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U.S. Politics: Gar Nicht Trump's Traumschiff!


Tywin Manderly

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9 minutes ago, DMC said:

My parents have had two Havanese for a few years now.  I was not excited when they told me they got the first one, but they've grown on me.  Now I'm wondering if I could punt them over my parent's house's fence.  Get back to you after Christmas.

But Havanese are so cute!  unlike chihuahuas, which are creepy as hell.

 

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8 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Are there no military bases in Tennessee? I keep hearing there’s lots of support for Trump in the rank and file, do they think attacks are ok because the people being attacked are high ranking?

"When Daddy yells at everybody but me it's okay, because Daddy is STRONG. And I'm strong like Daddy, that's why Daddy doesn't yell at me. Because I'm so strong that I never question Daddy. Except for the sometimes when I forget to be STRONG like Daddy and he gets sooooo mad. Daddy gets mad because Daddy is STRONG, that's why he punches back. Because Daddy is so STRONG!" - Army Mens, Asking to Please Be Tread Upon

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11 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

when it goes to the Senate, Senate leadership will announce the whole process in Congress was illegitimate and dismiss the impeachment application as groundless, or if it goes to trial and Justice Roberts issued the subpoenas to witnesses the WH doesn’t want to appear, the Senate, with it’s Republican majority, will simply overrule the subpoenas, a power they have.

McConnell has already publicly committed to conducting a trial, repeatedly.  A reasonable interpretation of Article 1 Section 3 is that the Senate is required to conduct a trial (and have the Chief Justice preside).  What that trial actually entails, however, is entirely up to leadership.  Roberts isn't going to issue subpoenas unless the leadership asked him to, which they wouldn't - they'd just issue them themselves.  Rehnquist's most notable role in the Clinton impeachment trial was his choice of wardrobe.

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

But Havanese are so cute!  unlike chihuahuas, which are creepy as hell.

Agreed.  The younger one, "Scooter," is especially adorable.

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3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Is your strategy to minimize or maximize the mid-air rotation on Scooter? 

Minimize.  Figure I gotta aim at his mid-section because that's where most of his mass is.  I think just getting him to go straight up and down - no rotation - is my best shot.

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1 hour ago, argonak said:

I'm not sure really how important these primaries are.  the election isn't about Warren, Sanders or Biden.  It will be about Trump.  A hundred more than a usual re-election campaign will be, this election will ONLY be about Trump.  Nobody is changing their minds about Trump because the other person has or doesn't have a plan for medicare for all.  Frankly, I'm amazed there's anyone on the fence left.  Either you've already made your decision, or you're just not paying any attention at all.

I think it's possible you are greatly underestimating the number of eligible voters who are not paying any attention at all. 

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

Here's what I don't get: in the 1920s, we had more wealth inequality than we have now. Various things resulted from this, but ultimately a number of policies and factors led to decades of a reduction in inequality. No one's wealth had to be confiscated by a wealth tax in the U.S. for the share of wealth of the 1% to go from 28% in the 20s to 8% in the early 70s.

You're right. It had to be essentially wiped out by a massive economic collapse. 

if you'd prefer that, it's probably something that can be arranged.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

So when you tell me that confiscation of wealth is the only way to fix things, it seems to fly in the face of history and starts to feel Messianic rather than grounded.

It's the only non-disaster way to fix things that's been proposed, but as I've mentioned chances are good that we aren't going to change until disaster strikes. 

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18 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

You're right. It had to be essentially wiped out by a massive economic collapse. 

if you'd prefer that, it's probably something that can be arranged.

It's the only non-disaster way to fix things that's been proposed, but as I've mentioned chances are good that we aren't going to change until disaster strikes. 

And most proposals for confiscation of wealth, still leave people wealthy. I just don't get it. The Bill Gates getting taxed 100 billion (and still having 7 or so billion left for his meager lifestyle) says it all in my opinion.

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1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

The Bill Gates getting taxed 100 billion (and still having 7 or so billion left for his meager lifestyle) says it all in my opinion.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

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5 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Eh, it's your right to view it that way. I just think she used really poor language while addressing a legitimate issue. As to the rest of what you wrote, conservative Jews are just as happy as conservative Christians to engage in a Faustian bargain with Trump.

 

I guess I had hoped for better since our disagreement about it notwithstanding a lot liberal and leftist Jews did also find Omar's remarks antisemitic and I was hoping things like this could be addressed in a non-partisan manner. I think some of us are afraid of what happened to the UK Labour Party happening here and there are signs it is, on the left in general, to the point that many of us who are critics of the occupation, settlements and Israeli policies towards the Palestinians in general, the nation-state law, the Netanyahu government, but still zionists in that we believe Israel has the right to exist feel uncomfortable in many leftist spaces where people ask us about Israel as soon as they realize we're Jewish, continually bring up Israel/Palestine in unrelatedly discussions, there is too much crossing the line from anti-Zionism to antisemitism and gaslighting about it even from people who don't cross that line. 


