Jump to content

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


drawkcabi

Recommended Posts

25 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I really don't think so.  They're fucked next November and everyone knows it.  This bill may stem the tide a bit by pleasing donors and subsequently infusing cash into GOP campaigns, but that's gonna be marginal at best.  Maybe they can ride the economy into 2020, but that bubble's gonna pop eventually, and when it does Trump is royally fucked - and you better bet he's gonna take the whole party down with him.

Unless, of course, the next midterms don't happen, or there are some... irregularities. You know, the usual stuff, disenfranchisement of black and Latino voters, "malfunctioning" voting machines, etc, but turned up to eleven.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

They are the 'best people'!   LOL, that's the problem.   

Based on Trump's MO, the best people are themselves:

Quote

"I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain, and I've said a lot of things,"

Still one of my favorites...

6 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Unless, of course, the next midterms don't happen, or there are some... irregularities. You know, the usual stuff, disenfranchisement of black and Latino voters, "malfunctioning" voting machines, etc, but turned up to eleven.

This is a little bit :rolleyes:.  I'm very concerned with voter suppression, voter ID laws, purging names of that are similar to ex-cons from the registration rolls, etc.  A large portion of that is already baked in - and voter suppression didn't stop record turnout from black voters in Alabama in an off-cycle, off-year special election last week.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I really don't think so.  They're fucked next November and everyone knows it.  This bill may stem the tide a bit by pleasing donors and subsequently infusing cash into GOP campaigns, but that's gonna be marginal at best.  Maybe they can ride the economy into 2020, but that bubble's gonna pop eventually, and when it does Trump is royally fucked - and you better bet he's gonna take the whole party down with him.

They are and they aren't. You know that it's still a long shot for Democrats to retake the Senate. Stinks that it had to be set up the way it is this cycle where Democrats have to run the table to do so. And while the House is still in play, I'd be more shocked if the Democrats take it than I would be if they didn't. If Trump and House Republicans can survive 2018, there won't be any real investigations to hurt Trump in 2020. And if that happens and the economy takes off for a few years, who's to say they can't make it through 2020? I agree with you that there is a bubble that's going to burst, but I fear it may have been designed to burst after the 2020 elections. A lot of the early policy proposals at the beginning of this session of Congress looked like they wanted to push all the pain off until past 2020. Why do you think that is? If they can survive, as I've said, they can get everything they want. Slash government spending, slash entitlements, more corporate and donor giveaways, etc. I know this bill is highly unpopular, and Republicans are making a giant gamble here, but if it works it will be one of the greatest political masterstrokes in living memory, if not a lot longer. They have a path, albeit a narrow one, to literally get everything they've ever wanted. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

I keep thinking that maybe, just maybe, the republican leadership rushed this bill through at such high speed that they accidently included a provision or three that will bite their donor's extremely hard in the bank account. Some little twist of phrase that was supposed to deleted, but got left in, or some such.

It's probably the other way around. There are so many new loopholes just waiting to be abused. I was listening to a couple of lawyers discuss how these new real estate provisions might allow corporations that current rent their properties to buy them, spike the rent prices and use that as a way to launder money in a legal way. I'll have to pass it off to @Mlle. Zabzie as this is her area of expertise, but they were floating some examples of ways where this is going to be a giant mess once the tax lawyers figure out how to game the new system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, dmc515 said:
Quote

"I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain, and I've said a lot of things,"

Still one of my favorites...

N LR "A good  brain?"

T "Yes, one of those abby, something brains, a very good brain."

N LR "."

T "Very good abby brain.  The best."

N LR "You mean an abby-normal brain?"

T "Oh course, a very good, the best abby-normal brain that helps me say a lot of things.  The best things, bigly things."

N LR  "No doubt about that."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Based on Trump's MO, the best people are themselves:

Still one of my favorites...

Nothing tops this exchange:

Quote

Just days before his presidential inauguration, Trump met with two Christian leaders at his office in Trump Tower. Invited to pray with the incoming president were the Rev. Patrick O’Connor, senior pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, of Queens, New York ― where the president was confirmed as a child ― and the Rev. Scott Black Johnston, senior pastor of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.

