The Democrat Thread

[StrangeSox]

Being from the 1% doesn't mean you can't seriously believe that the system is rigged and needs reforming. It's not uncommon for someone privileged in the current system to champion populist reforms. Yeah, she's wealthy, but she's not part of the banking industry.

 

If her populism is 'feigned,' why such the effort to block the CFPB and her appointment to head it?

[Y2HH]

Being from the 1% doesn't mean you can't seriously believe that the system is rigged and needs reforming. It's not uncommon for someone privileged in the current system to champion populist reforms. Yeah, she's wealthy, but she's not part of the banking industry.

 

If her populism is 'feigned,' why such the effort to block the CFPB and her appointment to head it?

 

I don't think they are...I think it's part of the narrative they want people to believe. I'm sure some are blocking it, just like they'd try to block anyone else. There will always be people that try to stand in the way of someone in cases like these...always. This is no exception, and it's nothing special like they're trying to make it sound.

 

And...last but not least...of course it doesn't mean you can't seriously believe the system is rigged end needs reforming...EVERY last member of the 1% says some variation of this exact same thing all while benefiting from that very system.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Y2HH

[StrangeSox]

There was substantial opposition to the creation of the CFPB, which she basically created, and to her appointment as head of it. That was circa 2010, this was about her being appointed to the Senate Banking Committee.

 

I see no reason to believe in shadow conspiracy theories in the face of the loud, frequent and expensive efforts to block her and the CFPB at every turn. She didn't make her $14M by taking advantage of the banking system but in academia and the legal world fighting against banks, including fighting against the disastrous 2005 bankruptcy reform bill.

[Y2HH]

There was substantial opposition to the creation of the CFPB, which she basically created, and to her appointment as head of it. That was circa 2010, this was about her being appointed to the Senate Banking Committee.

 

I see no reason to believe in shadow conspiracy theories in the face of the loud, frequent and expensive efforts to block her and the CFPB at every turn. She didn't make her $14M by taking advantage of the banking system but in academia and the legal world fighting against banks, including fighting against the disastrous 2005 bankruptcy reform bill.

 

As I said in the finer things thread...yea, well...I have mini York Peppermint Patties.

[Y2HH]

There was substantial opposition to the creation of the CFPB, which she basically created, and to her appointment as head of it. That was circa 2010, this was about her being appointed to the Senate Banking Committee.

 

I see no reason to believe in shadow conspiracy theories in the face of the loud, frequent and expensive efforts to block her and the CFPB at every turn. She didn't make her $14M by taking advantage of the banking system but in academia and the legal world fighting against banks, including fighting against the disastrous 2005 bankruptcy reform bill.

 

Sad news, friend...shes not one of us, and shes not really looking out for you/us, either. Hang onto that dream, though...

Edited December 4, 2012 by Y2HH

[StrangeSox]

I'll bet she'd do a damn sight better job of it than a majority of the Senators, but my politics are not oriented to maximize my own personal interest.

 

Are you familiar with her prior work at all?

 

*That "but my politics are not oriented to maximize my own personal interest" sounded pretty douchy, I didn't mean it holier-than-thou.

Edited December 4, 2012 by StrangeSox

[Y2HH]

I'll bet she'd do a damn sight better job of it than a majority of the Senators, but my politics are not oriented to maximize my own personal interest.

 

Are you familiar with her prior work at all?

 

I have mini York Peppermint Patties.

[Balta1701]

There was substantial opposition to the creation of the CFPB, which she basically created, and to her appointment as head of it. That was circa 2010, this was about her being appointed to the Senate Banking Committee.

 

I see no reason to believe in shadow conspiracy theories in the face of the loud, frequent and expensive efforts to block her and the CFPB at every turn. She didn't make her $14M by taking advantage of the banking system but in academia and the legal world fighting against banks, including fighting against the disastrous 2005 bankruptcy reform bill.

The reality is, it's not the 1% who are the problem, except at the level of being undertaxed. They didn't blow up the world. If a 1%er is foreclosed on, or goes bankrupt, the government doesn't bail them out. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy as long as you're paying te admissions price. It's the ones who are so far beyond rich that they've taken over the government and get bailed out that are te real systematic problem. 1% is a good slogan, but really there need to be more zeroes, the real issue is the 0.01% or so. They're the ones who can buy a senator and their own law/loophole/bailout.

[Jake]

Realize that the leading institutes of learning, even into the 20th century, taught "race theory" which scientifically explained the superiority of the white American (yes, it's traced back to northwest Europe but there was a pretty strong belief that we had evolved due to our presence on this super amazing continent...and of course they weren't feeling the whole Mendelian genetics thing yet). Have to wonder what you would think if you studied at Harvard and that's where you learned the science of your own racial superiority...you might think it's true?

