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U.S. Politics: Self Medicating


Martell Spy

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23 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

This has nothing to do with race. 

Oh, it doesn't? This is America. Of course it does. Everything is filtered and disseminated via that lens. As pure and unbiased as you think this discussion is - it is not.

Everyone could be better with the power of 20/20 hindsight. There were strategic moves that he did, or did not, make that I did not agree with and frankly it's all immaterial. The thrust of this discussion, to lay blame primarily at Obama's feet, I find pretty disgusting. His fault that seats were lost, his fault that the DNC was mismanaged, and so on down the line.

We've seen to have somehow adopted the right's unitary executive theory where all power - success and failure - comes down to the President - which is a losing stance for a diverse coalition. 

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

The Dems were wiped off the map in a way that they hadn't been, well, almost ever. 

First, I don't know the data on whether the losses were "historic" at the state legislature or not.  Do you?  Seriously, honest question.  Second, blaming the president for his parties losses in such down-ballot contests is...a bit of a stretch to me.  The correlation between the two is not well-founded.

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26 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

All fair statements.  But should the standard be whether every loss can be attributed to him or whether he is responsible in part as leader of the Dem party for the generally poor performances between 2008-16? I would say the latter.  Now we all make mistakes and errors of judgment.  But Obama generally did not change his thinking or vary his approaches in government during his time in office. 

I'm not disagreeing that he holds some responsibility for those losses, which I stated in my earlier post, but I don't think he bears as much responsibility as you're ascribing to him.

And my analysis is based on it being impossible to carve out his role in Democratic losses without recognizing that all of this was done in the face of unexpected and historic obstructionism by Republicans under McConnell. 

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37 minutes ago, DMC said:

First, I don't know the data on whether the losses were "historic" at the state legislature or not.  Do you?  Seriously, honest question.  Second, blaming the president for his parties losses in such down-ballot contests is...a bit of a stretch to me.  The correlation between the two is not well-founded.

2010 was per the REDMAP program the biggest success that they'd ever had at capturing state and local systems. Over 1000 seats were flipped in that one election, at the cost of the GA-6 special election. I'll see if I can find more data, but the NY Times had some bits here

As to the correlation from Obama - I guess that's fair, but Obama was entirely uninterested in dealing with state and local elections, delegated most of the party running to others, and that delegation was a major failure. I don't think he did something and failed at it; he basically abdicated responsibility for the muckraking to others and stayed above it. That made him very safe, and that was a good reason for doing it, but the net effect was bad - and it was ultimately his decision. 

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4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Cuomo is giving exactly zero fucks right now on T.V. and I love it. 

What is he saying? Dammit, the one time I stop watching the news to actually get some work done and I miss the good stuff.

I blame you...somehow.

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23 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm not disagreeing that he holds some responsibility for those losses, which I stated in my earlier post, but I don't think he bears as much responsibility as you're ascribing to him.

And my analysis is based on it being impossible to carve out his role in Democratic losses without recognizing that all of this was done in the face of unexpected and historic obstructionism by Republicans under McConnell. 

I agree that it's a question of degree.  And sure, the Republicans are a party comprised of bad faith actors interested only in power.  With the exception of Mitt Romney, they would be destroyed completely if I had my druthers.

36 minutes ago, DMC said:

No it wasn't.  First, the bill was DOA in the Senate, they didn't even take it up for discussion.  Second, reconciliation was (obviously) earmarked for the ACA.  

I agree with this.  Counting the time I said it a few days ago, for the third time.

It was rather inevitable he was going to take significant losses in the midterms, yes.  He could have boosted Dem MCs better during reelection, sure.  As for 2016, that ain't his responsibility.

This is, again...I feel like I'm talking to an alien that landed on the planet January 20, 2017 or later. 

The Dems could have indeed abolished the judicial filibuster shortly after Obama took office (another thing I said a few pages back).  Why?  Because the GOP Senate was clearly abusing it to block nominees much more so than ever before. 

And it wasn't hard to play that logic out to any Dem Senator:  "Why do you think they're being so obstructionist on judicial nominees all of a sudden, don't they know we're just gonna do the same back?"  "Because Enus Harry, the next time they get the chance they're obviously going to abolish it."  This was clear to many, many people at the time - and Obama could have gotten the votes instead of waiting.  HOWEVER, on the legislative filibuster?  No.  There was no correspondent anticipation the GOP was going to abolish it.  And, in fact, they haven't when they got the chance.  It's fundamentally different.  A legislative filibuster functionally means a dictatorship during unified government under such a polarized environment, something I will always oppose.

