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US Politics: Sing us a song, you're the Tariff man


Kalbear

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Kalbear,

See, Conservative Judges all care nothing but their political point of view.

A lot of lower courts have been doing some fine work. But it's rather hard to be relaxed about the Supreme Court, after they endorsed the Muslim Ban. Not to mention frat boy's primal screams about the Clintons.

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5 hours ago, Zorral said:

You don't count because this is your area of research and study.  Of course you would know.

This is probably the nicest way my opinion has ever been dismissed on the internet, but it's still not true.  It's not like during my diss defense I'm worried about being asked "that's all well and good, but what about Sherrod Brown?"  I know about Brown for the same reason you do - I'm a political junkie.  And he's not a good presidential candidate.

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

And I don't mean it, either. I don't think ALL justices are entirely committed to whatever partisan values exist.

Wouldn't quite phrase it that way, but yes, I do think ALL justices are primarily guided by their partisan values.  And that's what the tonnage of evidence strongly suggests.

5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Note also that I largely believe the same thing for most of the liberal justices. Only RBG would I say otherwise. The big difference is that the Democrats don't have a particularly good system to identify conservative justices and groom them and be able to say 'we want THESE PEOPLE' when nominating. Merrick Garland is a good example of this kind of thing, where Obama went after a reasonably moderate person with a great record. The Federalist Society doesn't exist for dems, and it dominates for Republicans - and thinking that somehow the Federalist society is nominating and directing specific conservatives while also thinking that they're otherwise good on things like Stare Decisis? It's naive wishful fairy thinking. 

Totally agree with the first sentence in this graph, but as for the rest, the Dems definitely do have the equivalent of the Federalist Society.  No group may be as maligned and notorious as the Federalist Society as a comparison*, but it was created precisely because liberal groups were filling the heads of otherwise conservative justices with radical ideas like fairness and equality.

*ETA:  Feel guilty about not mentioning the ACLU here.  Which demonstrates their influence - why should I feel guilty?

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

Totally agree with the first sentence in this graph, but as for the rest, the Dems definitely do have the equivalent of the Federalist Society.  No group may be as maligned and notorious as the Federalist Society as a comparison*, but it was created precisely because liberal groups were filling the heads of otherwise conservative justices with radical ideas like fairness and equality.

Late, and I'm not going to bother with the links, but the 'Federalist' bunch has numerous opinion pieces on msnbc.  Mostly, this is standard conservative fare on any number of topics, but over the past few months there have been  commentaries on things like healthcare, losing the youth vote, and so on.  Almost like an internal dispute that goes public once in a while.

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4 hours ago, lokisnow said:

Article on anger research as it relates to politics and has been weaponized by commerce and fissionized by social media.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/charles-duhigg-american-anger/576424/

Interesting, thanks for sharing.
 

Quote

 

With the help of an advertising agency, the social scientists created online ads celebrating the tension between Israelis and Palestinians, and extolling the virtues of fighting for fighting’s sake. One ad showed iconic photos of Israeli war heroes and proclaimed, “Without [war] we wouldn’t have had heroes. For the heroes, we probably need the conflict.” The ad was scored with Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries.” Another ad featured footage of a soldier with a machine gun petting a kitten and an infantryman helping an old man cross the street. “What a Wonderful World” played in the background. Its tagline read, “Without [war] we would never be moral. For morality, we probably need the conflict.” The ads, along with brochures and billboards, began appearing in Giv’at Shmuel in 2015. Over a six-week period, according to polling, nearly all of its 25,000 residents saw them.

[...]

The campaign worked, the social scientists believe, because instead of telling people they were wrong, the ads agreed with them—to embarrassing, offensive extremes. “No one wants to think of themselves as some angry crank,” one of the researchers, Eran Halperin, told me. “No one wants to be lumped in with extremists or the angriest fringe.” Sometimes, however, we don’t realize we’ve become extremists until someone makes it painfully obvious.

 

 

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Interesting UCLA study of Latino voters in 2018.

It shows a mixed bag for Democrats with regard to Latino voters.  In California, Arizona and Texas, Latino participation is increasing faster than non-Latinos, and this probably put Democrats over the top for the AZ senate race as well as numerous House races.  There's reason to expect that as the Latino population in AZ and TX continues to expand, those voters will turn those states purple, and that change may happen soon. 

