US Politics: Money, Money, Money Makes the World Go Round

[A Horse Named Stranger]

43 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

We’re doomed.

Well, the left could always take a page from the rights playbook, and give McConnell the Giffords treatment. That way you might at least get gun laws. Just sayin...

Spoiler

No, I am not seriously advocating that. I am just fishing for the right wing snowflake outrage.

It's not like I invented the terminology forced retirement for [Supreme Court] Judges. Just that I use it in a sentence with Kavanaugh instead of a too pro choice judge.

For the record. I am looking forward to Chuck Norris running for the GOP in 2024. Roundhouse the swamp.

[Zorral]

Paul Krugman about last night:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/opinion/warren-bloomberg-debate.html

Quote

 

....Wednesday’s Democratic debate was far more informative than previous debates. What we learned, in particular, was that as a presidential candidate, Michael Bloomberg is a great businessman — and that Elizabeth Warren remains a force to be reckoned with.

Both lessons ran very much counter to the narrative that the news media has been telling in recent weeks. On one side, there has been a palpable eagerness on the part of some news organizations and many pundits to elevate Bloomberg; on the other side, complaints by Warren supporters about her “erasure” from news coverage and polling aren’t wrong.

What does all this mean for the nomination? I have no idea. But maybe the Warren-Bloomberg confrontation will help refocus discussion away from so-called Medicare for all — which isn’t going to be enacted, no matter who wins — to an issue where it matters a lot which Democrat prevails. Namely, are we going to do anything to rein in the financialization of the U.S. economy?

During the U.S. economy’s greatest generation — the era of rapid, broadly shared growth that followed World War II — Wall Street was a fairly peripheral part of the picture. When people thought about business leaders, they thought about people running companies that actually made things, not people who got rich through wheeling and dealing....

....But that all changed in the 1980s, largely thanks to financial deregulation. Suddenly the big bucks came from buying and selling companies as opposed to running them....

 

Btw -- I get the Warren campaign emails, and she's raised 7 million since last night.  Which is still nothing compared to multi upon multi billionaire private fortune, but not bad. Which also shows that the media silence on Warren has had a big effect.

Still, NPR had to make everything about Bloomie, not about this, not about her campaign, not about her positions and policies.  Just about Bloomie and HIS chances to fix the USA = spit. I give money to Warren.  Not to NPR.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

My point is there's no effective difference if someone wins with only 46% of 135 million votes as opposed to someone winning with 46% of 145 million votes.  The difference in differences in terms of real numbers margin of loss is irrelevant to such worries.

Of course.  That doesn't mean he can't adapt his rhetoric though.  Arguing otherwise is just navel-gazing. 

I think the issue here is I've reached the acceptance stage of grief that Sanders is very likely to be the Dem nominee.  You still seem stuck in the bargaining/depression phases.  Emotionally process political realities faster!

I understand what you’re saying. My point is the potential for psychological and social damage to occur because the public grows increasingly angry at a broken system, and another EO victory from the candidate with fewer votes could play into that, and that furthermore, the greater increase in difference for the losing candidate could magnify the damage. It could ultimately be nothing, but it’s something that could come up in your political sociology course. 

And of course I’m in the depression phase. You’re stuck there permanently when you’re rational cynic about the future of American politics.  

2 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Yes, I think we all agree with this.  But that is most likely to happen if there are other reasons to sustain the tanking.  I would be paying closer attention to jobs growth, unemployment (by various measurements), commodity prices,  consumer debt ratios, corporate debt ratios, corporate confidence, consumer confidence, etc.  I think there are a lot of macro indications that something is going to happen.  But I've been saying that for two years now.  Summoning @OldGimletEye.

It’s totally valid to bring up those indicators, but I’m not sure how you see the immediate effect on them. You can OTOH see the stock market in real time. There are three scenarios playing in mind about how this could go if Bernie wins. (1) Bernie wins, the House is kept and the Senate doesn’t flip. In this scenario I think the market dips for a while, but as you said eventually stabilizes. Little damage is really done. (2) Bernie wins, the House is kept and the Senate does flip. Without any more information, I think you see a stronger version of scenario one with greater losses for a longer period of time, but at the end of the downturn things right themselves. (3) Bernie wins, the House is kept and the Senate does flip and he openly says that the filibuster is gone and they’re going to try to ram through M4A, tax raises on the rich and corporations, free college etc. Under this scenario I seeing an incredibly fast fall in the market with no logical end in sight. That’s the scenario I was alluding to before when I indicated Bernie’s election could have sweeping impacts throughout the economy, and it’s not an unthinkable chain of events IMO.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Well, the left could always take a page from the rights playbook, and give McConnell the Giffords treatment. That way you might at least get gun laws. Just sayin...

