other things, and I certainly hope someone steps right up into the line of scrimmage and as Bubba Smith told Al Bundy, "drops them like third period French".

So this whole thing about mean old Democrats.

Though, it would seem the Republicans are having trouble even snapping the ball and handing it off.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/upshot/why-the-trump-agenda-is-moving-slowly-the-republicans-wonk-gap.html

Quote

But there’s another element in the sluggish or nonexistent progress on major elements of the Republican agenda. Large portions of the Republican caucus embrace a kind of policy nihilism. They criticize any piece of legislation that doesn’t completely accomplish conservative goals, but don’t build coalitions to devise complex legislation themselves.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

18 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Not particularly; I was able to write a simple spreadsheet that predicted his values for voting based on demographics by about 3-4% (the one big miss was Michigan). His message and his lack of connection was a big problem there. Clinton had had major inroads into all the african american communities in the South, knew the leaders of the CBC, and had churches and community centers supporting her. Sanders had basically nothing. He never improved particularly well in the AA community; what improved was that he went away from states with heavy AA populations by comparison.

True for the AA community. But not for the Hispanics afaik. He got a bigger chunk of their votes. With regard to the AA community, that was really a mixture of two factors. One Clinton being around for that long (which was not a particular advantage in the general election) and thus already being that household name there, and Sanders relatively color blind economical messaging for most parts of his campaign. I can somehow see the reasoning, if we put more money into the little guy's pocket and give him and his family better access to (higher) public education he will be better off regardless of colour (very much simplified). So he was not campaigning that hard on issues like prison reform (he adapted his message a bit at the later stages of his campaign).

18 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I'm not talking about him finishing up the race; I'm talking about him declaring how the entire primary system is rigged and illegitimate from the superdelegates to the closed primaries to the debates. That was a major sticking point against Clinton that hurt her in the general - one that Trump STILL is using to criticize the democrats (with Perez vs. Ellison). 

Well, the DNC actions behind the scenes with DWS and the hacked/leaked DNC e-mails did not leave a particularly good impression, did they? Sanders is an independent, so not a Democrat. And the DNC favored the party stalwart. If they had kept quiet and would have let Clinton just finish the primary on her own strength alone, that idea would have never gotten any traction to begin with. The real attack line Trump copied from Sanders was the Clinton is in league with wallstreet, show us your Goldman Suxx speech transcripts. And that worked because of her public image as not being the most trustworthy person around. That's where a lot of those scandals (real or imagined) were targeted. Be it her e-mail server, the Clinton Foundation or the Wallstreet speeches. That even GOP big donors like Whitman started to donate cash for her campaign, that wasn't really great for the optics and hardly Sanders doing. 

[Fragile Bird]

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

How was my post misleading? I didn't say that neoliberalism is solely concerned with the free movement of labor; I said that it considers free movement of labor to be a good thing (which it certainly does). It does the rest of the stuff in your post too, but that has little bearing on the mass scale failure to enforce immigration law.

See, you are utterly tone deaf about what you wrote. Try reading it and thinking about it.

"It failed because the wages and working conditions in most of South and Central America are inferior to those in the US even if the workers in the latter lack work authorization and because the dominant economic philosophy of the American establishment is neoliberalism (which views the free movement of labor as a good thing)."

ie [Reagan's bill] failed because the wages and working conditions...are inferior to those in the US and because we neoliberals view free movement of labor as a good thing [aren't we wonderful! Free movement of labor!]".

Yah right. The arrogance of that statement is breathtaking, considering the long term US support for dictatorships in South and Central America, including the suppression of worker's rights and wages for the benefit for huge American corporate interests in those countries, and possibly extending to providing money and covert aid to overthrow governments in those countries. And the idea of the free movement of labor, when for the most part that has meant seriously taking advantage of desperate people willing to work for illegally for low wages in substandard work conditions.

It's the casual, throwaway nature of the comment that struck me. Kinda like that Texas textbook that referred to the immigration of millions of black workers to the US.

Or, like rolling into Iraq, totally destroying that country's economy and infrastructure, doing things that lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and then bitching about all those damn Muslim refugees let's-keep-them-the-fuck-outta-here!

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

I think either Democrat is the slight favorite, with Northam maybe a little better than that. Virginia is a very blue-ish shade of purple these days, with Democrats currently holding all 5 statewide elected offices. Republicans haven't won a state-wide race in Virginia since their sweep in 2009; Democrats won them in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2016.

Normally I'd agree that the Democrat should be the slight favorite, but I think there's a really good chance that the economy will be really strong over the next year or two which will greatly help the Republican. @OldGimletEye has laid out a rather plausible scenario where the economy will have a sugar high at first and then eventually turn into a disaster under Trump. 

[Mexal]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Normally I'd agree that the Democrat should be the slight favorite, but I think there's a really good chance that the economy will be really strong over the next year or two which will greatly help the Republican. @OldGimletEye has laid out a rather plausible scenario where the economy will have a sugar high at first and then eventually turn into a disaster under Trump. 