In comments previously unreported, the pastors told CNN, Trump boasted: “I did very, very well with evangelicals in the polls.”

O’Connor and Johnston reminded Trump that neither of them is an evangelical. To which the president-elect reportedly asked: “Well, what are you then?”

The pastors are both mainline Protestants ― like Trump, who describes himself as a Presbyterian. O’Connor and Johnston explained this to the president-elect, who nodded and asked them: “But you’re all Christians?”

“Yes,” they said. “We’re all Christians.”

How this man courted and keeps the religious right is beyond me...

31 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

This is a little bit :rolleyes:.  I'm very concerned with voter suppression, voter ID laws, purging names of that are similar to ex-cons from the registration rolls, etc.  A large portion of that is already baked in - and voter suppression didn't stop record turnout from black voters in Alabama in an off-cycle, off-year special election last week.

Devil's Advocate: What happened in Alabama scared the hell out of Republicans, and it will motivate them to get as many suppression laws on the books as possible. And if they can do it late enough in the year, they might be able to sneak them by before courts can address all the issues. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

You know that it's still a long shot for Democrats to retake the Senate.

No, I don't.  Sinema in Arizona has the fundraising and institutional support that if she ran today, she'd win handily.  Barring anything unforeseen, I expect that seat moving to lean Dem in the next couple months.  Heller is profoundly unpopular right now in Nevada.  Unfortunately there's not really a quality Dem challenger.  Jacky Rosen seems to be it, and she seems fine although I don't know much about her.  Anyway, those open seats are ripe pickup opportunities.

As for defense, as I've said before my biggest concerns are McCaskill in MO and Donnelly in IN.  Not just because of their own issues but because they're up against more quality candidates than Heitkamp in ND and Manchin in WV.  I'm a fan of McCaskill, so maybe this is bias, but I think the only major concern at this point is Donnelly.  With Jones' win the Dems chances to retake the Senate went from about 10-90 to 40-60, simply because after Arizona and Nevada there aren't many pickup opportunities - Bredesen in TN helps, but that's the only other one with a chance.

As for retaking the House, it's probably about 50-50 right now, but the generic ballot numbers coming out lately do not look good for the GOP and maybe make it 60-40.  Can things change?  Of course.  But with Trump at the wheel and no realistic major legislative initiatives remaining - combined with policy areas coming up in which the GOP is playing defense like DACA and transgenders in the military - I would not be optimistic of things getting better if I were a Republican operative.

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I fear it may have been designed to burst after the 2020 elections. A lot of the early policy proposals at the beginning of this session of Congress looked like they wanted to push all the pain off until past 2020.

Sure, I think that's what they're going for.  But you're fooling yourself if you think anyone has that much control over the economy, let alone Ryan and the Keystone Cops.

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

if it works it will be one of the greatest political masterstrokes in living memory, if not a lot longer.

Yeah.  Color me highly...highly skeptical of this coming to fruition.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's probably the other way around. There are so many new loopholes just waiting to be abused. I was listening to a couple of lawyers discuss how these new real estate provisions might allow corporations that current rent their properties to buy them, spike the rent prices and use that as a way to launder money in a legal way. I'll have to pass it off to @Mlle. Zabzie as this is her area of expertise, but they were floating some examples of ways where this is going to be a giant mess once the tax lawyers figure out how to game the new system.

It is going to be a giant mess.  I think what they are referring to is the immediate expensing provisions of the bill.  Right now, if you buy used property, you depreciate it over a set number of years.  Now, if you buy used tangible property, of the character subject to the allowance for depreciation, then you get an immediate deduction for that property.  This appears to include buildings (though not land).  Query how much the expense deduction is worth at a 21% rate and how the immediate expense compares to running out tax deductible rent payments over time (e.g., if it creates an NOL, you may prefer the rent).  A pass-through business that does not have a huge wage base may wish to do this because of the way the pass through rate works, however.  They might also be talking about base erosion here, but if within a consolidated group, not sure what good that is going to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What happens when your “libertarian” overlords realize that you and nobody else is buying their bullshit anymore? They might say, “fuck it” and command their underlings to grab up as much shit as they can.