  Reveal hidden contents

No, I am not seriously advocating that. I am just fishing for the right wing snowflake outrage.

It's not like I invented the terminology forced retirement for [Supreme Court] Judges. Just that I use it in a sentence with Kavanaugh instead of a too pro choice judge.

For the record. I am looking forward to Chuck Norris running for the GOP in 2024. Roundhouse the swamp.

I know you’re joking, but did you forget that this already happened to a ranking House Republican recently, and the response was “we could have stopped the shooter if we were allowed to have our guns. MOAR GUNZZZ!!!”

[Fragile Bird]

Just a day or so ago I said that Trump is appointing the ambassador to Germany, supreme Trump loyalist, insulter of Europeans, contact man for white nationalists, Rick Grenfell, as interim Director of National Intelligence. Not a boo out of you.

Oh, wait, Maguire, the current director, is being kicked out because last week the House Intelligence committee was briefed by the intelligence community that they have confirmed that the Russians once again are actively working to get Trump elected.

Trump is apparently absolutely enraged that anyone would suggest he is not going to be elected solely by his own efforts.

Too much information, right? It just keeps coming and coming.

[Fez]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

 Point is he's not going to be able to go lower than his percentage last time and pick up 270.  

If the latest Q poll is right, that's a big disagree from me. If Wisconsin is somehow going to be 15 points to the right of Pennsylvania or Michigan, he can lose by a lot and still win. It's probably an outlier, but an even a little shift in Wisconsin is a big deal.

If there was a uniform shift (which, to be fair, I don't think there is), he could lose by another 2% and still keep NC, FL, and AZ in his column. And Democrats need one of them. Getting MI and PA back alone aren't enough; and adding NE-2 just gets you to 269-269 (and Republicans will almost still still have the majority of state delegations in the House, they do right now).

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

My point is the potential for psychological and social damage to occur because the public grows increasingly angry at a broken system, and another EO victory from the candidate with fewer votes could play into that, and that furthermore, the greater increase in difference for the losing candidate could magnify the damage. It could ultimately be nothing, but it’s something that could come up in your political sociology course.

Well, duh.  If we want to talk about the damage done from the EC winner more frequently not being the popular vote winner, that's a whole other discussion.  One I think pretty much everyone here would agree on, so it's kind of boring.  But the "greater difference," if it's the same percentage?  No, that isn't going to have an impact on that discussion.  It's purely trivial.

Anyway, this is the second time you've referred to the electoral college as "EO," which means I now get to make fun of you.  What do you mean by the EC actually being the EO?  Plenty of potential options come to mind - Electoral office, overview, ownership, ordinance, occurrence, opulence, obscurity, oyster, oasis, odyssey.  But figure you must be going with oligarchy.  That's the correct answer.

16 minutes ago, Fez said:

If Wisconsin is somehow going to be 15 points to the right of Pennsylvania or Michigan, he can lose by a lot and still win. It's probably an outlier, but an even a little shift in Wisconsin is a big deal.

Yeah I don't buy that result for a second.  Outliers happen, no reason to impugn the pollster.

18 minutes ago, Fez said:

he could lose by another 2% and still keep NC, FL, and AZ in his column.

If he only gets 44% of the vote nationally, no, there's no discernible way he wins Florida.  Unless, like, Charlie Crist feels like running as a 3rd party candidate because he feels the need to run for all potential offices possible.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Anyway, this is the second time you've referred to the electoral college as "EO," which means I now get to make fun of you.  What do you mean by the EC actually being the EO?  Plenty of potential options come to mind - Electoral office, overview, ownership, ordinance, occurrence, opulence, obscurity, oyster, oasis, odyssey.  But figure you must be going with oligarchy.  That's the correct answer.

Electoral odoriferous. It's how I summon the Wombat Princess. 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Electoral odoriferous. It's how I summon the Wombat Princess. 

I don't need to hear about your mating techniques.

[ThinkerX]

Obvious to me but overlooked in this thread and the previous one:

 

'Trump unleashed WILL shoot himself in the foot - repeatedly.'

 

Past day or three, Trump has pardoned an impressive number of scumbags while loudly ranting that A) - his political enemies need to be punished; and B ) his imprisoned cronies are having too rough of a time in the lockup. 

 

Right now, Trump figures he is completely untouchable and has demonstrated no ability to learn from experience.  The people who restrained him from the really stupid and outrageous stuff are gone - which means Trump WILL do something monumentally criminal and stupid - like arresting political opponents (both parties) on bogus charges.   Cue another round of investigations and testimonies - bad PR for Trump during election season.  

