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US Politics: Russian Roulette Republican Style


Fragile Bird

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3 hours ago, dmc515 said:

This is an interesting question - and yes it's beyond my scope both topically and in capability.  Getting simple data on the number of FTE employees per agency per year is difficult enough.  If you're going to focus on comparing the demographics of agencies and their subsequent treatment by the media and/or officeholders, I'd think you'd have to narrow it down to a comparison of only a few agencies.  Sounds like a really cool project though.

One more thing about "bloat" and how as a criticism it is probably related to race and gender.

As a criticism "bloated federal bureaucracy" has its appeal to authority roots in the business world. Run the federal gubmint like a biznes amiright? Get rid of all that bloat!

well why does the business world say that? Well the business world has persisted at <90% white-plus-penis forever, it's never faced a fundamental demographic adjustment. Sure women can join firms as an associate, but the only people who will be given real tracks to partner are the ones who meet the white+penis criteria. Same in any other business, maybe a few tokens, but no fundamental demographic change to disrupt the <90% "natural" ratio. Boards have changed slightly in the last ten years, they've gone from 90% to 80% mostly in response to research showing they're losing money with bad decisions with a 90% composition.

So what happens when a world whose promotion criteria is based on melatonin and genital equipment meets a meritocracy that doesn't acknowledge either (by law)?

functionally, it is like two alien nations meeting for the first time. Like the United States in the 1950s finding out Vietnam is a thing that exists somewhere in the world.

People like McNamara never even really considered the possibility that these incomprehensible others that don't look like us were rational parties . McNamara admits this, on camera, the DOD never even considered the question of what the Vietcong were fighting for.  And this is after they prided themselves internally on doing such a great job in understanding the shared human qualities of the (White male) Russians counterparts in the Cuban missile  crisis. 

It never once occurred to the DOD that the other side was human, they were instantly other. Inhuman. Invalid.

Lets win hearts and minds by killing their women and children to break their spirit. 

That's how the business world is operating when it talks about government bureaucracy, like McNamara DoD.

The bureaucracy is an unlike other that is invalid and incomprehensible because it is so alien and unlike them. And the more the bureaucracy diversifies but the business world stays the same the more the business world will hate the "enemy" and want to lay down the napalm on it.

So VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE say the government is bloated, bloated is code language for women and minorities. When they say they're going to get rid of waste fraud and abuse they mean they want to fire women and minorities until the bureaucracy seems less "alien" and "threatening" to them. if they can't do that (legally) the best option will be destroying the alien entirely. Shuttering the EPA or Dept of Education for example.

imagine how galling it would be for someone like pre president trump--who is used to grabbing women by the pussy--to be told by a black female bureaucrat to comply with something in the law. He doesn't even recognize her gender as people! And here she has authority over him! And she didn't like all his very funny jokes he told her about sex stuff! She's part of the problem. She must be incompetent! How dare she!  Got to get rid of that waste fraud and abuse and bloat! Got to get of HER and everything like HER.

imagine how galling it is for mark halperin or Charlie rose to have Elizabeth warren not flatter them like all women are naturally supposed to, to not laugh at their very funny jokes about sex stuff, to think that's she's smarter than them, to tell them they are wrong. What a rotten person she must be, so unreasonable and mean and loud and intractable. Just turrble! And those emails! Wait who were we talking about?

what they really mean "by get rid of all that bloat" is they mean let's repeat the "brown va board of education massacre" no one likes to admit it, but there were three first order effects of student integration. One, students were integrated. Two, almost all former black public schools were closed (because white students can't be expected to attend a building that was once blacks only!), and Three, 98% of black teachers were fired (and the Supreme Court refused to hear any case representing the teachers for wrongful dismissal, like the Moberly, MO one, my hometown).  

So this "bloated" mythology needs to stop, and democrats need to stop enabling it and agreeing with it and promulgating it.

 Do the math sometime on say the DMV. if there's 100,000 people in a small city (with one DMV) that need driver's licenses, and they're open 250 days a year, 8 hours a day, that's 400 people a day that need drivers licenses, or 50 people per hour.  If you have two clerks processing applicants, they each need to process 25 people per hour or one every two minutes. that's assuming that demand is evenly distributed throughout the year, based on birthdate, but birthdates cluster in some months more than others, so demand is unequally distributed.

