U.S. Politics: Are You Threadening Me Master Jedi?

[Jace, Extat]

35 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Wait, what?  It's ok because we interfere in our own elections?  We are a buncha bastards that way.  If he meant we interfere in Russian electins.  If only.

The latter, of course. It was actual message board troll speak

[DMC]

Just now, Pony Queen Jace said:

It was actual message board troll speak

Well we should all be familiar with that!  And as adept interneters, we should also know the true meaning of santorum.

[Yukle]

1 hour ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Rick Santorum just said on national TV that it's ok for Russians to interfere with our election because we do it too.

Americans interfere with their own elections so much through gerrymandering, voter suppression and polling bottlenecks that whatever Russia does on top is only a minor shift.

[Gertrude]

Two wrongs DO make a right (wing idiot)!

[Fragile Bird]

Must be a light news night, eh?

Btw, 2 dead, 5 in critical condition, a dozen others shot and the gunman was 15. Kentucky.

[Darth Richard II]

9 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Must be a light news night, eh?

Btw, 2 dead, 5 in critical condition, a dozen others shot and the gunman was 15. Kentucky.

Yeah that's barely news. Earth is soooo fucked.

[DireWolfSpirit]

7 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

You totally ninjaed me, I was about to post that. I'd say in response that, it appears that it's DREAMers getting bullied around here, not white atheists like me. Am I annoyed? Yes. But, that doesn't change the fact that Tony's own people are abandoning the churches in droves and his source of power is dying out. And his disgusting embrace of Trump only hastens that.

And he had better hope that there is no Hell, because I'm sure if such a place exists, he'd by a VIP.

Theres noone luckier (than these white evangelicals that title themselves Christian) that a Hell doesnt exist. Were the things they purport to believe actually real, they would be totally fucked.

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 hours ago, Yukle said:

Americans interfere with their own elections so much through gerrymandering, voter suppression and polling bottlenecks that whatever Russia does on top is only a minor shift.

America has interferred in foreign elections over 80 times, with a little google-ing anyone can read those reports from several news (and govt.) sources. Im getting sick of NOT hearing that inconvenient fact being reported on these nightly MSM broadcasts. 

[Martell Spy]

Another day in Trump America, another corrupt pile of shit.

Mick Mulvaney Says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Works for Payday Lenders, Too

https://slate.com/business/2018/01/mick-mulvaney-says-the-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-works-for-payday-lenders-too.html

Quote

So far, Mulvaney seems to be doing his best to confirm critics’ worst fears. Last week, the CFPB dropped a lawsuit in Kansas against four payday lenders without any explanation, other than a weak assurance that it would continue investigating the case. Meanwhile, International Business Times reports today that Mulvaney stealthily closed an investigation into a South Carolina-based payday lender, World Acceptance Corporation, which had previously donated to his campaigns.

 

[maarsen]

9 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Well, Robertson can leg-press literally a ton, so it shouldn't be too surprising.

That machine is the same one I have used in my gym. 2000 pounds will not fit on it. The man is a liar.

[OldGimletEye]

If you had a model that you were using and that model caused you to make some big predictions, that turned out to unequivocally and patently wrong, it’s now time for you to be stand up guy or gal and admit that model wasn’t correct.

If you were running around talking about rampant inflation or claiming there was high “structural unemployment” now is the time to admit your models need revision, particularly before you get appointed to the Federal Reserve.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/opinion/the-durability-of-inflation-derp.html

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The years immediately following the 2008 financial crisis were a golden age of inflation derp, at various levels. There were the Glenn Beck/Ron Paul frothing-at-the-mouth Austrian types predicting hyperinflation just around the corner. But there were also the seemingly respectable monetary “experts,” from Alan Greenspan to Allan Meltzer to John Taylor, who kept predicting high inflation from deficits and/or quantitative easing.

 

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What’s striking about the economists who predicted runaway inflation in 2009-2011 is that as far as I can tell none of them has even gotten to step (a), acknowledging their mistake. They kept saying the same wrong thing year after year (which is what makes it derp), and even those who eventually stopped saying the same thing never admitted past mistakes.

