2016 Democratic Thread

[Quin]

You summed up my feelings not perfectly but at least you get the drift of what I'm thinking and saying unlike most. I feel like Obama got very little done. There's so little cooperation between congress and President yes I feel Prez can get very little done. So yes I do feel that way and why not give ol Trump a try? The position of president kinda has been brought to its knees by lack of cooperation between parties.

As far as the lying issue ... I believe Hillary, Bill have lied a ton. Obama too. Of course Trump. So yes lying doesn't concern me too much of Trump.

How bout a ticket of Trump and McCain? Or Trump and Jeb? Let Donald do it with a real politician to help him a bit.

Look I have more important problems like living in a state with Brownback. He's so bad it's laughable and the idiots just recently rewarded him and reelected him just cause he has an R by his name.

So yes, gimme four years of Trump over Hilly!

 

There's so little cooperation because anytime Obama did anything, Republicans decided they didn't like it. They claimed his latest executive order stomped on 2nd Amendment rights. Before it was released. And it didn't.

 

And even with this Congress, Obama got s*** done. Because he's the President.

 

And Jeb and McCain - who Trump has attacked relentlessly - are going to run with Trump? Brownback might be the best VP for Trump.

 

Also, per the conversation on what created Trump, Obama may have been a large factor.

 

And one can’t help but suspect that, on that night, Trump’s own sense of public humiliation became so overwhelming that he decided, perhaps at first unconsciously, that he would, somehow, get his own back—perhaps even pursue the Presidency after all, no matter how nihilistically or absurdly, and redeem himself. Though he gave up the hunt for office in that campaign, it does not seem too far-fetched to imagine that the rage—Lukacs’s fear and hatred—implanted in him that night has fuelled him ever since.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-commen...ght-to-remember

[StrangeSox]

Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ Novel Business Approach Made It a Wall Street Darling — Then a Pariah

 

What should have been a routine deal was, in hindsight, the first step in the biggest and most bizarre business scandal of the past year, one that would immolate a Wall Street darling, permanently tarnish an $8 billion mutual fund, and evaporate $50 billion in market value. More than that, it would expose the new tradecraft of the pharmaceutical industry, which increasingly relies on technically legal but ethically dubious business practices to squeeze out profits at the expense of patients, insurers, and the American economy. This past fall, 32-year-old “pharma bro” Martin Shkreli — he of the Wu-Tang album and perp-walk hoodie — became the face of an industry that put profits over public health. But while Shkreli could be written off as an anomaly, the players Reitz was dealing with were not so easily dismissed. These companies, following the peculiar profit-maximizing logic of a single McKinsey consultant, are the future of the pharmaceutical industry.

 

In 2002, ICN’s board of directors forced Panic out and the company was rebranded as Valeant. Valeant then lost money for five straight years. In 2007, the company’s chairman sought outside help from J. Michael Pearson, who ran the global pharmaceuticals wing of the ­McKinsey consulting group.

 

Pearson had no medical background, but in his 23 years at McKinsey, he had developed a reputation for blunt and brutally honest business advice. When it came to pharma, he had a radical philosophy. Historically, the typical pharmaceutical concern charged high prices for drugs while spending 20 percent of its budget on research and development, a model that had worked well. By the aughts, however, the returns from R&D had declined, so, Pearson advised, pharmaceutical companies should cut their research budgets accordingly and instead focus on acquiring proven drugs. The high prices, however, could stay. In fact, Pearson reasoned, they should be a lot higher.

 

Valeant’s directors loved this philosophy. They loved it so much they decided they wanted to hear it all the time. In 2008, they persuaded Pearson to become Valeant’s CEO and put his philosophy into practice. Pearson shut down most of Valeant’s lines of research and laid off most of its scientists. He also aggressively raised the prices of many of Valeant’s drugs, sometimes by three or four times. The company began turning impressive profits.

 

This unorthodox approach attracted the interest of the Sequoia Fund, an $8 billion mutual fund founded by a business-school classmate of Warren Buffett. Sequoia had outperformed the S&P 500 for more than four decades, although most of this success could be attributed to a single investment: its outsize position in Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which had appreciated from $70 to $200,000 a share. But by 2010, opportunities for further growth seemed limited—Buffett himself had said as much. Early that year, fund managers started selling Berkshire to buy Valeant.

 

In a larger sense, though, the fate of Valeant may not matter. Pearson’s strategies — tax inversions, decreased R&D, and shameless profiteering — are no longer the berserk ideas of some left-field consultant but standard practice for the entire industry. Ironically, one of the most trenchant critics of this development is former Biovail CFO Brian Crombie, the man who oversaw the original tax shelter in Barbados. “The logical extension of what’s happened is that there should be no American pharmaceutical companies and no R&D,” Crombie told me. “But they should do all their sales in America.”