This is simply either ignoring facts or expecting way too much.  He outplayed the GOP politically at everything they threw at him.  They tried the debt ceiling, they tried shutting the government down, they tried to find any goddamn hint of a scandal they could.  Obama consistently won.  And his legislative and policymaking accomplishments are only matched or exceeded by LBJ among Democratic presidents since FDR.  He will go down as a top tier president, whether you like it or not.

Hopefully he can get two major items through reconciliation.  (Very) Probably only one though, like everybody else.

 I meant conference not reconciliation, sorry.  The point stands otherwise and the fact the bill was not formally taken up is neither here nor there.  Negotiations were ongoing about a climate change bill.   I'm glad we agree that he could have done more. 

Re the legislative filibuster: you are making a compound claim.  Yes, the GOP has structural political reasons to oppose its abolition as the party of conservatism and that's why it endures, because it's in their long-term political interest.  But whether it is or not doesn't really matter in respect of the question of national interest.  Democratic senators have tactical and strategic reasons to support it as well, sure.  It strengthens the Senate's hand vis-a-vis the House and strengthens individual senators provided they can find a quorum.  But it's not in the national interest.  You make a fair point that it is the loss of a structural restraint on governmental action in an age of polarization (and you could also argue that Trump would have been able to pass a parade of horribles through government from 2016 onwards).  But other countries (such as the UK) manage just fine without any supermajority requirements for legislative action.  Sure they don't have the same degree of polarization as the US but the polarization acts as often as a restraint to sensible action as it does a justification for outrageous acts.  And the atrophying of government action has led to a general loss of confidence in the government itself.  The remedy to bad legislation is to win elections and enact good legislation.  And the US has a much more active federal judiciary enforcing constitutional rights that is a structural restraint the UK lacks. 

I agree Obama will go down as a historic and maybe even great president.  And I get that making the claim "he could have been even greater" seems kinda trivial when we are ruled by possibly the worst human being in the country.  But, I repeat, the reason this discussion is important because it bears lessons for the future. 

And if Biden only gets 1 thing done by reconciliation?  Let's say that's climate change (which I would personally say poses the current greatest threat to humanity).  Then the consequence will be that gun reform, immigration reform, hell even ethics reform to require future presidents to disclose tax returns, to divest their holdings, to prevent gerrymandering up and down the country will all languish.  We would be instituting a modified Liberum Veto totally unsuited for the challenges facing this country. 

44 minutes ago, Week said:

The thrust of this discussion, to lay blame primarily at Obama's feet, I find pretty disgusting. His fault that seats were lost, his fault that the DNC was mismanaged, and so on down the line.

There's a distinction between fault and responsibility.  Again, I don't think it's his fault.  Does he bear some measure of responsibility as the President? Sure.  The unitary executive theory says the President is the executive branch and has the power to hire, fire and overrule any executive official in the branch.  That's not descriptively true of how the Federal government operates.  But when we talk about the Democratic party, there's little question that Obama held the reigns of the party from 2008 to 2016.  Was he the only person? No. Reid, Pelosi, Schumer, the median 51st Dem Senator, the Blue Dog caucus, Rahm Emanuel all bear some responsibility. 

But when we talk about why King John of England was a bad king, in a political sense, we tend to ascribe the acts of those he appointed and those who were subordinate to him to him.  A more nuanced view of the Bush administration, for example, would ascribe a lot more to Rumsfeld than Bush for the operational failures in the Iraq war.  But Iraq is Bush's burden in a political sense. 

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5 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

What is he saying? Dammit, the one time I stop watching the news to actually get some work done and I miss the good stuff.

I blame you...somehow.

1. Fuck you red state legislators who always take from blue states and then won't help when we need help, despite us always funding you and then bailing you out when bad things happen to your states.

2. Fuck corporations who want to steal from tax payers when you have tons of funds and capital.

3. Fuck you if try to interfere with elections, especially when targeting blue states.

Homeboy is mad. 
 

 

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3 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

What is he saying? Dammit, the one time I stop watching the news to actually get some work done and I miss the good stuff.

I blame you...somehow.

"Can't there be one moment of good government over playing politics?"

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2 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

But when we talk about why King John of England was a bad king, in a political sense, we tend to ascribe the acts of those he appointed and those who were subordinate to him to him.  A more nuanced view of the Bush administration, for example, would ascribe a lot more to Rumsfeld than Bush for the operational failures in the Iraq war.  But Iraq is Bush's burden in a political sense. 

Ultimately Obama appointed DWS over Dean. DWS was pretty much horrible for anything other than the POTUS election. And he kept her for 8 years. Hell, she managed to do damage to Clinton too thanks to her bullshit with Sanders. Even when she tries to ratfuck she fucks it up. 

