US Politics: Guns versus Butter

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

as to the voter suppression laws being passed by the GOP...yes, I'm annoyed...

 

However, to me, these restrictive laws are a rearguard action - not a permanent solution (the last couple of elections showed that).  

A large minority (or even majority) of the GOP base is 'social security age.'  These people are dropping dead at an accelerating rate (I get to deal with a tiny slice of this at work - probate issues with addresses).  Way I look at it, in some gerrymandered districts this decline could be enough for a popular or determined D candidate to win....by maybe twenty votes.

Second, the work from home thing brought on by the pandemic.  Whole bunch of people realizing they no longer need to commute to the office each day - instead visit the place maybe once or twice a week.  Given that, why buy that super expensive house in a blue district, when you can get a far cheaper one in a red district.  I see a fair amount of this happening.  Given how tight some of the gerrymandering is, even a modest migration of this sort likely spells trouble for the GOP.

Third, the 'Trump effect.'  Yes, Trump is out of office.  Trump is also utterly self centered, bat-shit crazy, and utterly vindictive, especially towards people whom he believes betrayed him.  Real easy to envision Trump supporting a few utterly repulsive conservatives to primary GOP congressmen - who go on to win said primaries, but suffer huge backlashes at the polls.  Quite possible the D's will pick up 'short term rentals' on normally safe R seats this way - after all it's happened before.

ppens WHEN the GOP gets most of these restrictive laws in place and STILL looses critical elections?

 

 

Read the history of Missouri - Kansas, read, actually read Taney's Dred Scott decision in full, not just the usually selected bits, John Brown and Stephen Douglas..  This will tell you a whole lot about where we are.  Back then it was, "We, the slaveholders have rolled back the Missouri Compromise and every other ruling so we can expand slavery in every direction.  We are now legally no longer bound by the laws that say no slavery in the new territories and the laws that say our slaves become free when residing in free states.  Free states are now slave states."

Stephen Douglas made certain political decisions, which included bringing up the Missouri Compromise, to eradicate it for Kansas, to increase his power over the Democrats, and chances to be president, and then provoked the very thing he proudly proclaimed he had prevented -- which was actual shooting battles, burned cities, and all the rest -- even before the official opening of the War of the Rebellion -- which turned out to be the only thing to stop slavery from taking over all the United States.  He wasn't expecting civil war, and there it was in front of his face right there in Kansas.

Don't ever think we aren't rolling back, that voter suppression laws mean nothing -- Biden et al. are correct that this is the new Jim Crow.  Jim Crow was slavery by another name, and Voter Fraud and Protection laws are Jim Crow by another name.

We should certainly have learned from the reproductive rights, most of which have pretty much been lost, for pretty much all women -- at least these with limited resources -- quite a long time ago.

 

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 hours ago, Comrade Jace, Leftist said:

A mileage tax? Go fuck yourself Buttigeg.

This is why Democrats can't have nice things. It will be a red state landslide  across the board in the next cycle for House, Senate and Presidential races if they shove that on the public.

[Jace, Extat]

1 minute ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

This is why Democrats can't have nice things. It will be a red state landslide  across the board in the next cycle for House, Senate and Presidential races if they shove that on the public.

I -straight up- cannot believe he even suggested such a thing. Strike the motherfucker from my personal list of folks I'd vote for in a primary.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I do not think there's a more guaranteed way to lose the blue wall. Midwesterners will not support a mileage tax.

Eta: I'm amazed Pete is from Indiana

[Tywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I do not think there's a more guaranteed way to lose the blue wall. Midwesterners will not support a mileage tax.

Eta: I'm amazed Pete is from Indiana

I don't think it will be popular, but I'm not sure it would be catastrophic by any means. The people who would hate it already probably don't vote for Dems.

[Fragile Bird]

No problem! Bring in a VAT. That should go over well.

I’ve been watching corporate apologists nag and nag and nag on CNBC and CNN for months now that raising corporate taxes in the US will be so fucking unfair for the US companies. That they finally have a level playing field on the tax front with Trump’s lower taxes.

Well guess what, you jerks, you never ever mention that every bloody country you complain about has a VAT that can be as high as 25%. Do a 25% VAT in the US and then see how you can lower corporate taxes.

[Tywin et al.]

A Bird roars with anger, and it should be noted that Jaws 4 taught us all know that any animal can roar like a lion. It's science. Spoiler, sorry.

[DMC]

8 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I looked through it, and the only 'good' part I could find was expanding early voting hours and access, although even that affects non-metropolitan areas more than anywhere else. Everything else appears to be restrictive in nature (reducing access to dropboxes, both physically by moving them inside and reducing access to it as well, 11 weeks to request mail in ballots rather than 180 days, pushing ahead deadline to complete application for mail-in and shortening the time counties begin mailing out their ballots). I'd be hard pressed to say the good anywhere approaches the bad.

