__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
This figures to be by far the worst lineup of Presidential contenders ever. So much so that if Al Gore decided today he wanted to run, would become the overwhelming favourite to win. Definitely rooting for the Canadian to win the nomination, mostly because I wonder if we'd see an electoral college shutout if he's the Republican nominee.
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"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
This figures to be by far the worst lineup of Presidential contenders ever. So much so that if Al Gore decided today he wanted to run, would become the overwhelming favourite to win. Definitely rooting for the Canadian to win the nomination, mostly because I wonder if we'd see an electoral college shutout if he's the Republican nominee.
you never know!
We live in a world where the odds-on favorite to be the next president has as her primary qualification that she was a scandal-ridden president's wife who took the lead role on his greatest policy failure. She used that non-credential, and nothing more, to become an ineffective Senator. Then used that to blow an overwhelming lead in a presidential race to the most unlikely candidate ever. That led directly to the chance to fail as Secretary of State. So now she will most likely be the next president.
US politics is really a strange, strange land. Big money moves mountains and there is far more now than there was even 6 years ago. Very little about politics is too strange for me to believe. President Ted Cruz isn't even all that close to the boundary. A couple candidate implosions (and they've all got secrets), a few fortuitous events, the right big-money backers, and Ted Cruz is rolling.
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Watching the Oilers defend is like watching fire engines frantically rushing to the wrong fire
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I’m not talking about the fact that supply-siders didn’t see the crisis coming, although they didn’t. Mr. Moore published a 2004 book titled “Bullish on Bush,” asserting that the Bush agenda was creating a permanently stronger economy. Mr. Kudlow sneered at the “bubbleheads” asserting that inflated home prices were due for a crash. Still, you could argue that few economists of any stripe fully foresaw the coming disaster.
You can’t say the same, however, about postcrisis developments, where the people Mr. Walker was courting have spent years warning about the wrong things. “Get ready for inflation and higher interest rates” was the title of a June 2009 op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal by Mr. Laffer; what followed were the lowest inflation in two generations and the lowest interest rates in history. Mr. Kudlow and Mr. Moore both predicted 1970s-style stagflation.
To be fair, Mr. Kudlow and Mr. Laffer eventually admitted that they had been wrong. Neither has, however, given any indication of reconsidering his views, let alone conceding the possibility that the much-hated Keynesians, who have gotten most things right even as the supply-siders were getting everything wrong, might be on to something. Mr. Kudlow describes the failure of runaway inflation to materialize — something he has been predicting since 2008 — as “miraculous.”
Something else worth noting: as befits his position at Heritage, Mr. Moore likes to publish articles filled with lots of numbers. But his numbers are consistently wrong; they’re for the wrong years, or just plain not what the original sources say. And somehow these errors always run in the direction he wants.
So what does it say about the current state of the G.O.P. that discussion of economic policy is now monopolized by people who have been wrong about everything, have learned nothing from the experience, and can’t even get their numbers straight?
The answer, I’d suggest, runs deeper than economic doctrine. Across the board, the modern American right seems to have abandoned the idea that there is an objective reality out there, even if it’s not what your prejudices say should be happening. What are you going to believe, right-wing doctrine or your own lying eyes? These days, the doctrine wins.
Look at another issue, health reform. Before the Affordable Care Act went into effect, conservatives predicted disaster: health costs would soar, the deficit would explode, more people would lose insurance than gain it. They were wrong on all counts. But, in their rhetoric, even in the alleged facts (none of them true) people like Mr. Moore put in their articles, they simply ignore this reality. Reading them, you’d think that the dismal failure they wrongly predicted had actually happened.
Then there’s foreign policy. This week Jeb Bush tried to demonstrate his chops in that area, unveiling his team of expert advisers — who are, sure enough, the very people who insisted that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators.
And don’t get me started on climate change.
Along with this denial of reality comes an absence of personal accountability. If anything, alleged experts seem to get points by showing that they’re willing to keep saying the same things no matter how embarrassingly wrong they’ve been in the past.
