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PoliGAF 2013 |OT2| Worth 77% of OT1

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B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
T

The Librarian

Banned
Hahaha. So, apparently my old school system's twitter account, Wake County Public School System, the sixteenth largest in the country (didn't know that), has gotten a bit sassy on Twitter lately.

enhanced-buzz-32142-1367275898-11.jpg


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More here. I'm dying.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Republicans are more concerned about re-election and their NRA rating. Helping Obama hurts their re-election chances, hence the gun bill going down in flames. But the same would be true if Hillary was president, they'd be concerned about primary challenges and the NRA.

If a bill that weak and irrelevant couldn't pass it's safe to assume no bill will pass anytime soon.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
PhoenixPause said:
Republicans are more concerned about re-election and their NRA rating. Helping Obama hurts their re-election chances, hence the gun bill going down in flames. But the same would be true if Hillary was president, they'd be concerned about primary challenges and the NRA.

If a bill that weak and irrelevant couldn't pass it's safe to assume no bill will pass anytime soon.
Click to expand...
Barring something unforeseen, Democrats will claim a supermajority in 2016. Illinois, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are all easy pickups, plus 5-6 more within reach.

Picking up the House might be a different story, but there you go.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Aaron Strife said:
Barring something unforeseen, Democrats will claim a supermajority in 2016. Illinois, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are all easy pickups, plus 5-6 more within reach.

Picking up the House might be a different story, but there you go.
Click to expand...

I'm a Hillary slappy but dunno if I'm ready to agree on that. Given how sluggish the economy remains, with no end in sight, it's hard to predict how people will feel in a few years; we could potentially have 8 years of tepid growth and high unemployment going into November 2016. Of course if Ted Cruz or Rand Paul is the GOP nominee it won't matter.

And even if dems have a super majority they won't touch guns, as 2009 proved; no one was thinking about background checks then, and it's worth noting it would not have gotten 60 votes even if Obama tried (remember when Lincoln Blanche was relevant? trollolol)

House...2020 or 2022. Basically after the next Census.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
Watching Mondays daily show....

The bill to end FAA cuts was passed so fast it was hand written?

You know what, fuck the democrats. Not a single one of them stood up, launched a filibuster and said "reap what you sow mother fuckers. Wants your planes? Then stop the cuts everywhere else". Not one. They just wanted fast lines to fly off to another vacation.

Let me guess, their pay and their staffs feel no affect of the sequester?
 
T

TacticalFox88

Banned
jamesinclair said:
Watching Mondays daily show....

The bill to end FAA cuts was passed so fast it was hand written?

You know what, fuck the democrats. Not a single one of them stood up, launched a filibuster and said "reap what you sow mother fuckers. Wants your planes? Then stop the cuts everywhere else". Not one. They just wanted fast lines to fly off to another vacation.

Let me guess, their pay and their staffs feel no affect of the sequester?
Click to expand...
And what would that show of political force gotten them? No fucking where and impacting a major part of the economy , making the sequester far FAR worse. Do you have any idea how important air travel is to normal citizens let alone businesses?
 
C

Chichikov

Member
jamesinclair said:
Watching Mondays daily show....

The bill to end FAA cuts was passed so fast it was hand written?

You know what, fuck the democrats. Not a single one of them stood up, launched a filibuster and said "reap what you sow mother fuckers. Wants your planes? Then stop the cuts everywhere else". Not one. They just wanted fast lines to fly off to another vacation.

Let me guess, their pay and their staffs feel no affect of the sequester?
Click to expand...
No, fuck that.
Any reduction of the sequester is a good thing, air traffic controllers shouldn't suffer because you're trying to make a symbolic point.

Democrats should introduce a bill every day to roll the sequester back.
 
G

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
jamesinclair said:
Watching Mondays daily show....

The bill to end FAA cuts was passed so fast it was hand written?

You know what, fuck the democrats. Not a single one of them stood up, launched a filibuster and said "reap what you sow mother fuckers. Wants your planes? Then stop the cuts everywhere else". Not one. They just wanted fast lines to fly off to another vacation.

Let me guess, their pay and their staffs feel no affect of the sequester?
Click to expand...

Fuck that.