Thus when Bloomberg tried, four years later, to track down economists who signed the infamous open letter to Ben Bernanke insisting that quantitative easing would “debase the dollar,” it couldn’t find a single person to admit that the original warning was wrong.

 

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And so today we have Marvin Goodfriend, nominated to the Fed board, simply refusing to answer questions about why he thought inflation was about to explode and reducing unemployment was impossible:

After the crisis, Mr. Goodfriend repeatedly criticized the Fed’s stimulus campaign as likely to generate inflation rather than economic revival. He told Bloomberg in 2012 it was “really doubtful” the Fed could reduce unemployment, which was then hovering above 8 percent, to 7 percent. Furthermore, he said, even if the Fed succeeded in doing so, “it would give rise to rising inflation in the next few years, which would be disastrous for the economy.”

Inflation derp endures. In fact, it’s good for your career.

One might get suspicious that Republicans and the Republican Party often talk out of their asses.

[LongRider]

3 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Theres noone luckier (than these white evangelicals that title themselves Christian) that a Hell doesnt exist. Were the things they purport to believe actually real, they would be totally fucked.

Ramen!

[Mexal]

4 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

America has interferred in foreign elections over 80 times, with a little google-ing anyone can read those reports from several news (and govt.) sources. Im getting sick of NOT hearing that inconvenient fact being reported on these nightly MSM broadcasts. 

Why would MSM broadcasts point this out? What point would it serve? What argument would they then make using this information?

[Jace, Extat]

Jace is seeing a lot of unrest at Donnie's failures to address the latest murder sprees. Could that be what does it? I know there are those of us here who refuse to even consider that he can lose support permanently, but these things happen. Hell, Hitler wasn't exactly basking in the public's adoration by 42. And every Tyrant dies. Always.

And if you know anything about history you know that empires fall on the weirdest turns of fate. Could Donald's inability to even pretend to have compassion for the incessant deaths be what cracks his support? Many a demagogue has looked invincible until taking it one step too far, or finally exposed themselves too much.

Donald will not be King of America or the leader of some kind of second civil war. Something is going to poison the well.

[OldGimletEye]

The Republican Party has figured out how to stop sexual harassment.

Repeal Obamacare.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-rep-connects-obamacare-his-sexual-harassment-controversy

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When it comes to controversies involving politicians accused of sexual harassment, Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.) appears to be in the middle of a rather unique scandal.

The story first came to light over the weekend in a stunning report from the New York Times. According to the allegations, the Pennsylvania Republican, a married father of three, took an interest in a young woman who worked in his office and considered him something of a father figure. Meehan reportedly professed his romantic interest in the aide and when she rebuffed his advances, the congressman “grew hostile.”

 

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The article added that if he displayed any hostility toward the woman, it may have “stemmed from stress around high-pressure votes last year over the Affordable Care Act.”

Yes, when in doubt, blame Obamacare

 

[Jace, Extat]

26 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

The Republican Party has figured out to stop sexual harassment.

Repeal Obamacare.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-rep-connects-obamacare-his-sexual-harassment-controversy

 

 

He also said that she's his soul mate so it's all ok.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

48 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

The Republican Party has figured out to stop sexual harassment.

Repeal Obamacare.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-rep-connects-obamacare-his-sexual-harassment-controversy

 

 

One has to wonder how this would hold up in court.

Prosecutor: Mexal, you stand accused of strangling a drifter in a ditch. How do you plead?

Mexal: Not guilty. I admit that I did strangle the drifter in the ditch, but it was because I was really stressed out at work. The boss man keeps giving me more and more work.

Prosecutor: Yeah man, I get that. You’re free to go. And here, have an IPA on the court.

Mexal: I’m still really stressed man. Can I take out a few more drifters?

Prosecutor: Have a blast man.

[Mexal]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

One has to wonder how this would hold up in court.