[bmags]

I think its insanity to say Obama got very little done. You may not like what he did, but if you go through the 08 campaign he got a lot of it done.

[CanOfCorn]

I take it you are concerned about his stance of kicking out non US citizens out of the country. You know, a lot of Americans are very concerned about ISIS assholes sneaking up on them and uh, chopping off their heads or heads of a loved one. Or blowing up bombs at parades and in churches and all over the place. Our system has checks and balances and no Hitler type is going to succeed in America. What specifically bothers you about Trump. I put in the link recently about all his positions on issues.

Yes I believe he'd be WAY BETTER than Hillary as president. I do. Does that make me a terrible person as I've been accused?

 

I can tell you from my perspective.

 

Complete and utter lack of respect for...well, everyone. I didn't like Bush, but I respected him BECAUSE HE WAS THE PRESIDENT. I didn't like the, "He's not smart," dialogue, whether it's true or not. He is the President and we elected him.

 

Secondly, lack of respect for other candidates. His cracks about Fiorina and utter disregard for any of the other candidates on the dais is appalling.

 

Finally, lack of respect for the American people. He has openly mocked people about their looks, their disabilities or just because they disagree with him.

 

He's a horrible candidate. He's a horrible person.

 

If you want to support him, go right ahead. That's what makes America great. You aren't horrible, but I'm disappointed in you as an American.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

The right-wing attacks on Nikki Haley are interesting given how much she governs like a right-winger.

[bmags]

True political innovation would be stopping the SOTU response.

[StrangeSox]

"Everyone else has failed miserably, but I'll be the one to really shine!"

[bmags]

So, what, the best one was Jim Webb? And look where he is!

[NorthSideSox72]

I can tell you from my perspective.

 

Complete and utter lack of respect for...well, everyone. I didn't like Bush, but I respected him BECAUSE HE WAS THE PRESIDENT. I didn't like the, "He's not smart," dialogue, whether it's true or not. He is the President and we elected him.

 

Secondly, lack of respect for other candidates. His cracks about Fiorina and utter disregard for any of the other candidates on the dais is appalling.

 

Finally, lack of respect for the American people. He has openly mocked people about their looks, their disabilities or just because they disagree with him.

 

He's a horrible candidate. He's a horrible person.

 

If you want to support him, go right ahead. That's what makes America great. You aren't horrible, but I'm disappointed in you as an American.

*like*

 

[bmags]

Few things could make me defend trump like this "New York Values" attack from Cruz.

[Quin]

The right-wing attacks on Nikki Haley are interesting given how much she governs like a right-winger.

 

There is a curse on that thing.

[DrunkBomber]

THIS IS REAL.

 

 

That video kind of reminds me of when they first get to North Korea in The Interiew.

[Quin]

[StrangeSox]

[GoSox05]

That video ended up being worse than I imagined.

[pettie4sox]

Lol @ trump

[StrangeSox]

National Guard and FEMA are being brought in to help.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/us/troop...WT.nav=top-news

 

This clean-up and the inevitable civil lawsuits from poisoned citizens will cost orders of magnitude more than the original "savings."

 

Fun side note: Michigan voters repealed the "Emergency Manager" law that let governor Snyder put whoever he wants in charge of failing cities, but then the state legislature just passed a repeal-proof version during the next session.

This is how toxic Flint’s water really is

 

At 27 parts per billion, it's five times as high as the level of concern, and nearly twice as high as the EPA's already-generous guidelines. According to the researchers who ran these tests, the health effects of lead levels this high "can include high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, kidney damage and memory and neurological problems."

 

Recall, though, that 10 percent of the homes in the sample had lead levels even higher than this.

 

But that 158 ppb reading is far from the worst one that turned up in Flint, unfortunately. In the spring of 2015, city officials tested water in the home of LeeAnne Walters, a stay-at-home mother of four and a Navy wife. They got a reading of 397 ppb, an alarmingly high number.

 

But it was even worse than that. Virginia Tech's team went to Walters' house to verify those numbers later in the year. They were concerned that the city tested water in a way that was almost guaranteed to minimize lead readings: They flushed the water for several minutes before taking a sample, which often washes away a percentage of lead contaminants. They also made residents collect water at a very low flow rate, which they knew also tended to be associated with lower readings.

 

So the Virginia Tech researchers took 30 different readings at various flow levels. What they found shocked them: The lowest reading they obtained was around 200 ppb, already ridiculously high. But more than half of the readings came in at more than 1,000 ppb. Some came in above 5,000 -- the level at which EPA considers the water to be "toxic waste."

 

The highest reading registered at 13,000 ppb.