But let’s go back to those economic charlatans and cranks: Clearly, failure has only made them stronger, and now they are political kingmakers. Be very, very afraid.
So, no, outrageous fiscal mendacity is neither historically normal nor bipartisan. It’s a modern Republican thing. And the question we should ask is why.
One answer you sometimes hear is that what Republicans really believe is that tax cuts for the rich would generate a huge boom and a surge in revenue, but they’re afraid that the public won’t find such claims credible. So magic asterisks are really stand-ins for their belief in the magic of supply-side economics, a belief that remains intact even though proponents in that doctrine have been wrong about everything for decades.
But I’m partial to a more cynical explanation. Think about what these budgets would do if you ignore the mysterious trillions in unspecified spending cuts and revenue enhancements. What you’re left with is huge transfers of income from the poor and the working class, who would see severe benefit cuts, to the rich, who would see big tax cuts. And the simplest way to understand these budgets is surely to suppose that they are intended to do what they would, in fact, actually do: make the rich richer and ordinary families poorer.
But this is, of course, not a policy direction the public would support if it were clearly explained. So the budgets must be sold as courageous efforts to eliminate deficits and pay down debt — which means that they must include trillions in imaginary, unexplained savings.
Does this mean that all those politicians declaiming about the evils of budget deficits and their determination to end the scourge of debt were never sincere? Yes, it does.
Look, I know that it’s hard to keep up the outrage after so many years of fiscal fraudulence. But please try. We’re looking at an enormous, destructive con job, and you should be very, very angry.
How do you get people to vote for that? You appeal to deep, inner racism of course!
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As I’ve noted elsewhere, almost half of Americans end up on welfare at some point in their lives, but of those, less than 5 percent spend 10 consecutive years on welfare. The idea of welfare dependence is an utter fabrication invented by rich Republicans to gut the social safety net. But this safety net has actually been incredibly effective. As Christopher Jenks notes, “With these corrections the official poverty rate falls from 14.5 to 4.8 percent, making the 2013 rate roughly a quarter of the 1964 rate (19.0 percent).” Such a dramatic reduction in poverty should be considered one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments (though there is still more to be done).
While the Tea Party, and Republicans, have denied that their war on the poor isn’t racially biased, they occasionally slip up (Rick Santorum’s famous “blahs,” comment for instance). But the data strongly suggest that opposition to the welfare state is tied up in the belief that it is simply a way to give “them” benefits. Indeed, Daniel Tope, Justin Pickett and Ted Chiricos recently confirmed that racial resentment was “among the strongest predictors” of Tea Party membership. But through the “submerged state,” the government provides massive benefits to the middle class (not to mention the big bailouts to banks and corporations). Racism is still a major factor in American politics, and racial resentment continues to erode the safety net, for the benefit of the super-wealthy.
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We may curse our bad luck that it's sounds like its; who's sounds like whose; they're sounds like their (and there); and you're sounds like your. But if we are grown-ups who have been through full-time education, we have no excuse for muddling them up.
^Honestly if he did win I'd be in favour of using tax dollars to put up those signs at every entrance point to the city. Would be the best thing about his presidency, probably.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
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We may curse our bad luck that it's sounds like its; who's sounds like whose; they're sounds like their (and there); and you're sounds like your. But if we are grown-ups who have been through full-time education, we have no excuse for muddling them up.
The Ted Cruz presidential library, you could fit that in a shoe box, a copy of Atlas Shrugged, unread and a few dog eared issues of Archie and Jughead, heavily thumbed.
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The Ted Cruz presidential library, you could fit that in a shoe box, a copy of Atlas Shrugged, unread and a few dog eared issues of Archie and Jughead, heavily thumbed.
He loves Dr. Seuss.
Green eggs and ham is favorite.
Wasn't Obama a sideshow. Nobody thought he'd get 10% when he started.
In 2004 I an article where I thought he would be president in 2012, as a centre-right bob dole candidate.
