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Rubio and Kasich Are Living Out a Classic Game Theory Dilemma
HughPickens.com writes: Kevin Quealy writes in the NYT that the two remaining mainstream candidates for the GOP Presidential nomination — Marco Rubio and John Kasich — are living out an issue studied for decades in game theory. Game theorists might call the GOP predicament an anti-coordination game or a volunteer's dilemma but most of us might call it by a more familiar name: chicken. Although Rubio is the obvious establishment favorite, the two are splitting some votes. so to have his best chance against Trump and Cruz, Rubio needs Kasich to drop out. The longer both candidates remain in the race, the worse it is for both of them.
Kasich's first option is to stay in the race but he could go further, by committing to stay in no matter what. In a classic game of chicken between two drivers rushing headlong toward each other, this strategy is like removing your steering wheel, leaving you no choice but to drive straight toward your opponent. Kasich could hope for another robotic debate performance from Rubio or even an implosion from the Trump or Cruz campaigns. Kasich 's second strategy would be to cut a deal with Rubio — offer to drop out, for example, in exchange, for the second spot on a Rubio ticket or a cabinet post. Kasich's third strategy would be to threaten to support a different candidate, like Trump or Cruz. If the threat had the potential to damage Rubio enough, it could be a useful bargaining chip. "Being crazy is a strategy, but only if your opponent actually believes it," says Richard Thaler. Part of the problem is that this is a game that's played just once. "The chance to be your party's nominee for president comes along only every four or eight years, even for the very luckiest candidates," says Quealy. "If the candidates lived in a universe in which they could run for president hundreds of times, they might agree that, on average, their shared interests were better served by cooperating." But this is not an iterated dilemma. It's a one-time-only dilemma with a tremendous payoff for the winner. Ultimately, both Kasich and Rubio risk an outcome neither wants. But as Daniel Diermeier, the dean of the public policy school at the University of Chicago, notes, "A very important lesson of game theory is that sometimes the world is a grim place."
Kasich's first option is to stay in the race but he could go further, by committing to stay in no matter what. In a classic game of chicken between two drivers rushing headlong toward each other, this strategy is like removing your steering wheel, leaving you no choice but to drive straight toward your opponent. Kasich could hope for another robotic debate performance from Rubio or even an implosion from the Trump or Cruz campaigns. Kasich 's second strategy would be to cut a deal with Rubio — offer to drop out, for example, in exchange, for the second spot on a Rubio ticket or a cabinet post. Kasich's third strategy would be to threaten to support a different candidate, like Trump or Cruz. If the threat had the potential to damage Rubio enough, it could be a useful bargaining chip. "Being crazy is a strategy, but only if your opponent actually believes it," says Richard Thaler. Part of the problem is that this is a game that's played just once. "The chance to be your party's nominee for president comes along only every four or eight years, even for the very luckiest candidates," says Quealy. "If the candidates lived in a universe in which they could run for president hundreds of times, they might agree that, on average, their shared interests were better served by cooperating." But this is not an iterated dilemma. It's a one-time-only dilemma with a tremendous payoff for the winner. Ultimately, both Kasich and Rubio risk an outcome neither wants. But as Daniel Diermeier, the dean of the public policy school at the University of Chicago, notes, "A very important lesson of game theory is that sometimes the world is a grim place."
Kasich is smart enough to realize that he isn't going to win the general election in 2016. He also may be the only person on stage smart enough to realize that none of the GOP hopefuls will, either - hence there is no reason for him to negotiate with Rubio for a cabinet position that will never materialize. There has only been one national poll so far that has shown a GOP candidate beating Hillary, but it was within the margin of error. If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath as he beats the GOP candidates by much more than the margin of error.
Kasich is more likely staying in the game for the same reason that Trump entered it - fame and recognition. Obviously Trump was already famous before announcing but now he is even more so; though very few people outside of Ohio knew of Kasich before he got in the ring. Much like several other past GOP hopefuls, Kasich has opened up great new opportunities for himself as a Fox News commentator, a Washington lobbyist, a think tank leader, or various other jobs of that sort which were previously beyond his grasp. The longer he stays in, the more his brand grows.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
..because it assumes only rational agents.
How is Ted Cruz not mainstream? He's a sitting US Senator, he's about as mainstream as it gets.
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
That, and he knows Trump needs to carry Ohio in the election. He's holding out for the VP spot. Notice he's the only candidate that's never directly attacked anyone on stage? He want's the POTUS job, but ultimately jockeying for VP. He isn't young, and he would rather end his legacy on a better standing.
Life is not for the lazy.
I bet the establishment Republicans think they're in the Prisoner's Dilemma.
Why does each party have millions of candidates?
Why don't all the candidates have their own party and run like that?
Seems much more sensible since you don't need effectively two elections spread over half a year.
that the losers will be YOU, the constituency. And by ricochet, it's US, the rest of the world.
(And whoever reads that as smug: that would be a horrible mis-reading. Time will come for elections in this neck of the woods, and I'll face a similar dilemma: wimp or shrimp?).
Is there any way out? I haven't given up yet, and I'm pretty old. But... it still hurts.
Whoever wins the republican nomination could still win. Political races are funny things and swing voters are fickle and emotional. Let me give an extreme example. Kasich is almost the nominee and a fire breaks out in his hotel. He starts pulling people from the fire and saves some children and it's caught on camera. Suddenly he takes the nomination and the presidency. Yes, it's stupid but people have lost over less... see Howard Dean's scream.
The thing that is scary about Kasich is how he has fooled the press into thinking he's a moderate. He's no moderate. He's one of the stealth anti abortion candidates of the 90's. He sounds moderate but his actions are pretty radical(anti abortion bills with no abortion exception even to save the life of the mother). I fear Kasich far more than Cruz. Cruz can't hide his instanity. Kasich does it quite nicely.
The press has failed us. They tell us all about the horse race, but tell us little to nothing about policy differences.
The only choice
Vote Trump 2016
And be proud to be an American again.
No candidate can win the convention on the first ballot unless they have a majority in 8 states.
None of the candidates are currently poised to do this. None have won a majority in any state yet. The implication is that this game is considerably more complex than chicken. It's very possible for any candidate to lose a plurality but win the nomination.
If Cruz or Trump wins and Hillary is the nominee. You will see Republican-leaning voters and blue dog democrats coming out of the wood work to support the Republican over Hillary. Cruz is not controlled by Wall Street and Trump is openly running a pro-common man, fuck the special interests campaign and he can pull it off because he's so rich he could moon Wall Street in public and not miss a single dollar from them.
Clinton, on the other hand, is married into Wall Street. She's pro-amnesty, pro-every Chamber of Commerce fuck the little guy interest out there.
And to add to the problem for Clinton, she consistently loses millennial female support every time the issue of her and Bill's behavior toward women comes up. Bill makes Trump look like Billy Graham in his treatment of women. Hillary has a proven legacy of keeping women from getting their due in court, including laughing at a 12 year old rape victim.
Sanders is the only electable candidate they have unless it's a Kasich-Bush ticket.
Kasich is smart enough to realize that he isn't going to win the general election in 2016. He also may be the only person on stage smart enough to realize that none of the GOP hopefuls will, either - hence there is no reason for him to negotiate with Rubio for a cabinet position that will never materialize.
If he really cared about the GOP he would drop out if only to spare his party the agonizing international humiliation of the GOP personified by Donald Trump. The GOP makes an ass of the United States every so often, we have grown used to that. Take for example the Scalia replacement blockade that they are launching. What are they planning? To blockade the supreme court appointment until after the next election? However, it's looking like there will be a democratic president so what then? Will the GOP blockade or filibuster a Scalia replacement for another 4-8 years until there is a republican in the White House? I don't know what Americans see when they observe this farce unfolding but the rest of the world looks at that business and sees a bunch of apparently grown up people behaving like petulant preschoolers. Trump, on the other hand, is a whole new low for the GOP and one would think a loyal party member would take a hit for the team if it resulted in Trump being defeated in the primaries even if the GOP does not get the white house this time around.
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
Why would you need a decent candidate ? Primaries on the Republican side are governed by the most right wingers, racists, bible thumpers extremists. You cannot win the primary be being a good/moderate/compromising Republican. Hence the host of batshit crazies that sprout up. Trump is an anomaly because he's his own man. You can bet whatever you want he doesn't give a shit about the Republican constituency. He just wants the presidency, and can shout louder than anybody else. After all, he's being more Republican than all the other Republican candidates put together.. The Republican leadership has a lot of soul searching to do. You cannot cater only to extremists for more than a generation and think it won't fuck up the political process. We have already seen what the current bunch of uncompromising Republitards had done in Congress. This is simply more of the same.
They should send him in, so that he can show these lightweights how to play the game!
Oh wait...
As a former Libertarian who grew up from its puerile musings to a far left Democrat, I'm scared of Trump being the next president. I'll take next 8 years of Rubio or even Cruz over a possibility of Trump. It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
When I studied Game Theory and couldn't work out an answer I would simple posit "What would the biggest d-bag in the entire world do?" Not just some asshole, but the biggest dbag on the entire planet. This served me very well.
Often in GT there are questions where you will have something where the end question would be "How would the captain share the 100 gold pieces among his 5 sailors?" Obviously the biggest d-bag in the entire world would keep 95 and share only 5. This or something very close to it would be the answer most of the time.
Where Game Theory often gets it wrong is that there is a second tier of math that people will impose on a GT scenario. So in the classic prisoner's dilemma the whole snitching as a default strategy is rebalanced by Mario cutting your face off if you snitch.
Also Game Theory is balanced culturally. For instance in most parts of Canada a four way stop sign will work very well with everyone taking their turn 99% of the time. A cultural sense of fair play keeps it functioning even though game theory says to never take your turn. I have been in some third world cut-throat countries where a four way stop would just end up with a bunch of cars all jammed in place nose to nose with scooters weaving in and around the mess. In these countries everyone is a snitch in the prisoner's dilemma.
Nobody gets it Trump is going to win! Man people are so clueless whats going on around them.
Kasich is smart enough to realize that he isn't going to win the general election in 2016. He also may be the only person on stage smart enough to realize that none of the GOP hopefuls will, either - hence there is no reason for him to negotiate with Rubio for a cabinet position that will never materialize. There has only been one national poll so far that has shown a GOP candidate beating Hillary, but it was within the margin of error. If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath as he beats the GOP candidates by much more than the margin of error.
Kasich is more likely staying in the game for the same reason that Trump entered it - fame and recognition. Obviously Trump was already famous before announcing but now he is even more so; though very few people outside of Ohio knew of Kasich before he got in the ring. Much like several other past GOP hopefuls, Kasich has opened up great new opportunities for himself as a Fox News commentator, a Washington lobbyist, a think tank leader, or various other jobs of that sort which were previously beyond his grasp. The longer he stays in, the more his brand grows.
Kasich is smart enough to realize that he isn't going to win the general election in 2016. He also may be the only person on stage smart enough to realize that none of the GOP hopefuls will, either - hence there is no reason for him to negotiate with Rubio for a cabinet position that will never materialize. There has only been one national poll so far that has shown a GOP candidate beating Hillary, but it was within the margin of error. If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath as he beats the GOP candidates by much more than the margin of error.
Kasich is more likely staying in the game for the same reason that Trump entered it - fame and recognition. Obviously Trump was already famous before announcing but now he is even more so; though very few people outside of Ohio knew of Kasich before he got in the ring. Much like several other past GOP hopefuls, Kasich has opened up great new opportunities for himself as a Fox News commentator, a Washington lobbyist, a think tank leader, or various other jobs of that sort which were previously beyond his grasp. The longer he stays in, the more his brand grows.
Bush, Sr. was well on his way to a second term with as little as 2 weeks before the Democratic convention, when Perot dropped out the morning of Clinton's acceptance speech.
A lot can change, especially when No Name suddenly has national attention.
If Hillary hadn't been married to No Name, she'd be long gone. She suffers the benefits of being well known at the moment.
I wonder if Trump isn't a Ross Pert here, who, on hindsight wanted Bush to lose, not himself to win.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
How is it possible that the Democrats didn't come up with any decent candidate either? The choices we get from Democrats are senile and incompetent socialist and corrupt lying Way Street whore.
Here's a job he'd be perfect for: heading Planned Parenthood.
The argument that this is a classic game theory dilemma assumes that only the actions of candidates matter and that voters don't think and aren't aware of this situation. But the situation is a lot more complicated because there are more than a hundred million game players.
I like the dean's quote: "A very important lesson of game theory is that sometimes the world is a grim place." Well, the phrasing is quite shitty, but the idea makes one think. Remember mutual assured distruction? It happened to be the best choice, however dismal. It's like the question of sacrificing one life to save many others. Tough decisions.
Still, I think Kesich's role in this is overstated. His endorsement wouldn't mean much. The strategy at this point still is to remain relevant, that's why Trump keeps saying outrageous things -- he even questioned the Iraq War on a republican debate. There's too many people, you have to stand out. Also, he did an awesome job all but kicking Jeb Bush out of the picture.
Americans's only chance of having a decent president is either Cruz or Sanders gettting a nomination (or both). Cruz is the only one who can maybe beat Hillary, and Sanders can beat any of the republicans. And everybody knows that, however dismal is sounds, if you can't get Sanders, the next best choice is Cruz.
True, but on the republican side the problem has been around much longer, at least starting with GWB.