Look, restoring the funding to the air traffic controllers at best indirectly impacts me, but my customer is the FAA. No one knows what's getting funded in 2014 because of the sequester, programs/contracts have been put on hold all over the place (only ~25% of the funds cut by the sequester to the FAA are being restored), and frankly, it makes no sense, becuase the products we work on help make air traffic management work better, faster, and more smoothly for everyone in the country, right now. It's not something where "Oh, if we have this hypothetical scenario 10 years down the line, we'll need to prepare for that." like it is with military contracts.

Don't get me wrong, there's a place for discussions about cutting waste and spending, and which jobs need or don't need to be cut, but it's when you write the budget, not during the middle of the operational period, and it certainly shouldn't be an across the board deal.

The sequester was put in place by congress as something to motivate them to get their shit together. Since that didn't work ,they should just scrap the hwole damn thing, in my opinion, and redo things, this time PROPERLY. None of this leveraging crap you're speaking of.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Chichikov said:
No, fuck that.
Any reduction of the sequester is a good thing, air traffic controllers shouldn't suffer because you're trying to make a symbolic point.

Democrats should introduce a bill every day to roll the sequester back.
Click to expand...

I thought it wasn't a reduction, they just re-routed funds from one place to another.

In which case, I think James is right.
 
C

CoffeeJanitor

Member
jamesinclair said:
Watching Mondays daily show....

The bill to end FAA cuts was passed so fast it was hand written?

You know what, fuck the democrats. Not a single one of them stood up, launched a filibuster and said "reap what you sow mother fuckers. Wants your planes? Then stop the cuts everywhere else". Not one. They just wanted fast lines to fly off to another vacation.

Let me guess, their pay and their staffs feel no affect of the sequester?
Click to expand...
Dems don't obstruct. At least right now they don't.

I don't see any benefit in making a political point when we can undo parts of it. yeah, it's stupid because the change was so self serving, but it still undid part of it
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) on Monday addressed some worrisome employment figures in the state's March jobs report, saying that job applicants who couldn't pass drug tests are "a serious problem" for Pennsylvania.

"There are many employers that say, 'we’re looking for people, but we can’t find anybody that has passed a drug test,' a lot of them," Corbett said during an interview on Radio PA's "Ask the Governor" program. "And that’s a concern for me because we’re having a serious problem with that."
Click to expand...

1. GOP governors cut budgets
2. Unemployment numbers in their states don't look good
3. Blame UE on druggies failing drug tests to get jobs

LMAO
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Black Mamba said:
I thought it wasn't a reduction, they just re-routed funds from one place to another.

In which case, I think James is right.
Click to expand...
How would the situation would've been better had it not passed?
I honestly don't see any value in inflicting pain on the population to prove a point.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
Chichikov said:
No, fuck that.
Any reduction of the sequester is a good thing, air traffic controllers shouldn't suffer because you're trying to make a symbolic point.

Democrats should introduce a bill every day to roll the sequester back.
Click to expand...

It's not a symbolic point, though.

Democrats were in something like the position Republicans were in with respect to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the beginning of the year. Existing policy was nobody's first choice - everyone wanted some tax cuts extended and everyone wanted some sequester cuts repealed or moved around. Further, there were substantial areas of overlap between the two sides (at least based on their public positions) as to what they'd change, but not in a symmetric way. With tax cuts, Republicans wanted to extend all of the tax cuts that Democrats wanted to extend, plus more. With the sequester, the Democrats are unhappy with many of the same cuts that the Republicans are upset with, but there are also many cuts that the Republicans are actively happy about.

So a tempting but politically dangerous play was for the Republicans to hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to tax cuts for the rich and for Democrats to hold rolling back the sequester cuts to programs that benefit politically powerful groups hostage to rolling back the other cuts too.

Again, this is absolutely not symbolic. The whole point is to force the other side to give you more of what you want by threatening not to go along with something that you actually think is good policy by itself. You want the Democrats to be proposing total repeal of the sequester every day, but obviously that's just never going to happen, and won't even build much of a constituency, if every time a politically powerful group is actually impacted by the sequester Congress repeals the particular bits of it that are hurting that group. Forcing the Republicans to repeal the whole sequester if they want the repeal of the bits they don't like is the only way we're getting the repeal of the whole thing.

