US Politics #2

[Alcibiades]

While the AZ law sucks up a lot of the public discourse, there is a quietly expanding federal enforcement mechanism that has the potential to deport scores of immigrants:

Under the program, the fingerprints of everyone who is booked into jail for any crime are run against FBI criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security immigration records to determine who is in the country illegally and whether they've been arrested previously. Most jurisdictions are not included in the program, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been expanding the initiative.

Since 2007, 467 jurisdictions in 26 states have joined. ICE has said it plans to have it in every jail in the country by 2013. Secure Communities is currently being phased into the places where the government sees as having the greatest need for it based on population estimates of illegal immigrants and crime statistics.

Since everyone arrested would be screened, the program could easily deport more people than Arizona's new law, said Sunita Patel, an attorney who filed a lawsuit in New York against the federal government on behalf of a group worried about the program. Patel said that because illegal immigrants could be referred to ICE at the point of arrest, even before a conviction, the program can create an incentive for profiling and create a pipeline to deport more people.

Immigration is an area where I actually agreed with Bush. I think we need to get control of our border, and combine that with some kind of earned legalization program for people already here. It's unfortunate that Bush's base really kneecapped him in that fight.

[Swordfish]

yes.

It's also effective.

Therefore it should be repeated multiple times a day, just like Rush Limbaugh does. Preferably this repetition will get all the rest of the media to notice it and take it seriously. They certainly never question Limbaugh's assertions, because he says it repeatedly it has to be true.

Conservatives control and frame debate on every single issue in the united states and they do it through repetition and intellectual dishonesty.

It's sort of like being at a poker table. The conservatives can choose to bluff a bad hand or play a good hand or bluff a good hand into a great hand, they generally win. the liberals are required to play with their cards up so everyone can see because that's more intellectually honest. Playing without showing our cards yields better dividends. So if presenting the chart tilts the facts in our favor, that's fine. Going all Ned Stark is just bad politics.

Right. Democrats are the honorable, righteous Ned Stark. Persecuted for their integrity, honesty, and putting the good of the realm first.

Great comparison.

i mean....

Spot on.....

Really......

:rolleyes:

[lokisnow]

you called the chart intellectually dishonest. the chart illustrates the tax cuts and wars are long term systemic contributors to the deficit, with the tax cuts being the largest. That's true, but you said it was dishonest because it didn't include Social security, medicare and other entitlements, you also said that the chart is stacked so that it includes bush's programs but not the entitlements. It would be Ned Stark level of dumb to put those on the chart. The chart savvily points out that TARP and ARRA are blips in the long term deficit while the tax cuts and wars are massively more significant contributers to the deficit. Muddling the issue with entitlements would be silly, it moves the ball out of the democrats court.

I don't want the democrats to be ned stark, but saying they're dishonest for portraying the facts their direction is sort of criticizing them for not being enough like Ned Stark.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

It would be Ned Stark level of dumb to put those on the chart.

Hey, watch it there, punk!

I don't want the democrats to be ned stark, but saying they're dishonest for portraying the facts their direction is sort of criticizing them for not being enough like Ned Stark.

Do you honestly believe the CBO numbers on the health care bill are going to be accurate? During the debate, people here were gleefully blasting Romney for criticizing this bill because it was essentially the same as Romneycare in Massachusetts. Obama himself called his plan "virtually identical" to the Massachusetts plan. And in case anyone has missed it, that hasn't exactly worked out as planned.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/18/AR2010071802733.html

Now, if people on the left support this bill knowing that it won't work as advertised, and that it'll essentially be a train wreck that they hope to leverage into true UHC, I can at least congratulate them on their foresight, if not their honesty. But if you actually believe that the bill is going to provide the claimed benefits and the claimed costs, you're just hiding your heads in the sand, and the evidence is staring you in the face in Massachusetts.