 

The professor who conducted the sampling, Dr. Marc Edwards, was in "disbelief."

 

"We had never seen such sustained high levels of lead in 25 years of work," he said.

 

According to Edwards, the team retested the water with extra quality controls and assurance checks, and obtained the exact same results.

 

People need to go to jail over this.

Edited January 15, 2016 by StrangeSox

[bmags]

How long does it take to resolve this? I imagine months. Is water at that high of risk even unsafe to bathe in?

[StrangeSox]

How long does it take to resolve this? I imagine months. Is water at that high of risk even unsafe to bathe in?

 

Flint is still largely supplied by lead pipes. That was okay when they were getting water from Detroit, but when the Snyder-appointed Emergency Manager switched the city to Flint River for its water, the pipes started suffering from some pretty severe corrosion due to the pollution in the river water.

 

My understanding is that the lead pipes were more or less like asbestos--perfectly fine if its left in place, intact and undisturbed, but once you've damaged it even slightly you really have no choice but to rip everything out. So, it will be a long time and it will be very, very expensive.

 

As far as bathing, this story has some more info. Okay for adults and older children, probably not safe for young children and babies who may swallow some of the water.

Edited January 15, 2016 by StrangeSox

[greg775]

Not trying to stir anything up, but you do a simple Google search on Clinton or Sanders and you see story after story that Bernie has a chance. Is this true? I like his policy plans and obviously I prefer him over Ms. Clinton, whom I despise.

Seriously ... look it up. Pollsters say Bernie has a chance when the TV pundits scoff at even a suggestion that anybody but Ms. Clinton is a LOCK for the nomination and the presidency. So does Bernie have a chance??? Or not.

[bmags]

Great news out of Iran that four dual citizens released including Wapo reporter.

Edited January 16, 2016 by bmags

[Balta1701]

Not trying to stir anything up, but you do a simple Google search on Clinton or Sanders and you see story after story that Bernie has a chance. Is this true? I like his policy plans and obviously I prefer him over Ms. Clinton, whom I despise.

Seriously ... look it up. Pollsters say Bernie has a chance when the TV pundits scoff at even a suggestion that anybody but Ms. Clinton is a LOCK for the nomination and the presidency. So does Bernie have a chance??? Or not.

Yes, Bernie has a chance.

 

As of right now, he has a real good chance to win Iowa and New Hampshire he absolutely should win, it's his home turf. Winning both of those could provide a boost that carries him through the next few states.

 

However, Hillary also has a strong organization in Iowa and it's incredibly difficult to accurately poll a caucus because the process isn't simple. It's a multiple hour commitment so anyone who has to work that day is excluded and people can talk and be convinced by activists on both sides.

 

If Bernie Sanders wins the first 2 states, he still has an uphill battle because South Carolina and Nevada are up next and neither of those states are nearly as pale white as Iowa and New Hampshire and Bernie's strength is more among white voters. As of right now Hillary still remains a statistical favorite.

[caulfield12]

Yes, Bernie has a chance.

 

As of right now, he has a real good chance to win Iowa and New Hampshire he absolutely should win, it's his home turf. Winning both of those could provide a boost that carries him through the next few states.

 

However, Hillary also has a strong organization in Iowa and it's incredibly difficult to accurately poll a caucus because the process isn't simple. It's a multiple hour commitment so anyone who has to work that day is excluded and people can talk and be convinced by activists on both sides.

 

If Bernie Sanders wins the first 2 states, he still has an uphill battle because South Carolina and Nevada are up next and neither of those states are nearly as pale white as Iowa and New Hampshire and Bernie's strength is more among white voters. As of right now Hillary still remains a statistical favorite.

 

It's usually 6:30-8:00 or 7:00-8:30 pm.

 

Clinton and her husband alienated a lot of South Carolina voters and the Congressional Black Caucus in 2008. Still tough territory...maybe he can go to his more ambivalent gun stance there.

[StrangeSox]

Bernie may have a chance in the primaries but I don't think he has a chance in hell in the general election. The establishment would never allow someone like him (or Rand Paul for that matter) to get into the office.

The Democrats would not sabotage their own candidate in the general, especially if they're up against Cruz or trump (who are also both actively hated by the gop establishment)

[bmags]

The establishment on left would have no issue with Sanders. That they are not opening a bunch of lanes for a Sanders now is mostly due to his years of self identified independence, and honestly a legit feeling that they owe this one to the clintons after 08.

 

I'm obviously not the biggest sanders voter, but it's because his dumb hang up marketing of himself as a dem socialist obscures that he isn't that left, not that he actually is a socialist. Not sure what it is establishment would even be scared of with lack of congress /state power he'd inherit. Hated the DLC in the end, but they are needed to return some of the losses. Fire DWS.