I think the Democrats have the stronger argument, in that it really is just awful to target a bunch of unnecessary cuts at people who most need help and who have the least ability to fight back, but this was always the danger of the sequester for Democrats. I was warning about this at the time. The Republicans, crazy as they are, still folded when forced to choose between not getting as big of a tax cut for the rich as they wanted and getting no tax cut at all. Unless Democrats are willing to commit to pretty hardcore hostage-taking, they're going to be totally unable to repeal the parts of the sequester that Republicans actually like.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Chichikov said:
How would the situation would've been better had it not passed?
I honestly don't see any value in inflicting pain on the population to prove a point.
Click to expand...

If all they did was re-route money from one thing to another, they've simply inflicted pain on someone else to save pain here.

Only, this pain is less visible to the public.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Black Mamba said:
If all they did was re-route money from one thing to another, they've simply inflicted pain on someone else to save pain here.

Only, this pain is less visible to the public.
Click to expand...
From my understanding they only thing they did is allow the FAA to decide where to cut, I honestly can't imagine how that's a bad thing for anyone.

Yeah, the sequester is a terrible idea any way you cut and yes, it's need to be rolled back like yesterday, I'm just not sure how rejecting that very minor fix was going to help anyone or anything.
Gotchaye said:
It's not a symbolic point, though.

Democrats were in something like the position Republicans were in with respect to the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the beginning of the year. Existing policy was nobody's first choice - everyone wanted some tax cuts extended and everyone wanted some sequester cuts repealed or moved around. Further, there were substantial areas of overlap between the two sides (at least based on their public positions) as to what they'd change, but not in a symmetric way. With tax cuts, Republicans wanted to extend all of the tax cuts that Democrats wanted to extend, plus more. With the sequester, the Democrats are unhappy with many of the same cuts that the Republicans are upset with, but there are also many cuts that the Republicans are actively happy about.

So a tempting but politically dangerous play was for the Republicans to hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to tax cuts for the rich and for Democrats to hold rolling back the sequester cuts to programs that benefit politically powerful groups hostage to rolling back the other cuts too.

Again, this is absolutely not symbolic. The whole point is to force the other side to give you more of what you want by threatening not to go along with something that you actually think is good policy by itself. You want the Democrats to be proposing total repeal of the sequester every day, but obviously that's just never going to happen, and won't even build much of a constituency, if every time a politically powerful group is actually impacted by the sequester Congress repeals the particular bits of it that are hurting that group. Forcing the Republicans to repeal the whole sequester if they want the repeal of the bits they don't like is the only way we're getting the repeal of the whole thing.

I think the Democrats have the stronger argument, in that it really is just awful to target a bunch of unnecessary cuts at people who most need help and who have the least ability to fight back, but this was always the danger of the sequester for Democrats. I was warning about this at the time. The Republicans, crazy as they are, still folded when forced to choose between not getting as big of a tax cut for the rich as they wanted and getting no tax cut at all. Unless Democrats are willing to commit to pretty hardcore hostage-taking, they're going to be totally unable to repeal the parts of the sequester that Republicans actually like.
Click to expand...
I think voting for policy you think is bad just to gain political advantage is a terrible way to run a country, I know both political parties engage in that shit all the time, but I think as an electorate, we should demand better.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
Chichikov said:
I think voting for policy you think is bad just to gain political advantage is a terrible way to run a country, I know both political parties engage in that shit all the time, but I think as an electorate, we should demand better.
Click to expand...

To be clear, I basically agree that political hostage-taking is almost always wrong. I don't think it's quite fair to characterize this sort of thing as being for purely "political advantage". Hostage-taking isn't about gaining in a vague sort of way by making the other side look bad, somehow. It's about trying to achieve more of your short-term goals by risking some of them. But yes, the time to fight against these cuts was when they were being proposed. Granted, Democrats expected to be able to do more trading off against military cuts, but that was a miscalculation.

But it's important to recognize the downside here. "Rejecting that very minor fix" has the potential to make a difference because the sequester will only be rolled back if there's pressure on Republicans to roll the sequester back. This only happens if people are convinced that the sequester is a bad thing. Getting rid of or in any way easing the cuts that the politically powerful care about is a great way to suppress any movement towards getting rid of all of the cuts.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Gotchaye said:
To be clear, I basically agree that political hostage-taking is almost always wrong. I don't think it's quite fair to characterize this sort of thing as being for purely "political advantage". Hostage-taking isn't about gaining in a vague sort of way by making the other side look bad, somehow. It's about trying to achieve more of your short-term goals by risking some of them. But yes, the time to fight against these cuts was when they were being proposed. Granted, Democrats expected to be able to do more trading off against military cuts, but that was a miscalculation.