Prosecutor: Mexal, you stand accused of strangling a drifter in a ditch. How do you plead?

Mexal: Not guilty. I admit that I did strangle the drifter in the ditch, but it was because I was really stressed out at work. The boss man keeps giving me more and more work.

Prosecutor: Yeah man, I get that. You’re free to go. And here, have an IPA on the court.

Mexal: I’m still really stressed man. Can I take out a few more drifters?

Prosecutor: Have a blast man.

This is my future.

[Zorral]

Social Media Platform Designers Owners Don't/Won't Use Social Media --

And they don't allow their children to use FB, Twitter, etc. either.

Because, it is designed, essentially, for suckers.  It's THE feature, not a bug or a weird side effect that no one was able to predict.

They admit it.  Notice -- none of them are on these platforms, any more than any other rich and powerful person is -- with a SINGLE exception of U No Who (hint: he's got the weirdest hair ever and takes drugs to keep it).

In the UK Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/23/never-get-high-on-your-own-supply-why-social-media-bosses-dont-use-social-media

Quote

 

Developers of platforms such as Facebook have admitted that they were designed to be addictive.

Sean Parker, the founding president of Facebook, broke the omertà in October last year, telling a conference in Philadelphia that he was “something of a conscientious objector” to social media.

“The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them … was all about: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’ That means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content and that’s going to get you … more likes and comments,” he said.

The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works.

Former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya: “It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators – me, Mark [Zuckerberg], Kevin Systrom on Instagram, all of these people – understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.”

A month later, Parker was joined by another Facebook objector, former vice-president for user growth Chamath Palihapitiya. “The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth,” Palihapitiya said at a conference in Stanford, California. “This is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem. It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other. I can control my decision, which is that I don’t use that shit. I can control my kids’ decisions, which is that they’re not allowed to use that shit.”

 

I'm not and never have been a member of any of these, such as FB and Twitter -- always an outlier, me.   My social media usage is just about entirely this, and a couple of other very limited, very very very very tiny communities, of a very few people who have known each other for a very long time, beginning in real life.  We also still spend more time together in RL than online.

I do love and still love e-mail though.

 

[OldGimletEye]

I have one criticism of Yellen. And that is she might have been not dovish enough.

That said, she was clearly more right than her detractors aka the conservative clown crew. And she is clearly more qualified by experience and training than the person that replaced her. That shows two things here 1) sexism is in play and 2)Trump doesn't get the best people (I know it’s shocking). 

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/24/16927596/janet-yellen-federal-reserve-jerome-powell

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On February 3, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to lead the central bank and likely the most qualified nominee ever for the post, will exit the Fed, leaving a legacy described as “near perfection” and with an “A” grade from a majority of economists.

 

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Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) warned that Yellen at the helm of the Fed would continue the policies of her predecessor, Bush appointee Bernanke, and exacerbate “the danger of a dramatic spike in interest rates, unsustainable asset bubbles, and job-killing inflation.

At this time will Toomey admit he was wrong? Will Toomey admit he doesn't know what in the fuck he is talking about?

And on Toomey's asset mispricing concern trolling. So when did Toomey became a follower of Hyman Minsky? Has Toomey ever believed that asset mispricing happens, or did Toomey just believe it when it was convient to do so?

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said he voted against her because of her support for monetary policies that “threaten the short and long-term prospects of strong economic growth and job creation.”

Would one of the candidates of the party of business explain how? Would they like to give us an explanation now? 

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Marvin Goodfriend, one of President Trump’s nominees for the Federal Reserve’s board, in 2015 said that “leadership at the Fed is very, very poor, to say the least.”

Yeah, like you have any fuckin' credibility.

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Trump on the campaign trail often criticized Yellen, saying at a September 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton that the Fed was doing “political things” and keeping interest rates artificially low to prop up the economy.

And what would have "bidness guy" Trump done? What model does the Trumpster use? Here is Trump: Says he is going to Prime the Pump and then denies aggregate demand matters. What a confused clown.