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U.S. Politics: Kraving for Kavanaugh


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53 minutes ago, Mexal said:

This Peter Strzok hearing is nuts. House Republicans are trying to hold him in criminal contempt for not answering questions on an ongoing criminal and counter-intelligence investigation, the very thing they have destroyed Comey for. I think Strzok has held up well and has fired back where appropriate.

There is not a single Republican there who is not a justice obstructing asshole actively working to make Trump the autocrat he so wants to be. 

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2 hours ago, karaddin said:

So how many days do we give it before Trump withdraws from NATO? I'm not foolish enough to think the right will bat an eye and him blatantly serving Russian interests again.

NATO is a treaty organization that was ratified by the Senate.  I don’t believe he has the power to unilaterally pull the US out of NATO.

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16 minutes ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

NATO is a treaty organization that was ratified by the Senate.  I don’t believe he has the power to unilaterally pull the US out of NATO.

My understanding is the Constitution didn’t specify how or who can withdraw from a treaty. I’ve read a few articles on the subject and it seems like the majority of scholars think the President can unilaterally withdraw from a treaty.

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8 minutes ago, chiKanery et al. said:

My understanding is the Constitution didn’t specify how or who can withdraw from a treaty. I’ve read a few articles on the subject and it seems like the majority of scholars think the President can unilaterally withdraw from a treaty.

A ratified treaty has the force of Constitutional law.  As such allowing the President the power to unilaterally pull it us out of a ratified treaty doesn’t make much sense.

https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/16-treaties-as-law-of-the-land.html

 

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3 hours ago, Mexal said:

For those who can't watch.

 

Holy shit, Gowdy Doody looks like someone Weekend-at-Bernie'd him.

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6 hours ago, chiKanery et al. said:

It's a dumb form of it though. You're a smart guy, game out what happens if Democrats gain unilateral control of the government and try to pack the court. Republicans will quickly regain control and do the same, albeit in a much more extreme fashion, and then they'll crack down on a number of things that will make it next to impossible for Democrats to regain power. 

Hell, running on a platform of packing the courts very well could lead to.....Trump packing the courts.

This discussion is going nowhere.  I have repeatedly "gamed out" what happens regarding the GOP's response and escalation, and that continues to be the only thing you can say.  In terms of playing hardball, it's one of the only tangible forms of it.  If you have a "smarter" suggestion I'm all ears, but you don't.

1 hour ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

A ratified treaty has the force of Constitutional law.  As such allowing the President the power to unilaterally pull it us out of a ratified treaty doesn’t make much sense.

https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/16-treaties-as-law-of-the-land.html

That's not necessarily true.  The authority of presidents to unilaterally withdraw or terminate treaties is somewhat of a gray area, but there is precedent.  In terms of NATO I think the point is rather moot though.  Trump won't withdraw not because he can't, but because most of his party would be adamantly against it.

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10 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Perhaps you could keep a market based system while outlawing the private ownership of capital. But, the how this would work and the institutional changes that would need to be made to make it work successfully is something I’m not quite sure about, as I think it would require a bit of deep thinking, that I really haven’t thought about. This is something that would, it seems to me, have to be thought about very carefully or it could go badly.

I'd suggest something like a Department of Venture Capital, to which anyone could submit a business proposal for consideration. If rejected, they could either make changes to address the flaws in the proposal before resubmitting to the same caseworker, or resubmit requesting a different caseworker if they think the first made a bad decision. And/or a state-subsidised crowdfunding system, with successful campaigns automatically getting government funding at some multiple of the amount raised through pledges. All the benefits of socialism, without losing the freedom to innovate. Also, we could abolish tax, since if all capital was publicly owned, government services could be funded out of profits.

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28 minutes ago, felice said:

I'd suggest something like a Department of Venture Capital, to which anyone could submit a business proposal for consideration. If rejected, they could either make changes to address the flaws in the proposal before resubmitting to the same caseworker, or resubmit requesting a different caseworker if they think the first made a bad decision. And/or a state-subsidised crowdfunding system, with successful campaigns automatically getting government funding at some multiple of the amount raised through pledges. All the benefits of socialism, without losing the freedom to innovate. Also, we could abolish tax, since if all capital was publicly owned, government services could be funded out of profits.

Would that be in place of private funding or in addition to?