[Zorral]

Does it matter that when / if a Dem gets elected -- and actually, you know, gets inaugurated, and actually, you know, gets to move into the White House -- and then ends the multiple trade embargos which are already hurting the foreseeable apple profits etc., farmers get to sell their pork again, etc. -- that the stock market will crash, and other economic disasters in other sectors will follow??

 

[Gaston de Foix]

10 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I can't recall where but saw an argument somewhere saying that Pelosi had not been rolled at all on impeachment and knew both that she couldn't get Trump convicted but that it'd get to this point and that Trump would self-destruct.

Don't know if that's true but sure hope that it is.  

Sure, we all hope that.  But I think she was also hoping that directing the national conversation to the Ukraine shenanigans would move his favorability numbers downwards and hurt his re-election prospects.  And the evidence so far suggests otherwise. 

Let me ask the question that has been bothering me recently.  Is there a path for a moderate to win the nomination without a contested convention?

It really seems like Joe, Pete, Amy, Mike and to a lesser extent Liz will continue to crowd each other out.  Is our best case scenario that Joe tanks in SC? Or triumphs in Nevada and SC and pushes out Pete & Amy? That Bloomberg does really well on super Tuesday and the others run out of cash? That Pete repeats his feat of being everyone's second choice in the Nevada caucus and has a stronger than expected showing? 

[ThinkerX]

36 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Sure, we all hope that.  But I think she was also hoping that directing the national conversation to the Ukraine shenanigans would move his favorability numbers downwards and hurt his re-election prospects.  And the evidence so far suggests otherwise. 

Let me ask the question that has been bothering me recently.  Is there a path for a moderate to win the nomination without a contested convention?

It really seems like Joe, Pete, Amy, Mike and to a lesser extent Liz will continue to crowd each other out.  Is our best case scenario that Joe tanks in SC? Or triumphs in Nevada and SC and pushes out Pete & Amy? That Bloomberg does really well on super Tuesday and the others run out of cash? That Pete repeats his feat of being everyone's second choice in the Nevada caucus and has a stronger than expected showing? 

 

My perspective, from reading more articles than I care to think about and associated comments:

'moderate' at this point is almost an illusion projected by the democratic establishment.  in essence, 'republican lite.' 

ordinary democratic voters mostly choose not to believe in that illusion.  It means more of the same stagnation, crony capitalism and other woes afflicting society 

[Freshwater Spartan]

42 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Sure, we all hope that.  But I think she was also hoping that directing the national conversation to the Ukraine shenanigans would move his favorability numbers downwards and hurt his re-election prospects.  And the evidence so far suggests otherwise. 

Let me ask the question that has been bothering me recently.  Is there a path for a moderate to win the nomination without a contested convention?

It really seems like Joe, Pete, Amy, Mike and to a lesser extent Liz will continue to crowd each other out.  Is our best case scenario that Joe tanks in SC? Or triumphs in Nevada and SC and pushes out Pete & Amy? That Bloomberg does really well on super Tuesday and the others run out of cash? That Pete repeats his feat of being everyone's second choice in the Nevada caucus and has a stronger than expected showing? 

Not looking good for those hoping for a candidate who can win in November. We are probably stuck with Sanders. To avoid this fate at least one of the ones you mentioned needs to lean into the strike zone and take one for th team and drop out after Nevada. Then at least one more needs to drop out after South Carolina.

Don't see this happening. Sanders will be our nominee. He will then lose MI, WI and who knows how many others. Four more years of Trump here we come.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

I can't recall where but saw an argument somewhere saying that Pelosi had not been rolled at all on impeachment and knew both that she couldn't get Trump convicted but that it'd get to this point and that Trump would self-destruct.

Don't know if that's true but sure hope that it is.  

You're giving her too much credit, I think. What's the old saying? She's playing chess, and Trump's playing 52 card pickup

[Gorn]

5 hours ago, Freshwater Spartan said:

Not looking good for those hoping for a candidate who can win in November. We are probably stuck with Sanders. To avoid this fate at least one of the ones you mentioned needs to lean into the strike zone and take one for th team and drop out after Nevada. Then at least one more needs to drop out after South Carolina.

Don't see this happening. Sanders will be our nominee. He will then lose MI, WI and who knows how many others. Four more years of Trump here we come.

You are aware that Sanders polls very well against Trump compared to the rest of the Democratic field? An example.

Other polls show slightly better numbers for Biden or Bloomberg, but Biden's support was proven to be soft, and Bloomberg's introduction to the national audience... did not go well.