[Nymeria Sand]

Now, if people on the left support this bill knowing that it won't work as advertised, and that it'll essentially be a train wreck that they hope to leverage into true UHC, I can at least congratulate them on their foresight, if not their honesty. But if you actually believe that the bill is going to provide the claimed benefits and the claimed costs, you're just hiding your heads in the sand, and the evidence is staring you in the face in Massachusetts.

Well, I didn't expect it to work perfectly, not now and not ever. No system ever does. You're assuming it's going to be a train wreck without even giving it a chance, though.

I don't consider this to be the end all, be all. It's just a step in the right direction. Eventually, we will have UHC. It's going to happen, and conservatives might as well do themselves a favor and get used to the idea. It is both morally and financially the right thing to do. The whole process might not be complete in our lifetimes, but our children and grandchildren will see it. (IMO that's the big difference between Dems and conservatives. Generally speaking, conservatives think in terms of days, weeks, or months. It's the instant gratification/reward thing that helped get us into this mess. Dems can think in terms of years or decades--there may not be an instant payout, but in the long run it'll benefit everyone.)

Other countries that have implemented UHC had problems at first, too. Especially the Brits, when it was instituted post--WWII. Ask them whose system they'd prefer. Ask them. The majority of them wouldn't trade their system, warts and all, for ours, not for all the Queen's gold. Not too long ago, they were outraged by the mere consideration of the NHS going private.

Like I said, no system is perfect. They all have their benefits and drawbacks. But we need to think of the good of the country as a whole rather than the just the select few at the top.

Massachusetts is one state. You can't extrapolate what's going on there to the rest of the country, because the federal government has more resources to implement this than one state alone does. Could it happen nationwide? Sure it could. Will it happen? We don't know. No one has a crystal ball, and we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

[Swordfish]

you called the chart intellectually dishonest. the chart illustrates the tax cuts and wars are long term systemic contributors to the deficit, with the tax cuts being the largest. That's true, but you said it was dishonest because it didn't include Social security, medicare and other entitlements, you also said that the chart is stacked so that it includes bush's programs but not the entitlements. It would be Ned Stark level of dumb to put those on the chart. The chart savvily points out that TARP and ARRA are blips in the long term deficit while the tax cuts and wars are massively more significant contributers to the deficit. Muddling the issue with entitlements would be silly, it moves the ball out of the democrats court.

I don't want the democrats to be ned stark, but saying they're dishonest for portraying the facts their direction is sort of criticizing them for not being enough like Ned Stark.

Since you are acknowledging that the chart is not meaningful except as completely partisan propaganda, there's not really much more we have to discuss.

Now that you've agreed that this type of stuff is ok though, I'm sure you'll stop bashing fox news for doing the same stuff, yes?

Hey, watch it there, punk!

Do you honestly believe the CBO numbers on the health care bill are going to be accurate?

Even the CBO does not claim that their projections represent the total cost of the program. Just estimates of the known costs.

There are spending provisions in the bill that the cbo freely admits are not included in the projections because those costs are unknown.

They also assume there will be no additional spending measures passed and that all the cost cutting provisions will remain intact.

Nothing wrong with their methods, but a lot of people are either willfully or through ignorance misinterpreting the projections.

All of that is true even if you BELIEVE the projections aren't too low for the 'known' costs they've estimated.

IMO that's the big difference between Dems and conservatives. Generally speaking, conservatives think in terms of days, weeks, or months. It's the instant gratification/reward thing that helped get us into this mess. Dems can think in terms of years or decades--there may not be an instant payout, but in the long run it'll benefit everyone.)

:lol:

[awesome possum]

Anyone hear about the nut in California who got into a shootout with cops who pulled him over? He was on his way to shoot up the ACLU and Tides Foundation.

Convicted felon Byron Williams loaded up his mother's Toyota Tundra with guns, strapped on his body armor and headed to San Francisco late Saturday night with one thing in mind: to kill workers at the American Civil Liberties Union and an environmental foundation, prosecutors say.

Williams, an anti-government zealot on parole for bank robbery, had hoped to "start a revolution" with the bloodshed at the ACLU and the Tides Foundation in San Francisco, authorities said.