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15 hours ago, Bonnot OG said:



On the opposite spectrum of socialist ideals of an egalitarian, worker-run state, the Nazi created a party-run police state that had governing structure that was anti-democratic, rigidly hierarchical, and militaristic in nature. As for another socialist ideal, the redistribution of wealth, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”, well that was completly rejected in favor of “Take everything that belongs to non-Aryans and keep it for the master race.”

So yea, they were not socialists. Their actions prove that.

Maybe they were Leninists. 

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2 hours ago, Scott de Montevideo! said:

A ratified treaty has the force of Constitutional law.  As such allowing the President the power to unilaterally pull it us out of a ratified treaty doesn’t make much sense.

https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/16-treaties-as-law-of-the-land.html

 

As DMC pointed out, it's kind of a gray area. The articles I skimmed were from the Federalist Society, The Hill and one other mainstream site that I cannot recall. The basic argument is that there isn't any specific text that says what Congress' role is in the process, and since the courts and the Congress haven't acted on the issue, it falls to the Executive Branch. They did point out that he shouldn't (duh), that doing so isn't in the spirit of the Constitution and that he probably can't fully pull out own his own though.

53 minutes ago, DMC said:

This discussion is going nowhere.  I have repeatedly "gamed out" what happens regarding the GOP's response and escalation, and that continues to be the only thing you can say.  In terms of playing hardball, it's one of the only tangible forms of it.  If you have a "smarter" suggestion I'm all ears, but you don't.

That's not necessarily true.  The authority of presidents to unilaterally withdraw or terminate treaties is somewhat of a gray area, but there is precedent.  In terms of NATO I think the point is rather moot though.  Trump won't withdraw not because he can't, but because most of his party would be adamantly against it.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree then. I can see why it would be tempting to pack the court, but I just fear that the benefits don't outweigh the potential and likely costs.

While I don't have a manifesto ready to go at the moment, there are some easy things to point out. First and foremost, play hardball within the caucus and get your members to show some spine and tell them to quit being so defensive and go on the offensive against the Republicans. I'd also play hardball with the elite donor class. I was looking at a few lists of the richest Americans and how they vote, with the most recent  one being from 2016. The four richest Americans lean to the left, and the next two also give to Democrats, yet they don't give nearly as much as the Republicans who follow them. That needs to change. Part of my concept of hardball is swallowing your pride  when needed and stop doing what you think is fair and right and start doing what is effective. We shouldn't always fight fire with fire, but we need to be more willing to do so when the time is right or necessary. 

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1 hour ago, felice said:

I'd suggest something like a Department of Venture Capital, to which anyone could submit a business proposal for consideration. If rejected, they could either make changes to address the flaws in the proposal before resubmitting to the same caseworker, or resubmit requesting a different caseworker if they think the first made a bad decision. And/or a state-subsidised crowdfunding system, with successful campaigns automatically getting government funding at some multiple of the amount raised through pledges. All the benefits of socialism, without losing the freedom to innovate. Also, we could abolish tax, since if all capital was publicly owned, government services could be funded out of profits.

socialism doesn't restrict innovation just just like capitalism doesn't enable it.

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6 hours ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

The tax cut can be interpreted as neoliberal yes, but the other things he does aren't. His anti-globalization policies, trade war threats, and focus on domestic self sufficiency are the opposite of what neoliberalism is about, and seem like a return to the 1930-1980 order. 

1. I'd agree that that Trump's trade wars are a bit of a deviation from standard Republican orthdoxy. But, his tax cuts aren't the only neo-liberal policy. He also is following pretty much the standard conservative playbook on things like, healthcare, SNAP, and TANF. And then of course Republicans are running around talking about "fiscal responsiblity", like they have any fuckin' credibility on that issue, with little objection from Trump.

2. Well, no not exactly. The 1946-1980 order was based very much on low tariffs and reducing economic autarky. That was largely what Bretton Woods was about. And most US presidents basically respected it. 

6 hours ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

Not going far enough is one thing. But they still intervened in order to smooth out the business cycle, instead of just sitting back and letting the bottom drop out of the world economy like what was done in the thirties. 

That Keynesian policies aren't practiced as strongly as half a century ago is not the same thing as them being regarded as left wing fringe stuff. 

AFAIK the most popular view among economists is still the "neoclassical synthesis" one, which is combination of Keynesian and Neoclassical thought. 

Maybe this is true. But still it misses a lot of the story. The fact of the matter is there is a vocal minority of economist that still go around repeating Robert Lucas inspired nonsense. And they certainly gave conservatives, on both sides of the Atlantic, cover to expound the wonders of "expansionary austerity".  