Martin Wolf warns that your “libertarian” overlords may come for your democracy.

https://www.ft.com/content/47e3e014-e3ea-11e7-97e2-916d4fbac0da

Quote

Mr Scheidel suggests that inequality is sure to rise. We must prove him wrong. If we fail to do so, soaring inequality might slay democracy, too, in the end.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a different note:

 

There is an upcoming SCOTUS case that's going to have a significant ramification on our economy. It's Janus v. AFSCME. The decision on this case will have direct implication on the viability of public sector unions (teachers unions and AFSCME in particular). There's a lot of background that I will leave in the end for those who want to read. But essentially, right after Scalia's demise, the court was split 4-4. With Gorsuch, the split is almost certain to be 5-4 against the unions. If the ruling goes as expected, there'll be other implications beyond public sector union, as well. It will also touch on other forms of fees collected from members who don't all agree on an issue, such as student activities fees at colleges and even municipal fees. 

 

Background: 

In the U.S. unions for public sector employees operate on the premise of exclusive representation. This means that once a union is certified, it has exclusive representation right for all the people whose job descriptions are included in the charter for the union. The contract that the union representatives negotiate with the employer (government or its representatives, like school boards) will apply to everyone under the charter, whether the individual workers want it to, or not. Consequently, everyone covered will pay for the functioning of the union, whether they want to, or not. The court has ruled before that this compulsion of fees is justified because of the nature of unions. The Abood ruling in 1977 specifically separated out the activities that the unions commit for the benefit of enforcing the collective bargaining agreement versus other activities, and only the former will be charged to union members. 

In this case, the plaintiff argues that since negotiations of public sector unions are always going to be with the government, and the government's side's decision is a direct impact on revenue allocation, that means that contract negotiation between public sector unions and the government is a form of political speech. This means that compelling them to pay fees is compelling to engage in political speech. Therefore, the plaintiff argues, people who benefit from the union contract should not be compelled to pay that fee. They will, nevertheless, receive the benefits of the contact, such as paid time leave provisions, work safety provisions, etc. In other words, anyone who wants it can receive free benefits, after the ruling. 

The most immediate foreseeable impact is that unions will lose a lot of members - why pay for a service when you can now get it for free? The second impact is that with the loss of members, and membership dues, unions will be less effective in representing workers, and will become irrelevant. That's really the end-goal of the national conglomerate (spearheaded by the Koch's brothers) that puts in money and resources to push for this shift. 

Also worth noting that Janus wasn't the original plaintiff. It was actually Governor Rauner of Illinois. They brought the case against AFSCME, on the same premise, trying to destroy AFSCME. The case was ruled as having no standing since Rauner wasn't a member of AFSCME. So they then found someone who's an ideological conservative to stand in as the plaintiff. This is an astroturf law suite if there ever was one. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

This entire paragraph is one big word salad, a whole bunch of handwaving, and then it manages to contradict itself.

It kind of reminds of back in the day, when I was but a young lad, and I had an exam, but rather than studying for it, I chose to go out and get drunker than fuck, believing I could just write reams of bullshit that would fool the professor. Not surprisingly, that usually didn’t work out too well.

You write “it will probably prevent a crisis identical to the Great Recession”. You know this is not a small thing. The Great Recession was enormously damaging to working class people. Many of them will likely never recover financially from it. Preventing crises like the Great Recession is a big deal.

Then you write,”but in the grand scheme of things, it really, really doesn't matter”. Why doesn’t it matter? Either you recognize it’s 1) important to prevent crises like the Great Recession or 2) it isn’t. If you believe 2) then you are basically denying every lesson that we have learned and what we know. You’ve already it admitted, it would seem, that Dodd-Frank will probably prevent crises identical to the Great Recession, so it would seem your conclusion doesn’t follow from your premises.

There is no contradiction if you actually read what I said rather than putting words into my mouth. My words were "identical to the Great Recession" which is a very different thing from "like the Great Recession". They addressed the specific issues which led to this particular recession, but left the more general issues (e.g. "too big to fail") alone. It is indeed important to prevent crises like the Great Recession, but Dodd-Frank only does so for a small subset of such crises.