Take for example the Scalia replacement blockade that they are launching. What are they planning? To blockade the supreme court appointment until after the next election? However, it's looking like there will be a democratic president so what then?
Because after the election there is a >0 chance of a Republican doing the selecting.
If you believe the present candidates for selection from the one side are unelectable for their morality, intellect, or a position contrary to one dear to your heart, you have to be incensed that the other side is putting forth such poor candidates.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Maybe this is exactly what the GOP needs to happen. If an 'establishment' candidate scrapes through and loses, you may well have the same people voting Trump now pushing even harder for a candidate like him next time (under the belief that he would have won if they hadn't been robbed by the 'establishment'). If Trump does win the nomination and then gets thrashed in the election leading to a Democrat landslide a few of them might reconsider. Consider it as the difference between a painful field amputation and a slow painful death due to the spreading infection.
Uh, last time I've checked, Rubio vs Clinton was rather very GOP (+5% to Rubio):
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Rubio to Clinton is roughly what Clinton is to Trump:
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Cruz vs Clinton also doesn't look bad for GOP at all:
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Cruz + Rubio have more votes, than Trump, had one of the two dropped out in favor of the other... Nobody would care about what Kasich does.
(I don't see how him supporting Rubio allows Rubio to beat Trump, if Cruz is still there with 20% of the votes)
What the article doesn't get is the following in terms of voters.
Rubio + Kasich is less than Trump
It's going to be a lot less than Trump. Not a little but a lot. As the campaign goes on, Trump will pick up momentum and he will easily begin to get over 50% of the vote in states with the rest of the candidates fighting over the scraps. I'm not his biggest fan, but to me there are certainly worse alternatives in the Republican primary and his ability to win a national election is vary badly underestimated by many on the left, just as they are very likely grossly overestimating Bernie Sanders ability to win a national election.
For the record, Kasich has already been chairman of the House Budget Committee (1995-2001), run for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, and hosted a Fox TV show (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_with_John_Kasich).
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
Arguably neither party has a decent candidate this go around but I agree. The GOP candidates in particular all have wigs, red noses and large shoes. That party has kind of painted themselves into this ridiculous ideological corner and they get weird candidates that try to fit that impossible puzzle. They claim to want government out of people's business but then ignore that when it comes to "values" thanks to the religious wing of the party. They also claim to be about fiscal responsibility but they can't ever vote for raising taxes if they want to stay in office even when it is absurd not to. And despite their claims they wan to cut spending their actions show exactly the opposite - they just want to spend money on THEIR causes. So they have to argue the ridiculous idea that somehow we can achieve prosperity by continually cutting taxes, mostly for wealthy people, while not reducing spending (especially on the military) and staying out of people's private lives except when it offends their religious sensibilities. That's the very definition of conflicted messaging.
And then they get a demagogue like Trump and they can't figure out how to deal with him because they have been so busy painting themselves into this ideological corner that any reasonable candidate can't even win a local election thanks to the Tea Party and social conservatives.
Go back to 1995 when we had the first Republican-controlled Congress after many decades of Democrat control. Then, examine all of the laws they passed by "compromising" with the Democrats.
Just to name a few...
NAFTA
GATT/WTO Treaty
Gramm-Leach-Bliley (Wall St. dereg)
Commodity Futures Modernization Act(more Wall St. dereg)
AUMF
Patriot Act (and several renewals)
Military Commissions Act
TARP (bank bailout)
FISA Revisions Act
NDAA 2012
TPP
Not to mention all the years of massive deficit spending.
F*** "compromise". Every time these jackasses "compromise" the people of the USA suffer. I despise the religious and militaristic wing of the GOP, but the so-called "moderate" Republicans are the problem, not the solution.
He also may be the only person on stage smart enough to realize that none of the GOP hopefuls will, either
Remember you said this when you're watching President Trump deliver his inaugural address.
People don't like Trump, but they FUCKING HATE Hillary.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
And yet he won a second term, which indicates that the Democrats have had this problem for at least almost as long.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
"I still wonder how it is possible that the major parties can't come up with a single decent candidate. "
FTFY.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I don't care if they want to fuck compromise, but at least they need to have some brains.
Trump is openly running a pro-common man, fuck the special interests campaign and he can pull it off because he's so rich he could moon Wall Street in public and not miss a single dollar from them.
No he isn't. Sanders it running a pro-common man campaign. Trump couldn't care less about the "common man". The only thing Trump is for is Trump and you'd have to be an idiot (like his supporters) to not see that. Trump has ALWAYS been 100% about promoting himself. He isn't a policy wonk, he doesn't care about or understand what "common people" need, he speaks in sound bites with no content, and it's not clear how he would go about getting a consensus for anything from Congress. The President isn't a dictator so he'll have to actually play nice with others to get anything done should he get elected. I've seen no evidence he has a clue how to do that. You seriously think he's going to be able to insult his way to getting bills passed?
Clinton, on the other hand, is married into Wall Street. She's pro-amnesty, pro-every Chamber of Commerce fuck the little guy interest out there.
So is every other candidate out there including Trump, except maybe Sanders... maybe. Trump isn't married to Wall Street, he IS Wall Street personified.
Sanders is the only electable candidate they have unless it's a Kasich-Bush ticket.
As much as I would like to agree with you I'm not optimistic about his chances in the general. He appeals strongly to a certain block of voters but it's not clear how much he appeals to moderates. The only way Sanders wins is if he can somehow appeal to moderates and get a lot of young people out to vote. Possible but not easy and I'm not sure he has the sort of mass appeal Obama did. That said, he might have a chance if Trump is the guy on the right. I think even a lot of Republicans are pretty uncomfortable with the idea of Trump in the White House.
The Donald is winning, winning, winning. Soon the US will be winning too.
Not fame: POWER. They use their run as a barganing chip when they decide to drop out or give in and throw their weight behind the other candidate. They then get power from that other candidate. It is all a power game. The GOP field knows they aren't going to win the election, but they will all win something.
To be fair, the only arguably decent candidate from the DNP this go round is Bernie Sanders, and he is going to lose to Hillary-cesspool-of-lies-and-skeletons-Clinton. Ironically, that's because the black vote is going to a bougie fraud instead of someone who has actually worked for civil rights.
Yea, the GOP has a circus going on, but the DNP has the biggest clown, and she's not funny.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
What part of this story is not news for nerds, or stuff that matters?
Why do you people insist on bitching about the stories every single time?
Read the topic. Decide it's not worth your time, and move on.
If the rest of us are interested and commenting that's our business.
If these types of stories don't generate page views and comments the mods will stop posting them.
Not true. Single payer healthcare alone would release some $1 trillion as disposable income for the middle class.
You know, on that Trump name recognition and fame thing... Yeah, I knew who he was before. I knew he was a douche and had to put his name on literally everything. But now, you are right. He is more famous. And now I know more about him:
- He's intolerant
- He's afraid of Muslims and wants to register them.
- He thinks Mexicans are rapists
- He wants to build a wall across the border.
- He doesn't think Mexicans can build ladders
- He is a misogynist of the first order
And yet a ton of people still want to vote for the guy. It is amazing what that says about those people. I had thought we had gotten past that crap far enough to not have to worry about people voting for it. I was wrong.
Winning the election doesn't say much about whether some candidate is decent and smart, or just some clown in a suit. Voting is done on very superficial reasons, often including nutty religious morals.
If a winning Presidential candidate dies or becomes incapacitated between the counting of electoral votes in Congress and the inauguration, the Vice President elect will become President, according to Section 3 of the 20th Amendment.
So, either way...
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
People don't like Trump, but they FUCKING HATE Hillary.
Actually, the data seem to show that they hate Trump even more than Clinton:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/fea...
--by the way, how come you refer to Donald Trump always by his last name ("Trump") but Hillary Clinton by her first name ("Hillary")? Isn't that a little asymmetrical?
You are assuming the voters are rational, while the Trump phenomenon indicates exactly the opposite. Why are these people as popular as they are? The republicans can win now as easily as Bush did in 2000. And none of it matters when you have a convenient 50/50 gridlocked congress. The republican/democrat monolith will prevail, without a single independent to be seen.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
That doesn't make my statement any less wrong, though, and it just muddies the waters by inviting people to say that Obama is a decent president, and then the discussion shifts to arguing about Obama. The point is, if the republicans could find a single decent candidate, then they'd easily win the elections, so what is stopping them ?
It's not the party's obligation. If you don't like what they offer, don't vote for them. You the voters are supposed to seek out 'decent' candidates and petition to put them on the ballot yourselves. Nobody is going to save you. This is your problem.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Cruz is not controlled by Wall Street
You mean besides the huge loan from Goldman Sachs obtained through his wife.
Let's not forget the Koch brothers.
Kasich isn't a moderate, but he is what passes for a moderate Republican anymore. I'm from Ohio, so I know first hand how bad he is, but given the candidates remaining for the Republicans he is by far the best choice. I'm pulling for him because I want the least destructive Republican candidate to get the nomination because there is always a chance the Republicans win.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
...none of the GOP hopefuls will [win], either....>
You could be in for a rude surprise.
"It's a one-time-only dilemma with a tremendous payoff for the winner."
Only a narcissist would consider becoming President a tremendous payoff. What an extremely challenging and emotionally draining job.
I don't know game theory but I do dabble in political strategy. Most Republicans, or Americans for that matter, have at least heard of Rubio. Few outside of Ohio have heard of John Kasich. The tie for last place has finally put Kasich in the public eye. Rubio can only drop in the polls and Kasich can only rise.
There's very little chance that either Rubio or Kasich could win the Republican nomination, but there's also little chance that either Trump or Cruz could win the national election. This primary season has made it all but impossible for Cruz or Trump to pivot to the center after the primaries. The only two candidates who could still do that are Rubio and Kasich. The best scenario at this point is if Cruz drops out and throws his support behind one of the moderate candidates. The last moderate candidate standing is the only Republican Party candidate with any chance of winning the presidency. If I were betting I'd put my money on Kasich.
I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
The usual, tired and trusted solution is:
1) Leave any decision (including this one) until the last possible moment
2) Often make a bad decision rather then the one the voters or common sense would suggest
3) ???
4) Profit!
In American politics, that means:
1) You'll only find out hours or minutes before the deadline for such things
2) You'll be left wondering why the person that dropped out really did
3) ???
4) Both candidates ultimately don't get elected, drop out of future races and decide to concentrate on being senior VPs and advisors at numerous big companies instead
Kasich is more likely staying in the game for the same reason that Trump entered it
I don't buy that argument. Kasich is a sitting governor, that is a pretty significant political post, and he has been in the US House. He isn't a young man. I can understand wanting to be president but I really doubt he cares all that greatly about a cabinet position; maybe he would want to be VP. If he wants a career on Fox he can have that too just based off his brand as a governor. I don't think he needs this for brand building. A few on air commercial spots and spouting off on some hot button issue like abortion or immigration from Columbus would get him just as much national attention for the GOP rank and file.
Kasich is a popular governor too. He has broad appeal, and he is smart. You point out the people beyond Ohio don't know him that well. That is going to hurt in in a hypothetical poll against HRC if you take it today. After 6 months of a national presidential campaign that hurt largely goes away. I suspect he could do rather well against her. At least as well as Mit did against Obama in terms of popular vote. Being able to carry Midwestern and rust belt states might let him win the electoral college math against HRC. I would have more faith in him winning a national election than Rubio, honestly.
No the GOP's big problem is finding a way to damage Clinton. Trump will be beaten. Rubio failed to pick up the Bush voters in Nevada. They went to Trump, as far as we can tell from the exit polls. Cruz can beat Rubio if Carson leaves the race because those voters are not attracted to Trump. If Carson stays in though for the next couple rounds and Rubio grabs enough super Tuesday delegates Cruz is campaign is over. Rubio will pick up the Cruz voters in large enough numbers to stop Trump in the winner take all contests.
Everyone is worried about Trump winning but he basically can't. There is more head wind there than first meets the eye.
What the GOP need to be focused on honestly is doing everything they possible can to ensure HRC is indicted over the e-mail scandal. It goes against the conventional wisdom b/c they have already fumbled that and gotten burned but its really the only thing that can save them. Mitch and Ryan need to stick their necks out and start a new investigation, they need to find evidence that the FBI and a complicit Loretta Lynch can't sweep under the rug.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
getting free stuff under Sanders
That myth comes almost exclusively from the right. Sanders never claims that this stuff will be outright free. He very plainly explains how single payer health care will be paid for with taxes. He very plainly explains how college tuition will be paid for with taxes. Nobody who has paid any attention to Sanders subscribes to this absurd mythology that these things are just magically free.
More importantly, the people who actually pay attention do realize that those two items in particular though will in the long run pay huge dividends. There is no better investment a government can make than in education; the ROI is usually around 6:1 or better. Single payer healthcare is also a proven economic winner as the increased efficiencies, reduction in disgusting payouts to CEOs, and uniform accessibility improve things across the board.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
>stealth anti abortion candidates of the 90's.
The number of abortions performed in this country is at an all time low. His position is no longer "radical", it's becoming mainstream.
The Republicans are now going through what the Democrats went through in the late 60s and early 70s. A relatively small but extremely vocal faction is making it just about impossible for them to nominate a candidate who has a reasonable chance of winning the broader election.
#DeleteChrome
There has only been one national poll so far that has shown a GOP candidate beating Hillary, but it was within the margin of error. If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath as he beats the GOP candidates by much more than the margin of error.