[Lollygag]

30 minutes ago, Gorn said:

You are aware that Sanders polls very well against Trump compared to the rest of the Democratic field? An example.

Other polls show slightly better numbers for Biden or Bloomberg, but Biden's support was proven to be soft, and Bloomberg's introduction to the national audience... did not go well.

Bold is why I don't take these national polls or any of the head-to-head polls very seriously at this point. Untested candidates and unless it's IA, NH, NV or SC, too many people still not paying much attention. Also, the polls have changed drastically when the candidates rolled in and people started to really pay attention. Anything with Bernie has a special asterisk. We've not seen full-scale opposition research rolled out on him yet (it's coming) and with Warren getting a big shot in the arm, people have another viable place to go if they're set on a progressive so we'll have to wait and see.

The poll attached shows results at odds with other polls in regards to the other candidates against Trump - for what it matters at this point.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html

[OnionAhaiReborn]

1 hour ago, Gorn said:

You are aware that Sanders polls very well against Trump compared to the rest of the Democratic field? An example.

Other polls show slightly better numbers for Biden or Bloomberg, but Biden's support was proven to be soft, and Bloomberg's introduction to the national audience... did not go well.

It's an article of faith that a left-wing candidate can't win in this country, even though it hasn't been tested for about 50 years and since then we've seen moderate Democrats botch election after election, including, most notably, 2016. 

I don't know if Bernie, or any other Democrat, will win, but I'm sure he can. 

[Gorn]

35 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

Bold is why I don't take these national polls or any of the head-to-head polls very seriously at this point. Untested candidates and unless it's IA, NH, NV or SC, too many people still not paying much attention. Also, the polls have changed drastically when the candidates rolled in and people started to really pay attention. Anything with Bernie has a special asterisk. We've not seen full-scale opposition research rolled out on him yet (it's coming) and with Warren getting a big shot in the arm, people have another viable place to go if they're set on a progressive so we'll have to wait and see.

The poll attached shows results at odds with other polls in regards to the other candidates against Trump - for what it matters at this point.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html

Full-scale opposition research will be rolled out against any Democratic candidate, no matter who he is. If nothing exists, it will be made up. Remember "the most liberal senator" John Kerry, of the Swift Boat fame.

[Lollygag]

41 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Full-scale opposition research will be rolled out against any Democratic candidate, no matter who he is. If nothing exists, it will be made up. Remember "the most liberal senator" John Kerry, of the Swift Boat fame.

Absolutely. But I'd rather hand them a gun of a candidate over a nuclear bomb of a candidate. Bernie's promoted socialism for how long now? Lots of tv, press and radio out there and add the Republican spin machine where they only need to plant a seed of doubt...

By how much I'm hearing about communism from the Trump set, I'm guessing that's where the main attacks will come from and they probably have more on Bernie than honeymooning in USSR Moscow and praising breadlines. The name of the USSR was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics so they can easily blur the line with socialists and communists with the uniformed. Bloomberg used communism at the debate last night. Bernie thought it was just a cheap shot. I suspect it's more than that and Bernie looked like he didn't have a clue. That's worrying. It also muddies the water over Trump's connections to Russia.

There's other pitfalls too and not just from Republicans though they'll use it. See the Mueller report.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/russia-trump-bernie-sanders-election-interference/606703/

Quote

This is the new face of Russian propaganda. In 2016, the Kremlin invested heavily in creating memes and Facebook ads designed to stoke Americans’ distrust of the electoral system and one another. But now, after nearly four years under a president whose divisive rhetoric and policies have inflamed voter anger on issues such as race, inequality, and his own conduct, the Russian government is still interfering, but it doesn’t need to do much creative work anymore. The taco-truck video wasn’t fabricated in some St. Petersburg workshop. It was a real video of a real incident, made in America—and all Russia had to do was help it spread with its Twitter trolls.

 

Luckily for the Russians, then, the two current front-runners for the presidency, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, are both polarizing figures—and they’re both candidates Russian trolls sought to promote in 2016, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller found. This time, the Democratic field is crowded and squabbling, but it includes no hawkish, long-established Hillary Clinton to tear down. If the election does end up being a Trump-Sanders face-off, one of the Kremlin’s favored candidates from 2016 is guaranteed a win. They are far apart ideologically but nearly equally suited to the Kremlin’s interests, both in being divisive at home and in encouraging U.S. restraint abroad. Both Sanders and Trump profess to want to refocus the U.S. inward—a message that clearly appeals to many Americans. But that doesn’t mean that the Russian propaganda machine is slowing down; it’s just aimed at a new target.