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PoliGAF 2013 |OT1| Never mind, Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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Z

zero shift

Banned
The libertarian love for the Paul's just baffle me. They are the very definition of conservative. The only thing that is libertarian with the Paul's is drugs and war, that's it.

Everything else is either anti-libetarian (gay marriage) or part of economics so ridiculous and radical that they could best be compared to a psuedo otherside of the far lefts single party Marxist-Leninist communist state, because totalitarianism is going to be the only way you are going to have the people accept and stick with something so ridiculous and harmful to them.
 
M

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
Averon said:
I must say I underestimated how long the GOP would hold onto Benghazi. I thought they'd drop it, or at least not use it so forcefully as their center-piece criticism of Obama, after the election since it was ineffective and Obama got re-elected. Hell, I thought they'd drop Benghazi after Romney totally bungled it as an attack during the second Pres debate. But no. The GOP is going even harder on Benghazi.

The GOP turned Benghazi, a serious event, into somewhat of a joke at this point. I'm both impressed and dismayed about that.
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Perhaps they feel they are so invested that they just HAVE to find something significant to pin on the administration or lose face? They felt they had something big that could undermine the Obama re-election and perhaps topple key individuals like Clinton, they postured like that was the case, and they have failed to deliver the goods to "the American People".

I agree with others that drone strikes, North Korea, and Syria etc would be easier targets for criticism and political gain.

If they dropped Benghazi and walked away it would cause far less damage than them running it into the ground and continuing to find nothing.
 
C

Chichikov

Member
Averon said:
I must say I underestimated how long the GOP would hold onto Benghazi. I thought they'd drop it, or at least not use it so forcefully as their center-piece criticism of Obama, after the election since it was ineffective and Obama got re-elected. Hell, I thought they'd drop Benghazi after Romney totally bungled it as an attack during the second Pres debate. But no. The GOP is going even harder on Benghazi.

The GOP turned Benghazi, a serious event, into somewhat of a joke at this point. I'm both impressed and dismayed about that.
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Obama better fuck an intern pretty damn soon, McCain is going to hurt himself if the GOP don't find something new to bitch about.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
RDreamer said:
This has gone on way too long. I feel like a jackass now, but I can't help but laugh every time someone says "the death of FOUR brave Americans!"
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3000 people died on 9/11/01. Before that, Bush got the 'Bin Laden determined to attack the USA'. They voted for him anyway. But now 4 people die in post-war Libya and they think it is some massive cover-up that can never be gotten past? (And weren't at least 2 of them CIA security people who were basically military people?)

It just seems quite hypocritical.
 
J

jamesinclair

Banned
speculawyer said:
3000 people died on 9/11/01. Before that, Bush got the 'Bin Laden determined to attack the USA'. They voted for him anyway. But now 4 people die in post-war Libya and they think it is some massive cover-up that can never be gotten past? (And weren't at least 2 of them CIA security people who were basically military people?)

It just seems quite hypocritical.
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Especially if you flip it around.

Obama took on one of the "axis of evil" countries, deposed the tyrant, freed the people....

And only suffered 4 american casualties. And it was over in a month.

Thats the very definition of HUGE MASSIVE SUCCESS.
 
W

watershed

Banned
John McCain has become the bitter, reactionary, angry old man the 2008 Obama campaign painted him as. Its sad but he wrote his own fate.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
drudge-siren.gif

BREAKING NEWS:
Mississippi just ratified the 13th amendment

http://www.clarionledger.com/articl...-Film-Lincoln-inspires-look-into-slavery-vote
 
P

PhoenixDark

Banned
Black Mamba said:
Speaking of which...


http://nelp.3cdn.net/0be1c6315f2430afa6_arm6bq9wu.pdf

Does Congressional GOP have a single position considered mainstream or majority supported by the public (that the Dems oppose)?
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Just the generic idea of smaller government. And even that falls apart when you ask people specifically what should be cut, shrunk, etc; people want a small government on paper while enjoying the features of a big government in practice.