As someone who supported Bush on his reelection (but was slightly too young to vote), and voted libertarian last election, at this point if Sanders gets the nomination over Hillary I am seriously considering voting for him. But I will never vote for Hillary, nor are there any Republican candidates I have any desire to vote for. The current Republicans are literally driving moderates/undecideds away to third parties or people who might as well be third party like Sanders.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
When the democratic process is reduced to something similar to a team sport, don't expect the best candidate to win. Bush was campaigning on "if you vote for the other guy it will get worse", not "I'm so awesome look at all the cool things I did", and it appears to have worked.
Whomever wrote this summary seems to think that Cruz is still relevant. Am I missing something?
This is mainstream GOP policy. A human life amendment was in the GOP platform in 2012; see here (PDF) starting on page 13. Although the platform does leave some wiggle room for abortions in fetuses that cannot feel pain:
When they don't compromise, they do things take the world economy hostage by threatening to not raise the debt ceiling. That's basically like saying you're going to nuke the world. or they shut the government down. Or they fail to fund road building and bridge repair. There are a thousand necessary things that aren't getting done because of a lack of compromise.
Also the patriot act shouldn't be in your list. That wasn't compromise, that was fear.
TARP while disgusting, was necessary to save the world economy. It should have been followed with some prison sentences.
Quite frankly we're getting what we deserve by not being involved in all elections all the time. This can't happen with an engaged and informed public. Idiocracy is happening now.
Are you saying that those were Democrat bills that were passed because the Republicans compromised with the Democrats? If so, you're way off. The majority of Republican politicians supported those outside of any deals with Democratic politicians. Not to mention all of the years of massive deficit spending under Republican politicians' "leadership". (Please don't get me wrong - the Democratic politicians are not without blame in any of the above)
If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath
No, it won't. If the Dems are dumb enough to nominate Sanders the GOP will frame the election as "Capitalism vs. Socialism" and Bernie will get destroyed. Sorry.
Probably because that is how both of them have branded themselves.
Hillary chose that due to her husband being refereed to as Clinton. She needed something different, so she went first name. Bernie also chose first name, probably because Bernie has a better ring to it then Sanders.
Trump goes by Trump because that is the name all of holdings go by, he is utilizing his own built in name recognition.
Yes, people vote on the person they'd like to have a beer with.
Also there was that pesky problem with election fraud in Ohio in 2004. There was definitely cheating going on but by the time it came to light, dubya had already been sworn in.
Of course Sanders does: taxes on (and I'm quoting) "the wealthy and large corporations", and the money they pay is supposed to go to helping everybody else.
The problem is that if you tax corporations, it mostly comes out of people's retirement funds, not very smart. And what he calls "the wealthy" includes a large part of the US population, in particular, older workers.
There is actual data on this, and the ROI on education spending in the US is nil. That is, increased educational spending does not lead to better educational outcomes in the US. That's true both historically and in international comparisons.The easiest way to see that is just to look at US per student spending and outcomes in international comparisons: we spend much more (in $PPP) than most other countries, yet achieve fairly mediocre results. And the biggest failure in the US is "single payer education", that is, the public educational system.
Half the US health care system is already public, and it spends more per capita than many European health care systems spend for public and private health care combined. So, if Sanders wanted to bring European style health care to the US, he could already do that without any new taxes or expenses, simply by covering everybody under the existing public health care system and making it work efficiently.
Sanders's economic ideas and plans don't stand up to scrutiny, and he would get torn apart in a general election. I'd love to see him get the Democratic nomination just to see this happen.
The abortion rate is falling primarily because contraceptive use is rising.
There are exceptions in backwater places like Texas where they pass laws aimed at shutting down abortion clinics.
What you wrote is untrue. Many current polls show most of the Republican candidates would beat Clinton in the general election And that has been true for months. Hillary Clinton has a good chance of beating Trump, but that is about it.
Really? You think Clinton is a bigger clown than Trump or Carson?
I don't like Hillary much, but I wouldn't call her a clown.
There has only been one national poll so far that has shown a GOP candidate beating Hillary
You' assume Clinton will still be running by November despite having pulled several felonies with her private email server and failure to handle classified information. Not everyone will ignore that.
What if Bernie beats Hillary but then dies of old age? What then?
The VP becomes president. You think the world is going to stop or what ?
huh??? Obama isn't a candidate, so that's a non-sequitur. By singling out the Rs, you politicized the statement, which invites polarizing argument.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Trump might not be as bad as you think. (He probably wouldn't nearly be as bad as Cruz) It all depends on who he would bring in to do all the work and to make decisions for him, since he really doesn't have any qualifications to be the president, other than being the delegator-in-chief.
Obama was a very recent candidate, and he won because his opponents all came from a circus.
When I would pick Japanese Beetles off of my roses and place them in a cup of hot water, the beetles would climb over each other trying to get out of the water, each drowning the others. This was a sick metaphor for libertarian policies.
Of course, the GOP candidates can't cooperate, they live in an Ayn Randian Dystopia, where everyone acts for their own best interest, and only fools would cooperate.
That only applies after the November election. The OP was presumably asking about the time period between the Democratic convention and the election.
(I don't know the answer but I too am curious)
I wish you were right, but you're probably not. I predict that your next president will be Donald "assclown" Trump. Mark my words.
"Being crazy is a strategy, ..."
Being crazy seems to be THE strategy of the Republicans this year.
What's stopping them is a fundamental flaw in the focus of the party. The republican party at its core is there to push the agenda of the rich. In order to do that they need to convince the poor and uneducated to vote against their best interests. Republicans can't win by being honest so they have to use the subterfuge of abortion, coded racism, xenophobia, gun rights paranoia to get elected. Over the years they have stoked the fears and stupidity and have created a voting horde of zombies. This worked very well for a while but now you have rich people like the Koch brothers who would rather have direct control of the Zombie horde. So the Koch's have a political apparatus that is at least three times the size of the political apparatus of the republican party. You have other players also trying to take direct control of the Zombies.
Now the other problem is side of the problem is that of "decent candidates". The problem here again lies at the root of the purpose of the republican party... to further the goals of the rich. Republicans tend to pick(draft) candidates from business who they think will win an election. These candidates for the most part have no history of public service and often don't understand the role of government or how it works. They just take their orders, copy the legislation that was given to them by some PAC and repeat talking points. Democrats, on the other hand, generally have to work their way up doing real community service. The outlook is completely different. You have to demonstrate that you can and have worked hard for the working man in order to be a democrat on the national stage. Remember all the derisive comments about how Obama was a community organizer (like that's a bad thing?)? That's because the republicans don't see the US as a team or a community where helping each other out is valuable. It's more of a "fuck you, I've got mine" mentality rather than a serious problem solving mindset.
Now there are still a few old school republicans in the senate who take their responsibilities seriously but they are being replaced with the new and improved scorched earth republicans. The house? It only has a majority of republicans because of cheating, AKA gerrymandering. The republicans can't win fair elections so they try their best to disenfranchise voters, gerrymander districts , cut voting hours so working class people have a hard time voting, etc...
Trump is interesting because he's stealing the zombie horde from the Koch's, et al. He's tapped into that lizard brain that Fox News, Limaugh, etc.. have been grooming for decades. They original owners of the zombie horde are pissed, but there's not a lot they can do about it.
Game Theory should be the real topic to keep this for the nerds.
We need more examples of how fucked up an unrealistic Game Theory is in modeling human nature. It works for modeling how mental cases handle situations... which in this case is most the GOP candidates; it's especially fitting in that they themselves tend to view the world in that unrealistic model even if they have no clue about the math involved.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Clearly you are a Democrat, since you swallow whole the slurs the Democrats try to characterise Trump with.
How does it feel to be a stupid mouthpiece?
We have had divided government for a lot longer than just since the 1990s.
The kleptocrats will protect Hillary. They have too much money riding on her now for her to be charged with those felonies.
Kasich is next to last, Carson is in last and both are in single digits most of the time. Neither has any conceivable path to victory. They would need all of the top three candidates to suddenly drop out or have their support collapse... not reasonable to expect of three other leading candidates at this stage.
The dilemma applies more to Rubio and Cruz, both of whom have about equal support and are essentially tied for second place, but if either dropped out it would be close to conceivable that either could assume the lead. Kasich (and Carson) are a piece of that puzzle to help put another candidate over the top if they drop out, but as long as both Cruz and Rubio are still in it seems they will roughly split the vote at around 20 something percent each.
It would be interesting to see what the results would be if they had approval voting, where you can vote for all the candidates you find acceptable. With higher negatives, a candidate like Trump couldn't rely on vote splitting if an approval voting system was in place.
I like this argument. It's like saying: "Here are 20 heaps of shit. Choose one to step into."
Democracy works on a base of choice. If all choices are bad, you can try it yourself. But I think anybody not affiliated with one of the two parties does not stand a chance. And to get affiliated with one of the parties, you have to play the game and thus become one of those unchoosable choices yourself.
The one thing left to do is not to vote, but that only makes a difference, if everybody (or a very large group of people) does it. And by difference I mean it might be talked about, which might or might not change anything.
If you find a typo, you may keep it.
If the militaristic wing of GOP had had their way, which of the below would be weakened or not passed?
NAFTA
GATT/WTO Treaty
Gramm-Leach-Bliley (Wall St. dereg)
Commodity Futures Modernization Act(more Wall St. dereg)
AUMF
Patriot Act (and several renewals)
Military Commissions Act
TARP (bank bailout)
FISA Revisions Act
NDAA 2012
TPP
Ideologically, none other than TARP were opposed by the hard conservatives of GOP. There would be more government centralizing and espionage authority and higher militarism, and more economic deregulation.
The abortion rate is falling primarily because contraceptive use is rising.
There are exceptions in backwater places like Texas where they pass laws aimed at shutting down abortion clinics.
That's correct about contraceptive use, though abortion rates were already declining before Republican-led state legislatures started passing restrictive laws on abortion clinics and doctors. A lot of abortion clinics were going out of business because of contraception use and women deciding to either keep their babies or put them up for adoption.
Don't blame the system for the personal choices people make.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
If you exclude the religious, the militaristic, and the moderates then what remains?
He was already a Fox News commentator, and stopped doing that 3 years before running for Governor of Ohio. That also coincided with when Fox News slid completely from "barely acceptable news" into "full-blown nutso propoganda machine" though the two events were only tangentially related.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
So if you're a Democrat you have a dilemma: vote for Sanders as the nominee to effect some real change
That's a nice thought but unless the Democrats control Congress, Bernie is going to have a hard time pushing his agenda through. The Tea Party folks would develop hives at the mere thought of some of his policy goals. Obama is pretty centrist compared to Bernie and he can't get Congress to pass anything. Only reason the Affordable Care Act passed was because the democrats had control of the house and senate. Bernie would try I'm sure but I doubt he'd get much done.
There is no better investment a government can make than in education; the ROI is usually around 6:1 or better.
There is actual data on this, and the ROI on education spending in the US is nil. That is, increased educational spending does not lead to better educational outcomes in the US.
You might be thinking of K-12 spending, which is a very different matter than higher education spending. There have been difficulties correlating increased spending on K-12 public education with better outcomes, though that is largely due to the fact that people want a yes/no answer to a vastly multifactorial problem.
However when it comes to higher education, there is no disputing the fact that making it more accessible to people across the board (which requires investment) reaps dramatic rewards. People make more money, they are less likely to be involved in crime, they help their communities, the list goes on and on. A lot of people also errantly assume that this means everyone goes to the local state university and gets a 4 year degree in any topic of their choosing, this is not the case nor has Sanders ever called for it. Many people will go to community colleges, many will go to vocational / technical colleges. Yet others might go to truck driving schools or police academies. These are all avenues that would not have been open to these people with only a high school degree. These are all ways to improve peoples' quality of life without giving them money directly, and to see those rewards truly propagate through the community as well.
Single payer healthcare is also a proven economic winner as the increased efficiencies, reduction in disgusting payouts to CEOs, and uniform accessibility improve things across the board.
Half the US health care system is already public,
Not by dollar spent, it isn't. Most of the money is on the private side. Similarly not by subscribers who use their health care, either; there are more subscribers in private plans than in public plans. You need to check your numbers.
it spends more per capita than many European health care systems spend for public and private health care combined.
The private side of the US health care system spends vastly more than any European or Asian country, that is beyond dispute.
So, if Sanders wanted to bring European style health care to the US, he could already do that without any new taxes or expenses, simply by covering everybody under the existing public health care system and making it work efficiently.
Have you actually listened to anything Sanders has said? He has been calling for expansion of medicaid, which would be exactly that. Initially it would require more taxes - though the individuals would quickly find they would be getting the same care for less this way by paying medicaid instead of paying to their for-profit health care plan.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
They do:
Jon Huntsman - 2012
John Kasich - 2016
I won't even mention 2008 because they could have ran Jesus Christ and he would have lost because of the damage Bush did to the Republican brand.
Unfortunately, they're too sane to get past the primary voters. The only thing that fixes the GOP at this point, is a Trump nomination which induces the spark that burns the whole party to the ground, and then it can be rebuilt from the ashes to be what it was in the early 90s before the hard-right bank into the evangelicals and nutters' arms.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
And this is different from the democrats in what substantive way?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Really? You think Clinton is a bigger clown than Trump or Carson?
