• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

PoliGAF 2013 |OT2| Worth 77% of OT1

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

speculawyer

Member
Emailgate! It is bigger than Watergate!

So Who Lied to ABC News About the Benghazi Emails?

ABC News' Jonathan Karl's revelation of the White House's role in 12 revisions to the Benghazi talking points propelled the story, long percolating in conservative media, into a bona fide scandal. But then CNN's Jake Tapper's revelation of what the emails actually said revealed that to be a fake scandal. So who lied to Karl? While Karl's report implied that he was quoting actual emails between the State Department, the CIA, and the White House, they were actually summaries written by congressional staffers who were allowed to read and take notes on the emails earlier this year. Their notes were not transcripts. The summaries quoted deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes saying "the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department," when he actually wrote, "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."
Click to expand...

http://news.yahoo.com/lied-abc-news-benghazi-emails-190506030.html
 
W

Wilsongt

Member
Obama budget would cut deficit by $1.1 trillion over decade: CBO

(Reuters) - Near-term U.S. deficits under President Barack Obama's 2014 budget plan would be higher than those forecast by the Congressional Budget Office this week but would be $1.1 trillion lower over the coming decade, CBO said on Friday.

The non-partisan congressional budget referee agency said that due to proposed spending increases, Obama's budget proposal would lead to a $669 billion deficit for fiscal 2013 and a $675 billion deficit for fiscal 2014 year starting October 1.

That was a combined $142 billion higher than the CBO estimates for those years based on current tax and spending laws.

Obama's budget plan has little chance of being passed by Congress, but defines his administration's bargaining position in the battle over raising the debt limit and reducing deficits in coming months.

Because Obama's budget increases revenues by $974 billion over the next decade, largely by raising taxes and limiting deductions for the wealthy, it would result in a $5.2 trillion cumulative deficit over the fiscal 2014-2023 period, CBO said, compared with its own $6.3 trillion current-law estimate on Tuesday.

But the $1.1 trillion reduction estimated by CBO is significantly less than the $1.8 trillion in deficit reduction that was claimed by the White House when its budget plan was first released in April.
Click to expand...

BudgetGate
 
CHEEZMO™

CHEEZMO™

Obsidian fan
TacticalFox88 said:
Republicans lost on Benghazi the moment Romney fucked EVERYTHING up for them in October.
Click to expand...

A5Yfe3WCQAAK6mQ.jpg:large
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
S

speculawyer

Member
Oblivion said:
Kidding aside, I do have a tangentially related question. Is there any department that Obama can directly command to prioritize things he wants?
Click to expand...
Well, the president is supposed to be hands-off from the DOJ and IRS because they can be abused for political purposes (and have been in the past).

But as the leader of the executive branch tasked with enforcing the law, he is supposed to have a fair amount of power in the rest of them . . . Education, EPA, DoE, Transportation, etc. He can't write new laws but they write the regulations, they prioritize things, he can do executive orders, etc. Of course, some of the actions they do can be fought in the courts.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
speculawyer said:
Well, the president is supposed to be hands-off from the DOJ and IRS because they can be abused for political purposes (and have been in the past).

But as the leader of the executive branch tasked with enforcing the law, he is supposed to have a fair amount of power in the rest of them . . . Education, EPA, DoE, Transportation, etc. He can't write new laws but they write the regulations, they prioritize things, he can do executive orders, etc. Of course, some of the actions they do can be fought in the courts.
Click to expand...

The EPA? I thought that one was supposed to be independent too?
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Question for Poli/Econi-GAF: what percent of the US economy, roughly, is driven by spending on consumer goods? As opposed to home ownership/renting, healthcare, food purchasing, etc?
 
S

speculawyer

Member
The Technomancer said:
Question for Poli/Econi-GAF: what percent of the US economy, roughly, is driven by spending on consumer goods? As opposed to home ownership/renting, healthcare, food purchasing, etc?
Click to expand...

I think the number 2/3s is always bandied about by people on financial shows. Of course, that does not mean it is correct.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Oh by the way, I find it fairly amusing how the reports of the doctored e-mails from the congressional Republican staffers was reported by Major Garrett, who happens to be a former reporter for Fox News.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
Oblivion said:
The EPA? I thought that one was supposed to be independent too?
Click to expand...