The bad news is that in FL and GA, the same cannot be said.  In spite of increasing Latino populations in both states, there was no real correlation between % of Latino voters in a district and an increase in voter participation vs 2014 in Florida.  In addition, exit polls in Florida and Georgia showed that Nelson, Gillum and Abrams all won Latino voters statewide by ~10 points, which is frankly, terrible - far below the nationwide average.  Given how close all of those races were, there's every reason to think that this shortfall in Latino voters made the difference between winning and losing.  Democrats need to do some real outreach to Latino communities in FL and GA to make sure they are included in the overall Democratic message ahead of 2020. 

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The wall was never a priority for Republican lawmakers, or they would have found funding for the x billion dollars it required somewhere, somehow,  Instead, they hung their hat on the stupid tax bill that has been no good to anyone except some companies and definitely didnt help them in the polls (I still cant believe they thought their tax bill would actually work). Of course the Admin didnt have the foresight to plan for the 2018 elections, and in the end I am pleased we wont have any kind of wall.

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3 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The wall was never a priority for Republican lawmakers, or they would have found funding for the x billion dollars it required somewhere, somehow,  Instead, they hung their hat on the stupid tax bill that has been no good to anyone except some companies and definitely didnt help them in the polls (I still cant believe they thought their tax bill would actually work). Of course the Admin didnt have the foresight to plan for the 2018 elections, and in the end I am pleased we wont have any kind of wall.

The tax bill was incredibly poorly concieved.  If the Democrats were to write a satirical tax cut that highlights all of their criticisms of Republicans, it would look exactly like the bill that was passed.  It intentionally screwed over Blue states and guess what, Republicans in NY, NJ and CA all did very badly in their reelection campaigns.  It intentionally gave little/nothing to people earning less than 200k, and guess what, those voters noticed! 

Even if you are a card carrying Republican who drinks the kool-aid on tax cuts paying for themselves, surely you still know that the bill would be more popular if it gave voters a share of the pie?  Did no one bring that up? 

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11 hours ago, DMC said:

This is probably the nicest way my opinion has ever been dismissed on the internet, but it's still not true.  It's not like during my diss defense I'm worried about being asked "that's all well and good, but what about Sherrod Brown?"  I know about Brown for the same reason you do - I'm a political junkie.  And he's not a good presidential candidate.

 

We agree on that.  All those old white guys / women that people are racing to put forth as Dem candidates are not good candidates. They are all what has made so many voters furious with the Dems in the first place.

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25 minutes ago, Zorral said:

We agree on that.  All those old white guys / women that people are racing to put forth as Dem candidates are not good candidates. They are all what has made so many voters furious with the Dems in the first place.

For me the oldest candidate (or potential candidate) I'd consider supporting with my primary vote would be Amy Klobuchar, age 58.  While someone who will be 60 in Nov 2020 isn't exactly young, she's still 14 years younger than Trump, and in a televised debate that contrast would be obvious.

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O’Rourke notched his first victory over sanders, beating him in move ons meaningless straw poll. He also beat Biden (who came in second) meaning Beto “won” the poll, technically losing only to “undecided”

but since move on went 78% for sanders in 2016 the fact that o rourke beat sanders by 3 points is interesting.

harris and warren were fourth and fifth, notching half and a third of the leaders numbers.

booker and brown etc were all also rans  in the 1-3% range.

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15 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

For me the oldest candidate (or potential candidate) I'd consider supporting with my primary vote would be Amy Klobuchar, age 58.  While someone who will be 60 in Nov 2020 isn't exactly young, she's still 14 years younger than Trump, and in a televised debate that contrast would be obvious.

I really have a hard time seeing Amy get through the primaries. She has a great resume, is smart as hell and would make a fine president. However, she likely lacks the charisma necessary to attract undecided voters, and I think that will stand out with Harris and Booker on the stage.

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

I really have a hard time seeing Amy get through the primaries. She has a great resume, is smart as hell and would make a fine president. However, she likely lacks the charisma necessary to attract undecided voters, and I think that will stand out with Harris and Booker on the stage.

I hear that, she is less obviously charismatic than some candidates.  However, I'm keeping an open mind going into the debates.  A lot of people are going to be running in 2020, and she's one of the 5 or so candidates that check many of the boxes for me such that I want to get a better look at how she performs in a national campaign.  If she gets swallowed up in the debates, then so be it, she can continue being a senator.

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