I don't like Hillary much, but I wouldn't call her a clown.
"Corrupt", "crook", "pathological liar", and "would look better in prison stripes" are all better things to call Hillary! than "clown".
1. Wrangle for the #2 spot with the candidate with the highest negative values in history.
2. Hope somebody gets mad enough to knock off President Trump.
3. Profit!
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What the heck is "mainstream" supposed to mean here? Trump is the leader in almost all the polls and votes taken so far.
This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
This is the same Hillary Clinton who is having trouble beating the wet paper bag that is Bernie Sanders with the whole of the Democratic establishment behind her? ROTFL. Polls lie, and Hillary is eminently beatable, though perhaps not by Kasich.
The answer to that is simple and obvious: the GOP is completely driven by a small number of ultra-wealthy individuals (through funding PACs and the manipulation of useful idiots AKA the Tea Party). To those people, all the GOP candidates are very suitable.
The Koch brothers and their friends are spending $1B this election season.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
[citation needed]
I know everyone loves to whinge on about Bush "stealing" the election in 2000, but this is the first time I've ever heard anyone cry about it in 2004. Especially since every Presidential election loser's favorite excuse is the popular vote, which Bush also won in 2004 by over 3 million votes.
trump's crazy makes them look sane.
except he's mostly espousing things they espouse too, simply taken to the extreme.
they actually believe the things they say (turning back gay rights, with letting businesses run wild, allowing a slip towards theocracy, having people go broke over medical bills and no insurance), whereas when trump says it, it's much more likely that he's merely pandering for votes.
I think he's pandering by taking the typical viewpoints to the extremes.
I don't think he actually believes much o what he says; his past is full of much more soft moderate positions.
his focus is simply on winning, all the time, and right now that means saying crazy, bigoted, palin-esque word salad.
I think he did it originally as a publicity stunt, just like before, planning to ride the train as far as it went, but not expecting to be this successful.
so now he's still just riding the train as far as it will go, only now it looks like it might actually go all the way.
but how he would actually act as president is an open question:
would he be more moderate in practice? or would his continual desire to win (his superiority complex) drive him to continue with the demagoguery, and behave dangerously and recklessly? it'd be scary to find out. but equally scary is if someone like Cruz wins the office.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
When Cheney/Bush/Rove where at the height of power, they realized several things.
1) They could move the GOP from a 'conservative' party to a "rural" party.
2) That would make gerrymandering much easier, giving them 20 seats in the House of Representatives.
3) This, new gerrymandered political situation would allow them to push away from the center and create more conservative, far right party, while still remaining in control of the House.
Their plan worked. But they failed to realize their would be pushback. In effect, the far right conservatives that won their districts easily failed to understand that they had cheated. They believed the entire country was far more republican than they were, and pushed for even more conservatism. This was called the T-Party movement. It pushed most of the moderates out of the Republican party.
The few remaining centrists in the Republican party have too little power to lead. Hence Huntsman lost the primary in 2012, and Kasich can't get traction in 2016.
No sane person can lead the crazy mob the GOP invited in. That is why their two leaders are Trump and Cruz
Right now, there are three wings of the Republican party. 1) The lunatic far right invited in (Cruz). 2) The original conservative party leaders that decided to use deception to bring the far right lunatics in. (Rubio/Kasich), and 3) The majority, honest, non-crazy, faithful moderate conservatives that reject the old guard party and the lunatic far right (Trump).
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"Kasich 's second strategy would be to cut a deal with Rubio — offer to drop out, for example, in exchange, for the second spot on a Rubio ticket or a cabinet post."
That's illegal, you idiots.
TARP was one way to do it. Explain to me why breaking up the banks and bailing out their victims instead would have destroyed the world economy.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
The constituents?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Bernie is the biggest demagogue running today. Promises free everything for everyone. What we'll get instead is shared misery. Hillary is not specific enough to be called anything except maybe desperate.
Trump may be many things, some unprintable in polite company, but if he does get elected he won't wait until the last year of his presidency to try to fulfill every inane promise he ever made on the campaign trail (like Obama is doing).
It amazes me that Democrats now think a wall between the US and Mexico is impossible to build. Wasn't that the carrot they were dangling to the American people when they tried to sell their last attempt at immigration reform? But like Muslims, Progressives can lie, cheat and steal from the non-believers with impunity.
I... can't imagine that's what the GP is suggesting. I don't know the details of all of these, but the ones that I recognize are all "bi-partisan" - meaning that they had significant support from both parties - however, if you look at the actual votes it's pretty clear that these are really Republican bills with support from Democrats. The Patriot Act, for example, while receiving bipartisan support was/is more Republican than not. Passed by a Republican controlled Congress and President and defended by Republicans when it came time for renewal.
Gramm-Leach-Bliley was Republican (in addition to the vote, all of the bill's sponsors were Republican), NAFTA was Republican.
The exception that I can spot is TARP, which was mostly Democratic. So... I don't know where the GP is going with this.
examine all of the laws they passed by "compromising" with the Democrats.
These were nearly all Republican proposals. Many Democrats don't see these as the result of "compromise". They see them as a result of Democrats caving in to Republican demands.
If you are really opposed to NAFTA, TPP, GATT and FISA, then I think you are in the wrong party. Those laws reflect the core principles of the GOP.
Yeah, this is already over with. It's Benghazi over with.
The only think that's going to sink Hillary is her inability to genuinely connect with young voters.
After his performance in the town hall meeting last night, I've gone from someone who might vote for him if he were the nominee (unlike for Jeb! or Graham, who I'd never vote for at all) to won't vote for him.
One of the questioners asked him about a shooting range that advertized itself as 'Muslim-free' and declared that it doesn't sell guns to Muslims. Aside from it being a private decision of a private business, there was another thing that could have been said for them. This was not a mere case of discrimination against Muslims, or the so-called 'Islamophobia', if you will. It was a case of denying Muslims guns, and the right to have a fun time w/ them. After San Bernardino, Chatanooga and all other acts of Jihad, can one blame them? I normally am pro Second Amendment and have no problems w/ ordinary Americans - Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians, et al having guns. But MUSLIMS having guns DOES scare me, since there's no way of telling which ones would or wouldn't go 'allahuakbar' on me.
And on foreign policy, Rubio is another adventurer who wants to ally w/ 'Sunni Arabs'. Never mind that Sunni Arabs are the backbone of both al Qaeda & ISIS. Fact is we don't have a dog in those fights - they're ALL our enemies, and our only role there should be to defang them.
Yet, Rubio chose to pander to Muslims in his answer. He wants the votes of people sympathetic to them, fine, but he ain't getting mine.
If you exclude the religious, the militaristic, and the moderates then what remains?
The libertarian wing, which mostly supported Rand Paul. He got less than 5% of the vote in Iowa. His dad, Ron Paul, who was a better candidate, peaked out at about 10% in 2008 polls.
Anyone smart enough to be a proper President, doesn't wan the job; it's 4 years of eating a never-empty bowl of shit, even though it's served in a very nice silver bowl.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
It didn't happen with the current guy in office, being the abject failure that he is. There's no way in hell it would happen with Trump.
Don't hold your breath waiting for not voting to make a difference - Typically roughly half of eligible voters in the US don't vote in presidential elections. Usually only around 40% vote in midterm elections. If having the majority of the population decide not to vote doesn't send a message, exactly how low do you think turnout has to get to do the job?
All that not voting does is freely hand power to over to whoever can best manipulate the people who do vote. You want to send a message? Go out and vote for a fringe candidate you actually respect - then you're not just saying "I can't be bothered", you're at least saying "I might vote for a mainstream candidate that looked more like *this*". And hell, a 3rd party candidate who could mobilize half the non-voters would have a clear shot at victory.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Because times have changed.
Basically we used to have a right wing party (republicans) and a left wing party (democrats). But as the baby boomers aged and got more conservative the democrats moved further and further to the right. Like the preverbal frog in the boiler this happened slowly enough that the US 2 party system transitioned into one right wing party (democrats) and one batshit insane party (republicans) without the general population realizing it.
I know everyone loves to whinge on about Bush "stealing" the election in 2000, but this is the first time I've ever heard anyone cry about it in 2004. Especially since every Presidential election loser's favorite excuse is the popular vote, which Bush also won in 2004 by over 3 million votes.
Ah yes, what an 'excuse', when a majority of the populace votes for one thing and gets the other.
Right now we have tyranny of the minority -- it's not small states versus large states so much as it was in the 1700's, it's gerrymandered house districts controlled by rural and exurban interests threatening the vast majority of people who now live in cities.
The solution I think would be to have each state proportionally appoint its representatives based on an internal popular vote. Then you would have more accurate representation for all parties within a state, and no need to slice up a city to dilute its votes (or to create a 'minority majority' district).
NAFTA and TPP and similar are free trade agreements. All credible economists generally consider them pretty good for nations as a whole as they facilitate commerce, the lifeblood of any economy. Wealth increases drastically overall, but jobs change (They don't go away, but people are forced to seek different forms of employment) -
There's also an issue of wealth distribution. It's a pretty bad idea not to directly address wealth redistribution while these trade agreements are in place. Large companies and the wealthy get to collect most of the benefit directly. Everyone else sees secondary benefit (Cheaper goods, jobs created by more demands for exports) This is the trouble we're in now, and why populist candidates like Trump and Sanders are gaining popularity.
TARP was also completely necessary and quite successful. Weather you like it or not (or even believe it, as surprisingly few do) our economy lives and dies by a tangle of pseudo public/private/government banking entities. Were they to fail we'd be facing complete economic collapse. No banks. No stock market. No loans. No finance. No credit cards. No paypal. No nothing. Money would stop flowing. Had TARP not been implemented we'd have likely seen chaos, followed by martial law, followed by a nationalization of all the failed banks. You'd have begged for TARP after that.
And this is different from the democrats in what substantive way?
Easy - the GOP doesn't value experience or accomplishment. They've spent 30+ years preaching the government is the cause of problems, so the best way to have a political career is to not have one. It's a paradox they've created. So that's why some of their most prominent candidates have come from zero political background, like Trump, Carson, Cain, Fiorina, etc.
I mean really, what incentive is there for a young republican, let's say a college republican, to actually go into a political career for the GOP? A core GOP value is "the government is the problem" so going into business (Trump, Cain, Fiorina) or neurosurgery (Cain) and avoiding politics altogether is a better call.
I fundamentally disagree with the premise of your comment.
Real Republicans believe that Federal Government is not the answer to every problem. To Real Republicans, the 10th Amendment still counts, just as much as the 1st, 2nd, and 5th.
Unfortunately, those Republicans aren't in charge of the party right now, as they've been pushed aside by the Sarah Palin types that invite the stereotype you are putting forth of being the party of the old white rich guy. You do know there are plenty of obscenely rich folk that are Democrats, right? The same type of people that espouse the same mentality that you foist upon the Republicans, which is what Bernie Sanders is on about, and doing well because of.
I've never heard such a steaming pile of partisan horseshit.
Ooo. Nice try dum dum.
But back to the kids table with you (Sorry Rand Paul has left already), the adults are having a conversation.
Agreed. She's not a clown. She's just a wind sock that points to the latest poll results, and a short-hair away from a felony indictment; she's wholesale untrustworthy, and incapable of taking a principled stand when the polls point the other way.
If you can't tell the difference, either you're not paying attention or you like to buy into the false equivalency of "they're both as bad".
Democrats try to work together for progress republicans try to destroy.
Let me put it to you in a different way. During the Iran deal who was it that wanted to go to war and who wanted to build peace? The conservatives in the US, Israel and Iran all wanted to go to war. The liberals wanted to build a lasting peace. If you took all the conservatives in the world and put them together they would start killing each other. If you did that with all the liberals, they would try to build a society.
That in a nutshell is the difference. Conservatives are a "fuck you, I've got mine" mentality whereas liberals are more of a "we're all in the together, let's make it work" mentality.
I have no doubt in my mind that Clinton is a very smart person - that shows through in the debates. I just don't fucking trust her at all,
Why would that be any different for her versus any of the other candidates. If you trust ANY of them you are being a fool. The notion that Clinton is somehow more or less trustworthy than any of the rest is just silly. Saying Clinton is somehow especially untrustworthy just means you haven't looked at the others carefully enough.
I don't think her felonies will keep her from running by November. I'm not even sure getting convicted would stop her from running. Is it possible to serve as President from prison?
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
That was Obama's campaign too. "Change". as in "things are so fucked up, any change would be better".
If you don't like what they offer, don't vote for them.
Dunno... Seems to me, like all politicians, they offer $WhatYouWant until they get in. We're not going to pretend they have actual principles and ideals that benefit the commoner are we? Strikes me as naive.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
There has only been one national poll so far that has shown a GOP candidate beating Hillary, but it was within the margin of error. If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath as he beats the GOP candidates by much more than the margin of error.
I think you are missing some important facts about how these elections work. Name recognition is a huge factor. Hillary Clinton has been in the national spotlight for decades, and in a rather major way.
The Republicans have been splitting the attention between what was initially 17 people (I don't know what it's whittled down to right now) and even then the media has been consistently providing Trump with more attention than all the others combined.
Once a frontrunner is chosen they will inherit quite a bit of media and voter attention as well as advertising for their national campaign. That part of Hillary's advantage will largely dissipate. Hillary also will be subject to greater scrutiny. People polled may not know anything about her as a candidate other than that they liked her husband. Once they have some information, their candidate preference may well change. (And I think probably will in many cases.)