Yup. This has been a repeatable cycle lately. Democrats get the economy working again, Republicans come in, claim victory for a working economy and cut taxes, cut regulation then something bad happens and economy drops. Democrats come back in and get things working again but not fast enough so Republicans come back in and do the same exact things that led to the last disaster. Rinse and repeat.

[aceluby]

39 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Yup. This has been a repeatable cycle lately. Democrats get the economy working again, Republicans come in, claim victory for a working economy and cut taxes, cut regulation then something bad happens and economy drops. Democrats come back in and get things working again but not fast enough so Republicans come back in and do the same exact things that led to the last disaster. Rinse and repeat.

Lately?  This has been happening for at least 40+ years....

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 hours ago, Mexal said:

I had a hard time watching coverage after the speech and this morning. I get praising him because his tone was better but he still spouted a lot of shit that is demonstrably false, made claims with no plans to achieve and more or less said they were going to spend, spend, spend which means none of this will actually get done with a Republican owned Congress. So good job?

Not to mention the Ryan Owens moment. While that was a pretty amazing moment for Carryn Owens and it'll be something she'll be able to tell her kids as they grow up to help them be strong in the face of their father's death, it came less than 12 hours after Trump blamed Obama and the Generals for his death and NBC News reported no significant intelligence was gained from the raid. So while it was amazing for her and I guess for others, it feels massively exploitative given the President is blaming everyone and everyone for the failure of the raid except himself.

And now administration is going to put off signing the new travel ban because of all the positive press. Once again, another example where they prove that national security isn't at stake and that everything they're doing is politically motivated.

So yea, good speech but it doesn't change his message or the lack of anything concrete coming out of the Trump White House. And the ridiculous contradictions between words (we're going to do more in the world but we'll slash the State Dept budget by 30%) and actions still remain there.

Yeah, I get that the tone of the speech was an improvement, but the meat in this shit sandwich was still shit. You're investing in Women's Health and clean air and water? By defunding Planned Parenthood and the EPA? How does that work exactly? 

The Carryn Owens moment was cringe-worthy in my estimation. Ryan is happy cause the Prez got a nice round of applause? Ick.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

 

22 minutes ago, aceluby said:

Lately?  This has been happening for at least 40+ years....

Wait wait wait.  You are claiming that Jimmy Carter's policies left the economy humming?  I mean, I personally think that the Reagan recovery was in spite of rather than because of tax reform - I'll give you that (probably monetary policy more than anything else) - but as much as I love me some Georgia peanut farmer, I don't think that's quite fair.  I'll give you 30 years (Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama).

[mormont]

3 hours ago, Mexal said:

Not to mention the Ryan Owens moment. While that was a pretty amazing moment for Carryn Owens and it'll be something she'll be able to tell her kids as they grow up to help them be strong in the face of their father's death, it came less than 12 hours after Trump blamed Obama and the Generals for his death and NBC News reported no significant intelligence was gained from the raid. So while it was amazing for her and I guess for others, it feels massively exploitative given the President is blaming everyone and everyone for the failure of the raid except himself.

It's notable also that it came shortly after Ryan Owens' father told a newspaper that his 'conscience wouldn't let him' meet with Trump and he asked for an inquiry into his son's death.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article135064074.html

[The Anti-Targ]

7 hours ago, denstorebog said:

Yeah, I'm also pretty baffled about the press' collective brain anyeurism today. Now Trump is suddenly a president for unity, and Democrats are the party of the past for sitting down throughout the speech. This is 24 hours after Trump blaming generals for Ryan's death and suggesting that the anti-semitic attacks were false flags. Wtf is going on? This stuff is coming from even WaPo, and while I understand that they might want to ease up a bit on Trump after a month of relentless attacks, glorifying him and encouraging everyone to look forward is an incredibly dangerous game to play.

All outrage over / investigation into Trump's current scandals, mainly Russia, loses a whole lot of momentum and relevance when even the opposition press starts talking about moving forward just because the shit-gibbon read a Bannon/Miller production off a teleprompter without setting his hair on fire. It lends a lot of credence to the Spicer/Conway line of arguments that people are ready to move on.

One commentator over at The Hill said it right: Fascism has two faces, and tonight we saw the pretty, uplifting one. If the press goes apeballs over an hour of that, I'm not very optimistic about keeping disapproval alive as a tool for the Nov 2018 elections.

If I was being charitable to the press I would say they could be playing the long game here. They are pretty sure Trump will revert to type soon and they will be spoiled for choice on what bad stuff they could choose to cover. Giving praise for the speech achieves 2 things: it shows that the librul media can give positive press to Trump when they think there is something positive to say, which is something the conservative media pretty much failed to do through 8 years of Obama; and it allows the librul media to claim balance and to at least rebuff criticisms the next time they print or broadcast. It also avoids accusations of extreme bias, pettiness and desperation, because if the librul press had mostly talked about the shortcomings of Trump's speech it would give those on the political right to roll their eyes and just say "typical librul media, see they really are just the enemy reporting fake news." 

But I don't know if the librul media is capable of being that strategic.

