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"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." - Friedrich Nietzsche Welcome to the US politics thread! Our country is in shambles as the rich continue to pillage it and our generation is completely screwed no matter what your political beliefs are. Here we post to talk about the latest stunt and discuss the appropriate liquor to drink when they manage to further sabotage the country and the planet. Big Stuff in 2014: Military Spending: COLA cuts to pensions were partially reversed. After the Dems overcame a filibuster in the Senate, Boehner tried to get it through the House as part of the debt ceiling package and failed. He had to grab enough Dems to pass it. Pension cuts have been reversed if you are already retried, but remain in place if you are yet to retire. Sen Sanders (I-VT) and 10 Democrats entered a bill (SB1982) to reverse the rest of the cuts, expand intra-family transfers of the GI Bill, and increase funding for the VA for both health procedures and processing. It is currently filibustered by Sen Grahamn (R-SC). SecDef Hagel has proposed cutting the military's personnel while increasing military spending by $115 bln over 5 years with a focus on hardware. This is vigorously opposed as "gutting defense" by republicans and has them sneering that Obama would rather spend on food stamps than the military, going to show that up is down and left is right. Legalized marijuana Colorado is reporting millions more in tax revenue that was originally anticipated, which has gotten a lot of attention from other states. Publicly it is at a majority for support. Same sex marriage: Or, you know, just "marriage". In the wake of last years ruling we have seen a huge number of state level bans struck down, including in Kentucky, Utah, and Texas. So far Appellate courts are upholding those rulings, typically citing Justice Scalia's contributions to the ruling (which is also what is cited in striking down the bans, in some cases quoting him word for word). Through his ruling Anthony Scalia has literally, not at all figuratively, done more to bring about marriage equality in this nation than any other individual. Thinking about that warms my heart. Ryan Ideas: Ryan dropped a big pseudo-academic report that was a "summary" of government anti poverty programs and their effectiveness. He declared them ineffective citing studies. The authors of those studies came out and pointed out he was completely misrepresenting them to support his ideas. He got beat pretty heavily around the head with them so one month later when he released his budget which was supposed to lead the charge in reforming social welfare, that part was absent from the pitch. Good thing too, in order to achieve his goal of a balanced budget in 10 years with no tax reform and no changes to social security while expanding defense, he has to lay in deep cuts to the social safety net. ~86% of the costs in the Ryan budget would be born by the poor. gently caress this guy. Elections: Rough timeline, varies with state – California immigration: Cali looks like it will grant work rights to undocumented immigrants. Obama administration will have to decide how to respond, similar to Colorado legalizing marijuana. If he accepts it, it will basically be backdoor immigration reform, and expect a major fight. Iran: More negotiations to follow the previous deal. Expect GOP hate. The House leadership has said they won't pass any new sanctions, so at least they aren't going to jam up foreign relations. Hatred of working with the Senate Dems to do anything overcame their hatred of Iran. Senate GOP is using it as cover to torpedo bills that would be problematic - officially the reason Sen Graham filibustered the veterans care bill was because it couldn't be amended to include sanctions against Iran. Pink Crow: Mississippi Senate passed it most recently, Kansas it passed the house and died in the senate, Arizona it got through the legislature and was vetoed by the governor, Tennessee, South Dakota, Georgia, Idaho, Arizona, and Kentucky are all pushing the bills as well. Identical bills written by the American Religious Freedom Program popped up everywhere. If that sounds like the model ALEC uses, it's because they are joined at the hip through the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Heritage Foundation, with people in all 4 of those organizations performing secondment to another. Anyways, while all the focus is on the attempt to bring back Jim Crow laws against LBGT people, the legalese they are really trying to slip through is a redefinition of what constitutes an organization's rights, and what constitutes government interference in those rights. Under these bills if a private individual took a discriminating agency to court, the fact that it was in court would constitute government interference and allow them to invoke constitutional protections. Yes, I am focusing more on the legal corporate bullshit of it than the horrible repressiveness of it because if I actually need to explain why that stuff is bad just get the hell out of the thread right now. Food Stamps: Finally got pushed through, with deep cuts (8 bln over 10 years). Millions suffering. Economy is worsening as aggregate demand slackens. Businesses cautiously complaining. Republicans defiant that their making GBS threads on the poor makes the poor better and they