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PoliGAF 2015 |OT| Keep Calm and Diablos On

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N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
AndyD said:
The NPR interview yesterday was interesting. One of the experts, pro-TPP, honestly stated that while TPP is somewhat skewed against manufacturing workers, that our manufacturing has long left shores, it's not coming back, and this is a good way for us and our corporations to still take advantage of that manufacturing abroad on better terms. Yes it might only minimally raise labor standards, if at all, and definitely not to US acceptable standards, but that's irrelevant in the grand scheme because most of the labor is not here anyway.
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What's the benefit to American people. I mean I can understand on paper supporting outsourcing and all of that if it leads to cheaper goods for americans a rising standard of living. But where is that here? All I've seen is it makes corporations' lives easier, ok? And is that going to lead to new jobs? They seem to admit no. Higher wages? I doubt it? So why should I be for this?
 
T

Teggy

Member
On a scale of 0 to Glenn Beck crying, what's our expectation of the effect of this "Clinton Cash" book?

If it's so bad, I'm actually kind of surprised they are releasing it so early.
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
Teggy said:
On a scale of 0 to Glenn Beck crying, what's our expectation of the effect of this "Clinton Cash" book?

If it's so bad, I'm actually kind of surprised they are releasing it so early.
Click to expand...

Glen Beck crying, it is going to be a lot of nothing. If it were something they'd have waiting to release it as an October surprise instead of now.

I still don't get what the controversy is supposed to be myself.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
http://www.theatlantic.com/

got a redesign. Don't really like it but I get most of my stuff through twitter so I doubt it will radically change my consumption.

Anyways are RSS readers even still around. I haven't used one since google reader shut down (which is BS btw) are there any to keep track of specific blogs?
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
APKmetsfan said:
Politico carrying weight for National Review reminding the good people of the village that black people often are indebted and that means they can't call for higher taxes

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media...-by-tax-debt-205942.html#.VTfiBTglXbE.twitter

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417275/msnbcs-tour-has-taxman-his-case-jillian-kay-melchior
Click to expand...

Why are you playing the race card here? I'm going to assume Toure isn't hurting for anything financially. Same with Perry.
 
T

Teggy

Member
B-Dubs said:
Glen Beck crying, it is going to be a lot of nothing. If it were something they'd have waiting to release it as an October surprise instead of now.

I still don't get what the controversy is supposed to be myself.
Click to expand...

I believe the premise is that Bill got high speaking engagement fees from foreign donors in return for foreign policy concessions from Hillary.
 
U

User 406

Banned
bomma_man said:
Thought this was interesting, and something that backs up my own unscientific comparisons between Australia and the US
Jill Lepore said:
It might be that people have been studying inequality in all the wrong places. A few years ago, two scholars of comparative politics, Alfred Stepan, at Columbia, and the late Juan J. Linz—numbers men—tried to figure out why the United States has for so long had much greater income inequality than any other developed democracy. Because this disparity has been more or less constant, the question doesn’t lend itself very well to historical analysis. Nor is it easily subject to the distortions of nostalgia. But it does lend itself very well to comparative analysis.

Stepan and Linz identified twenty-three long-standing democracies with advanced economies. Then they counted the number of veto players in each of those twenty-three governments. (A veto player is a person or body that can block a policy decision. Stepan and Linz explain, “For example, in the United States, the Senate and the House of Representatives are veto players because without their consent, no bill can become a law.”) More than half of the twenty-three countries Stepan and Linz studied have only one veto player; most of these countries have unicameral parliaments. A few countries have two veto players; Switzerland and Australia have three. Only the United States has four. Then they made a chart, comparing Gini indices with veto-player numbers: the more veto players in a government, the greater the nation’s economic inequality. This is only a correlation, of course, and cross-country economic comparisons are fraught, but it’s interesting.

Then they observed something more. Their twenty-three democracies included eight federal governments with both upper and lower legislative bodies. Using the number of seats and the size of the population to calculate malapportionment, they assigned a “Gini Index of Inequality of Representation” to those eight upper houses, and found that the United States had the highest score: it has the most malapportioned and the least representative upper house. These scores, too, correlated with the countries’ Gini scores for income inequality: the less representative the upper body of a national legislature, the greater the gap between the rich and the poor.
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Click to expand...

Yeah, this makes perfect sense. Anything that slows down the adoption of policies that the public actually wants mainly benefits the status quo. And surprise surprise, a bunch of rich landholding white men decided that our brand new democracy needed a whole lot of brakes. Wouldn't want those lower classes getting all crazy with wanting things.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
Teggy said:
On a scale of 0 to Glenn Beck crying, what's our expectation of the effect of this "Clinton Cash" book?

If it's so bad, I'm actually kind of surprised they are releasing it so early.
Click to expand...