You had people like Alberto Alesina preaching the doctrine based on a paper he published and was seized on by conservative politicians . That paper was very empirically flawed, as was later shown by paper by the IMF. 

And then you had some people, with prestigious academic backgrounds, running around saying completely ridiculous stuff, like John Cochrane and Eugene Fama who basically said that "a dollar spent by the government is one that can't be spent by the private sector." That's basically,

MV = Py 

stuff. And it's completely fuckin' ridiculous. There is no reason that to believe that V is stable. The demand for money can shift and is influence by the rate of interest and the flow of spending. And yet, that entered the public debate as something serious. And conservatives at that shit up like it was candy.

Sometimes, I feel it's hard to get made at the average conservative when their "brightest and best" make these kind of clownball errors.

And still the conservative confusion continues. Behold another conservative idiot writing nonsense:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/07/11/we-are-all-illiterate-about-what-keynesianism-means/

Quote

Another word I have seen abused mercilessly is “Keynesian,” which brings me to the Hoover Institution’s Richard Epstein. Epstein is trained as a lawyer, not an economist. In an essay on the Hoover website, however, Epstein wrote a “best of times, worst of times” essay about President Trump’s economic policy.

Well, I don't know who Richard Epstein is, but he sounds like a real conservative buffoon clown.

I hope he is better at law, than at economics, because a lot of his clients will probably wind up in prison, the flamin' knuckle head.

Continuing with the conservative clown buffoonery. He writes, among other, nonsense:

Quote

The key move was to junk the popular Keynesian paradigm with its flawed assumption that one or more low-interest economic stimulus programs could spend the United States back to prosperity. 

By writing this, the clown seems to confuse what we think of as traditional monetary policy ie lowering the interest rate as opposed to fiscal policy. Keynesian fiscal policy doesn't necessarily have to be "low interest". In order for it to work, their needs to be a failure of aggregate demand. The monetary authority could hold steady the interest rate.

And if this knuckle head doesn't think that monetary policy doesn't work, well it was good enough for Ronald Reagan. So it should be good enough for anyone else.

In order for this knuckle head to be correct about "low interest rate" policy, then markets must always clear and people must have correct price expectations on average. In short, we are in the world of RBC models and money is super neutral with respect to output. And nobody in their fuckin' right mind thinks this is how the world works. Not even Larry Kudlow, it would now seem.

Quote

Making money cheap encourages borrowing, but it also discourages lending, creating at best a wash.

This of course is a piece of nonsense too largely for reasons explained above.

But in addition, it's nonsense because it's like saying that if you raise the price of a factor input (not counting any monopsony issues here) then a firm will produce more output. A bank's lending cost are influenced by the rate of interest the FED sets. A lower interest rate will cause a bank to lend more, up until it's marginal revenue form lending equals it's marginal cost of making the loan, which is influenced by the interest rate set by the FED.

And I think a key point here is that this knuckle head is writing this stuff over at the Hoover Institution, which allegedly is supposed be a respectable institution of public policy research advocating the conservative view of things. And yet somebody lets this nonsense get out and lets this clown publish this stuff. Somebody at the Hoover Institution needs to go over to the quality control department and clean fuckin' house.

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18 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

socialism doesn't restrict innovation just just like capitalism doesn't enable it.

That depends on the method and manner of socialism adopted.  If the State fully controls, to the exclusion of private ownership, all means of production it will restrict innovation because people would need permission, and money from the State to attempt innovation.

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1 hour ago, chiKanery et al. said:

First and foremost, play hardball within the caucus and get your members to show some spine and tell them to quit being so defensive and go on the offensive against the Republicans. I'd also play hardball with the elite donor class. I was looking at a few lists of the richest Americans and how they vote, with the most recent  one being from 2016. The four richest Americans lean to the left, and the next two also give to Democrats, yet they don't give nearly as much as the Republicans who follow them. That needs to change.

We have very different definitions of hardball if you think intraparty discipline and cajoling wealthy donors are examples of such.

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Going back to ANTIFA and anti fascism. 

Somethings to get straight about ANTIFA. 

ANTIFA does not support liberals or Democrats like Clinton or Obama. 

ANTIFA began in the 1930's in Germany as ANTIFASCHISTISCHE AKTION to combat the Nazis.  In fact, 2 days ago was the 86 year aniversary of the creation.

ANTIFA means anti fascists.

ANTIFA has not killed anyone on US soil. 

ANTIFA is not a group. You do not sign up for it. It's more of a movement, a loose-knit gathering of antifascists. 