12 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

While, I’m also concerned about the 1%, I think it’s important to address the distribution of resources among the 99%. Why should somebody get a smaller piece of the pie because they happen to be born nonwhite or female? I think your dismissive attitude towards these groups stinks, and it goes a long way to explain your sorry ass support for Trump. And it’s your attitude that ultimately allows people like Trump to rob the country on behalf of plutocrats.

I disagree: I'm reasonably certain that it is the attitude of people like yourself -- namely, the preoccupation with intra-99% conflicts -- that gives the plutocrats free rein.

13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

My point is, again, that you can't demand that politicians take care of your interests for you. Your vote reflects your priorities and your choices, and as bad as it may be in the US, it's still far from being North Korea. So you can't both vote for Trump and blame the Democrats for ignoring your economic interests ; if you want the Democrats to care about your economic interests, you need to vote for them based on said interests, and when enough people do that the political center will shift to the left.

How many times would you vote for Democrats and watch as they move further and further to "the center"? Would three decades be enough? To do the same thing in the same situation over and over again expecting a different result is a form of insanity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Altherion said:

There is no contradiction if you actually read what I said rather than putting words into my mouth. My words were "identical to the Great Recession" which is a very different thing from "like the Great Recession". They addressed the specific issues which led to this particular recession, but left the more general issues (e.g. "too big to fail") alone. It is indeed important to prevent crises like the Great Recession, but Dodd-Frank only does so for a small subset of such crises.

Not exactly. As I have explained before higher equity capital requirements are pretty important for all types of financial crises, for the very reason bank runs often happen when they hold too much leverage. Now maybe it's reasonable to say that the equity requirements should be higher under Dodd-Frank, but still it is an improvement than what we had. Secondly, beyond the higher equity capital requirements, Dodd Frank places limits on the amount of short term debt banks can hold, another source of bank fragility that is likely to be important FOR ALL FINANCIAL CRISES. And then it has specifics on how much liquitidy banks have to hold which again is likely to be important FOR ALL FINANCIAL CRISES.

And then it puts a resolution mechanism in place to deal with those situations where bankruptcy court is not a viable option which is likely to be important FOR ALL FINANCIAL CRISES. If you don't have that mechanism in place then you end up with stuff like Tarp.

And by the way,  the reason Sychrony spun off from  GE, for instance, was because they didn't like the regulations under Dodd-Frank, as the regulations are more onerous for SI institutions. So it does give some incentive for financial firms to slim down.

Now it's fine if you want to argue that Dodd Frank needs some work, but lets not act like the Republican Party would have anything similar in place mmkay? And let's not act like it's nothing.

23 hours ago, Altherion said:

I disagree: I'm reasonably certain that it is the attitude of people like yourself -- namely, the preoccupation with intra-99% conflicts -- that gives the plutocrats free rein.

Plutocrats get free reign precisely for the reason they are experts at using white resentment and other nasty things to get their way. Once stuff like that goes away, the Republican Party as we know it is done. When people like Paul "I'm living in Ayn Rand Novel" Ryan talks about "makers and takers" a large part of the goobers in the Republican Party are going to take that as "minorities". When Mitt "Hey Man, I Roughed It France in '68" talks about the 47% you can bet many of the goobers in the Republican Party take that 47% as minorities. When Puke Gingrich talks about "The Food Stamp President" that was the same old dog whistle that people like Lee Atwater explained long ago.

People have presented you evidence of how racism affects our politics.  You were presented evidence on this very thread. Several threads back, I posted a study from around 2004 that showed how racism affected voters economic preferences. You simply chose to ignore this stuff.

23 hours ago, Altherion said:

How many times would you vote for Democrats and watch as they move further and further to "the center"? Would three decades be enough? To do the same thing in the same situation over and over again expecting a different result is a form of insanity.

It's a bit hard for the Democrats to move to the left, if people keep voting Republican. And the fact is that there are many in the Democratic Party that think the Democrats move to the center in the 1990s was likely a mistake. And would like the Democratic Party to shift to the left.

