US Politics: Shutbound & Down

[Martell Spy]

James Woods Calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ‘The Most Dangerous Person’ In The Nation
The youngest woman ever elected to Congress appears to be getting under the right-wing actor’s skin.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/james-woods-calls-ocasio-cortez-most-dangerous-person-in-america_us_5c410ea9e4b0bfa693c173b5

Quote

 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is getting under conservatives’ skin so much that right-wing actor James Woods has labeled her “the most dangerous person in America.”

His over-the-top tweet on Thursday followed her punchy speech Wednesday on the floor of the House bashing President Donald Trump over the continuing partial government shutdown.

 

 

[James Arryn]

4 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Apologies. Reading comprehension failure.

No worries. I do this thing where I invent entirely new and not necessarily clear terms and expect everyone else to adjust accordingly. 

[Zorral]

8 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

That's dope! Spain is on my very very long list of places to visit.

I wish to walk the ground of Hamilcar and his vengeful brood.

I wish to walk the ground where the Umayyads kicked Visigoth butt.  And eat oranges. 

In the meantime, another migrant caravan out of Central American has formed, but people along the way don't like this one as much as the previous one. But! it is fortunate for the orange nazi's back to the wall government shut-down howls, probably.  Keep that there base of ignorant meanies fired up, you betcha!

Edited January 18 by Zorral

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Martell Spy said:

James Woods Calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ‘The Most Dangerous Person’ In The Nation
The youngest woman ever elected to Congress appears to be getting under the right-wing actor’s skin.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/james-woods-calls-ocasio-cortez-most-dangerous-person-in-america_us_5c410ea9e4b0bfa693c173b5

 

Poor James Woods. So tough to be a creepy molester these days.

[lokisnow]

4 hours ago, mormont said:

This sounds as if you're implying that the anti-O'Rourke sentiment comes exclusively from party insiders, which given that it's in response to Jace, is pretty amusing.

 

I thought it was pretty silly myself.

 

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

James Woods Calls Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ‘The Most Dangerous Person’ In The Nation
The youngest woman ever elected to Congress appears to be getting under the right-wing actor’s skin.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/james-woods-calls-ocasio-cortez-most-dangerous-person-in-america_us_5c410ea9e4b0bfa693c173b5

 

Remind me who James Wood is and why he is important.  

[Tywin et al.]

Current hill reporting is that the talks have completely broken down and neither side will talk to one another. Great… Well, at least we’re not the U.K., so we’ve got that going for us.

 

Also, @Jace, Basilissa, great rant. It's been a while. 

[Morpheus]

12 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Remind me who James Wood is and why he is important.  

He had a stomach vagina in Videodrome. 

And that’s the tombstone, really.

Edited January 18 by Morpheus

[Mexal]

So after the Trump Admin took away the military plane for the congressional delegation, they were going to fly commercial. Then the Trump Admin leaked their commercial plans, which is akin to purposely putting them in danger.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Not only is Trump’s action a tit-for-tat, after finally screwing up his courage to go to a place where US troops serve in a war zone, he cannot tolerate the idea of seeing Pelosi talking to troops in Afghanistan. He probably decided Afghanistan was too dangerous, and the thought that a effing woman, an enemy of the people, would do so just put him in a rage, I’m sure.

[Fragile Bird]

7 hours ago, James Arryn said:

But Cohn’s statements are not heresay, it’s direct witness testimony, and the emails are corroboration. Besides, I think they might meet the exception standards for heresay on their own, but as corroboration there shouldn't be a problem, as I understand it.

Moreover I doubt Cohn will be alone in terms of witness testimony. But I think what we’re going to see is a floating bar, which will be constantly set just above wherever the evidence might be.

Oh my sweet, summer child, Cohen (not Cohn, he’s someone else) is an admitted liar, a convicted felon, from a family of thieves, he has no credibility at all, none at all. He’s a liar, a damn liar, going to prison for three years!

Ever heard of a rape trial where the woman says ‘he raped me’ and he says, no I didn’t and look at the clothes she wore, the beer she drank and the dark street she walked on? Imagine Cohen and Trump in those roles and the jury being composed of Republican Senators.

Edited January 18 by Fragile Bird

[aceluby]

The only candidate that has even the remotest chance of carrying Texas is O'Rourke, so if that's a mark against him, it's a mark against them all IMO.  The last two candidates were from New York and Illinois, which didn't provide any kind of home state advantage.  Seems like a strange thing to focus on.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, aceluby said:

The only candidate that has even the remotest chance of carrying Texas is O'Rourke, so if that's a mark against him, it's a mark against them all IMO.  The last two candidates were from New York and Illinois, which didn't provide any kind of home state advantage.  Seems like a strange thing to focus on.

Being from the midwest undoubtedly helped Obama.  Yes, Illinois isn't as good as being from Wisconsin or Michigan, but it still helped.  Obama certainly wouldn't have won Indiana in 08 without commuters from Chicago (not that he needed it).