Your polling predictions are all based on data which has little or nothing to do with the political context we'll have in November.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
This is why Bernie is going to lose. The Bernie Bros are over the top in their vitriol and turn off the swing voters he will need.
People who engage in hyperbole are worse than Hitler.
Kasich only pretends to be sane.
I'll grant you that is a good solution. However, they had a patient bleeding out on the operating table. That is not the time to decide to do multiple organ transplants. It was all about the urgency of the situation. As a followup they absolutely should have broken up the banks and thrown some bankers in prison
I'm somewhat ambivalent about big banks. On one hand they can be a stabilizing force. CAN BE. The larger a bank is, the more of a threat to national security it becomes. This is the framing I would like to see with regard to big banks. You want to get a lot bigger? OK, more regulation and oversight because you are dangerous like nukes. That's the deal, otherwise it's time to downsize. And along those same lines, try to make regulations less onerous the smaller you are, within reason of course.
Kasich is more likely staying in the game for the same reason that Trump entered it - fame and recognition
Kasich is staying in the game because he sees a contested convention in July, and the more delegates he can get, the more influence he'll have in the convention.
What the article fails to consider is that most pollsters now see that if no further candidate drops out, a contested convention becomes increasingly likely, as not even Trump is likely to pick up a majority of the delegates. If I were to apply game theory to a contested convention scenario, I'd say that each candidates best strategy at this point is stay in the race as long as possible to amass as many delegates as they can. This is probably specially true for a Kasich, as a contested convention is probably his best strategy for securing the nomination at this point.
If the democrats nominate Sanders, however, it will be a GOP bloodbath
No, it won't. If the Dems are dumb enough to nominate Sanders the GOP will frame the election as "Capitalism vs. Socialism" and Bernie will get destroyed. Sorry.
On what do you base that?
The people who remember the cold war are now outnumbered by their children and grandchildren. The class of 2008 who graduated into the "grate recession" with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt are turning 30 this year.
If the GOP tries to frame it as capitalism vs socialism the majority of voting age adults will hear "the system that screwed you over" vs "one that will ensure you children never have to deal with the same hardships you endured".
Jeb spent $81 million, on a primary, to get less than 4% of the vote. Why do people think money=votes?
McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform disallowed individual citizens from putting on a TV commercial within 90 days of an election explaining why you should vote for their favorite candidate. That is an individual was prevented, not a corporation. The ONLY way the Supreme court could have decided that case was to strike it down. It should bother you the vote was 5-4 and you really should wonder why those 4 voted to uphold censorship against individuals.
If they upheld the law you would have literally had political prisoners in the US for speaking their opinion on political matters.
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
Here, I fixed that for you.
I still wonder how it is possible that [either party] can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened
Reagan was elected at 69. Sanders, if he wins, will be elected at 74.
Yeah, I'm sure we all have to panic about him immediately dying and not vote for him for that reason.
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
I was never a particularly big fan of Hilary, but after seeing the not so coded racism in her ads in the Hampton roads area (anti-police racial pandering on sports broadcasts and fighting for seniors on shows with a whiter audience) I would even hold my nose and vote Trump over her.
I almost hope that Trump wins the nomination process, just so it will burn the current GOP to the ground. And I say that as a registered Republican, who is ashamed of what this party has become.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The naivete is in reelecting the politician or anyone from a corrupt party after they picked your pocket. After losing the first shell game with them, why would you play another when you know they are cheating?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Did you read the post mr. shill?
Just so you know, all the "investment banks" of the time went under, so it's not like we bailed out all the banks, just backstopped the ones necessary to keep the monetary system from cratering. TARP was almost entirely paid back.
Divided government is democracy.
What we've had since the 1990s is polarized government.
You are wrong. The non-voting block is simply not counted. But since it is a majority in its own right, they could vote the republicans and democrats completely out of the house every two years, sweep the whole thing clean. That is the only way to test the system to see if it works. Right now the 95% reelection rate says it is working precisely as designed, and with full consent
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I agree that H is a spinner, but so are most politicians. Bernie is arguably a spinner, but whether he is "spinnier" than H is kind of hard to say because their pasts are so different. His "spending math" stretches things to the very edge of what reality could supply without some low-probability luck kicking in.
H has been in the public eye and the right has spent a lot of money to magnify and advertise her mistakes (or alleged mistakes) so that everyone remembers them and make them memes. If you did that to ANY candidate's mistakes, it would taint public opinion on them. Slander works.
Look at the fact checking sites and you can find spin and/or mistakes from any candidate that could be made into a meme if one spends enough to highlight the mistake.
(I won't call the mistakes "lies" because human memory is so unreliable that Hanlon's razor could apply.)
Table-ized A.I.
Bernie has a political career that spans decades now, and he's been entirely consistent.
Being consistent in politics has nothing to do with being honest.
And unlike Hillary, he doesn't have a lot of questionable ethical actions in his past.
Maybe, maybe not. He hasn't been anywhere near the public figure that Hillary has either so it's not like he's been under the microscope like she has. Maybe he is the exceptionally rare honest politician but that doesn't mean I trust him any more than I do Hillary or any of the GOP clowns.
To be clear, Sanders is probably the candidate I favor most in this race and I still don't trust him.
but if you think he's less trustworthy than Hillary, you're either an idiot or a shill.
If you think anyone who seeks high office is even remotely trustworthy you are an idiot, period.
There are exceptions in backwater^W conservative places like Texas where they pass laws aimed at shutting down abortion clinics.
FTFY. Not ALL backwater places are conservative bastions like Texas!
Wow, this is some seriously distorted analysis.
First, Trump is not a republican, he's just campaigning on their ticket (like Bernie on the Dem side, he was an Independent before this campaign) because he's figured out how to "take direct control of the zombie horde".
Fiorina was a failure; she didn't get anywhere with her campaign. Carson is soon to follow. Cain didn't get far either. None of them held office. Nor has Trump.
The actual Republicans, the ones who actually succeed in holding office, are nothing like what you're describing. They're long-time politicians, and they certainly have political careers. There have been a few exceptions lately with the Tea Party, but that's pretty recent.
So you need to look at *real* Republicans like Jeb Bush, Kasich, Rubio, etc. Those represent the Republican Party. and they're all career politicians. The ones like Carson and Fiorina are just a side-show, some yahoos trying to turn their non-political experience into a shot at political fame but mostly falling flat on their faces. Trump stands a real chance at subverting the GOP political process, and I think that's been his plan all along, but that is not at all typical of GOP politicians.
So, it's not "smart" to have the oldest workers, with presumably the best pay (since this is a progressive tax not an age tax), to most help out new people to enter the work force to replace them as they retire? And because corporations apparently go straight for retirement funds to pay any tax increase, we should simply never raise taxes even though now days most people are pushing/pushed into their own retirement funding precisely because corporations can't be trusted because they tend to raid retirement funds? Yep, sound logic there.
You do know there's a difference between diminishing marginal returns and outright investing, right?
More accurately, the biggest failure is in how the US has structured its public education system. Since school districts are local and paid by local property taxes (near universally), the net result is that districts with 100x the property value receive ~100x the funding. Oddly enough, with diminishing marginal returns that translates into some districts having gold plated text books, but very little improvement in education. Meanwhile, other districts which have horrible property value rates are constantly underfunded. For states like California that actually distribute funding more equally per pupil? One of the top ten states.
So, you're right for the wrong reasons unless you're arguing to structural fix this issue, which btw is outside the power of the President. Higher education, however, which IS what Sanders is talking about...
Unfortunately, I'd definitely agree that Sanders is overselling on this point. Just like Obamacare the only way massive structural change that are needed can occur is through Congress. And Congress has already demonstrated an entire unwillingness to fix the problem. But, if they did, yes, it'd be quite possibly to shift to a public health care system with current medicare/medicaid tax revenue and nothing else. Like Obamacare (and the whole public school system situation), though, States would fight tooth and nail to claim dominance even when it actively hurts their own people--like them fighting against medicaid expansion because eventually they'll have to take up 5% and then 10% of the cost themselves...
The biggest bit that will be "torn apart" is any notion he'll accomplish anything since 99% of the problem is
I think it's because they're republicans...
The problem with this analysis is that it applies more to donors than to primary voters. Rubio is a flawed, inexperienced and uninspiring candidate, and it's not obvious that he would be helped significantly by anyone dropping out.
The same applies to this idea of a Cruz-Rubio or Rubio-Cruz ticket that has just come up. So-called establishment figures may be excited about the possibility of taking away voters' choices through a backroom deal, but I have my doubts that voters themselves would play along. These schemes have a happy tendency to blow up in people's faces.
Your claim about the Republican Party encouraging xenophobia doesn't reflect reality.
Mass immigration hurts all workers. Illegal immigration hurts people at the bottom. Visa workers hurt people in the middle.
The establishment GOP wants amnesty. The rich want it (look at FWD.us). The Democrats want it because it will help them electorally.
80% of Republicans oppose amnesty. 50% of Democrats do as well. 66% of Independents as well.
Trump is leading a populist revolt. You want a higher minimum wage? Fine, cut illegal immigration and it should be possible (market demand dictates that more workers equals lower wages). There, that's a fucking compromise.
How in the world can you reconcile libertarian philosophy with voting for Sanders? That's about the biggest contradiction I've ever heard.
And that's why Trump is going to win. Hillary will win the DNC nomination one way or another (probably involving some dirty tricks on the part of the DNC's leadership with DWS), and all the Millenials and other Bernie voters will either sit out the election, write in Bernie's name, or vote for Trump out of spite. Combine that with Trump's huge polling numbers, and the distrust and disdain that so many Americans (esp. on the right) have for Hillary, and we can look forward to a Trump Presidency. And AFAIC, the corrupt DNC has only itself to blame for this fiasco.
The only reason Obama got elected in '08 is because he was popular with the younger crowd: they thought they finally had someone they could believe in, so they rallied behind him. This was 4 years after the DNC fielded wooden Kerry, who failed to excite them enough to bother to turn out and vote against another 4 years of GWB. Then Obama failed to perform as his voters expected, so he managed to squeak by in '12, mainly because Romney was such an uninspiring candidate. So you'd think the Dems would have learned their lesson that they need a candidate that resonates with the voters, and they've found exactly such a candidate with Bernie. He generates all the excitement with younger voters that Obama did, except this time he actually has a long political record to back up his progressive rhetoric; the younger voters have learned this time around not to get excited by mere words, but by actions. But instead of seizing this opportunity, the DNC is doing everything they can to shut down his campaign and push Hillary, a candidate that almost no one is excited by, and is obviously just a tool for Wall Street. So, just like Romney in '12 and Kerry in '04, or worse Dukakis in '88 (where he lost in a landslide), Hillary is probably going to lose this year because she just isn't a candidate who is going to make the Democrat voters want to bother going to the polls, which is a frequent problem with Dem voters as seen in every midterm election.
If you choose not to vote, you are making a choice to let the zombie horde make decisions for you.
Kasich has one chance: he immediately drops out of the race, gets a promise from Rubio that he'll be VP, and Ted Cruz gets hit by a bus. The only way the GOP can pull itself out of this black hole aka Donald Trump is to unite behind one individual right now. Rubio's the closest thing they have, plus he carries an advantage: he can flop 29 electoral votes from Florida back to red. Team up with Kasich, and he'll have another 18 stolen away from the dems. That gives the GOP a very close chance to flip even just one more state to give them the win they're looking for.
But every additional day of infighting is one step closer Hillary is to the white house. As they say, a house divided cannot stand.
Several that appear to be over your head.
Actually this is more like a war of attrition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_attrition_(game)
* The top ten banks control, on paper, on the order of $10 Trillion in assets
* If tomorrow, approximately half those assets were considered worthless and were share disproportionately high by 3 or 4 banks, they'd likely go bankrupt.
* Those assets back, among other things, those victim depositors. To pay off that quantity off would equate to say ~$5 Trillion in payments.
* There's only ~$1.39 trillion in US currency floating around--the rest of it is locked up in physical assets, numbers in bank ledgers, stocks, etc.
* So, the US would pay out well more than TARP (which was only ~$0.7 Trillion), get none of the money directly back (we'll get a lot of it back in taxes *snickers*), and potentially there'd be either currency shortages for the payouts, other bank runs on unrelated banks (as people try to effectively cash out out of fear), there'd be a horrible housing market glut that'd be near unfixable for a decade or two, and people would have to shuffle around a lot of money into new banks.
Destroy the world economy? No. Massively disrupt the economy to a scale well beyond what we saw? Fuck yes.
This. Anyone seriously suggesting that Sanders would be more likely to win the general than Clinton is so bizarrely out of touch with the political realities in the US that it's almost miraculous to behold.
I think he's asking about what happens if Bernie dies *before* he's elected, but *after* he's nominated.
I would assume that Hillary would then become the Dem nominee by default.
- He is a misogynist of the first order
Isn't Hillary the one who laughed at a rape victim? How much more misogynist can you get?
Seriously, if it comes down to Hillary vs. Trump, I'm voting Trump. I'd rather take my chances with that bombastic egomaniac than with a woman who's clearly a corrupt sociopath working for Wall Street.
About half is right. 8% of GDP is public spending, 8.9% is private spending.