But it's important to recognize the downside here. "Rejecting that very minor fix" has the potential to make a difference because the sequester will only be rolled back if there's pressure on Republicans to roll the sequester back. This only happens if people are convinced that the sequester is a bad thing. Getting rid of or in any way easing the cuts that the politically powerful care about is a great way to suppress any movement towards getting rid of all of the cuts.
Click to expand...
I honestly think there are better ways to generate that pressure, get a bill in the senate every day about closing some bullshit loophole and shifting the money to the meals on wheels or something.

Although if we were to play Monday morning QB, we might as well start (and end) by asking WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT THAT SHIT IS A GOOD IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE?
 
C

ClassyPenguin

Banned
Interesting study on the STEM workforce and guest worker program
The flow of U.S. students (citizens and permanent residents) into STEM fields has been strong over the past decade, and the number of U.S. graduates with STEM majors appears to be responsive to changes in employment levels
and wages.

For every two students that U.S. colleges graduate with STEM degrees, only one is hired into a STEM job.

In computer and information science and in engineering, U.S. colleges graduate 50 percent more students than are hired into those fields each year; of the computer science graduates not entering the IT workforce, 32 percent say it is because IT jobs are unavailable, and 53 percent say they found better job opportunities outside of IT occupations.

These responses suggest that the supply of graduates is substantially larger than the demand for them in industry.

The overall low transition rates of graduates from a field of study to an occupation in their discipline are consistent for college graduates generally in the liberal arts and humanities"
Click to expand...
GUEST WORKERS IN THE HIGH-SKILL U.S. LABOR MARKET An analysis of supply, employment, and wage trends
 
C

Carpe Libertatem

Member
jamesinclair said:
Let me guess, their pay and their staffs feel no affect of the sequester?
Click to expand...

A couple Senators wanted to cut pay for those in Congress as long as federal employees were furloughed.

Their staff is certainly affected either way, though. The sequester cuts the budget that members of Congress gets to maintain his or her staff and offices. For those who spend most of their money (ironically, I believe a lot of these are Tea Party Republicans), their staff would absolutely feel the hurt. For those that don't use their entire budget, their staff probably isn't going to be hurt.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
F

FLEABttn

Banned
B-Dubs said:
From what you quoted I am not exactly surprised. Everyone gets told all the jobs are in STEM so most people go into it and more people wind up with STEM degrees than there are job openings. Didn't the same thing happen with law and medical degree a decade or so ago?
Click to expand...

Medical I'm less sure on but law degrees, yes. Computer related degrees too in the late 90's early 00's.
 
C

Carpe Libertatem

Member
B-Dubs said:
From what you quoted I am not exactly surprised. Everyone gets told all the jobs are in STEM so most people go into it and more people wind up with STEM degrees than there are job openings. Didn't the same thing happen with law and medical degree a decade or so ago?
Click to expand...

Tech companies like Google and Apple push for more people with STEM degrees so wages can be driven down because of the sheer number of people looking for jobs. We certainly need graduates with STEM degrees, but not to the point that is generally pushed by these companies. They're just looking for cheaper labor.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Carpe Libertatem said:
Tech companies like Google and Apple push for more people with STEM degrees so wages can be driven down because of the sheer number of people looking for jobs. We certainly need graduates with STEM degrees, but not to the point that is generally pushed by these companies. They're just looking for cheaper labor.
Click to expand...
What we really need to do is rethink how we teach people to code.
It doesn't take 3 years and 100k to teach someone to do that (and universities don't even produce good industry ready coders on a consistent basis).

I'm not complaining, I've made a very good living because universities are terrible trade schools, and I will lie if I say I'm not worried about the day when in the tech industry labor is going to lose its bargaining power, but damn, this is hurting the industry and the economy.
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI) announced that he will run for the Senate in 2014, a widely expected move that gives Democrats a strong candidate in the race to fill retiring Democratic Sen. Carl Levin's seat, the Washington Post reported.

Peters touted his support for middle class Americans in his announcement.