should be grateful for it. Debate is now about how much more to cut. Some states found away around the cuts but adjusting the levels of heating oil they give the poor, qualifying them for food stamps. Boehner is furious and looking for a way to reverse that and punish those states for "thwarting the will of Congress and the American People". State's Rights! (to poo poo on the poor) Unemployment Insurance: Millions suffering. Economy is worsening as aggregate demand slackens. Businesses cautiously complaining. This has finally got the Senate to move into action, and they have gotten together a deal to renew it. Boehner is strongly opposed to it, and won't get a hearing in the House, defiant that their making GBS threads on the poor makes the poor better and they should be grateful for it. Infrastructure: Obama has proposed $302 bln in new infrastructure spending to repair roads, bridges and the like. Even post stimulus out infrastructure is in huge need of repair after decades of neglect (thanks Reagan), and this winter really did a number on roads across the nation. Republicans are of course opposed to it. Big Names for 2016: Christie released a report that, having investigated himself, found himself clear of all wrongdoing. Despite being "fully transparent and through", it did not cover the Port Authority or its activities at all. Funny that. Scott Walker's book has been a flop, he just wrapped up trying to get Aldeson to back him except Aldeson skipped Walker's speech. Sen Cruz toured Iowa to meet with organizers and district chairs and signed a "MEGA book deal". Donald Trump is claiming he may decide to run for Governor of New York. There is a move to draft Jeb Bush for 2016 just like there was to draft Christie in 2012, which is proof positive that these fools really do believe they did nothing wrong when they were last in power. Affordable Care Act: The ACA hit a little over 7 million by its deadline of March 31st. In addition, there are the state exchanges that were delayed in reporting until April 1st, the off exchange QHP (Qualified Health Plan) purchases, Medicaid, and the under 26ers which puts it at about 22.1 million people covered. Numbers on age breakdowns, how many were previously covered, and state by state are still being consolidated and crunched, but it looks like 2/3rds of them are new, and the demographic breakdown is enough that we won't see a cost death spiral. The GOP has a few claiming the numbers are lies, and Dean Chambers is "unskewing" the signups, but so far it is working. New challenge that the Feds can provide subsidies to plans bought through federal run exchanges instead of state exchanges was signed off by a Republican dominated Appellate court after being thrown out under the absurdity challenge by two previous courts, keep an eye on that. Republican Health Care Plan: Jindal has made the usual bleatings, flat out repeal of the ACA, then eliminate employer tax breaks, scrap licensing requirements, allow across state lines, block grant Medicaid, premium support Medicare, tort reform. Which if you care about providing health care or controlling costs or anything other than grifting as much money from the government as possible into donor pockets is pretty useless. This is the source of the thread title, unfortunately it was too long. Remember the core mantra of Conservative "intellectuals" "We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor." Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.: SCOTUS heard the arguments. Kennedy seemed receptive because he took it as a challenge to abortion. Really no way they can rule on this short of "No, obey the law or forgo the tax credits" that won't massively upend some precedent, so brace yourselves. SCOTUSBlog summary McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission: SCOTUS struck down personal caps on campaign donations, though caps remain for corporations and unions. Welcome to the reason why we drink. SCOTUSBlog summary Immigration: Speaker Boehner tried to cobble together a meaningless soundbyte of "principles" so they would have talking points that made it sound like they were the ones trying to get things done, and even empty platitudes and spin was a bridge too far. Tax Reform: Rep Camp (R-Midland, MI) is chair of the House Ways and Means Comittee and he finally came out with something. Unlike Rep Ryan's empty bluster this is fully articulated policy. Rather than raising the burden on the middle class through hikes and lies about who would be paid how, this placed most of the burden on the upper crust by closing loopholes and impsong a tax on the banks. It has also led to him being ripped to shreds by his fellow Republicans for breaking their core vow to never do anything but direct more wealth to the rich, and from Wall Street which basically froze donations to all Republican groups as soon as this went public. It isn't a great plan, but it is more than rigged numbers and carving out new economic rents to be handed to the rich which makes it a sharp break from any policy the GOP has laid out since at least the 90s. David Camp has since announced he is retiring, in no small part thanks to the huge blowback on the plan. Patent Reform: Made it through the House 325 to 91 in December. Repeatedly pushed for by the President, civil liberty groups, and corporate interest groups. Sen Leahy (D-VT) has a bill to get it through the Senate, Sen