[StrangeSox]

Scientific racism was more of a late-19th, early-20th century thing, but Corey Robin's comments on Jefferson talk about his ties to the late 18th century 'founders' of the movement.

 

What was so ironic about David Post's Volokh "So What?" post is that it was immediately preceded by another blogger warning against whitewashing some of the ugly beliefs and policies of the early 20th century Progressive movement.

Edited December 4, 2012 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

The Fox News Effect: Republicans Still Think ACORN is Alive and Stealing Elections

Here is PPP on their finding that 49 percent of Republicans think ACORN stole the election for Obama, a drop from the 52 percent who thought ACORN stole the election in 2008:

 

This is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.

 

I'd call this a dry British sense of humor if PPP were British. In other news, they found that 39 percent of Americans claim to have an opinion about the Simpson-Bowles deficit plan, while 25 percent claim to have an opinion about the Panetta-Burns plan, which they just made up. Fun times.

[StrangeSox]

Conservatives block a UN treaty in the Senate (61 yes, 38 no, 2/3's needed for a treaty) that was negotiated under Bush and makes US Americans with Disabilities Act the model for the world, because 'sovereignty'

 

Now to be fair to the Republicans who voted "nay," you don't approve a treaty just because Bob Dole favors it. And to be more than fair, it's true that the United States has comparatively robust legislation in the form of the ADA and IDEA.

 

On the other hand, the point of this convention is to ensure that other countries start embracing the rules and standards codified by the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act -- you'd think most Republicans would be super-keen on other countries embracing principles of U.S. law. Furthermore, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also supports the treaty, and I hear that Republicans are pro-business, so that is a bit confusing. I also read that "the treaty was negotiated by the George W. Bush administration," so, again, you can understand my confusion.

 

Seriously, what is wrong with these people?

 

Now I'm honestly pretty dubious about whether U.S. ratification of the treaty would accomplish all that. Unlike Law of the Sea, not ratifying this treaty doesn't appreciably harm U.S. interests. It does, however, make the United States look pretty dysfunctional. In essence, the U.S. Senate just rejected a treaty on protecting the disabled that would have globalized the status quo in U.S. law on this issue. To use the parlance of international relations scholars, this is dumber than a bag of hammers.

 

Oh. Right.

Edited December 5, 2012 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

Disappointed to hear that Zero Dark Thirty perpetuates the awful lie that torture was critical to finding Bin Laden.

[Jenksismyhero]

Disappointed to hear that Zero Dark Thirty perpetuates the awful lie that torture was critical to finding Bin Laden.

 

Meh, I think Panetta has just as much of a reason to lie about how they got that information than the chief torturer with a book deal. Ditto the Senators. I'd imagine they were all anti-torture people during that whole water boarding debate, so to have some kind of claim that advanced techniques actually worked to find Bin Laden wouldn't be something they want out there.

 

And its also possible that there was more than one source of that information and that both parties are semi-right.

[StrangeSox]

AFAIK there's nothing corroborating the idea that torture was crucial and necessary and several sources discrediting that claim.

[Jenksismyhero]

AFAIK there's nothing corroborating the idea that torture was crucial and necessary and several sources discrediting that claim.

 

You cited one blog referencing earlier statements made by 2 senators and Panetta. Those statements, btw, don't say whether other sources (tortured inmates) corroborated the information their source gave them. It's hardly as definitive as you're making it out to be.

[StrangeSox]

Those two blogs contain other links, including to the Greenwald column which contains yet more links.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...-torture-awards

 

Feinstein and Levin clearly disputed the claim that torture played a role in the Bin Laden raid:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/30/o..._n_1465820.html

 

An FBI counter-terrorism agent points out Rodriguez's numerous other lies regarding the successes of torture:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/20...-rodriguez.html

 

The man was a torturer and a liar who destroyed the evidence of his crimes. I see no reason to trust him or his attempts to vindicate his despicable actions (to himself and to the public), nor for a Hollywood movie to present his claims as fact.

 

 

 

[Jake]

The question is whether we should care that it was effective.

 

Killing countless civilians was also effective, but I'd rather that we hadn't done that.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

This was impossible to predict:

 

When state lawmakers passed a two-year budget in 2011 that moved $73 million from family planning services to other programs, the goal was largely political: halt the flow of taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood clinics.

 

Now they are facing the policy implications — and, in some cases, reconsidering.

 

The latest Health and Human Services Commission projections being circulated among Texas lawmakers indicate that during the 2014-15 biennium, poor women will deliver an estimated 23,760 more babies than they would have, as a result of their reduced access to state-subsidized birth control. The additional cost to taxpayers is expected to be as much as $273 million — $103 million to $108 million to the state’s general revenue budget alone — and the bulk of it is the cost of caring for those infants under Medicaid.