But again to go back to the previous point Republicans have been getting away with a lot of antisemitic smears and most people don't even seem to understand what's going on.
 

Quote

Sorry about that.


Why? I mean I'm off the derech so obviously it's not a life I'm choosing for myself, but they're not charedi, so it's probably not what you're imagining. 

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5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

You're right. It had to be essentially wiped out by a massive economic collapse. 

if you'd prefer that, it's probably something that can be arranged.

It's the only non-disaster way to fix things that's been proposed, but as I've mentioned chances are good that we aren't going to change until disaster strikes. 

I'd argue that genuine grassroots initiatives like the 'fight for 15' movement and the citizen actions that led to California imposing statewide rent control represent another option.  

 

Likewise, once established, progressive measures like the ACA are extremely hard to kill - as Republicans learned a couple years ago.

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8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

. It had to be essentially wiped out by a massive economic collapse. 

Quote

 8% in the early 70s.

 

I did not realize that there was a massive economic collapse from the late 1930s all the way until the early 1970s. 

In fact, while the Great Depression provided the initial squeeze, and World War 2 continued the trend, it was the post-war era where we achieved the greatest levels of income equality. See this chart.

I don't really see an argument for a wealth tax from this data. I see an argument for turning back to the previous progressive tax structure and financial regulations which have been increasingly dismantled over the last 30-odd years, structures and regulations which were in place concurrently with some of the greatest growth and increase in prosperity that the country had ever seen.

 

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55 minutes ago, Ran said:

In fact, while the Great Depression provided the initial squeeze, and World War 2 continued the trend, it was the post-war era where we achieved the greatest levels of income equality.

Yes but this doesn't change the fact that the Great Depression and WWII greatly informed and really pretty much directed what the west did in the post-war era.  Internationally speaking, Bretton Woods, the Marshall Plan, et al.  Domestically, LBJ's Great Society was obviously an extension of FDR, and was only possible because that was the dominant political paradigm for quite some time.  Friedman and Nixon were saying "we're all Keynesians now" up to the early 1970s.  Only after that did the paradigm shift with Reagan's emergence.

Point is, conditions are pretty bad - comparable to the 1920s.  The reasons why and symptoms of are strikingly similar, see Polarized America for reference.  And since none of us want a great depression or world war to happen in order to spur us into such change, maybe a wealth tax is a good avenue to move the national discussion toward *gasp* redistributing wealth in a far more equitable manner.

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39 minutes ago, DMC said:

Point is, conditions are pretty bad - comparable to the 1920s.  The reasons why and symptoms of are strikingly similar, see Polarized America for reference.  And since none of us want a great depression or world war to happen in order to spur us into such change, maybe a wealth tax is a good avenue to move the national discussion toward *gasp* redistributing wealth in a far more equitable manner.

Besides it not really being a good method to move the needle because it's constitutionally dubious and generally against the character of all American jurisprudence or even attitudes on these matters, sure!

Again, the solutions to income inequality were already found decades ago. Wealth taxes are not needed to resolve them. You're going to have a much easier time saying, "Lets go back to where we were in the post-war economic boom of the 50s and 60s, where marginal tax rates were this and capital gains was this and share buybacks were strictly regulated and unions made sure wages grew with productivity; we did it before, we can do it again" than you are, "Lets impose a new tax that has largely failed and been abandoned everywhere else it has been imposed, which is designed to make its subjects poorer in the long run, and which has massive congressional and constitutional hurdles to even become a thing."

I mean, for one thing, I should point out that the issues you see in the U.S. are not necessarily conditions in every other country in the world. I made a post on FB years ago on this comparing data of U.S. inequality vs. Swedish inequality, and it's night and day:

 

 

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

You're going to have a much easier time saying, "Lets go back to where we were in the post-war economic boom of the 50s and 60s, where marginal tax rates were this and capital gains was this and share buybacks were strictly regulated and unions made sure wages grew with productivity; we did it before, we can do it again" than you are, "Lets impose a new tax that has largely failed and been abandoned everywhere else it has been imposed, which is designed to make its subjects poorer in the long run, and which has massive congressional and constitutional hurdles to even become a thing."

That's quite debatable. There's no guarantee that there wouldn't be just as many criticisms of post-war measures as of the wealth tax.

In fact, if you see politics in terms of power relationships, it's peferable to start the negotiation/social conflict with an extreme demand to ensure that something eventually gets done. Starting from a moderate/reasonable position is the surest way to obtain nothing at all.