Carville hit the nail on the head earlier today while critiquing Rubio's speech: the GOP has been making the same arguments for 30 years. Nothing changes except the faces; now they have an Hispanic to parrot the very ideas voters rejected just a couple months ago. That's not to say democrats are a bastion of new ideas - every four years they promise to punish companies that ship jobs overseas, among other group tested ideas that never get acted on. But their ideas remain popular, and they actually pass some legislation.

Democrats are doing a far better job highlighting republican obstruction than ever before; I must admit I was surprised at how popular the minimum wage idea is among voters. Basically democrats have three agendas that appeal to their three major groups: gun control for women, minimum wage for young voters, immigration for Hispanics; that's one way to spur midterm turnout. Republicans will have to decide whether their goal is to oppose everything Obama is for, or to get popular things done that everyone supports.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
cartoon_soldier said:
Yea...this.
Click to expand...

GhaleonEB said:
I'm more struck that they didn't even try to ratify it until 1995.
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#statesrights

PhoenixDark said:
Just the generic idea of smaller government. And even that falls apart when you ask people specifically what should be cut, shrunk, etc; people want a small government on paper while enjoying the features of a big government in practice.

Carville hit the nail on the head earlier today while critiquing Rubio's speech: the GOP has been making the same arguments for 30 years. Nothing changes except the faces; now they have an Hispanic to parrot the very ideas voters rejected just a couple months ago. That's not to say democrats are a bastion of new ideas - every four years they promise to punish companies that ship jobs overseas, among other group tested ideas that never get acted on. But their ideas remain popular, and they actually pass some legislation.

Democrats are doing a far better job highlighting republican obstruction than ever before; I must admit I was surprised at how popular the minimum wage idea is among voters. Basically democrats have three agendas that appeal to their three major groups: gun control for women, minimum wage for young voters, immigration for Hispanics; that's one way to spur midterm turnout. Republicans will have to decide whether their goal is to oppose everything Obama is for, or to get popular things done that everyone supports.
Click to expand...

You know they're gonna choose the former. They just don't get it. Or the leadership doesn't (by leadership I mean the people who actually run the movement, Koch, Rush, Fox News, etc.).
 
S

speculawyer

Member
zero shift said:
The libertarian love for the Paul's just baffle me. They are the very definition of conservative. The only thing that is libertarian with the Paul's is drugs and war, that's it.

Everything else is either anti-libetarian (gay marriage) or part of economics so ridiculous and radical that they could best be compared to a psuedo otherside of the far lefts single party Marxist-Leninist communist state, because totalitarianism is going to be the only way you are going to have the people accept and stick with something so ridiculous and harmful to them.
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I think this is a very accurate description of the Paul family brand of faux Libertarianism.
 
D

Diablos

Member
I can totally see the GOP attempting to take credit for allowing Obama to become elected by paving the way for African-Americans, yadda yadda yadda.

By that point they'll hold him in high enough regard as they'll shift all their hatred over to Hillary. Then they'll use it to look legitimate again so they can get dem swing voters back.
 
O

Oblivion

Fetishing muscular manly men in skintight hosery
Good God, Scarborough just will not let this shit with Krugman go:

If you believe that I am wrong and Paul Krugman is right, if you disagree that America's debt crisis is serious today, that it is draining American soft power globally, that it is devaluing the dollar, that it is undermining our influence with international trading partners, that painful adjustments in government outlays will be necessary, and that we cannot afford to wait until 2025 to worry about Medicare and other drivers of U.S. debt, then take it up with the RAND Corporation, whose senior economist wrote everything you have read here other than this concluding paragraph. The debt crisis is real and waiting another decade to fix it is not an option. Anyone who suggests it is operates well outside the mainstream of where serious economists reside.
Click to expand...

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joe-s...rong-but-dont-take-my-word-for-it-157194.html
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
is outside where serious economists reside
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Bullshit

Investors may be growing skittish about U.S. government debt levels and the disordered state of U.S. fiscal policymaking.