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12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

As to the correlation from Obama - I guess that's fair, but Obama was entirely uninterested in dealing with state and local elections, delegated most of the party running to others, and that delegation was a major failure. I don't think he did something and failed at it; he basically abdicated responsibility for the muckraking to others and stayed above it. That made him very safe, and that was a good reason for doing it, but the net effect was bad - and it was ultimately his decision. 

Sure.  To be clear, I was arguing against a "Obama is lousy at politics" perspective, not from a "Obama is perfect" perspective.  He neglected state-level races, probably more than he should have.  But that's not that uncommon among presidents.

5 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Ultimately Obama appointed DWS over Dean.

Not really.  The chairmanship went from Dean to Kaine for the first half of his first term (up til April 2011) to DWS.  Dean wasn't getting back into it.  Could he have made a much better choice to succeed Kaine?  I think we can all agree on that.

Sorry for the delay - had to change a tire!

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Also, forgot to add @mcbigski.

After the massive cluster fuck the Republican Party created in Iraq, after being warned about what not to do by sensible people like General Shinseki, the Republican Party should have really gotten out of the foreign policy advise business.

Yet for some reason, they thought they had the credibility to give advice about Iran. WTF?

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I think Obama was probably pretty decent at politics, but he was also incredibly poor at the kind of POTUS that is needed in this time. (Biden is ALSO probably going to be just as bad if not worse). Obama spent way too long attempting to build some kind of consensus and reach across the aisle and get anyone on board, and by the time he realized how much of a failure this was as a strategy he had wasted about 4 years. In the 1980s and 90s he would have been incredibly good at getting things done - maybe not all the things he wanted, but real, solid improvements. But now? Nope. I think Obama could have built up a lot of support for his things and a lot of pressure against those opposing him - but he didn't.

Garland is a good example. He didn't have any hard power to change Senate choices here, obviously. But he didn't use a whole lot of his soft power either, because he was worried about what it'd do for Clinton's chances. So he just kind of went along with it instead of making it a massive issue. Same for things like the Russian attack, especially when the Senate refused to announce anything in a bipartisan way. This was his legacy - that when he had the power to confront and attack, he went high - and while that made him honorable, it made him significantly less effective. 

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You know, the ACA, no matter how things with it go, no longer matters, pretty much.  Because top to bottom, no matter which party, it looks pretty much that in the US, the UK and Sweden, at least, the decision has been made to lose millions of lives directly or through the after effect of getting ill with this disease.  ACA isn't and can't help with that.  This is because a huge chunk of rulers and population think this is no big deal (see the comments to the article) and / or have just thrown up their hands because the job is too big for any of these teeny tiny jerkoffs who say they are the Leader(s).

Though this piece is in NY Magazine, and ostensibly is about NYC -- it applies across the board.

"Reopening the City Too Soon Is, Effectively, Age Discrimination" -- and other kinds of descrimination too. It's certainly going to kill the deep research and scholarship sectors of many disciplines, including the sciences and technology, not matter how many unicorns may be conjured up out of the pixelated air.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/05/reopening-without-universal-testing-is-age-discrimination.html

Quote

 

Soon, New York will start pulling up shutters and setting out chairs. Work-from-homers will venture beyond their neighborhoods from time to time. Employees will trickle back into offices. Housekeepers, electricians, dentists, and security guards will repopulate the subway, because they will have no choice. The city is gambling that we have learned enough in these past months to keep the risks under control — that masks, distance, hygiene, and anxiety will keep us, if not exactly safe, then safe-ish. With no cure, no vaccine, and limited treatment, we have to rely on our own behavior and that of everyone around us. We have to trust our fellow New Yorkers to stay home at the first sign of the sniffles, to share our habits of caution, to wait for the next train if necessary, to step politely aside. We have to trust the MTA to keep crowds thin, employers to think through workplace logistics, the transportation department to dissolve the knots where pedestrians might jam the sidewalks, the school system to have a plan for a million kids that will protect their families too. Lockdown was easy compared to this.

And because that whole latticework of new habits and mutual consideration is so fragile, those who are at greater risk of getting sick will have to avoid it altogether. We’re opening a new chapter in the tale of two cities: the young and the healthy will (sometimes enthusiastically) take their chances; the old and the vulnerable will effectively remain under house arrest. To reopen now is to accept a new form of segregation, the exclusion of entire at-risk populations from public life, including everyone over, say 65. This is a civil-rights issue, and the reason we face it is that we have bumbled the better option: testing everyone.