There is little doubt that over the last 3 or 4 decades the conservative movement has been pretty successful and had the momentum going their way, to the point of dragging the Democratic Party to the right. But you know, there are people that want to stop that momentum and reverse it. But you sure in the hell ain't going to find them in the Republican Party, particularly today where the Republican Party has now blatantly showed that it's going to side with plutocrats.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, TerraPrime said:

 The most immediate foreseeable impact is that unions will lose a lot of members - why pay for a service when you can now get it for free? The second impact is that with the loss of members, and membership dues, unions will be less effective in representing workers, and will become irrelevant. That's really the end-goal of the national conglomerate (spearheaded by the Koch's brothers) that puts in money and resources to push for this shift. 

This of course is a classic free rider problem. The Kook Brothers know exactly what they are doing here. It has little to do with "freedom" even if our libertarian overlords say so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, dmc515 said:

No, I don't.  Sinema in Arizona has the fundraising and institutional support that if she ran today, she'd win handily.  Barring anything unforeseen, I expect that seat moving to lean Dem in the next couple months.  Heller is profoundly unpopular right now in Nevada.  Unfortunately there's not really a quality Dem challenger.  Jacky Rosen seems to be it, and she seems fine although I don't know much about her.  Anyway, those open seats are ripe pickup opportunities.

As for defense, as I've said before my biggest concerns are McCaskill in MO and Donnelly in IN.  Not just because of their own issues but because they're up against more quality candidates than Heitkamp in ND and Manchin in WV.  I'm a fan of McCaskill, so maybe this is bias, but I think the only major concern at this point is Donnelly.  With Jones' win the Dems chances to retake the Senate went from about 10-90 to 40-60, simply because after Arizona and Nevada there aren't many pickup opportunities - Bredesen in TN helps, but that's the only other one with a chance.

As for retaking the House, it's probably about 50-50 right now, but the generic ballot numbers coming out lately do not look good for the GOP and maybe make it 60-40.  Can things change?  Of course.  But with Trump at the wheel and no realistic major legislative initiatives remaining - combined with policy areas coming up in which the GOP is playing defense like DACA and transgenders in the military - I would not be optimistic of things getting better if I were a Republican operative.

You are leaving out a few things - specifically three seriously ill senators, two republican and one democratic.  Any notions on the odds of those switching seats should they appear on the ballot for 2018?  Prospective candidates? Yes, it's ugly and morbid.  But also a real possibility at this point. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, ThinkerX said:

You are leaving out a few things - specifically three seriously ill senators, two republican and one democratic.  Any notions on the odds of those switching seats should they appear on the ballot for 2018?

McCain's seat coming up is certainly something that has been considered - and that would be another opportunity for Dems.  Thad Cochran's would not, unless they nominated Roy Moore's brother that also murdered babies.  Who's the ill Dem you're referring to?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

McCain's seat coming up is certainly something that has been considered - and that would be another opportunity for Dems.  Thad Cochran's would not, unless they nominated Roy Moore's brother that also murdered babies.  Who's the ill Dem you're referring to?

Err...YOU were the one who mentioned a seriously ill Democratic Senator.

As to the Alabama seat, perhaps Moore would be egotistical enough to run for that one, baggage and all, and get trounced a second time?  (And would the republican party penalty for him costing them two senate seats involve a firing squad?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

59 minutes ago, Altherion said:

How many times would you vote for Democrats and watch as they move further and further to "the center"? Would three decades be enough? To do the same thing in the same situation over and over again expecting a different result is a form of insanity.

And how many times have GOP presidents let down the right?  Dubya started off with No Child Left Behind.  When he was reelected, he tried Social Security Reform, which failed.  By the end, he was begging Dems to get on board with Paulson for TARP.  Oh, and in between he passed Medicare Part D, which conservative decry to this day.

How bout Bush I, who raised taxes which was ridiculed by Buchanan during the renomination of Bush in the 1992 RNC?  Or Reagan, who worked with Tip O'Neill to raise taxes and provided amnesty to all illegal immigrants?  The list goes on and on.  Nobody gets exactly what they want.  You seem to view this as some fundamental fault of democracy when in actuality it's a fundamental facet of democracy - and what the framers designed.  The only form of insanity here is you claiming your primary interest is battling against the .001 percent and concurrently justifying the likes of Trump and Bannon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

Err...YOU were the one who mentioned a seriously ill Democratic Senator.

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?

8 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

As to the Alabama seat, perhaps Moore would be egotistical enough to run for that one, baggage and all, and get trounced a second time?

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...