From the beginning of 2002, when U.S. government debt was at its most recent minimum as a share of GDP, to the end of 2012, the dollar lost 25 percent of its value, in price-adjusted terms, against a basket of the currencies of major trading partners. This may have been because investors fear that the only way out of the current debt problems will be future inflation.
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How can people get away with saying this stuff when it can easily be countered?

The first claim isn't true. They're investing MORE in debt. and the second completly ignores the real factors.
 
S

speculawyer

Member
R

RustyNails

Member
If I ever quit politics it won't be because of Libaugh, Hannity or other right wing loudmouth carnival barkers. It will be because of utter nincompoops like scarborough.
 
empty vessel

empty vessel

Member
Now we have Ezra Klein advocating staunchly for cuts to Medicare and Social Security. How fucking embarrassing. He frames this as a choice between paying the elderly and investing in the future, but he is working from a false dichotomy, since there need not be any choice between the two. This piece is an example of severely reactionary thinking. It's pathetic that it comes from the pen of Klein. He can fuck off as far as I'm concerned if this is the kind of shit he is going to write. It's fucking mind-boggling what passes for liberal analysis these days. Anybody reading Klein for insight into the real world is advised to stop, lest you wind up dumber than you started.
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
empty vessel said:
Now we have Ezra Klein advocating staunchly for cuts to Medicare and Social Security. How fucking embarrassing. He frames this as a choice between paying the elderly and investing in the future, but he is working from a false dichotomy, since there need not be any choice between the two. This piece is an example of severely reactionary thinking. It's pathetic that it comes from the pen of Klein. He can fuck off as far as I'm concerned if this is the kind of shit he is going to write. It's fucking mind-boggling what passes for liberal analysis these days. Anybody reading Klein for insight into the real world is advised to stop, lest you wind up dumber than you started.
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The theory was correct.
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I hate this kind of thinking. Its not studies they look to it's ignorant correlation = causation.

I've been reading a lot of Galbraith this dude needs to be read more. Very easily explains why this freaking out is stupid. THERE IS NO DEFICIT PROBLEM, not a single dime needs to be cut the current trajectory is sustainable. He did a great critique of how stupid the CBO's number that every hypes has the gospel are nonsensical predicting growth and action be the fed that is counter-intuitive.
 
G

Gotchaye

Member
empty vessel said:
Now we have Ezra Klein advocating staunchly for cuts to Medicare and Social Security. How fucking embarrassing. He frames this as a choice between paying the elderly and investing in the future, but he is working from a false dichotomy, since there need not be any choice between the two. This piece is an example of severely reactionary thinking. It's pathetic that it comes from the pen of Klein. He can fuck off as far as I'm concerned if this is the kind of shit he is going to write. It's fucking mind-boggling what passes for liberal analysis these days. Anybody reading Klein for insight into the real world is advised to stop, lest you wind up dumber than you started.
Click to expand...

The analysis looks basically correct to me. There's a lot of pressure to lower the deficit (note that Klein explicitly rejects the idea that the deficit is a problem in itself). Republicans care most about keeping taxes low. Democrats care most about protecting Social Security and Medicare. So when Congress gets on a deficit reduction kick, it's other spending that gets the axe. He's just saying that the effect of large deficits is to cause reductions in discretionary spending. Certainly this is what has actually happened so far.

I don't think it's fair to read him as saying something must be done. I think he's just saying that something will be done, and that the default option is for discretionary spending to get cut. Maybe he's endorsing Obama's position, or maybe he's only saying that raising taxes and cutting Medicare is preferable to cutting other spending. The only thing that he's clearly "staunchly advocating" is discretionary spending.