Schumer (D-NY) has a similar bill with a few tweaks that are agreed would be even better but would need a return to the House; both are stalled out by senate Republicans. State level shutdowns: After the amazing success that was the GOP shutting down the federal government over the ACA, they have decided to take the act on the road, with multiple state level governments looking at shutdown over the fight over the Medicaid expansion. Missouri and Virginia are the ones that will hit the brink first, but several other states are in a similar position. China: Their latest economic reports apparently look ominously like the ones from America in the fall of 2007 when the collapse of the housing bubble spread to the banks. Specifically the cause of concern is their TED Spread which is the gap between two interest rates, and used as a marker of the financial strength of banks. TED stands for Treasury Eurodollar and is calculating subtracting the interest rate on treasury bills from the three-month dollar LIBOR. Brief note from Krugman on it and here is a Bloomberg piece on it. China imploding would be so bad it isn't really worth thinking about, much like it isn't worth thinking about if an dino-killer sized asteroid was falling towards Earth. There isn't anything you can do about it, so just pour a whiskey sour and hope the central bankers get it right this time. Ukraine: The Crimeans voted and have rejoined Russian. Russia under heavy economic sanctions, mainly targeting Putin and his closest fellows. Their stock market looks like it got hit with a baseball bat. Russia was bounced out of the Wall Street: The DoJ has announced an investigation into the practices of High Frequency Trading. Michael Lewis has a new book out on this topic. The news coverage about HFT as a result of these two things has been met with eye rolling and stating it is old news by Wall Street, and shock by Main street. Which is pretty much why it is a problem. If that looks like a lot of critical stuff that is absolutely within the purview of the government but for some reason is getting no traction, welcome to the thread. Useful Reads:  America's class system across life cycle - in case you were under the misapprehension things might get better Media: Watch Alpha House on Amazon. If you are a regular in this thread it is right up your alley. It has been renewed for a second season. Mitt on Netflix is a documentary of the Romneys during the campaigns, focusing on the family rather than the politics. Inequality for all is a documentary, now on netflix instant. Watch it House of Cards Season 2 came out February 14th, holy poo poo watch it. Threads is a BBC movie about nuclear war and its aftermath, watch it if your will to live has become too strong. The Battle of the Somme is on youtube, it was an early attempt at propaganda to get people to join the war effort and had the exact opposite effect. Do Not Ask What Good We Do by Robert Draper. Good summary of the insanity after the 2010 midterms Collision 2012 by Dan Balz covers the 2012 election (including some of the GOP primary) and written like it was a thread regular. Highly entertaining. Fiasco by Thomas Ricks. If you ever start to fade on how bad the naughty aughties were, here is a reminder of just one sliver of the gross malfeasance. I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay by John Lancaster. Decent explanation of securities, debt, finance, and why its all a mess. Mainly a decent fast reference for us if you get confused about how economics, finance, and politics move together. Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. New book on wealth and economics making huge waves with people. Probably worth a look. Reporters: Ta-Nehis Coates In America politics has been intertwined with race since the beginning, and as much as we may wish to deny it it is still a core part of who we are as a nation. There is no better writer on race in America than Ta-Nehisi Coates. He covers it all, from historical research to modern commentary. Read him if you want great insight to how things are and why. Robert Costa formerly of the National Review, newly of the Washington Post has amazing insider reports on dirt and action being done in congress. His op-eds are right wing, as to be expected, but his twitter is a play by play of the insider game, and a great source. Other stuff IRC is in #poligoon on synirc Find us there during live streams of random poo poo Drink of the Month Clynelish 14 Year Old. A Highland single malt, goes for $45-60 depending on your local prices. A sipping scotch, not for getting hammered in response to bad news. For that, this link will help Thread Title Credit to poster Redeye Flight for it, in response to the Jindal health plan. Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Apr 3, 2014 |
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Apr 3, 2014 02:03
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Stew Man Chew posted:Which you know brings us to world-endangering financial bubble 2: tuition boogaloo... I need to read up on that so I can do a decent writeup on it for the OP
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Apr 3, 2014 04:04
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Xeom posted:Is there really any hope at all. Like is there anything a progressive could possibly look forward too? It seems america and the world is just two steps away from doom. 