Not to mention that the reason wealth taxes have been abandoned is precisely because they have been weakened and opposed by the very forces you now propose to impose post-war measures on. Post-war measures that were also abandoned in the first place because of these same forces.

Basically you're trying to be the adult in the room and be reasonable when all the evidence suggests that the opposing parties are anything but and will only compromise if faced with the threat of a truly radical measure.
If I had time to waste I'm sure I could demonstrate that such moderation is exactly what has led us to this situation to begin with.
 

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

Besides it not really being a good method to move the needle because it's constitutionally dubious and generally against the character of all American jurisprudence or even attitudes on these matters, sure!

First, let's dispense with the "constitutionally dubious" narrative.  This is based on two words in Article 1 Section 9 - "no capitation" - then the subsequent interpretation and thus case law therein.  While I entirely agree SCOTUS as currently composed would rely on this in striking it down, that doesn't mean it's implausible to think other jurists might interpret differently.  The commerce clause was used to strike down a ton of regulatory measures, until it all of a sudden wasn't (West Coast Hotel v Parrish) once FDR threatened court packing.

Second, I don't know how a wealth tax is "generally against the character of all American jurisprudence."  Frankly I couldn't tell you what the character of all American jurisprudence actually means, so gonna need some help on that one.  As for against attitudes - no, it's not!  In fact, a wealth tax is a pretty damn popular proposal, as I cited earlier.  That's exactly why I think it's a good springboard.  If the voters are responding to this type of proposal to attack wealth inequality and iniquity, then great - let's talk about it!  I could not care less about the merits of the policy specifics.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

You're going to have a much easier time saying, "Lets go back to where we were in the post-war economic boom of the 50s and 60s, where marginal tax rates were this and capital gains was this and share buybacks were strictly regulated and unions made sure wages grew with productivity; we did it before, we can do it again" than you are, "Lets impose a new tax that has largely failed and been abandoned everywhere else it has been imposed, which is designed to make its subjects poorer in the long run, and which has massive congressional and constitutional hurdles to even become a thing."

Huh?  No you're not.  Politically, it rarely works to say "let's just revert back to the old paradigm."*  That may work for the GOP, which makes sense in the Burkean sense of conservatism, but it doesn't for any leftist party.  Look at Carter, Clinton, Obama.  Were their campaigns based on "hey, FDR/JFK/LBJ were the shit, let's go back to that?"  No, they were decidedly forward looking (and the same could be said for JFK/LBJ in relation to FDR).  And all three of those nominees were far more moderate than where the Democratic electorate is right now, for better or worse.

*Policy-wise, I do agree with you.  I'd be fine if we simply went back to the status quo in regards to tax policy circa the 50s/60s (really more 60s/70s).  But that's not how things work.

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Try winning the Democratic primary with that message.  Looks like Bloomberg's gonna try and fail and waste a ton of money doing just that.  I don't think anyone here is saying you need to "hold out for a regime."  That totally misses the point.  It's about connecting favorable politics to instituting change.  Show me numbers that "moving to the progressive tax system of the past" is gonna be something that's popular and motivating (i.e. salient), and we're good.

Also, again, characterizing it as "an enormous Constitutional barrier" is a gross exaggeration.  It's only a huge barrier because of the ideological composition of the courts.

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Just to be clear, I meant tax regime.

See Gallup's polling on taxes. More progressive taxation is obviously very possible when 70% of people believe corporations pay too little in taxes and 62% believe "upper income" pay too little. And I'm sure when you get to the ultra-wealthy, separating out the "upper income" into finer grained catgories, that number is just going to move up.

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35 minutes ago, Ran said:

Just to be clear, I meant tax regime.

See Gallup's polling on taxes. More progressive taxation is obviously very possible when 70% of people believe corporations pay too little in taxes and 62% believe "upper income" pay too little. And I'm sure when you get to the ultra-wealthy, separating out the "upper income" into finer grained catgories, that number is just going to move up.

But their party doesnt. And that isn't going to change with warren. 

Seriously, why is this in dispute? Prior to the great depression we had policies in line with now. We had public arguments in the same vein too. While people wanted more taxes then (and remember back then a good chunk of americans were outright actual socialists in line with the ussr), that wasnt their big priority. Just like today. It took a depression to change people's priorities and desires so that things like high taxes and welfare programs were what they wanted first. 

So yeah you're right that there is broad public support for it just like there is broad public support for background checks and more civil government. But there is not STRONG public support, and the obvious way you can see this is that republicans didnt get punished at the senate level for passing the tax cuts. And you dont get the kind of changes you want without that sort of strong support. You don't get massive tax hikes, massive redistribution policies, actual amendments passed without that. 

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