Protesting is a small part of what ANTIFA does. 

ANTIFA is made up for Anarchists, Socialists and Communists. 

ANTIFA is not funded by anyone. 

ANTIFA is pro-gun. 

ANTIFA believes legislation is is ineffective and useless when it comes to combating fascism, so they rely on direct action.

ANTIFA's primary goal is to make it difficult or impossible for racists, fascists, nationalists, and neo nazis to mobilize. 
 

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7 hours ago, IamMe90 said:

I actually agree with Frog Eater (whoa) that this is more a case of "cops being dicks," with the caveat that the cops' dickery was probably politically motivated. I wouldn't call it a "political move" though, as that kind of implies that the GOP political apparatus coordinated with local Ohio police to produce a sting operation targeted at Stormy, which seems fairly unlikely to me - at least, in comparison to the probability that the Ohio cops were just right-wing assholes who abused their power. 

There's a fair bit of planning that has to go into a sting operation, and probably also an agreement to commit the resource at a senior level within the force (precinct top brass at least). It seems highly unlikely that 3 (or however many) cops just decided to show up at a strip joint in plain clothes and on duty to the Stormy Daniels show, and they decide one of them should try to motorboat her so that they can do a spur of the moment arrest if she agrees.

It was planned, hence it was a politically motivated police conspiracy. Whether the conspiracy reaches back to the Republican party or any Trump political operatives remains to be seen. But to wave it off as simple police dickery at this point is just wrong.

And to be clear, any planned sting operation is a conspiracy, it's just that most police sting conspiracies are probably justified since they are in pursuit of criminals or criminal organisations that pose an actual serious threat. Not in pursuit of a stripper who will "morally corrupt" someone who by their very presence at a strip club, watching a strip show, is already "morally corrupt".

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6 hours ago, Khaleesi did nothing wrong said:

What do you mean with benefits of production? Do you mean new economic growth? 

Anyway, protectionist and anti-globalization policies should be good for you then. It will be easier for workers to bargain for higher wages if it is difficult for their employers to threaten to outsource their labor to other countries, and also easier for the employers to approve said wage increases if they don't have to worry as much about foreign competitors offering cheaper products. 

It won't be very fun at all for the developing world though. So I suppose it depends on how important you consider it is that they also get to modernize and achieve decent lives.  

Because lets not forget that while income increases for working and middle class people in rich countries have slowed down a bit since neoliberalism became vogue, many poorer countries have experienced dramatic improvements in living standards and reductions in poverty levels. 

So I think that even if you accept the premise that neoliberalism might not have been that positive for non-wealthy people in the West, you still run into rather difficult moral questions when you discuss scaling it back. 

Okay, I’ll preface this with the term “neo liberalism” is kind of like socialism. It’s a term that is often thrown around without precise meaning.

But, typically, I think when people talk about “neo liberal” they are generally talking about the kind of “free market fundamentalist” policies pushed by the likes of Reagan and Thatcher. And that goes beyond open trade policy. It emphasizes low taxes for the rich, union busting, minimal regulation, to include the financial sector, and a general hostility to the welfare state.

If free trade were the only driver of inequality in the US, current inequality would likely be a lot less. There is a lot more to this story than just free trade.

As far as the “moral quandary” goes, there were ways to handle this, like tax the winners from trade and compensate the losers from it and have better policies to help people in import exposed sectors find new jobs. 

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1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

There's a fair bit of planning that has to go into a sting operation, and probably also an agreement to commit the resource at a senior level within the force (precinct top brass at least). It seems highly unlikely that 3 (or however many) cops just decided to show up at a strip joint in plain clothes and on duty to the Stormy Daniels show, and they decide one of them should try to motorboat her so that they can do a spur of the moment arrest if she agrees.

It was planned, hence it was a politically motivated police conspiracy. Whether the conspiracy reaches back to the Republican party or any Trump political operatives remains to be seen. But to wave it off as simple police dickery at this point is just wrong.

And to be clear, any planned sting operation is a conspiracy, it's just that most police sting conspiracies are probably justified since they are in pursuit of criminals or criminal organisations that pose an actual serious threat. Not in pursuit of a stripper who will "morally corrupt" someone who by their very presence at a strip club, watching a strip show, is already "morally corrupt".

The cops are claiming they do this sort of strip club sting regularly, to combat human trafficking. One wonders what trafficking they thought they'd fight by entrapping a famous adult film actress.

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