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Apr 3, 2014 05:10
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JT Jag posted:Things are loving fantastic right now! For a very small, ever-shrinking percentage of Americans. Globally as well. I mean, they are about to get WAY worse than we have seen in a long time in the next few decades when climate change kicks into overdrive, but right now violence, hunger, disease, and lack of clean water are at the lowest point they have ever been in world history.
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Apr 3, 2014 06:02
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haveblue posted:Not if you legislate to delay bringing up to date the data underlying the rates! I forget, did that bill ever pass? I mean it would fly through to McCrory's desk today and get signed in the blink of an eye, but I don't remember if it got laughed down in the previous session
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Apr 3, 2014 16:56
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zxqv8 posted:Wait. Holy poo poo. They actually do that? BiggerBoat posted:Can you guys link to this story/bill? Thanks http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1537773
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Apr 3, 2014 17:03
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Captain_Maclaine posted:US Politics Thread: Everything is hosed, emphasis on everything. Quoting this in hopes I remember it for May
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Apr 3, 2014 19:10
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Stew Man Chew posted:hooooly poo poo this is incredible. What a ridiculous subversion of the organization's mission. They did the same thing in backing Ukraine opposition, which has now blown up in their face
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Apr 3, 2014 19:40
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USAID got involved in the Palestinian elections http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/21/AR2006012101431.html And the Ukraine opposition http://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukraine-revolution-groups-with-us-government-documents-show/ Not real surprising they were stirring the pot in Cuba.
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Apr 3, 2014 20:10
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Talmonis posted:I have to wonder if the alphabet agencies don't do this poo poo just to justify their budgets. Spend a few million loving around with vaguely defined "enemies", ruining our reputation abroad, creating more enemies. Rinse and repeat. Or is it that I'm just far too cynical? I don't see what else it could be. Good clandestine intelligence work is completely invisible, and makes things look like they happened for completely different reasons. So how do you sit in front of congress and justify your budget if it looks like a manufacturing flaw blew up all those missiles instead of an inserted operative? "Oh yeah, we totally did impressive stuff, I just can't tell you what it was or prove it was us, can we have more money please?" So it incentivizes bigger and more overt plans so they have something to point to. "Wow, it sure was lucky that revolutionaries got all those weapons, huh?" Except bigger and more overt plans are also riskier and more prone to failure. When they go wrong you have much more fallout - instead of your operative being fired by the arms manufacturer for failing to adhear to company practices with it never crossing middle management's mind he was an operative, you now get you operation blown wide open, trigger an international incident, burn a bunch of people and flush years of network building down the drain. But hey, congress signed that budget provision you asked for!
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Apr 3, 2014 20:55
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Oh poo poo this is huge! Senate just voted to release the torture report they have been sitting on. Until now the senate report and CIA response have been classified. Now that the senate is releasing its report, the CIA needs to release its report of its torture activities as well. Rights activists have been pushing for this for a long time. Guess it turning out the Bush CIA was spying on congress was the last straw http://m.washingtonpost.com/world/n...cb08_story.html
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Apr 3, 2014 21:08
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Prosopagnosiac posted:This has the potential to be big, but I wonder what, if anything, will happen as a result? If I had to guess, the most we'll get is a reform of interrogation practices and maybe increased oversight from congress. It's not nothing, but what is really needed is a reform/consolidation of all the intelligence agencies, the NSA and CIA in particular. I think there might be. Remember Obama came it promising it, got a look at what was going on, and promptly started giving speeches about the need to look forward and backing the CIA on hiding all the reports on what they did. It always smacked of their actions being so gobstoppingly over the line that the Dems reversed themselves because of the damage the releases would have done to us. Now that it is being released, the only way to control the blowback will be to prosecute. We won't see Cheney or Rummy go down, but some middle management that oversaw the program, yeah, potentially. Of course that is all predicated on the reversal being because of how bad it was rather than standard hypocrisy. But since it was an international program of kidnapping, torture, and killing run by Bush I'd say it being worse than we ever imagined is a safe bet
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Apr 3, 2014 21:59
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Evil Fluffy posted:Children's networks don't get blacklisted by political parties for asking tough questions, nor do they get fired by their boss for making a friend uncomfortable. The CIA has no control over the senate report so at a minimum that will be clean. If they redact theirs then the senate report goes uncontested which is bad for them. Plus the declared declassifying really limits how much they can redact
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Apr 3, 2014 22:01
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mdemone posted:I was just eye-rolling to myself about how it seems like the CIA has never done anything useful, but then I realized that it may be literally true. Can anyone name a morally-defensible operation they haven't hosed up? By the definition of clandestine work, we don't hear about the successful ethically sound ones. If it is successful we won't hear about it when it goes to poo poo because it doesn't blow up in a spectacular fashion, and if it is ethically sound we won't get someone blowing the whistle on it like we might if it was evil but worked.