“I’ve always believed that the things middle class families struggle with around their kitchen tables should define my work in Washington,” Peters wrote. “That’s why I led the fight to increase lending to small businesses, make sure women receive equal pay for equal work, and held Wall Street accountable when they took their taxpayer-funded bailouts and paid themselves bonuses.”

Peters is not expected to face serious opposition for the nomination from fellow Democrats.
Click to expand...
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/rep-peters-announces-michigan-senate-run

I've heard some MI republicans might ask Ben Carson to run here. Could be interesting.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
PhoenixPause said:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/rep-peters-announces-michigan-senate-run

I've heard some MI republicans might ask Ben Carson to run here. Could be interesting.
Click to expand...
Interesting in that it will turn out hilariously bad for Ben Carson?

Also, re-posting my LBJ snippet I posted early in the morning just in case some people missed it. I'll finally have time to finish the book with school out.
Dax01 said:
ALSO: LBJ tidbit of the day. And the reason why I'm up at the three in the morning is because I went to sleep at like 4:30pm, and now my sleeping schedule is screwed up. FINALS!

In January of 1964, the Civil Rights Act was being held up in the House Rules Committee, chaired by Southern Representative Howard Smith, a former judge. He was allowing each witness on the bill to testify at such length that it was slowing the whole process down, and threatened passage of the bill.

LBJ, in response, backed a discharge bill that would've bypassed the House Rules Committee and bring it immediately to the House floor. Only the problem was that by January 18th, there were only 178 signatures on the bill, 153 of which were Democrats. He wasn't going to find anymore Democrats because the rest were Southerners (you need an absolute majority of the chamber). This meant the rest of the signatures had to come from Republicans. Republicans leaders, however, including Charles Halleck, were advising Republicans against signing the petition, which would bypass normal House procedure.

By noon on January 18th, Halleck found himself in the Oval Office. LBJ tried a personal appeal, and when then didn't work, he went to his desk and called Jim Webb, administrator of NASA, in front of the Congressman. Johnson asked Webb what requests Halleck had made of NASA, including anything related to Purdue University, the largest educational institution in the congressman's district. "He wants to know what he can tell his people when he's running for reelection what he's done for them lately, and he wants to know what we can do for Purdue," Johnson said to Webb. "I need to do anything for Charlie Halleck. Now isn't there something you can do?"

Webb told him he'll do anything he could. He got the message. He called LBJ back on the 21st and found some NASA work that could be done at Purdue. Webb, having worked for LBJ for fifteen years, also knew that when Johnson found a weapon, he liked to keep it. The key research grant given to Purdue "would be spread over three years and then renewed each year. The net effect, Mr. President, is that if you tell him that you're willing to follow this policy as long as he cooperates with you, I can implement it on an installment basis. In other words, the minute he kicks over the traces, we stop the installment."

Caro writes, "whether or not the contracts had anything to do with it," but the following day Republican members of the Rules Committee were doing what Halleck had previously ordered them not to: meet with Democratic members to devise a way to get more Republican signatures added to the discharge bill, and get the CRA to the House floor.

In the end, though, the discharge bill wasn't needed. Congressman Smith surrendered. He sped up the hearings and allowed the bill to be voted (and therefore allowing to be passed through) the committee rather than suffer the embarrassment of having his committee bypassed.
Click to expand...
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Aaron Strife said:
I'm pretty sure the only bible book the GOP knows of is Leviticus.
Click to expand...
They know like two verses out of it.

Leviticus 25:35-37 said:
If any of your fellow brothers become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you.
Take you no interest from him, or profit: but fear your God; that your brother may live with you.
You must not lend them money at interest or sell them food at a profit.
Click to expand...

I'm sure after we're done with the gays, they'll move to the banks.
 
M

Manmademan

Member
Black Mamba said:
1. GOP governors cut budgets
2. Unemployment numbers in their states don't look good
3. Blame UE on druggies failing drug tests to get jobs

LMAO
Click to expand...

Corbett is an idiot, but he's not entirely wrong here. I heard an interview on NPR about the Oil/natural gas boom in north dakota. Same problem there.

There's a demand for industrial workers, but the kind of workers available to do the jobs in the areas that drilling is occurring are up to their eyeballs in meth and heroin.

Most of the drilling in PA is occurring in the rural and central areas where no one lives, and from personal experience the "working class" whites that live there ALSO have horrendous problems with meth and heroin usage. It's at unheard of levels compared to the philly metro area.
 
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