He was an early leader in 2006/2007 democratic circles and was the top dollar raiser prior to winning the democratic nomination. Once he got Oprah, it was all over but the crying.
MSNBC host Chris Matthews admitted, "I have to tell you, a little chill in my legs right now. That is an amazing moment in history right there. It is surely an amazing moment. A keynoter like I have never heard."[26] He added later in the night, "...I have seen the first black president there. And the reason I say that is because I think the immigrant experience combined with the African background, combined with the incredible education, combined with his beautiful speech, not every politician gets help with the speech, but that speech was a piece of work."[28]
Last edited by troutman; 03-24-2015 at 01:43 PM.
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This figures to be by far the worst lineup of Presidential contenders ever. So much so that if Al Gore decided today he wanted to run, would become the overwhelming favourite to win. Definitely rooting for the Canadian to win the nomination, mostly because I wonder if we'd see an electoral college shutout if he's the Republican nominee.
A guy like Cory Booker should run for the Democratic ticket. Young, great speaker, did a lot of great things as mayor of Newark, but only recently became a senator so his lack of experience probably hurts him a lot. But damn, just look at the stuff he's already done
Just run an ad listing all of those things and he could win. There are a lot voters on the left and middle who don't like Hillary, but other than her who do the democrats have? A guy like Booker could come out of nowhere to steal the spotlight just like Obama did in '08
A guy like Cory Booker should run for the Democratic ticket. Young, great speaker, did a lot of great things as mayor of Newark, but only recently became a senator so his lack of experience probably hurts him a lot. But damn, just look at the stuff he's already done
Just run an ad listing all of those things and he could win. There are a lot voters on the left and middle who don't like Hillary, but other than her who do the democrats have? A guy like Booker could come out of nowhere to steal the spotlight just like Obama did in '08
He's a future Candidate but is probably perceived as too radical.
Another problem is that he's black. After the first Black president, there's probably going to have to be buffer time in there.
HOWEVER,
If anyone is at all remotely interested in how the system runs, especially in some the US' most 'urban' environments, you should all check out the documentary on Booker's run to be Mayor of Newark.
You can watch it for free here:
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The film details the hard-fought mayoral campaign by a young community activist and City Council member (Booker) against a 16-year incumbent mayor (James) with a powerful political machine. The documentary follows Booker and several of his campaign workers from their early days of door-knocking on Newark streets through the campaign's dramatic conclusion.
Through the course of the film, Booker's living conditions, race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, political affiliations, and his position in Newark are questioned. From 1998 to 2006, Booker lived in Brick Towers, one of the city's worst public housing buildings, which some accused to be a tactic for acceptance by his constituents. As the election campaigns escalate, Booker receives endorsements from Spike Lee, Cornel West, and other prominent African American figures.
The movie brings to light many issues plaguing minority communities in Newark and reveals how the city government has failed to acknowledge these issues. The film also raises questions of race, and what it means to be "black," as Sharpe James questions Booker's African American heritage and roots to his community.
Curry captures on film corrupt attempts by Mayor Sharpe James and city employees, including police and "code enforcement," to sabotage Booker's campaign, using tactics that include shutting down local businesses that hold Booker fundraisers, demoting city workers who support Booker, and demolishing Booker signs in violation of a standing order by a federal judge, in what becomes a true urban political "street fight." In one memorable scene, city police assault the documentary maker on a public sidewalk for filming the mayor, breaking the microphone off his camera in broad daylight in front of other journalists.
If you're interested in politics or current events, I highly recommend that documentary.
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“You know, music is interesting. I grew up listening to classic rock and I’ll tell you sort of an odd story. My music tastes changed on 9/11. And it’s a very strange—I actually, intellectually, find this very curious, but on 9/11, I didn’t like how rock music responded. And country music collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me and I have to say, it—just as a gut level, I had an emotional reaction that says, “These are my people.” And so ever since 2001 I listen to country music, but I’m an odd country music fan because I didn’t listen to it prior to 2001."