Incorrect. The OECD average for total healthcare spending is 9.3% of GDP. So 22 of the 33 non-U.S. OECD countries spend more on healthcare than just the private sector of the U.S. 24 OECD countries spend more than just the public sector of the U.S. If you're trying to portray private healthcare in the U.S. as the villain, you're going to fail miserably.
It's worth pointing out that pre-Obamacare, the amount of public money the U.S. spent per capita on health care was almost the same as Canada. In 2004, the U.S. government actually spent more per capita on healthcare than Canada. If you wanted a Canadian-style single payer system, the U.S. government was already spending enough money for it. A point whitewashed by the media and the Democrats to help push Obamacare through. (Just like they whitewash how big Medicare has grown. It's the second biggest chunk of the Federal budget now - nearly 1.7x military spending.)
The problem with the U.S. healthcare system isn't something with a quick and simple fix like a single payer system. If you think that, you clearly have only been listening to the talking points of your party, and not digging up your own numbers and analyzing. The problem is deeper and more endemic - inefficiencies and corruption within the small gears and cogs of the entire system which need to be individually rooted out and addressed.
As someone who will never vote democrat, let me inform you all that Rubio wants to TRIPLE the number of H1B visas and wants to expand warrantless wiretapping from the CIA.
And these are two more reasons I'm a Bernie fan. He's against H1B visas too, and also against warrantless wiretapping.
Of course, Hillary is the opposite, which is why there's no way I'm voting for her.
And on foreign policy, Rubio is another adventurer who wants to ally w/ 'Sunni Arabs'. Never mind that Sunni Arabs are the backbone of both al Qaeda & ISIS. Fact is we don't have a dog in those fights - they're ALL our enemies, and our only role there should be to defang them.
I disagree. You're right that the Sunnis are the worst of the lot (and the backbone of ISIS), however they're not all our enemies. I don't really see how the Shias are our enemies at all; the "allahuakbar" ones all seem to be Sunnis. And if we ally with anyone over there, it should be the Kurds: they're the most secular of all of them, including the Turks. That whole region would be a lot more stable if the Kurds had their own nation, comprising parts of what is currently Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. Instead, we ally with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, both run by Islamists.
Close, but "communism" vs. "American freedom" would be the pitch...
It's more of a "fuck you, I've got mine" mentality rather than a serious problem solving mindset.
On the other hand, many people are fed up with rampant freeloading and sucking at the Govt's teat and what many see as runaway Federal government getting in their shit.
And by the by, the Democrats also have a long history of helping the big rich corporations get bigger and richer. That's not the exclusive domain of the Republicans. Both sides do this. Some make more noise about it, to attract votes.
Why? Because business has so much more money than us, their influence is disproportionate to their numbers. It's not For the People, it's For the People's Masters.
Bottom line, the whole thing is broken and needs to be rebuilt from the keel up. First the bottom, then work upwards till you reach the top. This time make it so the bigger you are (as a corporation) the less influence you have, as compared to John Q. Public. Give The People the most influence.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Well the democrats do care about the poor, even at the expense of the wealthy. The republican's main supporters, however, are poor. Luckily the wealthy have enough money to be able to trick the poor into voting against their own best interests. Democrats have to try to sincerely get people to understand this, republicans just have to yell NO ABORTIONS NO INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS GO AWAY SAND *******
If the majority in each party ends up disliking the chosen candidate, then the US will have no choice but to switch to preference voting for the 2020 election -- at least for the primaries. That would be a major step forward.
That's like saying this muffin is burnt, so I'll eat this one that's full of broken glass instead, if you really object to racist candidates...
Cheap storage VM.
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
They had one in 2012, Jon Huntsman. He is not batshit crazy enough, and he committed the offense of being multilingual (he speaks Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese Hokkien) and the cardinal sin of having adopted a child from India and another one from China. How offensive to American values!
The GOP cannot find a decent candidate anymore because of its current constituency, one whose lunacy was cultivated by the GOP itself since the bad black man stole the White House for the express purpose of killing Baby Jesus and bald eagles with chemtrails because UN Agenda 21, Sharia and the illuminati.
If you are really opposed to NAFTA, TPP, GATT and FISA, then I think you are in the wrong party.
Please don't spread the misinformation that these "free trade" agreements are either D or R. Both parties support selling out the middle class. To try and position it as only one or the other party is just wrong. Take NAFTA as an example. Initially started under Bush #1, then signed into law by Clinton. See, both parties. TPP is on Obama's agenda, nobody on Main St. is asking for it but as a corporate shill he is pushing it as hard as he can. Would Romney have been any different on the TPP? I doubt it very much. Both party establishments will happily sell out the middle class for their corporate benefactors.
The republican party at its core is there to push the agenda of the rich.
I fundamentally disagree with the premise of your comment. Real Republicans believe that Federal Government is not the answer to every problem. To Real Republicans, the 10th Amendment still counts, just as much as the 1st, 2nd, and 5th.
The problem with your comment is that in practice there are essentially two choices of who holds power in this country. Power is held by the rich or the common people. The only significant voice of the common people is the federal government. State governments cannot exert much power over the wealthy because of how easy is it to move between states. It is also hard for the federal government to exert power of the wealthy, but it is order of magnitudes more capable than state governments.
So while in theory strong state governments are a good idea, in practice only a strong federal government is capable of giving a significant voice to the people. So there really are only two choices:
1) Believe in a strong federal government
2) Believe in pursuing the agenda of the rich.
At some point in the future a strong federal government will not even be enough, and a strong world government will be necessary. Trade agreements play that role now but will be even more important as time goes on.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Obama sided with the conservatives. During the Green Revolution, he had a chance to support the liberals. He didn't.
He also sided with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The moderates had to depose them.
The single biggest problem I have with trade agreements like NAFTA and the TPP is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement provisions. They are an abrogation of national sovereignty. If an "investor" has a problem with a "state" they should ask their own state to argue with the other state on their behalf.
One example is Country of Origin labeling for meat. The US was forced to drop that very popular law because foreign meat producers claimed it disadvantaged them. It would have been too costly not to drop it even though most US citizens prefer the law.
He won because of racist black voters. That's just the fact.
If white voters voted their skin color, you would not hesitate to call them racist. So, preemptively, fuck-off.
That's partisan bullshit. The amount of money that has been firehosed from the Fed and Treasury at the mega-rich since Obama took office is staggering. Most if it happened with a Democrat congress. Yeah. They "got mine" alrighty and gave it to the billionaires. Wake up and smell the oligarchy.
The Republicans problems started with Reagan, the supply side economics voodoo and the idea that tax cuts will cure everything. They happily cut taxes but are too chicken (with good reason) to cut spending except around the margins. As a result the National Debt goes up much faster under Republicans than Democrats.
With paperless electronic voting machines it's impossible to know what sort of shenanigans are going on.
D's are still going through it.
Their progressive wing is flat crazy.
You'll know they have lost to the loony left if Sanders is nominated. Would be great news for the Republicans.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'd like to see a 4-way race: Trump vs. Sanders vs. Hillary vs. $GOP_establishment_guy.
Regardless of who wins, the best outcome would be for the Trump vs. Sanders race to pull in almost all the votes.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I have to wonder who you are considering to be "the nation as a whole". And calling them "free trade" is an abuse of the language. Free trade isn't supposed to mean you get to ignore the laws.
The wealth distribution problem is tied directly into these "free trade" agreements. They allow companies to move to where labor is cheap and pin labor in place. (Yeah, it's more complicated than that, but that's one of the main features.) Whether "everyone else" sees secondary benefits is debatable, and frankly quite dubious. Even when prices are as much lower as reduced costs would make sensible, wages tend to be so depressed that this is not sufficient compensation, and that optimistic "Even when..." just about never happens.
I've heard it said before and repeatedly and by many different people that TARP was necessary and successful. Perhaps it's true. Perhaps. But to me it looks like it was only successful because we can't directly tie the actions of the bailed out banks to the succeeding economic crisis. Banks that are too big to fail should be broken up as a part of the cost of being bailed out.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I was never a particularly big fan of Hilary, but after seeing the not so coded racism in her ads .... I would even hold my nose and vote Trump over her.
At least Hilary's racism is coded. Trump's expressions of hatred are open and frequent. It is surprising that you would take one for the other.
Why don't you want to cast your vote for some other candidate other than these two?
This SCOTUS nomination obstuctism? The obviously broken Legislative Branch?
Yeah, about that: Democrats, liberals, progressives, undecideds and undeclareds, EVERYBODY who stayed home and handed the House and Senate to extremist lunatics? Those people are just as much to blame for the mess we find ourselves in as the Republicans currently clogging up Congress like constipated turds in Mitch McConnell's lower instestine.
Maybe more so.
This shouldn't be a surprise. The Tea Party fanatics TOLD us what they intended. They intended to drown government in the bathtub. They intended to stymie the President, and therefore the will of the majority of Americans, at every turn. They fully intended to cut off their own noses if necessary in order to spite their own faces, they'd claw out their own eyes if that's what it takes. They SAID so.
And liberals stayed home. They stayed home because they were "dissappointed" with Obama. Boo hoo. We didn't get everything we wanted. What's the point? And the extremists took first the House and then the Senate.
And so here we are.
And so here we are and the folks who are now throwing shit at each other are the same damned people who stayed home the last time and pretend like they aren't part of the problem. Democrats who say they won't vote if Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders isn't the nom? Those people are, right now, giving the non-functional GOP Legislature a thumbs up. Those people are giving a pass to Scalia's empty chair. And when I say this same thing in various places on social media - as I just did on Twitter - there's always at least one guy who moans, Why should I have to vote for the lesser of two evils instead of the guy I actually support and identify with? Why? It shouldn't be that way!
Yeah.
You know what? Grow up. That's life. There's an endless list of things that shouldn't be the way they are. We shouldn't have hungry people in nation that throws food away. We shouldn't have sick people in a nation that spends 20% of its budget on its military. The only superpower in the world shouldn't be arguing about whether or not it should educate its young. We shouldn't have homeless people. We should have colonies on the moon and mars and be halfway to Alpha Centari by now. We should have a legislature made up of reasoned adults who are willing to compromise for the good of not only the nation but the entire world.
Should be? Don't be a fucking child.
Welcome to reality.
If you're getting everything you want, you're not living in a democracy.
If you're getting everything your way, you're NOT living in a democracy.
Even under the best of circumstances, it's NEVER going to be everything you want it to be.
But it's the best you're going to get.
If you want a better nation, be better citizens.
Wealth increases drastically overall, but jobs change (They don't go away, but people are forced to seek different forms of employment) -
Tell that to the 1400+ employees of Carrier in Indiana that just learned that it is moving its HVAC-equipment plants to Mexico. And that, a scant 2 years after the State gave them a $5.1 Million tax-break to EXPAND their operations in the State.
Those people had jobs. Then those jobs went to Mexico.
However you want to parse the language and obsufate the facts, I'm pretty sure that is the exact equivalent to those jobs effectively "going away".
So possibly conservative outfit leaning give GOP a lead, whereas possibly democrate leaning outfit give democrate a lead. I can't help but grin at that.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
They also gave a lead to mccain. Just sayin'.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The "zombie horde" is going to make the choice for you either way. Joining them in the process does nothing but add your own stamp of legitimacy to the outcome they picked.
If you believe that others have the right to interfere in your life just because they have an advantage in numbers, you have no basis to complain about the result. If not, how can you justify voting yourself? Either you lose, in which case you accomplish nothing, or you win and your chosen candidate interferes in others' lives in exactly the same way you despise when it's happening to you.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
This bullshit is exactly why people are voting for Trump and Bernie. They're sick and tired of being told that all these trade deals which have their jobs shipped to China are good for them when it is painfully obvious and undeniable that the middle class is falling apart and committing suicide in record numbers. Your bullshit about "free trade" agreements helping the middle class of western countries is exactly that - bullshit. Free trade lowers populations to the lowest common denominator (and people in the west have a long way to fall before they reach bangladeshi living standards) while enriching those who are incredibly wealthy and capable of securing sweetheart deals in the negotiations. Free Trade makes life worse for the majority of the population in western countries, and there's really no arguing with that point when you look at the historical record.
And as for TARP, it wasn't successful at all. It was a bandage covering up a wound which has now been infected, and we sure as hell wouldn't be in negative real interest rates if we'd broken up the banks and protected depositors rather than the bankers.
There are inaccuracies in these statements.
The most recent polls show Kasich in the lead over Hillary and fairly head-to-head with Sanders:
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Rubio also has the edge over Hillary:
http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
Trump and Cruz are running close to 50-50 w/ Hillary.
Though you're correct that Sanders in very strong in the polls. Makes me wonder why the other Dems don't get behind him. The Republicans are at least smart enough to realize that a Trump win could cost them the election.
How many countries did we rain bombs on while those peaceful Democrats were occupying the White House for the past 7 years?
The same reason NAMBLA can't come up with a decent candidate. The entire party panders to the worst of the worst in politics.
So let states manage their own currencies.
I still wonder how it is possible that the republicans can't come up with a single decent candidate. And this is not the first time that happened.
The playing field changed in the last 10 years. The kids that have been told were worthless are old enough to vote, and well, they don't feel worthless anymore.
Be seeing you...
You can argue all you want but the consensus of credible economists is quite clear about FT agreements. (If you're about to quote an Austrian economist see the word 'credible' I wrote earlier) They're a net good and facilitate vital commerce. The ignorance of the general public about basic economic principals is as bad as it is basic science.