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Apr 3, 2014 22:17
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Swan Oat posted:Lest anyone forget how awful Third Way Democrats can be, here's a story about Rahm Emmanuel diverting pension money to private interests and using the budget shortfalls to try to crush the public sector. poo poo like this is why he is down 8 points against Toni Preckwinkle http://www.illinoisobserver.net/2014/03/31/poll-toni-preckwinkle-leads-rahm-emanuel-8-points-2015-mayors-race/
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Apr 4, 2014 19:48
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http://touch.orlandosentinel.com/#story/os-jeb-bush-talks-2016-on-fox-news-20140404/ Jeb gonna talk running in 2016 with Fox on Sunday I'm gonna talk this country's prospects with a bottle of bourbon on Sunday
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Apr 4, 2014 19:57
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Dapper Dan posted:I don't think it is a good idea, I just think that a lot of people have given up and don't know what else to do. You look at the billions and billions of dollars flooding into politics, the Supreme Court's hilariously out-of-touch with reality decisions, the rich taking more and more of what little everyone has left with no signs of stopping and it feels like you're a person stacking grains of sand to stop a tsunami. So why not just step aside and let the tsunami just wash everything away? Volunteer. Building the organization is way more useful than about anything else you can do. Captain_Maclaine posted:Well get out there and start looking for Scalia's phylactery, already. I don't know what a "phylactery" is, is it like a horcrux?
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Apr 4, 2014 21:17
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Nessus posted:Aye, same idea Was hoping I would get more milage out of that troll
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Apr 5, 2014 00:19
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Chris Christie posted:Friendly reminder that those wonderful sweet justices on the left side of the SCOTUS have no problem making GBS threads all over things like property rights or 2nd amendment rights. They think it's perfectly OK for government to take your land or home and sell it to the highest bidder, and perfectly OK for a city or state to ignore the bill or rights and strip its citizens of their constitutional rights. Oh seriously gently caress off. We are less than 48 hours out from the latest spree shooting and you are in here  MA GUNS! Literally, not at all figuratively, the names of the victims hadn't even been released at the time of this post. I'm firmly on the side of gun rights, but twits like you make it hard to defend. You are like Hugo Schwyzer for feminism, Richard Dawkins for atheism, or tumblr-ites for any brand of social justice. poo poo like this makes me want to throw my hands up and side with the other guys just to thwart you, no matter how important the ideal is.
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Apr 5, 2014 01:41
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Shifty Pony posted:I was under the impression that discussing pay rates was already protected activity? It is, but go ahead and try to assert that right and see where it gets you. Boywhiz88 posted:Hahahaha, nope! It's a huge no-no in pretty much any corporation. Yeah, the NLRB has said workers can talk about it and the company can't punish you, but try it and see how that shakes out. It's regarded as rude to talk how much you make in general and in practice your boss can punish you for it pretty easily It's kinda like crossing the street without looking. In theory, as a pedestrian you have the right of way. In practice, knowing that you had the right of way will be cold comfort as you recover in the hospital Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 20:07
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gradenko_2000 posted:Is it really? I thought it was purely as a means by which companies can control wage/salary negotiations/expectations. Or has social mores turned it into something rude as a result of it being prohibited under company policies for so long? Is there any point in history where bragging about how much you have and how much better off you are than your fellows not been considered rude? It is the moral of several mythological stories and fables.