Yeah, exactly. If it were strong enough to destroy Clinton's campaign, why release it early enough that Clinton could still give way to another candidate?

This is just the rev-up of the anti-Clinton narrative, which is going to be basically the same as the anti-Clinton narrative of the 90's -- the Clintons are corrupt wheeler-dealers who take advantage of their offices for monetary gain.

I doubt the book will matter much. It alleges malfeasance and crime. But if those allegations could be substantiated, it wouldn't be a book, it'd be a congressional investigation and indictment. So it's just Billghazi.
 
A

AndyD

aka andydumi
APKmetsfan said:
What's the benefit to American people. I mean I can understand on paper supporting outsourcing and all of that if it leads to cheaper goods for americans a rising standard of living. But where is that here? All I've seen is it makes corporations' lives easier, ok? And is that going to lead to new jobs? They seem to admit no. Higher wages? I doubt it? So why should I be for this?
Click to expand...

I think the point they were making is that it's negotiated in secret so that individuals here don't look for a personal benefit, which is not there, without the deeper understanding that it's good for our corporations.

I guess the idea is to support it because even though it only helps our corporations, that benefits everyone indirectly? Trickle down economics I guess, except without taking anything away from the poor/middle that's not already irreversibly gone.
 
C

CrimzonSamurai

Member
pigeon said:
This is just the rev-up of the anti-Clinton narrative, which is going to be basically the same as the anti-Clinton narrative of the 90's -- the Clintons are corrupt wheeler-dealers who take advantage of their offices for monetary gain.
Click to expand...

Don't forget about the cocaine trafficking and the murders! I hope those get some play. Birthers are so last cycle.
 
Y

Yellowtail

Member
pigeon said:
I doubt the book will matter much. It alleges malfeasance and crime. But if those allegations could be substantiated, it wouldn't be a book, it'd be a congressional investigation and indictment. So it's just Billghazi.
Click to expand...
The writer has himself said there is no evidence for his conspiratorial claims.

Schweizer explains he cannot prove the allegations, leaving that up to investigative journalists and possibly law enforcement. “Short of someone involved coming forward to give sworn testimony, we don’t know what might or might not have been said in private conversations, the exact nature of the transition, or why people in power make the decision they do,” he writes. Later, he concludes, “We cannot ultimately know what goes on in their minds and ultimately provide the links between the money they took and the benefits that subsequently accrued to themselves, their friends, and their associates.”
Click to expand...

Meanwhile the Benghazi committee's report has been delayed till 2016

A highly anticipated report from the House Select Committee on Benghazi likely won’t be released until 2016 — in the throes of the presidential election season.

Chairman Trey Gowdy has previously said he wanted to finish his inquiry into the 2012 terrorist attacks in 2015, but a spokesman for the panel said Wednesday that outside factors will push the report’s release into next year.
“Factors beyond the committee’s control, including witness availability, compliance with documents requests, the granting of security clearances and accreditations — all of which are controlled by the Executive branch—could continue to impact the timing of the inquiry’s conclusion,” spokesman Jamal Ware said.
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http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/house-benghazi-report-release-2016-117231.html

Anyone wanna bet it'll be in October.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
PhoenixDark said:
Why are you playing the race card here? I'm going to assume Toure isn't hurting for anything financially. Same with Perry.
Click to expand...
Because they're not the only political commentators with tax problems and I don't think it's a coincidence who the national review chooses to highlight. Never mind the they're all paying their bills.

Its a part of the conservative idea that these people "aren't qualified" to talk about these issues because they've got 'issues

I imagine a lot of their tax issues stem from how their paid and how they manage their money. They're not dead beats
 
T

Teggy

Member
Yellowtail said:
The writer has himself said there is no evidence for his conspiratorial claims.
Click to expand...

The thing that stood out to me is that he's made some sort of deals with media outlets to investigate claims in the books - so NYT gets to look at one story, FOX another, etc. Seems like it's mostly a money making scheme for the guy.
 
Metaphoreus

Metaphoreus

This is semantics, and nothing more
APKmetsfan said:
Anyways are RSS readers even still around. I haven't used one since google reader shut down (which is BS btw) are there any to keep track of specific blogs?
Click to expand...

I use Feedly to keep up with my favorite blogs. I like it. Though it seems to me that most of the people I follow on Twitter are just manual RSS feeds, since they just link to their own blog posts. (Not that I'm any better.)
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
APKmetsfan said:
Because they're not the only political commentators with tax problems and I don't think it's a coincidence who the national review chooses to highlight. Never mind the they're all paying their bills.

Its a part of the conservative idea that these people "aren't qualified" to talk about these issues because they've got 'issues

I imagine a lot of their tax issues stem from how their paid and how they manage their money. They're not dead beats
Click to expand...