[Zorral]

47 minutes ago, Mexal said:

So after the Trump Admin took away the military plane for the congressional delegation, they were going to fly commercial. Then the Trump Admin leaked their commercial plans, which is akin to purposely putting them in danger.

 

Doesn't that qualify under criminal acts: incitement to commit murder, for instance?

Lock him up!  He's a killer!

[IheartIheartTesla]

Not sure what Trump's "home state" is, but he is considered to be from New York, also where he voted I believe. And he is very very unpopular there. So Trump didnt carry his home state (although he may feel more at home at Mar-a-Lago, and that state he did carry).

I think we are nearing some sort of end game for the Presidency. With his numbers tanking and the new bombshell report/Mueller probe there might be a breaking point soon.

[Mexal]

Just now, IheartIheartTesla said:

Not sure what Trump's "home state" is, but he is considered to be from New York, also where he voted I believe. And he is very very unpopular there. So Trump didnt carry his home state (although he may feel more at home at Mar-a-Lago, and that state he did carry).

I think we are nearing some sort of end game for the Presidency. With his numbers tanking and the new bombshell report/Mueller probe there might be a breaking point soon.

His home state is NY. Everyone hates him.

[Simon Steele]

6 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

I really like AOC pushing the "Overton Window" to the left and I think she raises a lot of important issues.
The days of a liberal being somebody that won't take their own side in an argument need to be over.
That said, I'm not the hugest fan of Modern Monetary Theory. I think MMT theorist have made several key insights (or perhaps made them more well known), like money primarily gets its value because it because it can be used to pay taxes. And, obviously, I have the same Keynesian heritage.

Like MMT theorist, I do not believe that full employment or full employment  of resources is a given. The unemployment during Great Depression was not the result of a spontaneous vacation. And the unemployment during the GFC was simply due to lack of aggregate demand, and all the other reasons, like "the skills gap", or "ACA did it", or "Obama's Job Killing Regulation" are all a bunch of horseshit, and I'd hope the people that spewed that garbage would see the errors of their conservative ways.

I believe that a key insight of the General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money is that the heart of economic trouble is the demand for liquid financial assets, in particular money, which governments can create.  One could imagine, I think, an institutional arrangement, where governments did not issue bonds and there were no central banks. Under this arrangement, both fiscal authority and money creation authority would be vested in one institution, and theoretically I think it could work, which I think MMT theorist are basically saying. Though as a practical matter I think it would be unwise to give both fiscal authority and money creation authority to the same institution.

Assuming full employment, which is often a political choice, resources do bind. And when resources do bind choices have to be made. The point here is that I don't agree with the MMT theorist that as a practical matter that debt or deficits never matter.

Do I agree that there had often been too much debt/deficit hysteria. Sure. According to the CBO, the debt / GDP ratio is supposed to be something like 145%. That number to me isn't really all that scary. What is more scary is that r > g, which means the debt is not on a path to converge at some level.

Another issue I have with MMT is that it makes it too easy to ignore supply side issues, and not in the sense that Republicans usually talk about (ie cut taxes). For instance, there is something very wrong with US healthcare system, given that it is about the most expensive in the world, and reforms need to be made to fix it, like say taking a look at some of intellectual property laws and so forth. Education is another issue where the supply side of the market needs to be looked at, as the real price of a college education has grown a whole bunch since the 1970s. MMT isn't the answer to the problem of expensive housing in urban areas. I believe in universal healthcare and I believe we need to make educational opportunities cheaper and more available. I just don't think MMT is the answer to these issues.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-01-17/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-s-big-ideas-for-taxes-and-medicare

 

 

 

Of course no post would be complete without taking the opportunity to say, "Screw Norquist, the 'libertarian' clown."

The thing with Norquist is that he's been around a long time, and he wields immense power from behind the scenes. How does he get/force Republicans to sign his pledge/voluntarily put themselves on his list of approval? It baffles my mind. Why does he hold so much power over our tax structure.

[Mindwalker]

regarding AOC: https://www.theonion.com/fox-news-debuts-premium-channel-for-24-hour-coverage-of-1831814505

ETA: Weird. Just a couple of days ago, I looked up what had become of some of the actors of the mini series Holocaust. Of course I knew Wood, but I was sorry to read about his political views. The guy who played Dorf seems to hold similar opinions.

Edited January 18 by Mindwalker

[Maithanet]

A WaPo editorial brought up something I had forgotten, which is that Cohen habitually recorded his conversations, including conversations with Trump.  No way of knowing if this particular conversation was recorded, but it could be.  If such a tape exists, that would definitely make explaining things a bit harder for Trump. 

[DanteGabriel]

5 minutes ago, Mexal said:

His home state is NY. Everyone hates him.

New Yorkers have been the most consistently Trump-loathing people in my social spheres. The general sentiment is, "We've known this guy is a clown and a fraud for decades, what's wrong with you idiots?"