Not really. The EPA is an agency though that is constantly challenged in the courts though.

The GOP has become crazy over the EPA. So much so that their recent stunt was to totally boycott the vote for a new administrator. Like the petulant child that takes their ball and goes home.

The Bush era EPA chief called the GOP a bunch of 'sore losers' over that stunt.
http://news.yahoo.com/bush-era-epa-chief-calls-republicans-sore-losers-111958925.html
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
TacticalFox88 said:
You'd have to define consumer goods.

That's a broad question that's not easy to answer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, its not worded the best. Hm, what am I trying to get at...I think mostly what I'm focused on is manufactured products. I was trying to think about what kind of hole in our economy there would be without all of the spending on "things"
 
J

Jack Remington

Banned
Oblivion said:
Kidding aside, I do have a tangentially related question. Is there any department that Obama can directly command to prioritize things he wants?
Click to expand...

The president appoints agency heads, who generally have a fair amount of power to control the policies and overall direction of an agency. However, he doesn't appoint the career bureaucrats, many of whom can be very influential in their own right. He can try, but agencies don't always have to listen. Agencies are also bound by their establishing statutes. Now, statutes are almost always vague, which necessarily delegates to the bureaucracy a huge amount of discretion in the interpretation and implementation of the law, but anything that oversteps statutory authority is likely to be struck down by the courts.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
Funny how for much noise the GOP is making about scandalgate, Obama's approval has been climbing on Gallup, now at 51% approve to 42% disapprove.

pleaseproceed.jpg
 
W

Wilsongt

Member
Someone needs to make an image macro:

"Benghazi... IRS... AP... Umbrella... = Worse Scandals in American history.

Aurora, Newton, Campus shooters = Oh God, they're coming for our guns!!!!!"
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
Wilsongt said:
Someone needs to make an image macro:

"Benghazi... IRS... AP... Umbrella... = Worse Scandals in American history.

Aurora, Newton, Campus shooters = Oh God, they're coming for our guns!!!!!"
Click to expand...
4 Americans die in Benghazi riot - WORST TRAGEDY SINCE 9/11

28 Americans die in Connecticut shooting - PRICE OF FREEDOM
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Chuck Grassley's twitter said:
US has no foreign policy. We shld remember what happened th last time we had no foreign policy. It was Sept 1939 Hitler started WWII Poland
Click to expand...
.
 
J

Jackson50

Member
Oblivion said:
.
Click to expand...
Oh my derp.
phaze said:
Could you elaborate ? I was under the impression that there was either very small net or none at all in the period when US became superpower.
Click to expand...
The New Deal, the first genuine social safety net, coincided with America's establishment as a superpower. But it was virtually nonexistent during America's ascent. So the attribution of America's ascension to its welfare state is an unusual proposition. Perhaps he meant the social safety net bolstered American power during the post-war period? That seems more reasonable.
 
T

TacticalFox88

Banned
Speaking of the New Deal, for what reason didn't Rosevelt didn't push for Universal Health Care along with SS?

That would've saved us a LOT of fucking bullshit in the 21st century.
 
A

Aaron Strife

Banned
TacticalFox88 said:
Speaking of the New Deal, for what reason didn't Rosevelt didn't push for Universal Health Care along with SS?

That would've saved us a LOT of fucking bullshit in the 21st century.
Click to expand...
It probably faced too much resistance.

Teddy Roosevelt wanted to institute universal healthcare but didn't gain much traction with that, either.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
TacticalFox88 said:
Speaking of the New Deal, for what reason didn't Rosevelt didn't push for Universal Health Care along with SS?

That would've saved us a LOT of fucking bullshit in the 21st century.
Click to expand...

Kinda the same problem Obama had passing Obamacare. He was barely able to pass SS over the Republicans and conservative Dems, so going any further would have caused hell to break lose.
 
T

The Librarian

Banned
TacticalFox88 said:
Speaking of the New Deal, for what reason didn't Rosevelt didn't push for Universal Health Care along with SS?

That would've saved us a LOT of fucking bullshit in the 21st century.
Click to expand...

