Jump to content

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


Kalbear

Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As someone who has never smoked what does the cigarette analogy mean?  I’m sure it’s bad I just wonder what type of bad it means?

It appropriately tastes like ass when you get that close to the filter/butt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Intending no offense, but unlike you, AOC went to the next level - actually ran for the office and won.  (unless something is missing from your above quote)

Well duh. I thought it was obvious that I was discussing pre-candidacy. 

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

:agree:  Plus, um, she raised campaign funds for her campaign.  As he's never run for office nobody knows if he can raise the funds to so.  In the meantime there's a whole lot going on politically, with her, and others, and this is what he's focused on.  It's not a good look for anyone who professes to supportequal rights and treatment for women and other diversities, it really isn't.  Additionally it looks very weird, to bang on about how much more qualified than she is, he is, when the whole damned White House is swarming with certifiably unqualified people, who also are probably certifiably mentally unstable.  Especially as he's never held office.

Maybe, maybe not. But I do have a lot of experience doing it for others, so I know the mechanics and what to do. And more importantly I know the people who could get me access to bigger donors, so if I was able to prove that I could raise funds on my own, you never know. 

Look dude, I wasn't bashing her. She ran a good campaign and had a great ad the went viral. Plus she got lucky in that the incumbent was a total moron who didn't run a campaign for the most part. All I said above was answer a question that was asked of me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, DMC said:

Perhaps you see the same handful of people on national cable news, but MCs can also grandstand at the district level.  And, again, this is driven by the environment.  Come January, less than 150 members will have been in Congress since before Obama took office.  The rest won their seats in an age of increasingly expensive campaigns and a weakening of the incumbency advantage.  The fact is more members than ever have to have more interest in the camera and fundraising than policy.  So it's not that I'm underestimating the amount of members interested in policy - I imagine most of them are (or at least were) in one way or another - but rather I'm doubting their ability/time to truly "invest" in becoming an expert.  And even those that do usually specialize in a certain policy area - there are very few experts on the budget process.

Well sure, in that sense, but how much coverage do they really get back in their districts? My Congressman has never seen a camera he didn't want to talk to until recently (because of a scandal) and even he gets little publicity here except around election time. 

You're right to say that many aren't experts, but they do at least try to demonstrate they have a good grasp at of the subject. And that's why I was saying it would have been wiser to have vetted that tweet first. 

 

Quote

I just think what you originally said - that new MCs should steer clear of policy arguments until they've "mastered" the subject - is a preposterous standard.  It obviously doesn't reflect reality, and I'm not even sure it should.  An MC should be informed by policy experts, of course, but any MC that's trying to become an expert on multiple policy areas isn't really doing their job.  And, again, it is my strong prior that there is absolutely no correlation between...let's call it "policy ignorance" and tenure in Congress.

Fine, lower the standard. But again, you've got to know how to vet these things. You are right about the last bit though.

 

Quote

She also needs to continue to speak out to maintain her appeal of authenticity.  Again, she needs a strike a balance there, but your advice seems to suggest she stop doing what makes her so popular with the progressives bloc in the first place. 

Not at all. I think the way she streams her day to day activities, for example, is brilliant, and I expect it to be a new norm. Like you said, there needs to be a balance, and you can have some filter on what you're putting out there. 

Kal is right to say that she needs to fear another Democrat rather than a Republican. And that Democrat is probably the person she just beat, Rep. Crowley. Given her age, and this is the same advice I'd give myself if I were in her shoes, she needs to look like she belongs there. If she makes it to a second term, she'll likely have that seat for as long as she wants it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fine, lower the standard.

Not to be an ass, but I think the standard's been lowered by other folks already and therefore that AOC's few blunders aren't that big a deal. In an ideal world, it would be great to have politicians who don't overly simplify or misrepresent things, but we don't live in that world so if anything AOC's little leftist outbursts are a bit of fresh air in this otherwise grim reality. I wish there were a few more elected politicians like her, actually...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

As someone who has never smoked what does the cigarette analogy mean?  I’m sure it’s bad I just wonder what type of bad it means?

As DMC said, it tastes like ass, and if you push your luck you'll get a hit of hot filter, which tastes like Satan's ass. Only the most depraved and desperate smokers go there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Moreover she knows her district better than Tywin does!

So far, what have they dragged out against her? That she dresses nicely (i.e. has honed over a lifetime in NYC how to get the right clothes without spending thousands, which has been a basic survival skill in NYC since its founding, and that she did something -- which was what again exactly????? -- with numbers.  And they don't stop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Look down....further.  That's where the standard already is!

I mean when someone like Paul Ryan is much vaunted as "the policy guy" about congress, can it even be said that a standard exists, in this respect?

I think if you turn up to a meeting, or press event, with a chart and a line graph, I'm pretty sure you are in the running to take over the title of "policy guy" in congress, now that Ryan has retired.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

And there is a Secret Society involved, according to Senator Johnson. Yes, a U.S. Senator said that, embarrassing as that is.