The claim about Sovereignty is absurd. When a country agrees to a trade deal, they agree to the legal stipulations as well.
For all the whining about lawsuits the impact, in reality has been noise floor low.
Yes, it's stupid but people have lost over less... see Howard Dean's scream.
Howard Dean's scream showed us that he has anger management issues, and is emotionally unstable. We should all be thankful that he did that before the election rather than after.
Huntsman? The guy who's dad is Mormon pope?
Not just no, fuck no.
He was there to make Romney look less insane.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Oh yes, it's hard to sell the promises of whole-country economics to a concentrated group of people recently displaced. You can't expect them to vote against their own immediate self interest.
"Sorry you're out of a job and your town is likely going to face sharp economic decline, but hey everyone in the nation is going to get 5% cheaper AC units" - This sounds cold but the money saved is really quite significant nation wide.
Their jobs were inefficient. (Also cold, but starkly true)
Really this effect is hard to understate. People bitch about jobs going overseas but they flock to walmart like it's going out of style. Everyone buys cheap when they can and they don't give a wet fart about the side effects. The return to every household in terms of cheaper goods is /staggering/
Their real plight isn't that their jobs have been displaced. Its that we, as a country, have failed to implement mechanisms to help them and their community. Wealth is concentrating upward and we need to have it basically and unashamedly redistributed downwards again. Straight up no questions asked lump sum transfers from the government to the people in the form of tax credits. - And we need to figure out how to get revenue out of the people that have it most.
Sound socialist? Yeah! Wait.. Sounds capitalist too? Shit what have I done!?! Could the pundits be wrong?
Anybody with that political trajectory has to be completely wrong. Did you have a head injury or a brain infection?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No need to reconcile anything when you want free stuff.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
If you want to cut down on illegal immigration what you need to do is come down hard on employers who hire them. If there's no work there won't be nearly as many illegal immigrants. As far as the ones who are already here they are for the most part already integrated into our economic system. If you could somehow deport all of them tomorrow it would mean an instant recession due to the drop in economic activity from 11 million people disappearing.
I wasn't arguing against FT agreements in general, just some of the provisions of them. I don't think a country should have to give up laws like the example if gave for the sake of corporate profits.
We don't ally with any of them. Don't kid yourself, none are our allies.
We maintain a stalemate, Iran/Iraq war style. Whichever side is losing; we have someone they trust, sell them more weapons.
Should be good for 20 years. By which time alternative energy sources will have matured enough that petroleum matters much less. Then we can get around to seriously punishing them.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
That in a nutshell is the difference. Conservatives are a "fuck you, I've got mine" mentality whereas liberals are more of a "we're all in the together, let's make it work" mentality.
Put simply, there was a shit sandwich served for lunch. Conservatives want you to eat the whole sandwich whilst they go to Micky D's. Liberals want to make sure everyone eats an equal slice of the sandwich and then everyone can go to Burger King.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Southern strategy. *drops the mic*
yup
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
However when it comes to higher education, there is no disputing the fact that making it more accessible to people across the board (which requires investment) reaps dramatic rewards. People make more money, they are less likely to be involved in crime, they help their communities, the list goes on and on. A lot of people also errantly assume that this means everyone goes to the local state university and gets a 4 year degree in any topic of their choosing, this is not the case nor has Sanders ever called for it. Many people will go to community colleges, many will go to vocational / technical colleges. Yet others might go to truck driving schools or police academies. These are all avenues that would not have been open to these people with only a high school degree. These are all ways to improve peoples' quality of life without giving them money directly, and to see those rewards truly propagate through the community as well.
Not to mention eliminating the obscene amounts of debt many college students are now accumulating for their schooling that forces them to spend their money on paying it off rather than buying houses and cars and otherwise spending their earnings into the economy.
How much of health care spending is wasted on insurance company overhead? I suspect most doctor offices and other health care facilities could cut the number of people they employ to handle paperwork in half with a single payer system.
Better yet rather than paying doctors for piecework, having to track every single different little thing they do for a patient pay primary care physicians a lump sum per patient per year to cover all their needs and have the PC physician pay the specialists rather than the patient. That would encourage the PC physician to do what they can to keep a patient as healthy as they can to maximize their profit and give them freedom to spend the necessary time with patients rather than the current micromanagement of their time. You'd have to make some provisions for a PC physician that was unlucky in having sicker than average patients but that wouldn't be too hard.
Both parties are playing "lesser of two evils", but to different audiences. The Dems are playing to the middle class and urban poor ("Vote for us or the Republicans will kill you economically...We aren't quite as bad."). The Repubs were playing to the paranoid-patriotic Know-Nothings. ("Vote for us or the Democrats will let in swarms of foreigners and sell the country to the communists. We aren't quite as bad.") Both plans are pretty evil, but hey, that was what they were intended to be.
Then Trump came along and started stealing from Hitler's playbook, This captivated a lot of the audience that the traditional Repubs has been playing to, and he wasn't controlled by the party. (Yeah, I've left out a lot of intermediate steps.) Now we've got a leading candidate who's either an incredibly subtle sociopath, a true paranoid lunatic, or ??? (Manchurian Candidate?). Best hope is that he's just an egomaniac, but that doesn't really seem plausible.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
No. Bernie is going to lose because Hilary controls the party machinery. Unfortunately I cannot vote for her, because I believe she supports the TPP. She was a partial author, and when given a chance to disavow supporting it she waffled.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
There is a correlation between tertiary education, higher incomes, and lower crime, but you cannot conclude at all from that that tertiary education causes higher incomes and lower crime rates. (In fact, even the "people make more money" idea is misleading because while people may make more money, they often end up less wealthy.)
Yes, by dollar spent! US per capita spending is $4197 (public), $1074 (out of pocket), and $3442 (private). Note that US per capita public spending alone is about the same as total per capita spending in France, Australia, or Canada.
Have you listening to anything I said? The fact that Sanders say that this would "initially require more taxes" is what brands him as a bullshit artist. The fact is that the US public system alone already has more than enough money to cover every American at the same level as Australia, the UK, Japan, or France. It fails to cover every American because it is so horribly inefficient (it only covers one third of Americans). If Sanders claims he can fix the US public health care system, he should be able to do so without raising taxes. The fact that he says he needs to raise taxes shows that he is either incompetent or simply lying.
Democrats try to work together for progress republicans try to destroy.
In this simplistic world that you live in do the Democrats all get white hats while the evil Republican's twist their mustache ends while wearing black hats? I rail against free trade because it undermines the middle class. Both parties are undermining the middle class. Do the Republicans grant tax breaks to the richest people? Yes - and it's wrong. Do the Democrats pander to the non-working poor while the working middle class dies - also yes and it's also wrong. Do both parties support free trade optimized to screw over Americans? Yes. An easy example is not being allowed to buy cheaper drugs from Canada, something that free trade should allow if it was really free. As we speak the president didn't get your white hat memo and is trying his level best to screw us over with TPP. Or did you consider that trying to work for progress and let's make it work?
They could but the indecent ones have far more money to burn and run out the clock.
I find it very strange that an old money incubated and hatched Republican reptile who has been dragged back from failure four times due to Party connections is an "outsider" who is going to stop crony capitalism. He's almost as inside as you can get and only has more money than a homeless person due to crony capitalism.
So after being pulled back from the brink four times by Party connections he's his own man? Seriously?
An example of how much they are is an ongoing Investor-State Dispute over warning labels on cigarette packets. A government should just be able to tell a cigarette company to fuck off and be happy we let you sell your lethal drugs at all instead of wasting taxpayers money in court.
I would say Ford. He even took a bribe (OK then, well timed "donation" that he picked up personally in Jakarta - looks very much like an outright bribe to me) from Indonesia FFS over the goings on in East Timor. He made even Nixon look like a saint.
On the D side - maybe Johnson.
Reagan was a symptom. The Republican Party invited in a pile of evangelicals of a very strange type (money worshippers really - merchants in the temple that Jesus would have thrown out) and that skewed the party towards the far side of crazy.
You know the sort - like that Enron guy who said he was doing "God's work" by gaming electricity markets.
Old money Trump is an incubated and hatched Republican Party reptile who relied on Party connections to pull him back from the brink four times. Just because he has not run for an office before does not make him an "outsider". Maybe not "inner circle" so not what you are calling a *real* Republican, but I would call use a different and far broader definition for a "real Republican". I get what you mean but he's no independent. He's just another aspect of the Republican Party that we are not used to seeing so close to the top of the tree.
People said that sort of thing about Reagan. It got worse.
I've got no idea why Trump isn't just being mocked by everyone about the obvious and stupid wall lie along with all the other obvious lies. What he's really do is a bit of a mystery.
Trump is a wannabe tyrant. You really should not give someone like him the power he's after.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Perhaps you could explain what law they broke. Though nobody else with your opinion seems to be able to do so.
TARP was paid back with significant interest. Can't say that about the auto-union bailouts.
Also consider what would happen if there were a string of Islamic terrorist attacks on US soil between now and November.
Bringing back Glass-Stegall immediately after would have been better,
The Shias are as anti-US as the Sunnis. Currently, they're led by Iran, which is no friend of the US, except in the lurid imaginations of Obama, Clinton, Kerry & Sanders. Look at the parties represented by Shias. Hizbullah, which has been anti-US since the 80s. Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army, which did a lot of the attacks on US forces after the Iraq war. Even today's Shia dominated Iraqi government is squarely on the side of Iran: that's part of the stupidity of what we did in Iraq: oust Saddam, but unintentionally hand over that country to Iran.
About not all Sunnis, well, Jordan has been very sane for the longest time, while Egypt is anybody's guess. But Saudi Arabia, which the GOP thinks of as an ally (Obama having tilted towards Iran), is a country that is busy funding Sunni Jihadis worldwide whenever they have cash: luckily, oil prices being what they are now, that is in a tailspin. Iraq's & Syria's Sunnis are overwhelmingly behind ISIS, and the ones that ain't back other Jihadi groups, like al Nusra. Elsewhere in the region, your Sunni parties are Hamas, Fatah, Muslim Brotherhood and a myriad host of Islamic alphabet soup groups.
I agree w/ you on Kurdistan. The only reservation that I have about them is that being Muslim, they may not be tolerant of Christians or Yazidis in their midst. Granted, they are less fanatical than Arabs, given that Islam is a vehicle for Arab supremacy, and in countries that have had a combination of Muslims - Arab and non-Arab, be it in Iraq, Syria or North Sudan, there has been a genocide of the non-Arab Muslims by the Arab Muslims.
The other issue was that the Bush administration was too obsessed w/ preserving the unity of Iraq, and that Rubio seems he'd have a similar determination to do the same to Syria. First of all, Iraq, Syria and other countries in that region ain't 'nations' in terms of having a homogeneous people who get along w/ each other. Their borders were demarcated by the Brits & French according to who occupied where after WWI. Those areas included territory that belonged to Shias, Sunnis & Kurds. People who want peace in the region have to be prepared to dissolve the concepts of 'Iraq' or 'Syria' or even other 'nations' in the region, and carve them out ethnically/sect wise, depending on the people. Like unite the Kurdish areas of Iraq, Syria, Iran and yeah, even Turkey, into a single Kurdistan. Make Southern Iraq and South West Arab dominated Khuzestan a Sunni Arab country. Merge al Anbar province w/ central Syria and let the Sunnis have it. In Saudi Arabia, carve out their Shia province and make it independent. Carve up Iran - spin off their Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Khuzestan and Balochistan, w/ the last being merged w/ the West Pakistani province of that same name. If the map of that entire region was redrawn along ethnic lines, much of the bloodletting would end.
How many countries did we invade and overthrow the government of without good plans for the aftermath in the past 7 years? I'm not fond of the aggressive nature of Bush's and Obama's foreign policy, but I'm a lot more fond of Obama's.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It may be worthwhile to support a third-party candidate rather than help choose who gets elected. You're sacrificing immediate influence in the hope of having different influence down the road. If you just drop out and don't vote, guess what? You no longer matter in politics, and the "zombie horde" is going to make decisions for you. There's a lot of decisions you can make, none of them ideal. You can vote for the lesser of two evils, which is what I usually do. (You can write in Cthulhu or Lord Voldemort or Gharlane of Eddore if you're tired of the lesser of two evils, but that's a personal indulgence that changes nothing.) You can vote for someone who won't win but you think represents you better. You can get involved earlier in the process and help influence who gets on the ballot. (In my state, that would be, at a minimum, going to the March 1 precinct caucus.) You can just ignore the whole process and let other people decide how the country gets governed.
There's other things you can do, like contribute time and/or money to candidates, or write to your representatives once elected, and those will give you more influence than just voting.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Trump isn't going to get elected President, no matter what. There's a lot of people here who like him (I can't see why), and a lot more who hate him. He's got more negatives than anyone else out there. If he is on the ballot, he'll get out the vote on the other side by just being Trump.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I fully agree w/ this. Islam doesn't allow for a concept of 'live & let live': everybody there must have the 'true Islam' (i.e. whatever version they follow) followed by everybody. And when they do unite, it's against all Infidels, which is what we're seeing w/ al Qaeda & ISIS. So the best solution for them is to keep arming them until they cripple each other and can fight no more. And once we develop a viable alternative to petroleum, we can ignore them completely, and they will beat African countries as the least developed of people.