Well, in addition to the expanded early voting hours (which you're right, will only benefit rural - i.e. GOP - areas), there's two other "positives" I saw.  First, they'll be allowed to process mail-in ballots earlier, which is good of course, but really every state should start doing as it's not really even a partisan issue - I'd think even Trumpists would want to ensure we counted/got the results quicker than in November.  Second, requiring polling places with wait times over an hour to hire more workers or split up the precinct - albeit it's not clear (from that article at least) how they'll get the funding to hire more workers.

Importantly, while they didn't completely get rid of no-excuse absentee, the limits/increased requirements the bill institutes are likely to be the most harmful practical effect of the bill.  This will decrease turnout considerably more than the water/food limitation - and that decrease in turnout is blatantly targeted at decreasing Democratic votes.

[Fragile Bird]

I just woke up and turned on CNBC, and caught the tail end of an interview about a budding financial crisis. Apparently there’s a “once in a decade margin call” going on that may (or may not) cause ugly ripples throughout the markets. Tens of billions of dollars in block trades were offered in a number of Chinese internet names, like Baidu and Tencent, on Friday, and kept coming all day, then in US companies like Viacom.

Archegos is the name to watch, a hedge fund that was heavily leveraged. Apparently a whole lot of banks lent the fund money without realizing they were lending money on the same stocks. The question posed is, is this a Long Term Capital situation (ie bad) or a Melvin Capital situation (a blip).

I was watching the shares of Baidu on Friday and thanking my stars I hadn’t bought any on an earlier drop.

And two other big stories: the stupid cargo container carrier got refloated and turned, finally, and Southwest has placed a firm order for 100 737 Max jets with Boeing. An airline firming up orders with Boeing is huge economic news.

[Fragile Bird]

More about Archegos.

Back in 2010, a group of financial companies argued for and got a carve-out from regulation in the Dodd-Frank statute. These companies are known as “family companies”, because they serve one family only. Apparently there are thousands of them. Ten thousand.
 

Archegos is a family company. Because of the carve-out, they have never made any public SEC filings and, in fact, they have virtually made no filings whatsoever. The rule is if the company advises only one family, no disclosures have to be made. That means no one knows what stock positions they hold.

(Eta: I just saw that being a so-called family company means that they are not registered with the SEC at all, so SEC filings would be very rare. That also means they are not governed by the SEC, so the SEC needs to use a back door to find out what’s going on, by looking at the firms offering the block sales, or that offered leverage. If they can find evidence of fraud, the SEC can then investigate the company through the front door. And it looks like the family is Asian, Chinese probably, which is why they invested heavily in Chinese companies. The person who runs the fund is Asian and had previously been sanctioned by the SEC. There’s a story that the compliance department of Goldman Sachs recommended they not take them on as a client and was overruled, which would also mean compliance would be watching them very carefully.)

So Archegos had swap agreements with numerous financial firms, using leverage of 5 to 7 times. Apparently they owned 15% of Viacom and Discovery and other companies as well. And no one knew, because the owners of swap agreements are unknown unless they disclose who they are. Under the law, you need to disclose that you own more than 10% of a company, and Archegos did not. Obviously they held big positions in Baidu and Tencent as well.

Last week Goldman Sachs decided enough was enough, and called in their margin, and stole a march on all other financial firms by offering these huge blocks of stocks for sale on Friday morning. Well, all day Friday. The financial firms left holding the bag include Credit Suisse, Nomura Securities, and now CNBC is reporting Wells Fargo has blocks of stocks to sell, as well as JP Morgan. Oh, and maybe Deutsche Bank. It will be interesting to see who the family is. I assume that will eventually come out.

I was watching CNBC on Friday and they were talking about the blocks of stocks being offered up and everyone was speculating about what was going on. AFAIK, the idea that it was one family’s holdings never crossed anyone’s minds.

And people worry about the Reddit crowd, lol!

[Wilbur]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

More about Archegos...

...And people worry about the Reddit crowd, lol!

Exactly.  One rule for me, and another for thee.

[DMC]

Very worthwhile essay from Ian Millhiser on what the 6-3 SCOTUS actually portends - The Supreme Court’s coming war with Joe Biden, explained:

Quote

At least since the Franklin Roosevelt administration, federal agencies have had wide latitude to implement the policies the president campaigned on. And agency-initiated regulations answer such important questions as who has access to health care, how much workers are paid for their labor, and a wide range of environmental questions that go well beyond the Clean Power Plan.

So, no matter what issue you care about, there is likely a federal regulation that shapes the nation’s approach to that issue. If the Supreme Court strips the government of much of its power to promulgate these regulations, it could effectively grind down the Biden presidency — not to mention dismantle much of American law. [...]