So one thing I'm wondering which I haven't seen or heard anyone with in depth knowledge comment on is this drain the swamp thing with the ban on senior executive branch staff becoming lobbyists 5 year ban for domestic lobbying lifetime ban for lobbying for a foreign country. Is this actually legally enforceable, particularly the lifetime ban? That seems like something that would require an act of congress. I doubt even written into an employment contract a lifetime ban could be upheld if legally challenged.

[aceluby]

5 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

 

Wait wait wait.  You are claiming that Jimmy Carter's policies left the economy humming?  I mean, I personally think that the Reagan recovery was in spite of rather than because of tax reform - I'll give you that (probably monetary policy more than anything else) - but as much as I love me some Georgia peanut farmer, I don't think that's quite fair.  I'll give you 30 years (Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama).

Ok, don't want to split hairs, but Carter inherited an awful mess and his monetary policy was the reason why we had any recovery in the 80's.  But I'll give you that since the massive tax cuts by Reagan for the rich we've seen a much tighter interval of GOP pres wrecks the economy, Dems come in w/ some sanity and tough love, rinse and repeat.

[OldGimletEye]

5 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

 

Wait wait wait.  You are claiming that Jimmy Carter's policies left the economy humming?  I mean, I personally think that the Reagan recovery was in spite of rather than because of tax reform - I'll give you that (probably monetary policy more than anything else) - but as much as I love me some Georgia peanut farmer, I don't think that's quite fair.  I'll give you 30 years (Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama).

 

5 hours ago, aceluby said:

Lately?  This has been happening for at least 40+ years....

With regard to what happened under Jimmy Carter, I'd say point the finger at LBJ and then Richard Nixon and then maybe a Phillips Curve that didn't have expectations term in it and then maybe some oil shocks.

As the Vietnam war was heating up, I believe that Walter Heller told LBJ the economy was overheating and something needed to be done about it and LBJ ignored Heller. And then, Nixon was known to berate Arthur Burns, chairman of the Fed, to loosen monetary policy.

I haven't looked at the numbers under Carter, in a while, but they aren't that bad, I believe. Carter didn't cause the 1970s stagflation problem. He did, however, appoint the guy that fixed it, Paul Volcker who began monetary tightening.

And yes, when Volcker began to loosen monetary policy, the recovery began. I'm quite certain the supply side stuff had little to do with the recovery, it was mostly monetary policy. But, Reagan does deserve some credit by giving Volcker some political cover, I would suppose.

Anyway, Blinder and Watson have done a study on Democratic Presidents and Republican Presidents over the course of the 20th Century. Their main finding is that Democratic Presidents have generally done better. However, they were not able to detect any statistical significance. Maybe because there simply wasn't enough data.

In the end, the main drivers of economic growth are probably technological advancement and population growth, for the most part, though I would say demand side stabilization does work, particularly in liquidity trap situations.

For the most part, the policies of Republican and Democratic presidents probably don't matter as much as we would like to think at least where overall growth is concerned.

I would say, however, there is a good reason to suspect that "supply side" policies probably make wealth inequality worse and don't deliver the promised growth.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Normally I'd agree that the Democrat should be the slight favorite, but I think there's a really good chance that the economy will be really strong over the next year or two which will greatly help the Republican. @OldGimletEye has laid out a rather plausible scenario where the economy will have a sugar high at first and then eventually turn into a disaster under Trump. 

Maybe. But the Virginia economy has been humming along nicely for years now (and it would be one of the states most directly affected by cuts to the Federal budget), and either Democrat (but especially Northam since he's the Lt. Gov) can make the (not really true, but easy to say) argument that its because of McAullife's policies that it happened and that they are the people to continue it.

Also, as 2016 showed, Virginia is a state where Democrats can completely bottom out among rural, working class whites and still win easily; so long as the suburban, college-educated whites in Loudon and Prince William counties remain disgusted with the Republican party. Which they have been the past few elections. Comparing Mark Warner's electoral wins from 2001 to 2014 and the way the voting patterns have shifted is a fascinating thing, and show why its a state that Democrats have held on to even through the last several Republican waves (at least at the statewide level; most of the districts are gerrymandered to hell). 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Oh for fucks sake...

 http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/oprah-could-be-the-first-black-woman-president/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=im&utm_tracker=1737131x84899

[Mexal]

Looks like House Republican plan to replace Obamacare will be released tomorrow with the caveat that it'll be released only to House Republicans and will be voted on before the CBO has a chance to score it. As I always say, these people are the worst.

[aceluby]

3 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Looks like House Republican plan to replace Obamacare will be released tomorrow with the caveat that it'll be released only to House Republicans and will be voted on before the CBO has a chance to score it. As I always say, these people are the worst.

Could you imagine the outrage if democrats tried pulling something like this?

I really wish more people had attention spans that were more than a gnat.  In 18 months this will be long forgotten and the Republicans that voted for these asshats that had the rug pulled out from them will still vote GOP because they aren't democrats; no other logic or reasoning needed.  Don't want to upset the overlords.