No one is claiming they're the only commentators who don't pay their taxes. The angle here is pretty obvious: hypocritical liberals who support higher taxes on the wealthy while failing to pay their own taxes. It's a common conservative bit, usually aimed at Hollywood but also now MSNBC personalities apparently. Why this needs to be viewed through a prism of race is beyond me.

Sharpton isn't qualified to talk about much of anything.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
Bloomberg-Poll-624x468.png


Also, at KTT, ACA is now above water: http://kff.org/interactive/health-t...publics-views-on-the-affordable-care-act-aca/

Brian Beutler makes a good point that this includes elderly, aka people on medicare, in the polling. Their opinions ignored show that the ACA, among people who are actually eligible for coverage on the exchanges, is favorable (45-42).

Obviously, the ACA affects the elderly in different ways (medicare, prescription drugs, etc) and their votes do count, but the point that is that the unfavorability of the ACA is really being driven by the elderly who have no interaction with the exchanges.

As always, time is on the side of the Democrats here. Old people die at a faster rate than young people and thus the numbers should only improve over time.

FWIW, another interesting note is that support is positive among households earning $90k+ and under $40k. The latter is obvious but the former is interesting as those people are largely unaffected and they still see it positively, ever so slightly. The 40k-90k group is heavily negative, of course. This makes sense.
 
B

BertramCooper

Banned
Black Mamba said:
Bloomberg-Poll-624x468.png


Also, at KTT, ACA is now above water: http://kff.org/interactive/health-t...publics-views-on-the-affordable-care-act-aca/

Brian Beutler makes a good point that this includes elderly, aka people on medicare, in the polling. Their opinions ignored show that the ACA, among people who are actually eligible for coverage on the exchanges, is favorable (45-42).

Obviously, the ACA affects the elderly in different ways (medicare, prescription drugs, etc) and their votes do count, but the point that is that the unfavorability of the ACA is really being driven by the elderly who have no interaction with the exchanges.

As always, time is on the side of the Democrats here. Old people die at a faster rate than young people and thus the numbers should only improve over time.

FWIW, another interesting note is that support is positive among households earning $90k+ and under $40k. The latter is obvious but the former is interesting as those people are largely unaffected and they still see it positively, ever so slightly. The 40k-90k group is heavily negative, of course. This makes sense.
Click to expand...

Old people with socialized health care are pissed off about marginally socialized health care for younger people.

How sweet of them.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
PhoenixDark said:
No one is claiming they're the only commentators who don't pay their taxes. The angle here is pretty obvious: hypocritical liberals who support higher taxes on the wealthy while failing to pay their own taxes. It's a common conservative bit, usually aimed at Hollywood but also now MSNBC personalities apparently. Why this needs to be viewed through a prism of race is beyond me.

Sharpton isn't qualified to talk about much of anything.
Click to expand...

They hightlight 4 contributors to MSNBC, all are black.

Maybe I just see it through the prism of where I'm from where I have a lot of conservative racist acquaintances who are going to jump right to that subtex.

I don't think its a coincidence that other liens were left out: http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/17/ed-schultz-employee-stiffing-tax-dodging-man-of-the-people/

edschultztaxlien.jpg
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
APKmetsfan said:
They hightlight 4 contributors to MSNBC, all are black.

Maybe I just see it through the prism of where I'm from where I have a lot of conservative racist acquaintances who are going to jump right to that subtex
Click to expand...

Or maybe you're seeing it a through white liberal guilt prism, no disrespect. As a black dude I don't see this as any different from what conservatives sites are currently reporting about Leonardo DiCaprio (the private jets issue). They've been playing this game for decades, it feeds into the general resentment persona that makes up so much of the conservative id; yes racial resentment plays a part in that but I don't see it in this particular story. If Chris Matthews was dumb enough not to pay his taxes I'm sure it would be front page news as well.

BTW that link...Charles Johnson is that racist conservative writer who falsified voter fraud info a couple years ago. If he's reporting on a white host with tax problems that shows he's an equal opportunity shit thrower lol.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
PhoenixDark said:
Or maybe you're seeing it a through white liberal guilt prism, no disrespect. As a black dude I don't see this as any different from what conservatives sites are currently reporting about Leonardo DiCaprio (the private jets issue). They've been playing this game for decades, it feeds into the general resentment persona that makes up so much of the conservative id; yes racial resentment plays a part in that but I don't see it in this particular story. If Chris Matthews was dumb enough not to pay his taxes I'm sure it would be front page news as well.