Hillary has the advantage due to the party machinery. After the McGovern fiasco of 1972, the Democratic party establishment changed the rules to strengthen its influence in the nominating process, in the hope of avoiding more unelectable nominees. This doesn't mean she'll win, but it means that Bernie's at a disadvantage. This is a situation, not an outcome. Personally, there's some value to giving an advantage to the establishment candidate(s). If Bernie can demonstrate that he is considerably more popular than Hillary, he's more likely to be electable.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Few people are actually pro-abortion. Lots of people want them to be safe, legal, and rare. Planned Parenthood prevents more abortions than any anti-abortion movement.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Most small businesses live on in a perpetual state of debt (like sharecropping). You borrow money to get through the next year, and hop you make enough to cover that loan. If it looks like you will, you can get a loan at the end of that year for the next. Etc, etc.
If the banks fail, the loans can't go through because the money doesn't exist and the businesses fail as well. Small banks also count as small businesses and get loans from bigger banks. This goes all the way up the chain to the Fed, which is at the top and is backed by the Govt.
That being said, there were two problems with TARP:
1) If a bank fails, it should have been assumed that someone else could have set up a new bank and used peoples savings to finance the loans (Savings & Loan) for a profit---this is Capitalism
2) New Deal was better than TARP because New Deal purposely put those funds into infrastructure, which lowers the overhead costs of running a business (cheaper power, better transport, more communications, etc.) thereby improving the long term economy. TARP just pissed money into the wind, er, companies. There was no incentive for improvement, so no improvement is realized (Give Man A Fish = TARP. Man eats fish and says "give me another fish". New Deal provided fishing poles, line, and hooks while paying Man for building the factories and let Man figure out the best way to fish)
Hillary is quite practiced at getting through baseless mudslinging, and the Republicans have been working overtime to establish that they'll say bad things about her for any reason they think might be plausible. After, what was it, thirteen Benghazi hearings, a lot of people assume that any such criticism against her is invalid.
You're also assuming that she did anything really wrong with her email server. That's being investigated currently, and I'm withholding judgment until I know some of the facts. Obviously some of that information should not have been on that server, but beyond that things get murky.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Not really. The US health care system is horribly inefficient. If Bernie could grab a high-quality health care system from somewhere else and just plug it into the US, we'd be saving money right off, but that isn't what's happening. Setting up a decent public health system would make it much easier to attack those inefficiencies, and we'd wind up saving oodles long-term as well as having a healthier population. I think we'll have to spend more tax dollars on health care before we can spend fewer.
Change is difficult and expensive, and what you wind up with after a major change can be worse than what you started with, even if it's on a path to a much better solution.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The November election isn't legally meaningful. It's a way to select the people who cast the actual votes for President, which will be counted on January 6, 2017. The actual elector votes are cast earlier, as I remember, but I don't remember when. The electors are selected in the November election, and they will decide what happens if the Presidential or Vice-Presidential candidate dies between November and January.
It's an old and rickety system, and I'd really like to see it replaced. My vote for President doesn't matter, since I'm not in a swing state.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The public health care system is completely under the control of the president and Congress. By definition, making the public health care system more efficient should not be "expensive", it should immediately save money for the government. That is, if Bernie claims he can deliver a US public system at the per capita cost that a European public system can deliver health care at, he can and should demonstrate that by actually doing it, instead of starting by demanding more money.
Again, having experienced several of those other "high quality health care systems", I can tell you that that's nonsense. The reason "we can't just grab" those systems is because Americans wouldn't put up with the kind of wait times and limitations that those systems have. The fact that those systems produce similar outcomes to ours is irrelevant, because as far as patients are concerned, outcomes are only one of many important factors.
That's utterly ridiculous. It's the kind of financially irresponsible attitude that drives people and countries into bankruptcy. It is also not what those other "high quality health care systems" practice. If someone in German parliament stood up and suggested that the way to save money in the German health care system was to spend more in it, they'd be laughed at. Other countries control health care by rationing it and by rigidly controlling cost. It just turns out that cost controls don't actually affect health care outcomes (which is why other countries are as healthy as the US), although it makes going to the doctor a much bigger pain in those countries.
My country, Britain, is currently having a debate about its membership of the EU, as our government has set a referendum on the subject for June this year.
The argument made above is one that is often made here in favour of staying in the EU - that only by staying within the supranational structure of the EU can Britain hope to exercise control and taxation power over global corporations.
I have followed a lot of this debate in Britain and Europe. I am interested in how the argument plays out in the US. Does anyone have any opinions on this?
Right. And Hillary and Bernie are so moderate.
So, to be clear, when the Republicans don't raise the debt ceiling because Democrats won't agree with spending cuts its the Republicans who won't compromise....?
You're also assuming that she did anything really wrong with her email server. That's being investigated currently, and I'm withholding judgment until I know some of the facts. Obviously some of that information should not have been on that server, but beyond that things get murky.
Here' the thing. I already know some of the facts.
1) The server created a large security breach even if it never held classified information. While probably not a criminal act, it does right there show poor judgment.
2) Using her own private server instead of a government one has already allowed her to evade FOIA requests. It also hid her emails from the rest of the Obama administration. And if it can be shown that she constructed this email server in part to evade FOIA requests, then that is a felony.
3) There was plenty of classified information being passed on her server including stuff that was originally marked as classified (BTW, it doesn't have to be marked as classified to be classified). It's a felony to knowingly move classified information onto systems which are not approved for storage or distribution of such information.
4) We have an email where Clinton instructs an aide to strip classified headers off of a document before emailing it. That is a felony as well.
This stuff is "murky" only because you aren't paying attention. As a final observation, the FBI conducts the investigation, but it is Obama's decision whether to prosecute or not.
Don't be so sure. You can say the exact same thing about Hillary, in fact I wonder if the hate/like ratio isn't higher with her. People on the right absolutely despise her, as do a bunch of people on the left who are Bernie fans. She might get some of the centrists but that's about it.
If it comes down to Trump vs. Hillary, I don't think there's any way to predict who'd win that one.
Someone using the name cat Jesus wants to call the rest of us idiots. Don't make me laugh cupcake.
Obama won in 2008 because he was the top not-Hillary candidate, and McCain destroyed whatever chance he had when he choose an absolute moron as his running mate. Obama won in 2012 because the Republicans fielded a "safe" establishment candidate that no one actually liked (after a very messy primary race). In 2016, we now have Hillary who is unpopular enough that the top not-Hillary candidate is a self-proclaimed socialist who is still neck-to-neck with her in the polls. And a Republican field that's just....ugh. With any luck we'll end up with Sanders versus Kasich, as Sanders is by far the best candidate from either side, and Kasich is the least worst of the Republicans. But we'll probably end up with Clinton versus Rubio.
The problem I see with Trump is that most of the Republican voters aren't going to support him. He's polling very well, about 30% or so, which is higher than all the other Republican candidates. The other 70% are split up amongst the not-Trump candidates. But as those candidates drop out, most of those voters will shift to the other not-Trump candidates and won't back Trump. So at some point we'll see Trump with the same 30%, and someone other candidate (probably Rubio) with 70%. Trump's base is very loyal, but it's just not going to grow. Probably the best situation for Trump would be for the other candidates to stay in the race as long as possible and split the vote. If the status quo persists for a couple of months, he could enter the convention with the most delegates (though not a majority), at which point the Republican leadership would bury him one way or the other.
Well, we still have slightly less than 10 months for a President Biden. At least that isn't as scary as President Cheney would have been.
If Trump loses the nomination (and doesn't run as an independent), I wouldn't be too surprised to see a lot of Trump voters vote for Bernie. They're tired of establishment candidates and I don't see a lot of them voting for Rubio, who's as establishment as you can get.
First, the US healthcare system is set up to run one way (or, actually, many ways). It can't just morph into a more efficient one; there will be transition costs. It's a matter of spending more temporarily in order to get a longer-term savings. If you were to propose a hundred-billion-euro measure in Germany that would wind up saving twenty billion euros a year, you wouldn't be laughed at.
Second, I've known people who would be happy to accept the wait times and limitations of any other First World health care system, because it's a lot better than what they can get with the US system. I have a relative who's in six-figure medical debt that she's never going to be able to repay, and that doesn't happen with most health care systems. I've likely got better personal health care than almost anyone in developed nations, but I'm something of an exception.
Third, what drives people and companies into bankruptcy isn't well-chosen investments. Neglecting to spend money as needed to get into a better position is more likely to cause bankruptcy. For example, I've been investing money for a long time, and it's one big reason why I'm going to have a very nice retirement.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It isn't clear to me that it was a large security breach, compared to other possibilities. What we really need is a secure State Department network, and I don't know that there was one when Clinton was Secretary of State. In any case, poor judgment happens.
Mishandling of FOIA requests is unfortunately common. Your last sentence is speculation.
How culpable is Clinton for stuff emailed to her? The article you cite mentioned cases in which classified material was sent to her, and says that there are investigations against staffers who mailed her such. Both Powell and Rice used private email services, and I don't know how much investigation went into theirs.
Apparently, Clinton found herself unable to do something important because of that. I don't know how this sort of thing has been handled in the past, and would like to know how often major department heads have violated classification laws to get something done, and how they have been handled.
The stuff is murky because I don't know everything, and because I'm not willing to accept the New York Post and hotair.com as definitive sources of truth. Until the FBI investigation is finished, I won't know exactly what she did or did not do. Until I know more about how other Secretaries of State acted and were treated in similar situations, I won't know the exact context.
And, having watched a major partisan effort to blame Clinton for Benghazi, among other things, I'm really dubious about attacks on her or her husband. (Remember the big sexual harassment case? Eventually, it was found that what the plaintiffs claimed didn't amount to anything illegal, bearing in mind that being an asshole is not itself illegal. Attacking the Clintons without good basis has been going on for nearly twenty years.)
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It isn't clear to me that it was a large security breach, compared to other possibilities.
Ok, so what? Just because something is not clear to you doesn't mean much to anyone else.
2) Using her own private server instead of a government one has already allowed her to evade [newsweek.com] FOIA requests. It also hid her emails from the rest of the Obama administration. And if it can be shown that she constructed this email server in part to evade FOIA requests, then that is a felony.
Mishandling of FOIA requests is unfortunately common. Your last sentence is speculation.
The "if" turns it from speculation to fact. Deliberately evading or refusing FOIA requests on unlawful grounds is a felony. But conviction is entirely dependent on evidence of the crime.
I think that she did indeed set up that server to unlawfully evade FOIA requests and illegally hide her communications from the public and the law. That is real speculation, but reasonable given what's going on.
How culpable is Clinton for stuff emailed to her? The article you cite mentioned cases in which classified material was sent to her, and says that there are investigations against staffers who mailed her such.
Very culpable. When someone emails you spy satellite photos (broadly known classified information that was emailed around on her server) inappropriately, you are committing a crime, if you don't report the breach.
Both Powell and Rice used private email services, and I don't know how much investigation went into theirs.
Did they have classified information on those private email services?
Apparently, Clinton found herself unable to do something important because of that. I don't know how this sort of thing has been handled in the past, and would like to know how often major department heads have violated classification laws to get something done, and how they have been handled.
It's a felony no matter how convenient it would be to Clinton. Your money in your wallet may be really important to me, but for some bizarre reason the law doesn't consider that factor when it sentences me for mugging you.
The stuff is murky because I don't know everything, and because I'm not willing to accept the New York Post and hotair.com as definitive sources of truth. Until the FBI investigation is finished, I won't know exactly what she did or did not do. Until I know more about how other Secretaries of State acted and were treated in similar situations, I won't know the exact context.
As I noted, we have glaring evidence of two felonies in my previous post, perhaps three. Your ignorance is irrelevant to whether these are crimes or not.
And, having watched a major partisan effort to blame Clinton for Benghazi, among other things, I'm really dubious about attacks on her or her husband. (Remember the big sexual harassment case? Eventually, it was found that what the plaintiffs claimed didn't amount to anything illegal, bearing in mind that being an asshole is not itself illegal. Attacking the Clintons without good basis has been going on for nearly twenty years.)
Was there something inappropriate about the blame in any of those cases? All I see here is a pathological degree of apologia. Just because reality is "murky" to you doesn't mean anything.
Further, unless some crime or transgression is incredibly heinous, any blame finding or judicial proceeding is going to be partisan in today's heavily partisan world. For example, if Trump gets elected, you won't see a lot of Republicans moving against him overtly. Backstab him behind closed doors, sure. Leak embarrassing info anonymously to the press, sure. Passive aggressively obstruct his political efforts, sure. But they'll defend him in public. That's just the way it is.
So should I complai
Look, you can repeat this nonsense till the cows come home and it doesn't make it true. Sanders says that he can create a public health care system that works as efficiently as the European system. If he can do that, he doesn't have to "morph" the entire US health care system, it is sufficient if he "morphs" the US public system. The fact that I have private insurance doesn't make the public system any more inefficient or expensive, and forcing me to pay more for my private health coverage won't make the US public system any more efficient either.
Germany has a budget surplus and is paying down its debt. No, Germans do not believe in such voodoo economics.
That means she chose not to pay for sufficient catastrophic health insurance coverage, while at the same time choosing an expensive medical treatment. You're right: that doesn't happen in some medical systems; they'll simply refuse the treatment instead.
When people use terms like "investment" with respect to social spending they use it as metaphor for "investment in our future", but it isn't actually an "investment".
Ask Kevin Quealy who he's going to vote for.