Wonder why a guy would get the idea to go shoot up a Foundation most people have never heard of? Well, maybe because it's a foundation that most people have never heard of, unless you watch Glenn Beck regularly:

According to his mother, Williams "watched the news on television and was upset by 'the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.'"

We don't know what Williams was watching, or that television played a role in his decision to target Tides. However, if it did, according to our Nexis searches, the primary person on cable or network news talking about the Tides Foundation in the year and a half prior to the shootout was Fox News' Glenn Beck.

According to our searches, since Beck's show premiered on January 19, 2009, Tides has been mentioned on 31 editions of Fox News programs, 29 of which were editions of Beck's show (the other two were on Sean Hannity's program). In most of those references, Beck attacked Tides, often weaving the organization into his conspiracy theories. Two of those Beck mentions occurred during the week before Williams' shootout.

On July 14, Beck said:

You believe that America is the last best hope for the free world. Boy, was I a moron for believing that. Nope, there are a lot of people that believe that we are the oppressor. This man states it. He states in this book "The purpose is to create mass organizations to seize power." Wow! That almost sounds like the Tides Foundation.

On July 13, Beck said:

Well, they have the education system. They have the media. They have the capitalist system. What do you think the Tides Foundation was? They infiltrate and they saw under Ronald Reagan that capitalists were not for all of this nonsense, so they infiltrated. Now, they are using failing capitalism to destroy it.

By contrast, since January 19, 2009, according to our Nexis search, Tides was not mentioned on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, or PBS. Not once. This search is not perfect -- Nexis does not include, for example, MSNBC's daytime coverage. But the contrast with Beck's coverage is stark.

I wonder how many people are going to have to be injured or murdered before that piece of shit and his piece of shit network are forced to actually deal with the consequences of their ugly, filthy, lying scaremongering?

[awesome possum]

:lol:

You're right, it is laughable. I mean, it's not as if the previous Democratic administration left us in a good place.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Ser Poss.,

Tides and the ACLU should attempt to sue Beck for Defamation. If successful it would quiet him down. What else would you suggest?

[awesome possum]

Ser Poss.,

Tides and the ACLU should attempt to sue Beck for Defamation. If successful it would quiet him down. What else would you suggest?

Really, that's all that can be done right now. I hope they do.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

In ongoing news that No one in the US Government has any clue what is going on...

A US federal watchdog has criticised the US military for failing to account properly for billions of dollars it received to help rebuild Iraq.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the US Department of Defence is unable to account properly for 96% of the money.

Out of just over $9bn (£5.8bn), $8.7bn is unaccounted for, the inspector says.

Anyone who has ever worked a cash register - How much could your till be off before your boss was talking about "theft" and "firing" and "the police"?

This is an organization that is apparently trusted with nuclear weapons. Fuck me sideways.

[Shryke]

These are the people who lost actually literal Pallets of money. Like, millions of dollars in a big pile.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Well, I didn't expect it to work perfectly, not now and not ever. No system ever does. You're assuming it's going to be a train wreck without even giving it a chance, though.

And you guys are assuming its going to reduce the deficit before it's up and running. I'm just looking at the program that the President said was "almost identical" to his, and can see that many of the cost-reduction assumptions aren't holding true.

I don't consider this to be the end all, be all. It's just a step in the right direction. Eventually, we will have UHC. It's going to happen, and conservatives might as well do themselves a favor and get used to the idea.

What do you mean when you say that conservatives should "get used to" that idea? And does that mean that liberals should just "get used to" the idea that U.S. troops are going to be in Afghanistan and Iraq for years?

It is both morally and financially the right thing to do. The whole process might not be complete in our lifetimes, but our children and grandchildren will see it. (IMO that's the big difference between Dems and conservatives. Generally speaking, conservatives think in terms of days, weeks, or months. It's the instant gratification/reward thing that helped get us into this mess. Dems can think in terms of years or decades--there may not be an instant payout, but in the long run it'll benefit everyone.