BTW that link...Charles Johnson is that racist conservative writer who falsified voter fraud info a couple years ago. If he's reporting on a white host with tax problems that shows he's an equal opportunity shit thrower lol.
Click to expand...
I'm not saying they wrote an article to blast black hosts. I'm saying when researching that their baises are reflected in reporting. The editor searches for people they don't like at the network who have tax problems. Who all happen to be black. Its the national review not white liberal guilt
 
J

Jooney

Member
APKmetsfan said:
What's the benefit to American people. I mean I can understand on paper supporting outsourcing and all of that if it leads to cheaper goods for americans a rising standard of living. But where is that here? All I've seen is it makes corporations' lives easier, ok? And is that going to lead to new jobs? They seem to admit no. Higher wages? I doubt it? So why should I be for this?
Click to expand...

Most likely: there is no benefit for ordinary folk, which is why the negotiations and the deal are secret. This is not national security, so there is no need for it to be isolated from public discussion, let alone debate by congress. Another data point in government secrecy gone too far.
 
W

Wilsongt

Member
So what are social conservatives to do to stop it? According to Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), they can block the Supreme Court from considering it at all.

King unveiled a bill on Wednesday that would bar federal courts from hearing any cases related to the definition of marriage.

"We could pass this bill before the Supreme Court could even hear the oral arguments, let alone bring a decision down in June," he said at a press conference. "That would stop it right then, there would be no decision coming out of the Supreme Court. This is a brake, and whether we can get the brake on or not between now and June, that we don't know."

The bill doesn't stand much of a chance -- even if it got through the House and Senate, it would almost certainly be vetoed by President Barack Obama. Still, it indicates the degree to which social conservatives are willing to go to maintain bans on same-sex marriage even if the nation's highest court rules they are unconstitutional.

King and other conservatives are outraged that federal courts have ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in states with laws against them, arguing that judges are usurping the will of the people. Courts have ruled that those states are violating the Constitution in denying same-sex couples the right to marry. King's home state of Iowa was the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage after an Iowa Supreme Court decision in 2009.
Click to expand...

Listen to the death rattle, folks.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
SenorArdilla said:
I don't understand. Can Congress pass bills that bar the Supreme Court from hearing specific court cases?
Click to expand...

I guess it depends what this means:
In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
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M

Mike M

Nick N
SenorArdilla said:
I don't understand. Can Congress pass bills that bar the Supreme Court from hearing specific court cases?
Click to expand...
I swear it's been tried before, I vividly recall talk about courts being barred from hearing challenges to DOMA, though I'm not certain of their origin. The actual text of DOMA is really short and doesn't have anything of the sort.
 
M

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
Wilsongt said:
Listen to the death rattle, folks.
Click to expand...

It continues to amaze me that the US demographic that shout the loudest in favour of personal freedom, the right to exercise religion, and argue against "socialism" are usually the ones advocating discrimination against demographic and religious minorities and drawing the most on social services.

I'll be glad when you guys get past this current phase (assuming you ever get past it).
 
B

B-Dubs

No Scrubs
SenorArdilla said:
I don't understand. Can Congress pass bills that bar the Supreme Court from hearing specific court cases?
Click to expand...

They can try, but even if it was allowed that law would make it all the way up to the Supreme Court and be shot down in seconds. They wouldn't even need to recess or discuss it, they'd just spit in Steve King's face for being a dipshit.
 
Metaphoreus

Metaphoreus

This is semantics, and nothing more
APKmetsfan said:
I just like the shades.

And if rand ever becomes president. Best presidential hair ever?
Click to expand...

We'll have to ask benji when he gets back.

More on Justice Souter, who was apparently a real dick about when his papers could be released:

Josh Blackman said:
Justice Souter told Gerard:

J. Souter said:
I have given such papers as I’ve retained to the New Hampshire Historical Society, to be opened for inspection after the 50th anniversary of my death. By that time, they will be of interest only to the historians taking the long view.
Click to expand...

“As I’ve retained” suggests there are other papers that are not retained–in other words, destroyed.

Tony reported that the Executive Director of the Historical Society said Souter was “emphatic” about the embargo.

Tony Mauro said:
Bill Veillette, the historical society’s executive director in 2009, also confirmed on Wednesday that Souter’s wish all along was for release of his papers 50 years after his death, not his retirement.

“He was very emphatic about it,” Veillette recalled. “He told me, ‘I’ve got an incinerator outside my house, and either you agree to 50 years after my death, or they go into the incinerator.’” Since many papers are donated by families decades or centuries after a notable person’s death, Veillette said Souter’s 50-year delay seemed relatively brief. Veillette is now the executive director of the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Massachusetts.
Click to expand...

If Justice Souter lives to be Justice Stevens’s current age, then the papers will not be released until 2085. . . . I hate to break it to Justice Souter, but by the time 2085 comes along, I don’t think any historians will care much about him, or his role on the Court.
Click to expand...
 
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