If New Yorkers could get tested en masse and quickly isolate those who are infected, separating them from their families for two weeks, then the healthy could all pitch in to heal our wounded city. It’s not inconceivable. Wuhan, a city larger than New York, has reportedly tested 6.5 million residents (or maybe 9 million) in ten days. The Army tests all new recruits before they can join the ranks. In the short term, we would need to tolerate intrusions into our privacy that cannot be made permanent. Before you could enter a public building or sit at a restaurant table, you’d have to scan a QR code on a phone or wristband certifying you as COVID-free. No test, no service.

In the absence of widespread, repeatable, and accurate testing, we’re left with a radically unfair choice. Instead of isolating the infected, we will isolate the old and infirm, as well as plenty of vigorous people with an assortment of risk factors. Reopening schools means cutting grandparents off from their grandchildren and teachers from their parents. If you have diabetes or high blood pressure (or live with someone who has diabetes or high blood pressure), you’d be wise to avoid serving on a jury or entering a mall. Public transit will serve only for the young and healthy or the foolish. The threshold of every public building becomes a site of discrimination. [....]

 

We put our forms requesting vote by mail ballots in the mailbox yesterday (they only arrived at the end of last week).  So we will be voting in the NY Dem primary and elections, and there is a Dem primary, after all.

I hope the governor of NC tells deathcultchief&dementors to go to hell re their nomCon.  Let them wipe out GA.

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16 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

Apparently it is still cool for Trump to incite his followers to kill media figures though by accusing them of murder on Twitter.

 

Twitter has finally started fact-checking Trump
After the president tweeted misleading information about mail-in ballots, Twitter applied a warning label to Trump’s tweets for the first time.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/26/21271210/twitter-fact-check-trump-tweets-mail-voting-fraud-rigged-election-misleading-statements

 

They've got it backwards, sadly. You ought to have to read the fact checking on the topic first before reading Trump's statement (and take a comprehension quiz at the end). Most likely what would happen is people would just stop reading Trump's tweets. 

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7 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You know, the ACA, no matter how things with it go, no longer matters, pretty much.  Because top to bottom, no matter which party, it looks pretty much that in the US, the UK and Sweden, at least, the decision has been made to lose millions of lives directly or through the after effect of getting ill with this disease.  ACA isn't and can't help with that.  This is because a huge chunk of rulers and population think this is no big deal (see the comments to the article) and / or have just thrown up their hands because the job is too big for any of these teeny tiny jerkoffs who say they are the Leader(s).

You're conflating health insurance with civic policy. This is like saying that healthcare doesn't matter because we're fighting a war. You can be super frustrated - I am too - but that doesn't really have anything to do with the ACA, and arguably right now healthcare costs are not the issue. 

 

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26 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

1. Fuck you red state legislators who always take from blue states and then won't help when we need help, despite us always funding you and then bailing you out when bad things happen to your states.

2. Fuck corporations who want to steal from tax payers when you have tons of funds and capital.

3. Fuck you if try to interfere with elections, especially when targeting blue states.

Homeboy is mad. 
 

 

Dammit, that just reminded me that I'm missing out on seeing RATM in St. Louis and Weezer in OKC.

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34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

1. Fuck you red state legislators who always take from blue states and then won't help when we need help, despite us always funding you and then bailing you out when bad things happen to your states.

2. Fuck corporations who want to steal from tax payers when you have tons of funds and capital.

3. Fuck you if try to interfere with elections, especially when targeting blue states.

Homeboy is mad. 
 

 

Hum, somehow I feel like if you want to describe current US with a 1990s song, this would be more fitting.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

right now healthcare costs are not the issue. 

How can you even think that when doctors, nurses, other health care professionals and not-for-profit hospitals don't even have PPE?  How can you say this when costs in both places are out of reckoning?  How can you say this when people can't afford the costs of Tests?  When states and localities can't afford to even plan much less execute testing, track and trace?  How can you say any of this, when deathcultchief is determined to set the costs of any medication that might help with this disease -- and take the largest share of the profits?  Look at any aspect of health care RIGHT NOW, and people are either not getting it because they can't afford it, because they are terrified to even try to get necessary surgeries -- and doctors and medical practices everywhere are going out of business and closing down because they have no patients due to nothing going on but this?

And since supposedly it is the elderly who are responsible for the biggest share of medical budgets -- and they are being left to die of either the virus or starvation because of lack of funds for transportation or even to buy food -- why even worry about ACA?  Even with ACA the US is just about #1 for natal deaths of both infant and mother, and infant mortality and post natal deaths in the world.  Cost has everything to do with it, and health insurance corps however they color it are the reason, because they are the same so-called medical corps that own the hospitals.

 

 

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