Honestly, I see it as the exact opposite. Liberals assume that good intentions mean good results, and conservatives think that all those morally superior liberal programs have a great many unintended consequences that actually do harm in the long term. Short term, though, they're a band-aid that makes you feel morally superior for supporting them.

Other countries that have implemented UHC had problems at first, too. Especially the Brits, when it was instituted post--WWII. Ask them whose system they'd prefer. Ask them.

I'm sure they're just loving this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/7908742/Axe-falls-on-NHS-services.html

The majority of them wouldn't trade their system, warts and all, for ours, not for all the Queen's gold. Not too long ago, they were outraged by the mere consideration of the NHS going private.

Yeah, and most Americans would be outraged at the thought of going to Britain's system. That's not a very good objective measure of which side is correct.

Massachusetts is one state. You can't extrapolate what's going on there to the rest of the country, because the federal government has more resources to implement this than one state alone does.

What aspect of the Massachusetts system and the problems it is having do you think will be made materially different because the federal government has "more resources"? I mean, I thought the whole goal of this reform was so there would be less resources, i.e., money, required because the new system was going to be "more efficient"?

[The Progressive]

Yeah, and most Americans would be outraged at the thought of going to Britain's system. That's not a very good objective measure of which side is correct.

Yeah we went over all the "objective measures" last year during the debates such as cancer survival rates, quality of care, cost of medications etc. and it's pretty obvious which side is correct. It was exhaustive and supported by vigorous information which flow was not able to back up his assertions and ran away from the debates like a whipped stepchild.

I'm a bit torn here ........... not sure if flow has really bad memory, or if he's prone to bringing back debunked arguments as always to turn reality into truthiness.

[The Progressive]

Again, that's a value judgment and certainly an argument can be made to support that. i don't necessarily agree with it, but it's at least a reasonable, defensible argument.

But this chart doesn't add to that discussion in any meaningful way. Or any discussion really that i can think of.

Wait, so are you arguing that the tax cut and war spending aren't the largest systemic contribution to the deficit? Because if you aren't, then that's how meaningful the purpose of that chart was.

[Frog Eater]

In ongoing news that No one in the US Government has any clue what is going on...

Anyone who has ever worked a cash register - How much could your till be off before your boss was talking about "theft" and "firing" and "the police"?

This is an organization that is apparently trusted with nuclear weapons. Fuck me sideways.

I have to assume there is a significant reliance on the word properly in the story. When I was in the Army stationed in Kuwait, I worked as a paymaster, I made cash disbursements to indenpendent contractors, military personnel, etc. I had to account for everything, down to the penny. One day I was 100.00 off. I had disbursed $45,000 in brand new 100 dollar bills and appearantly two had stuck together. They had to call in CID (Criminal Investigations Division) because the amount was $100 or more. It took hours to document the obvious, including interviews and sworn statements, etc. So for the DOD to not account for properly 96%, they are counting something trivial as being not proper.

[Crazydog7]

I don't know if this is the thread to bring it up in but who's bright idea was it to just kind of let the Russian spies go?

[Shryke]

I don't know if this is the thread to bring it up in but who's bright idea was it to just kind of let the Russian spies go?

That's what you do with spies. You trade them for your spies that the other guy caught.

[The Progressive]

That's where you are mistaken, i can here you. I am prioritizing the issues, and leaving that one at the bottom. Do i think American's are addicted to oil, sure as is the rest of the world. Do i think we could drive some smaller cars, sure. Do i think the anti christ Cheney and all the evil cronies did those greedy Pennsylvanians dirty, sort of.

I just don't think this is the biggest issue at hand right now, nor is it one that we need spend so much of our lawmakers time on. Get some more data, find a way to actually address the problem (other than cap and trade, which is a fucking joke) and work on it.

You raised some good points, peterbound and I want to pick your brain a little bit more if you're inclined:

1. What data do we need more of?

2. How else would you address the problem, other than cap-and-trade?

[Alcibiades]

This won't do much to change anyone's thinking about health reform, but...

Hehe, I wonder how many minds have ever been changed in these threads.