Anyone who has ever been to the DMV could tell you that your portion, not any of the waiting, but just having the data entered, document confirmation, takes a lot longer than two minutes. Delays are fundamentally built into the system as staffed. and the system grinds on, day after day, always nearly 400 people (often more) that need to be served, and if in one moment, probably coming back from an official break, one clerk isn't grinding away non stop, people at the DMV, irritated at the delays, will always notice and always attribute that person not grinding away that particular instant (that they noticed the clerk) as the cause of all delays (and their own personal delay in particular) at the DMV at all times.  

ergo the DMV is a horribly bloated and inefficient bureaucracy that personally harms me myself and I.

How dare they process 100,000 drivers license in 250 days! So much obvious waste fraud and abuse in just typing that description!

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Tonights 11th Hour on MSNBC was some eye popping stuff. Jeremy Bash lays out clearly how Trump basically admitted to Obstruction of Justice in this weekends latest tweetstorm.

Bash starts a little after 4:50 into this broadcast-

Trump the idiot who cannot be counseled, continually digs his own grave. It just makes me feel all warm and giddy whenever he (Trump) continually gets loose from his handlers and totally incriminates himself. The man is the very definition of foolish.:D

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2 hours ago, lokisnow said:

So VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE say the government is bloated, bloated is code language for women and minorities. When they say they're going to get rid of waste fraud and abuse they mean they want to fire women and minorities until the bureaucracy seems less "alien" and "threatening" to them. if they can't do that (legally) the best option will be destroying the alien entirely. Shuttering the EPA or Dept of Education for example.

wtf?!

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2 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Tonights 11th Hour on MSNBC was some eye popping stuff. Jeremy Bash lays out clearly how Trump basically admitted to Obstruction of Justice in this weekends latest tweetstorm.

Bash starts a little after 4:50 into this broadcast-

Trump the idiot who cannot be counseled, continually digs his own grave. It just makes me feel all warm and giddy whenever he (Trump) continually gets loose from his handlers and totally incriminates himself. The man is the very definition of foolish.:D

This is true, but prepare yourself for Congress to do nothing. We have never seen such a legendary band of cowards.

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4 hours ago, lokisnow said:

One more thing about "bloat" and how as a criticism it is probably related to race and gender.

As a criticism "bloated federal bureaucracy" has its appeal to authority roots in the business world. Run the federal gubmint like a biznes amiright? Get rid of all that bloat!

well why does the business world say that? Well the business world has persisted at <90% white-plus-penis forever, it's never faced a fundamental demographic adjustment. Sure women can join firms as an associate, but the only people who will be given real tracks to partner are the ones who meet the white+penis criteria. Same in any other business, maybe a few tokens, but no fundamental demographic change to disrupt the <90% "natural" ratio. Boards have changed slightly in the last ten years, they've gone from 90% to 80% mostly in response to research showing they're losing money with bad decisions with a 90% composition.

So what happens when a world whose promotion criteria is based on melatonin and genital equipment meets a meritocracy that doesn't acknowledge either (by law)?

functionally, it is like two alien nations meeting for the first time. Like the United States in the 1950s finding out Vietnam is a thing that exists somewhere in the world.

People like McNamara never even really considered the possibility that these incomprehensible others that don't look like us were rational parties . McNamara admits this, on camera, the DOD never even considered the question of what the Vietcong were fighting for.  And this is after they prided themselves internally on doing such a great job in understanding the shared human qualities of the (White male) Russians counterparts in the Cuban missile  crisis. 

It never once occurred to the DOD that the other side was human, they were instantly other. Inhuman. Invalid.

Lets win hearts and minds by killing their women and children to break their spirit. 

That's how the business world is operating when it talks about government bureaucracy, like McNamara DoD.

The bureaucracy is an unlike other that is invalid and incomprehensible because it is so alien and unlike them. And the more the bureaucracy diversifies but the business world stays the same the more the business world will hate the "enemy" and want to lay down the napalm on it.

So VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE say the government is bloated, bloated is code language for women and minorities. When they say they're going to get rid of waste fraud and abuse they mean they want to fire women and minorities until the bureaucracy seems less "alien" and "threatening" to them. if they can't do that (legally) the best option will be destroying the alien entirely. Shuttering the EPA or Dept of Education for example.

imagine how galling it would be for someone like pre president trump--who is used to grabbing women by the pussy--to be told by a black female bureaucrat to comply with something in the law. He doesn't even recognize her gender as people! And here she has authority over him! And she didn't like all his very funny jokes he told her about sex stuff! She's part of the problem. She must be incompetent! How dare she!  Got to get rid of that waste fraud and abuse and bloat! Got to get of HER and everything like HER.

imagine how galling it is for mark halperin or Charlie rose to have Elizabeth warren not flatter them like all women are naturally supposed to, to not laugh at their very funny jokes about sex stuff, to think that's she's smarter than them, to tell them they are wrong. What a rotten person she must be, so unreasonable and mean and loud and intractable. Just turrble! And those emails! Wait who were we talking about?

what they really mean "by get rid of all that bloat" is they mean let's repeat the "brown va board of education massacre" no one likes to admit it, but there were three first order effects of student integration. One, students were integrated. Two, almost all former black public schools were closed (because white students can't be expected to attend a building that was once blacks only!), and Three, 98% of black teachers were fired (and the Supreme Court refused to hear any case representing the teachers for wrongful dismissal, like the Moberly, MO one, my hometown).  

So this "bloated" mythology needs to stop, and democrats need to stop enabling it and agreeing with it and promulgating it.

 Do the math sometime on say the DMV. if there's 100,000 people in a small city (with one DMV) that need driver's licenses, and they're open 250 days a year, 8 hours a day, that's 400 people a day that need drivers licenses, or 50 people per hour.  If you have two clerks processing applicants, they each need to process 25 people per hour or one every two minutes. that's assuming that demand is evenly distributed throughout the year, based on birthdate, but birthdates cluster in some months more than others, so demand is unequally distributed.

Anyone who has ever been to the DMV could tell you that your portion, not any of the waiting, but just having the data entered, document confirmation, takes a lot longer than two minutes. Delays are fundamentally built into the system as staffed. and the system grinds on, day after day, always nearly 400 people (often more) that need to be served, and if in one moment, probably coming back from an official break, one clerk isn't grinding away non stop, people at the DMV, irritated at the delays, will always notice and always attribute that person not grinding away that particular instant (that they noticed the clerk) as the cause of all delays (and their own personal delay in particular) at the DMV at all times.  

ergo the DMV is a horribly bloated and inefficient bureaucracy that personally harms me myself and I.

How dare they process 100,000 drivers license in 250 days! So much obvious waste fraud and abuse in just typing that description!

The goal may simply be to turn us into a libertarian hellhole. Since wealth is heavily concentrated in the hands of old white males, this has a natural effect of handing over more power and wealth to old white males. You end up with a weak and pathetic shell of a domestic government, funded by middle class taxes, backed by a massive military industrial complex to keep order all over the world, and at home. Trump's shambolic government is frighteningly similar to this vision.

Or they may just settle for keeping things mostly the same, but just transfer tax burdens to the middle class. This tax bill seems to lay down a blueprint of an entire political party devoted to taxing the middle class. They've yet to actually sell this to actual people, however, as they just constantly lie about what they are doing.

Republicans’ “Permanent” Corporate Tax Rate Is Anything But
The moveable center of the GOP's tax plan.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/12/republicans_corporate_tax_rate_isn_t_permanent.html

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6 hours ago, Mexal said:

Could you imagine Trump with his own spy network? How is this even legal?

 

I don't think people appreciate how frightening this proposal is. To characterize it as secret police is entirely accurate. This article doesn't mention it, but isn't this another thing they are talking about doing in Whitefish, MT? Whitefish is Richard Spencer's hometown, and a town with a little over 7,000 people in it with a reputation as a hub for white nationalists. I wonder how employees of a private spy company based there would feel about Jews? About black people? About Muslims? About gay people?

It is a certainty -- not a risk, a certainty -- that a private spy company would overstep its authority. if such a thing becomes reality then I think anyone who isn't a white Christian needs to seriously explore their options for finding a safer home. This is very, very scary.

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I agree Inigma. It ain't good.

In other news that Trump will hate, Mueller issued a subpoena a few weeks ago for accounts tied to Trump at Deutsche Bank.

Quote

Deutsche Bank has been served. US investigators are demanding that it provide information on dealings linked to the Trumps, sources familiar with the matter told Handelsblatt. The subpoena is part of a probe by special counsel Robert Mueller and his team to determine whether the president’s campaign was involved in Russian efforts to influence the US election.

Donald Trump and his family have long-standing ties to Germany’s largest bank. The former real-estate baron has done billions of dollars’ worth of business with Deutsche Bank over the past two decades, and First Lady Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner are also clients.