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Apr 7, 2014 15:05
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Cheekio posted:It's been mentioned, but bragging is a different thing entirely. You can communicate your job title to others by bragging about it, or you can not be a dick and just tell people who would benefit from the knowledge you're an XY or Z. It's bullshit that things are set up that way, dehumanizing in the extreme, and like the Vonnegut quote alludes to it is a way of creating a self reinforcing loop of keeping society that way, but for now it is how it is.
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Apr 7, 2014 15:29
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Gallup has released a new poll on the ACA. Big news is the impact it is having on the number of uninsured - it is down 3.2 percentage points so far http://www.vox.com/2014/4/7/5589814/more-evidence-obamacare-is-working-gallup-finds-number-of-us Someone go ahead and drop a "it's working!" Gif here
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Apr 7, 2014 15:36
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Amphion posted:Fox News: Gallup survey suggests sign-ups under ObamaCare not as high as White House says People should read this just for an amazing example in how to lie without ever saying anything untrue. "Gallup suggests sign ups not as high as White House says" The White House says 3 million people gained coverage. Gallup says 3.5 million gained coverage. This is stated plainly in the article. And the headline is correct - it wasn't as high as the White House said, it was HIGHER. At no point does it lie about the numbers, it just spins it so it sounds like the White House overstated the popularity rather than understating it. This is 1984 "chocolate ration won't be reduced from 30 grams" style propaganda. Getting people to follow the line completely at odds with reality without ever lying about what is really happening
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Apr 7, 2014 16:18
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Yesterday after the Jeb Bush and Ben Carson interviews in Fox there was a bunch of jockeying amongst the field as the interested parties tried to adjust to what was said there. Jindal's people were blasting out press releases and making calls about how Jindal had pushed his health care ideas out earlier in the week to ensure air time ("why are you talking about other people than our guy talk about our ideas we were here first!") and kept branding Jindal as the "idea man" candidate to define him. That lasted right until a reporter made the point that  was the self branded "idea man" candidate of 2012 and was that the comparison they were looking to make?Jindal's people beat that back and changed tune laughably fast. Guess we won't see Bobby the idea man in 2016
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Apr 7, 2014 16:45
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Joementum posted:In order to understand Civilization's Rules, you must think like their Definer. He's saying the rich are not currently equal to the middle class because, unlike the middle class, the rich are not able to give as much money as they would like. You see, it's the rich who are suffering here.
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Apr 7, 2014 16:46
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Charter schools are economic rent seeking. You have to go to school, I have the school, so pay up because you have to go to school. It is as textbook as the literal textbook example of the baron guarding the river. And if you think we will get competition from rent seekers rather than cartel actions to lock in a relative margin look at every other rent seeking body out there.
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Apr 7, 2014 18:18
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Jindal, Paul, and Santorum are all going to appear at the Iowa GOP convention in June http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2014/04/07/three-address-iowa-gop/7407945/ Someone post the "it's happening!" Gif
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Apr 7, 2014 18:24
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JT Jag posted:I mean christ one of the main cast members in Alpha House is Literally Marco Rubio By A Different Name. Everyone in alpha house is a member with a different name. It is part of why it is glorious
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Apr 7, 2014 19:37
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Chris Christie posted:Ugh these freaking people are impossible to reason with. Why the gently caress would anyone vote for Jeb Bush? Did you just blank out your memory between 2001 and 2008? Or do you think we need more successful terror attacks, more kidnap torture kill squads, more wars, more intentional inflation of destructive financial bubbles, more bailouts, more crumbling infrastructure, more spies outed for political points, more naked graft, more fictitious and politically motivated lawsuits against other parties, more using counterterror assets against anti war protestors, abuse of eminent domain to seize private assets, more destruction of cities and more private appropriation of public assets? Fried Chicken fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 20:04
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Christies former bestie is talking to the Feds http://www.vox.com/2014/4/7/5590690/reports-ex-christie-aide-david-wildstein-talking-to-federal-prosecutor
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Apr 7, 2014 20:05
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Chris Christie posted:He was governor of my state from 1999-2006. And he was fine. And I cannot stand Hillary Clinton. "Fine" ignores mass voter suppression and abuse of us attorneys for partisan political purposes and private appropriation of public assets. Plus all the other stuff I listed above.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:14