What makes you think he didn't? After he tried to pack the court and purge conservatives from the Democratic party, his domestic agenda (and, by consequence, Truman's) was neutered, by an unusual alliance between Southern Democrats and Republicans. This stalemate continued, more or less, while Eisenhower was president, broke when LBJ became majority leader, solidified again when JFK became president, and was broken again by LBJ.
 
T

thcsquad

Member
What do people think of Iowa's redistricting process as a model for the rest of the country? It seems that Iowa found a brilliant nonpartisan way around gerrymandering.

Link: http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Redistricting_in_Iowa

In short, they have a nonpartisan agency that generates candidate district maps via some software that only takes population into account, and the result is sent to the legislature for an up or down vote. This apparently works pretty well for them, and they just have four rectangular-ish districts evenly split between the parties.

Should other states start to adopt this? I tend to think so, because gerrymandering is the source of so much bullshit in this country. Despite being a raging liberal, I'd be happy to see anything that increases the number of moderates in Congress.
 
J

Jack Remington

Banned
TacticalFox88 said:
Speaking of the New Deal, for what reason didn't Rosevelt didn't push for Universal Health Care along with SS?

That would've saved us a LOT of fucking bullshit in the 21st century.
Click to expand...

The American Medical Association.

Those fuckers honestly have a lot to answer for. Too bad the ones who derailed UHC during the FDR, Truman, and Johnson administrations are long dead. Makes me hope that hell exists, actually.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Jack Remington said:
The president appoints agency heads, who generally have a fair amount of power to control the policies and overall direction of an agency. However, he doesn't appoint the career bureaucrats, many of whom can be very influential in their own right. He can try, but agencies don't always have to listen. Agencies are also bound by their establishing statutes. Now, statutes are almost always vague, which necessarily delegates to the bureaucracy a huge amount of discretion in the interpretation and implementation of the law, but anything that oversteps statutory authority is likely to be struck down by the courts.
Click to expand...

Didn't see this originally. Thanks.

So if an agency head does have the power to prioritize what they want to do, an Obama not then just simply tell agency head to do what he wants?


edit:

Tamanon said:
ClovingSteam got clipped on Gaming side, permed by the looks of it:/
Click to expand...

Oh, man that sucks. Hope it's not a perm. :/
 
C

Clevinger

Member
thcsquad said:
What do people think of Iowa's redistricting process as a model for the rest of the country? It seems that Iowa found a brilliant nonpartisan way around gerrymandering.

Link: http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Redistricting_in_Iowa

In short, they have a nonpartisan agency that generates candidate district maps via some software that only takes population into account, and the result is sent to the legislature for an up or down vote. This apparently works pretty well for them, and they just have four rectangular-ish districts evenly split between the parties.

Should other states start to adopt this? I tend to think so, because gerrymandering is the source of so much bullshit in this country. Despite being a raging liberal, I'd be happy to see anything that increases the number of moderates in Congress.
Click to expand...

That sounds good indeed.
 
J

Jack Remington

Banned
Oblivion said:
Didn't see this originally. Thanks.

So if an agency head does have the power to prioritize what they want to do, an Obama not then just simply tell agency head to do what he wants?
Click to expand...

Theoretically, but there are plenty of reasons why this wouldn't work perfectly. If the president wants to take the agency in a completely new direction, it can be very difficult for any political appointee to transform the culture that is already in place. It's tougher than you would expect to fire career bureaucrats, so sometimes you'll have a problem of middle management not really making a huge effort to comply with the president and the director's priorities. A president lasts 4-8 years, an agency head for less than that, but career bureaucrats will be there for decades.

Also, there are hundreds of agencies, and the president only has so many hours in a day.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Any deals on LG OLED 77" C1 vs C2?
6
671
The Infectious Paradox replied
LTTP: Dead Space 3 (2013) via PS3 Ultra Slim
17
525
WoJ replied
"Gonna be worth tuning into the Xbox Tokyo game show stream next week" says Tom Warren
Rumor 2 3 4
163
7K
Tiago Rodrigues replied
Nintendo sells 77 Million Amibos
48
2K
Kikorin replied
LTTP: Battlefield 4 (PS3) 2013
LTTP
35
927
Kupfer replied
Top Bottom