Gorsuch and his allies do not simply view Congress’s power to delegate rulemaking authority to agencies as undesirable. They view broad delegations of power as inconsistent with the Constitution itself. And their narrow vision of federal power has profound implications for workers, consumers, patients, and the environment.

This "theory" of "nondelegation" is potentially an incredible threat to how the federal government actually governs - or at least has for the past century.  Moreover, the argument is completely bereft of any legitimate "constitutional" arguments and grants effective legislative powers to the judiciary never imagined.  Talk about an "activist" court running amok.

[Tywin et al.]

16 minutes ago, DMC said:

Very worthwhile essay from Ian Millhiser on what the 6-3 SCOTUS actually portends - The Supreme Court’s coming war with Joe Biden, explained:

This "theory" of "nondelegation" is potentially an incredible threat to how the federal government actually governs - or at least has for the past century.  Moreover, the argument is completely bereft of any legitimate "constitutional" arguments and grants effective legislative powers to the judiciary never imagined.  Talk about an "activist" court running amok.

We've discussed this before, but the naïve approach is to assume legal scholars read the law and then draw a conclusion rather than drawing a conclusion and then finding a way to make the law justify it. That doesn't mean judges and lawyers can't do it in the way that's seen to be ethical, but don't count your chickens on that one. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

We've discussed this before, but the naïve approach is to assume legal scholars read the law and then draw a conclusion rather than drawing a conclusion and then finding a way to make the law justify it.

While the "legalist" approach to understanding SC decision making is indeed naive and has never reflected reality, that point is barely relevant here.

[Fez]

Personally, I'm more concerned about non-delegation being used for one very specific purpose, like tampering with the 2024 election, rather than trying to dismantle the entire administrative state.

From the questions the justices asked in Cedar Point Nursery vs. Hassid last week, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all seem to have no interest in making the kinds of massive changes that conservative activists hope they'll make.

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Fez said:

From the questions the justices asked in Cedar Point Nursery vs. Hassid last week, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all seem to have no interest in making the kinds of massive changes that conservative activists hope they'll make.

How and when they apply this "standard" can, and usually does, change over time.  The problem is a majority of the court thinking it's ok to assume Congress' role in overseeing the implementation of laws in the first place.

[Tywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, DMC said:

While the "legalist" approach to understanding SC decision making is indeed naive and has never reflected reality, that point is barely relevant here.

Is it? This part stood out to me on the issue:

Quote

not to mention dismantle much of American law.

That sounds like basically everything conservatives have been bitching about while they've also strategically been putting justices in place to just that. 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That sounds like basically everything conservatives have been bitching about while they've also strategically been putting justices in place to just that. 

Even if you concede justices have a "realist" (vis-a-vis "legalist") approach to decision making, that doesn't mean they've been this aggressive in - improperly - asserting their role in lawmaking since, well, FDR threatened to pack the courts.

[Zorral]

11 minutes ago, DMC said:

How and when they apply this "standard" can, and usually does, change over time.  The problem is a majority of the court thinking it's ok to assume Congress' role in overseeing the implementation of laws in the first place.

Indeed -- see: history of Justice Taney's switcherooey as he aged, ending up with declaring people of African descent were never seen as fully human and therefore never were considered possible or real citizens -- when in his earlier years he handled the legal procedures for manumission, which then resulted, yes, even in Virginia and other states, in the already born free African Americans and newly manumitted ones to vote, hold office, work at sort of labor they qualified for, own businesses, property and homes, legal marriage thus inviolate families, free from removal and sale.  By the time he was Supreme Court Justice, as embedded in his Dred Scott decision, every bit of that had been rolled back in his head, as having never existed, so he could claim  there never was dreamed of a time when African Americans could be citizens with rights that needed respect from any  white person.

Quite a few of those 'greats' did that switcheroo from what they believed and did in the 1820, by the end of the 1830's, and particularly by 1850, when the war over slavery was pushed into birth by the slaveocracy -- by so many means, including that kind of switcheroo.  Which made the war inevitable and thus abolition and the halt of the economy of slavery's ooze across the entire United States. 

[Tywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, DMC said:

Even if you concede justices have a "realist" (vis-a-vis "legalist") approach to decision making, that doesn't mean they've been this aggressive in - improperly - asserting their role in lawmaking since, well, FDR threatened to pack the courts.

This is a reasonable position to take looking backwards. I just think the Court has been so packed in it's own way today with conservative cynics that it's fair to assume their stated legal theories don't actually matter at all anymore, and that they'll just behave like conservative politicians rather than independent justices going forward and we'll continue to see decisions in which it's hard to conclude anything else happened.