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I just did some googling and realized that he wasn't joking, Jeb Bush is apparently considering a run? His statement on immigration yesterday as an "act of love" is blasted all over brietbart and his support of common core has the nutjobs howling
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Apr 7, 2014 20:18
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Lemming posted:If Bush wins and the Republicans take the senate, Obamacare's going to get repealed and replaced with nothing, including the Medicaid expansion, no pre existing conditions, and no lifetime maximums. If you have a soul that really shouldn't be cool with you. If bush wins I'm going to end up in a rubber room drawing with crayons held between my toes, coo-ing softly to myself. I will be drawing pictures of a happy world, one where people are able to learn from their god damned mistakes.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:38
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Zenzirouj posted:That's really pretty unlikely. Dismantling the ACA at this point would be a massive undertaking, since all the funding and programs are already in place. It'd be way, way harder than passing it in the first place, even if they had near-complete control of all the branches. I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, but it would be really unpopular and would require dozens of individual bills, at the very least. Something that big gets entrenched almost immediately, which was why they put so much effort into blocking it in the first place. No, it would be difficult to repeal it responsibly. Just taking an axe to it, ignoring the fallout and chaos and letting the chips fall where they may is easy. You are quite right that if they want to unwind it to restore the status quo it would be incredibly difficult. Ending it and saying "suck it up" is easy
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Apr 7, 2014 20:44
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Mineaiki posted:Maybe they'll make some minor changes to the ACA that actually improve it in some way, and then claim that while it was broken Demoncrap LIEberal garbage before the Republicans have swooped in to save the day and now it's basically a Republican plan like has been since the very beginning, which they totally never denied. That is probably exactly what they'll do if they win.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:51
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Monkey Fracas posted:Never looks good when a legislator is that dumb. Maybe don't conduct your extramarital affairs in your own loving office jesus In theory that's the best place to do it. You control access, you don't have to worry about things like hotels showing up on charge lists, no one asks why you and the staffer keep going to the same motel all the time because there is justification for being at the office, you don't have to worry about being followed by camera crews or it being bugged... Really since it is his office he should control who gets to see the security footage as well so this shouldn't be an issue, so it is a good question as to why it is.
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Apr 7, 2014 23:09
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BiggerBoat posted:he said Jeb Bush and by Republican standards he's not quite the horrible monster that seems to be the modern standard of Republican front runners. He's been smart enough to stay out of the fray when you think about it. I know we are discussing Jeb. My point is it doesn't matter. The two are identical from any sort of policy or leadership standpoint. I'm yet to see a single speck of evidence that somehow swapping out the guy in the head chair, but keeping every other fuckwit would somehow make it all better. Do you think W was running around, micromanaging everyone? Do you think that this time when we elect a guy with an identical power base, identical network of political allies, identical agenda, and identical ideological axe to grind, we won't get the same crew that worked in the White House 6 years ago? Or maybe it is the same crew of fuckwits out to prove their way is right and it would have been great if Nixon hadn't been bounced out, who will be lead by another shitheel who is firmly committed to enabling them to prove their agenda again, and it will result in the same loving travesty? The "good leaders", "firm hands" and "technocrats" Jeb will fill his cabinet with, appoint to the bench, and pick to head departments will come from the same pool that W picked his, because they come from the exact same network. You will absolutely see Wolfwitz or Bolton or Frum or Paulson have a position in a Jeb administration. Y'all say "Jeb's the competent one" like that is reassuring. If W had been competent he'd have been able to push through the rest of his goals of privatizing Social Security, a 3rd war, and continued control of congress (meaning a bankrupt FDIC when the crash came and the DoJ scandal would have been more aggressive). The problem isn't the person swinging the pen, the problem is the ideological and political network they represent. They don't see anything W did as a failure except that they couldn't privatize Social Security. The wars, the torture, the murders, the financcial bubble, the payouts, the massive graft... those aren't gently caress ups. That is the PLAN.
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Apr 8, 2014 00:09
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BiggerBoat posted:No, I get all that. I'll be honest, I get pretty heated about anything from 2000-2008 and was most of a 16 oz in when I responded
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Apr 8, 2014 03:07
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forbidden lesbian posted:Sounds like you need to chill out, maybe smoke a - oh I didn't stop drinking after the 16 so idgi
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Apr 8, 2014 03:17
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