According to media reports, Mr. Trump owed Deutsche Bank as much as $340 million (€286.5 million) at one point, though considerable restructuring appears to have brought down that amount. The president’s financial disclosure of June 16 reported $130 million in debt, a figure the bank has not publicly confirmed.

It remains unclear whether Mr. Mueller requested information on President Trump’s own business dealings with Deutsche Bank or on those of people close to him. Sources told Handelsblatt that the US Justice Department has already received some records from the bank.

 

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Getting to the bottom of who is the low down, lyin’ ass, conservative clown here.

Would the lyin' ass conservative clown, please stand up, please stand up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/04/susan-collins-is-wrong-that-the-tax-cuts-will-pay-for-themselves-despite-the-economists-she-cites/

Quote

Sen. Susan Collins speaking on “Meet the Press” defended her vote on the Senate GOP tax bill based on the claims of the signatories to the nine economists' letter that we have criticized over the last week. The Maine Republican explained: “If you take the CBO’s formula and apply it, just four-tenths of one percent increase in the GDP generates revenues of a trillion dollars. ... So I think if we can stimulate the economy, create more jobs, that does generate more revenue.”

 

Quote

In light of Collins's statements and her central role in the tax policy debate, we believe it is very important for public understanding that Holtz-Eakin, Hubbard and Lindsey make their views on tax cuts paying for themselves clear. If they believe as we do, as all the members of a nonpartisan panel of distinguished economists assembled by the University of Chicago, as Holtz-Eakin asserted earlier this year, and Hubbard asserted some time ago, that tax cuts do not come close to paying for themselves, this seems essential to clarify.

Yeah, I tend to think Collins simply repeated what Hubbard, Lindsey, and Holtz-Eakin told her. If they did not in fact tell her that tax cuts would pay for themselves, then they need to go on the record and state that.

Of course, the fact that Collins would only go to these clowns for technocratic advice, certainly calls into question her so called moderation, which I never really believed in anyway or didn't have a lot of faith in.

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Collins is still a conservative. She might be a little bit more moderate than her counterparts and might care a little bit more about her constituents when it comes to healthcare, but she's still a conservative senator who has a conservative agenda. The sooner we realize that, the easier the disappointment will be when she votes with the GOP.

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23 hours ago, Mexal said:

Collins is still a conservative. She might be a little bit more moderate than her counterparts and might care a little bit more about her constituents when it comes to healthcare, but she's still a conservative senator who has a conservative agenda. The sooner we realize that, the easier the disappointment will be when she votes with the GOP.

Yup. With Republican Party going full speed ahead on the crazytrain to wackoville, its easy to get a skewed view of who is a "moderate" or who is a "serious" person. Just being a little less crazy doesn't make you a moderate. It just makes you a little less crazy. I don't think that gets you the gold star. 

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So Preet Bharara has a different take on the Michael Flynn plea deal and it's a little bit more depressing. He thinks there are three options:

1. Sweetheart deal. He doesn't believe this to be true. His policy at the SDNY was to make the guy who flipped plead guilty to all bad things he did so that when they went to court, the witness would have more credibility as they were actually part of the crime and plead guilty to their part in it. Otherwise, you have a convicted liar trying to make a case against others and it's a bad prosecution strategy. That and for the sake of fairness, it's hard to believe Mueller would let off Flynn for all of his crimes to get others.

2. Mueller doesn't have anything other than lying to the FBI and this is all he could get. Bharara says it's plausible this is true. We, the public, doesn't know as much about the law as Mueller's prosecutors and I'm sure they're doing a ton of research on what they can prove, what they can charge Flynn on and so on. It's entirely possible that even if they have some things on him, they don't have enough to credibly charge him under the current law.

3. They have more to charge Flynn with but are waiting until they're ready to charge because those charges may implicate others in Trump's orbit and they are not ready for that. Bharara said that normally they file the charges under seal but said Mueller's team might be worried it'd get out with all of the public interest in the case so are waiting. He's not sure this is true, but some people he trusts with experience in these types of cases says it's plausible.

So that's his read on the situation. He really thinks option 1, the one that everyone and their mothers is up in arms about, is the least likeliest. 

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8 hours ago, Mexal said:

Could you imagine Trump with his own spy network? How is this even legal?