[farmteam]

This was impossible to predict:

If it weren't so unfortunate that'd be pretty damn funny.

[StrangeSox]

This Is Not Wisconsin. It's Worse.

If union adversaries can pass a right-to-work law in the home of the once-powerful United Auto Workers, they can pretty much do it anywhere.

Michigan’s labor movement looked at the aggressive moves over the past two years by Republicans throughout the Midwest—Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana—to roll back union rights. This past year, calculating that they were diminished, but not too diminished, the remnants of the UAW and the rest of the state’s labor movement took a chance. Via a referendum question, Proposal 2, it tried to permanently inscribe the right to collectively bargain into the state constitution in order to forestall a right-to-work move in the very birthplace of the once great UAW.

 

The unions went all in, with a comprehensive, expensive campaign. They had several advantages that their peers in Wisconsin did not have when unions there attempted to recall Governor Scott Walker. The referendum was easy to understand, up or down on the constitutional right to collective bargaining. The referendum ran during a hard-fought presidential campaign, with Michigan, as always, a key state. Democratic turnout, and, thus, presumably, support for the union position would be high.

 

But Proposal 2 ran 12 points behind Barack Obama and lost 58-42. The decline that compelled the unions to lock in their rights paradoxically guaranteed they would lose. During the heyday of Cadillac Square, the right to collectively bargain was a potent fact on the ground. A constitutional imprimatur was beside the point.

 

The headcount said simply that the UAW and allied unions did not have the unqualified support of most Michigan voters. The unions could, and are, making some noise, but they wouldn’t create sufficient civil strife to defeat a right-to-work flip.

 

The loss provided what is called in an organizing drive a convenient “headcount” for corporations and their conservative Republican allies. The headcount said simply that the UAW and allied unions did not have the unqualified support of most Michigan voters. The unions could, and are, making some noise, but they wouldn’t create sufficient civil strife to defeat a right-to-work flip. The unions could be rolled, the more quickly the better, even during a lame-duck session. The savvy president of the UAW, Bob King, one of the most progressive union leaders in the country, promises not to give up and threatens recall elections. But state right-to-work laws have only been repealed once, in Indiana in 1965. Indiana reinstated right-to-work laws earlier this year.

[Balta1701]

Disappointed to hear that Zero Dark Thirty perpetuates the awful lie that torture was critical to finding Bin Laden.

Spencer Ackerman, who usually is on point, has a much more nuanced discussion of the role it plays in the movie. It seems like it doesn't show torture as being incredibly helpful, but it does depict the CIA as a disgusting torture house...which is, sadly, probably pretty true.

[Y2HH]

You cited one blog referencing earlier statements made by 2 senators and Panetta. Those statements, btw, don't say whether other sources (tortured inmates) corroborated the information their source gave them. It's hardly as definitive as you're making it out to be.

 

I was going to say something along these lines, but you already said it.

[StrangeSox]

A pretty good breakdown of exactly how awful, both in terms of politics and policy, the idea of raising the medicare age is:

 

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpres...-isnt-harmless/

 

 

What you’re seeing is life expectancy at age 65 broken out in to the top half of earners and the bottom half of earners, from 1977 to 2007. I got these data from a study that appeared in Social Security Bulletin in 2007. The paper was entitled, “Trends in Mortality Differentials and Life Expectancy for Male Social Security-Covered Workers, by Socioeconomic Status.” We know that average life expectancy went up less than 5 years overall in this period. But what’s somewhat stunning is how much of a disparity there is in these gains. The top half of earners gained more than 5 years of life at age 65. The bottom half of earners, though, gained less than a year.

 

If you raise the age of eligibility by two years, then you are taking away more years of Medicare than half the country gained in longer life. Moreover, we’ve already taken away these people’s Social Security. The Greenspan Commission in the early 1980s made it so that the retirement age is already 66. It’s scheduled to rise to 67. So those at the bottom half of the socioeconomic ladder have already lost more years of Social Security than they’ve gained in years of life life expectancy at 65.

 

Sure, in a perfect world poor young seniors could get Medicaid if we take away their Medicare. That is, of course, if their state accepts the Medicaid expansion. Many haven’t. Less poor young seniors can go to the exchanges, I suppose. But if you’re a 65 year old widow and you make $46,100 a year in a high cost area, then your premium will be over $12,000 for your insurance. And you could owe another $6250 in out-of-pocket costs if you get sick. Tell me again how that person won’t miss her Medicare.

[StrangeSox]

Scott Tranter, Republican Consultant: Voter ID And Long Lines Help Our Side

 

"A lot of us are campaign officials -- or campaign professionals -- and we want to do everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that's voter ID, sometimes we think that's longer lines -- whatever it may be."