Always accuse your enemy of that for which you are guilty. So Johnson must be part of a secret society, and therefore believes that these sorts of things can only be achieved through the machinations of an opposing secret society.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Wall Street Journal
Isn't the WSJ supposed to be something like "news for the serious minded investor and financial professional" or something like that?
Evidently its views depends on highly on who is president. Seems like its changed its tune.
What a fuckin' joke.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-feds-welcome-rethink-1543450104

Quote

The Federal Reserve’s top two officials rolled out their latest thinking on monetary policy this week, and financial markets cheered as stocks rallied some 2.5% Wednesday. Investors aren’t always right in their initial impressions of Fed rhetoric. But in this case they seem to have judged correctly that the Fed is reconsidering its plans for higher interest rates, and for the right reasons.

Talk about being a day late and a dollar short.

Quote

In other words, the Fed may follow through on another widely expected 0.25% rate increase in December, but the three or four rate increases anticipated for 2019 won’t be made in hell-bent pursuit of some arbitrary “neutral” rate. The definition of what is neutral may change based on data and events, and that is welcome modesty from the often dogmatic central bank.

It's almost like they are saying the neutral rate depends on the level of employment. Seems like somebody else said that once.

Quote

But, crucially, he added that even in the current tight labor market “there may still be some further room for participation” by nonworkers to increase. Women of prime working age have been streaming back into the labor market, but their participation rate still isn’t back to what it was at its peak in 2000. The participation rate for men age 25-54 is also still two percentage points below what it was a decade ago. Higher wages and better prospects in a faster-growing economy could get more of them back to work as well.

Evidently this wasn't true when Obama was president. But, now it is true or possibly true.

Quote

This is also a welcome supply-side perspective on the current economy, implicitly giving credit for policy changes like tax reform that improve the economy’s growth potential.

Then where is all this fuckin' business investment as a result of the corporate tax cut?

Quote

This being Donald Trump’s Washington, many want to interpret all this as a sign that Mr. Powell is capitulating to the President’s loud criticism of higher rates. Mr. Trump was especially pointed in an interview with the Washington Post on Tuesday in which he said he’s “not even a little bit happy” with his choice of Mr. Powell as Fed Chairman. 

Seemingly Trump changed his tune once he got to be president, kind of like what the WSJ is doing now.
..........................................................................................................................................................................

Niskanen libertarians are trying, I think, to rescue the name of libertarianism from the usual Koch Brother/Cato Institute variety. Though, I think while they are trying to give it a respectable whirl, the task maybe hopeless, particularly when it seems every alt-right goober, like Gavin McInnes call themselves a "libertarian".

Anyway, its holding an interesting discussion on what the center right should do or become after Trump. Though, I have to say any respectable center right, needs to 86 Bill Kristol, extremely fast.

Here:

Quote

Donald Trump has had a hurricane-like effect on the Republican Party. The 2018 midterm elections have forced center-right Americans to reconsider their relationship to the Trump-driven conservative populism that has come to dominate the GOP.

The Niskanen Center will present an important public analysis of this new political reality, featuring conversations with some of the nation’s leading thinkers and activists on the center-right. Panels will focus on political prospects for a new center-right, and the policy ideas and ideals that can revitalize the post-Trump Republican Party.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a little more on AOC being scrutinized for her gaffes, while Paul "Young Gun" Ryan continues to be seen as a "very serious person" by some people, rather than some guy that made an entire career out of reading Ayn Rand.

Quote

In a valedictory interview with the Washington Post, House Speaker Paul Ryan depicted himself, and was in turn depicted by his hosts, as he has always chosen to be seen: a wonk-statesman, a little too good and pure for the ugly world of politics, who pointed the way toward a brighter and more responsible future and of whom it could be said, at the very worst, failed only to achieve the ideals for which he strived.

“He’s worked to solve important national challenges, including tax reform and fiscal sustainability,” said Post publisher Fred Ryan. To be sure, the fiscal sustainability issue may not have been solved completely (the deficit has, indeed, nearly doubled under the unified government carrying out Ryan’s agenda despite the mature recovery), so the retiring Speaker had to offer an awkward half-apology. “The two regrets I wish we could have gotten done,” he acknowledged, were immigration reform and debt.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

And there is a Secret Society involved, according to Senator Johnson. Yes, a U.S. Senator said that, embarrassing as that is.

Giuliani sent a tweet about the G-20 meeting where he made a typo, forgetting to put a space after a period and thereby creating an inadvertent hyperlink. Ie G-20.in 

‘in’ is the abbreviation for India, and some very sharp-eyed person jumped in and purchased the rights to the link. The link led to a white on black message that said ‘Trump is a traitor to our country’.

Guiliani, your country’s head of the cyber security task force, then raged that this was more evidence that Twitter was run by ‘committed cardcarrying anti-Trumpers’.

No, I did not make this up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just a reminder that last night the Democrats officially picked up CA-21.

Next year, there will be the same number (seven) of Republicans in the congressional delegation from California (population 40 million) as Tennessee (population 6 million). 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, DMC said:

Look down....further.  That's where the standard already is!

 

15 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Not to be an ass, but I think the standard's been lowered by other folks already and therefore that AOC's few blunders aren't that big a deal. In an ideal world, it would be great to have politicians who don't overly simplify or misrepresent things, but we don't live in that world so if anything AOC's little leftist outbursts are a bit of fresh air in this otherwise grim reality. I wish there were a few more elected politicians like her, actually...

But that begs this question: Would you prefer to combat the trend or jump feet first into it? I definitely want the former, because my fear is that Trumpism will last long after his presidency is over absent an event that wakes every one of his supporters up. His long term damage could be catastrophic, and we should combat it rather than going with it for our own political gain.

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...