 

That's so disturbing and I'm not sure of the legality of it, since it is being pushed by the CIA. It would all depend on the scope of the spies. Anything that comes under the CIA would be limited on US soil the areas of foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, and terrorism.

 

eta: yeah, I'm aware of the full nastiness this could be. I was just thinking that the CIA charter specifies a limited scope on US soil

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8 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

I suppose other parallels can be made as well. More than once, multiple boarders here have complained about a mythical malevolent bureaucratic infestation of the University system.  Any reason to think the federal government is any different? 

Of course the federal government isn't any different. But this is a general problem of humanity. You find the same sort of nonsense going on in any large organization. I work at a private university which prides itself on "running like a business" and I see the Peter Principal actualized daily in my workplace. I have friends who work for hospitals, insurance companies, and other businesses who tell me stories about the nonsense within their organizations that sound exactly the same as what you are describing. So I don't think there is any more bureaucratic idiocy in government than there is in the private sector. 

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The Republican party in 2017: We believe Roy Moore’s accusers, and he’s likely guilty of child molestation and statutory rape,…………but………..we really need his vote for tax cuts and to slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, so hold your nose and vote for him. I mean, after all, he’s not a Democrat.

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On 12/5/2017 at 8:49 AM, Lany Freelove Cassandra said:

That's so disturbing and I'm not sure of the legality of it, since it is being pushed by the CIA. It would all depend on the scope of the spies. Anything that comes under the CIA would be limited on US soil the areas of foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, and terrorism.

 

eta: yeah, I'm aware of the full nastiness this could be. I was just thinking that the CIA charter specifies a limited scope on US soil

Yeah, when libertarians start talking about “freedom” they really need to be invited to have a nice tall glass of shut the hell up.

Prince is one of the biggest creepers around and defines himself as being a “libertarian”. This clown is just dyin’ to carve out his own little feudal estate. Viceroy of Afghanistan. Fuckin’ LOL. Now this.

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I tend to think of the Republican Party, like the way George Constanza talks about Kramer, when George says of Kramer:

“People should plunk down two-thousand dollars to live like him for a week. Do nothing, fall ass-backwards into money, mooch food off your neighbors, and have sex without dating. *That's* a fantasy camp!"

And it seems, yeah, the Republican Party always manages to fuck up, but then manages to come out on top.

And I worry this might have some truth too it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/05/gop-betting-tax-bill-will-boost-economy-before-2018-2020-elections/

Quote

By the time Republicans have to face voters in November, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) predicts the economy will “be performing better.” There's a good chance he's right. The global economy has been on an upswing for the past year. Even before the tax bill, most experts had been predicting the momentum would continue into 2018 and 2019 with more jobs, more business investment and higher wages.

Quote

The benefits of the Republican tax plan are front-loaded, most analysts say, which probably will help the GOP in the 2018 and 2020 elections. Many of the less palatable things — tax cuts that expire for the middle class after 2025, deficits expected to hit $1 trillion over a decade and probable spending cuts to the social safety net — won't kick in until later.

Because, there still seems to be some slack in the labor markets, particularly with the Fed having trouble hitting it’s inflation target.

And the corporate tax cut might give a demand side push (though not the most efficient on we could do. And very bad in the long run). But, the Republican Party will spin it as a supply side miracle, and it will get believed by the opinions differ on the shape of the earth crowd, along with others.

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11 hours ago, lokisnow said:

 

of course if you're a typical white-college-graduate-liberal living in a segregated (former redline but still informally segregated of course) neighborhood of a major city and have neither stories of kindness nor generosity to people in your family member's outgroup, you may need to work on the stye in your own eye first.

Believe me, in these instances, family members who do have friends who aren't white, etc.,  and who do work with organizations, etc, etc,etc, are that family's outgroup too.  "You were never like us.  How did you get born into our family? etc. etc. etc."   

The stye in your own eye is making this assumption about people who see this are this: 

Quote

. . . a typical white-college-graduate-liberal living in a segregated (former redline but still informally segregated of course) neighborhood of a major city and have neither stories of kindness nor generosity to people in your family member's outgroup . . .

It's very much the very fact that one can speak another language, that one spends so much time with people who aren't the people of one's family, who know the cultures that makes one outside and despised in the first place.  People of this sort perceive even having learned another language to be showing off.  Traveling to places that aren't amusement parks or resorts or cruise ships is showing off.   Everything that isn't them and their way is showing off.

 

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