Yes, probably he could have usefully stressed again at the end that the deficit was not a problem. But he's almost certainly right that we will do more deficit reduction, and I think he's right that the path of least resistance is through discretionary spending.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
empty vessel said:
Now we have Ezra Klein advocating staunchly for cuts to Medicare and Social Security. How fucking embarrassing. He frames this as a choice between paying the elderly and investing in the future, but he is working from a false dichotomy, since there need not be any choice between the two. This piece is an example of severely reactionary thinking. It's pathetic that it comes from the pen of Klein. He can fuck off as far as I'm concerned if this is the kind of shit he is going to write. It's fucking mind-boggling what passes for liberal analysis these days. Anybody reading Klein for insight into the real world is advised to stop, lest you wind up dumber than you started.
Click to expand...

I don't agree with your assessment of his piece at all.

Sounds to me he's arguing why investments are being cut from a political perspective. Nowhere does he argue that anything must be cut and even argues how the deficit worry warts have thus far been wrong.

Here's a key bit:

We fear deficits today, too. But we’re not sure exactly why.
Click to expand...

But the title is "The best reason to worry about deficits."

Seems to me he's arguing we should worry about the deficit because the deficit is forcing politicians to stupidly cut investments rather than raising certain taxes to pay to close it and reforming things like medicare (not necessarily cutting benefits but more efficiency).

I think that argument is correct. The deficit is fucking up politics badly. It shouldn't, but we don't have smart politicians.
 
empty vessel

empty vessel

Member
Gotchaye said:
The analysis looks basically correct to me. There's a lot of pressure to lower the deficit (note that Klein explicitly rejects the idea that the deficit is a problem in itself).
Click to expand...

I don't think Klen does reject the idea that the deficit is a problem in itself. His article is entitled, "The best reason to worry about the deficit." So it is an assertion that we should worry about the deficit. In it, he writes:

"The reason to worry about the deficit today is not that higher interest rates will crowd out private borrowing or lead to a market panic, as there’s no evidence either consequence is in the offing anytime soon. Rather, the reason to worry about the deficit today — and, more to the point, the trends in government spending and taxation that drive it — is that the most worthwhile kinds of government spending are getting squeezed out."

That's a value judgment being expressed. He is advocating that liberals worry about the deficit because "the trends in government spending"--programs like Medicare and Social Security--is squeezing out "the most worthwhile kinds of government spending." So he's telling liberals that they should advocate cutting Medicare and Social Security (never mind that social security has nothing to do with the deficit) so that the government can spend in more worthwhile ways--"things like education funding, research and development, stimulus, infrastructure investment, and even the military." As I said in my post, "He frames this as a choice between paying the elderly and investing in the future, but he is working from a false dichotomy, since there need not be any choice between the two." This is definitely an advocacy piece, and Klein is so incredibly short-sighted in it as to be offensive. What do you think is the point of a sentence like this: "Meanwhile, an Urban Institute study finds that 'looking solely at the federal budget, an elderly person receives close to seven federal dollars for every dollar received by a child,'" if not to advocate cutting programs that benefit the elderly (which, incidentally, we all will be eventually.)

Gotchaye said:
Republicans care most about keeping taxes low. Democrats care most about protecting Social Security and Medicare. So when Congress gets on a deficit reduction kick, it's other spending that gets the axe. He's just saying that the effect of large deficits is to cause reductions in discretionary spending. Certainly this is what has actually happened so far.
Click to expand...

No, he's saying that we should cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to avoid cutting other discretionary spending (including the military!). I think the piece is perfectly clear to anybody who reads it, so I feel no need to argue the point further.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
No, he's arguing the deficit is creating the false choice among politicians, not that we have to make that choice.

Although, we should cut medicare in terms of efficiency (and not benefits) which IIRC Klein has argued before.

he's also clearly not arguing for cuts to medicare in that article.

That effort has largely failed, and Democrats and Republicans have settled into an odd and troubling detente on the deficit: Taxes will remain low and spending on Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid will remain high. Everything else, however, will get the axe.
Click to expand...

Note how he puts medicare and low taxes into the same group. He's obviously not arguing to cut medicare over raising taxes or to cut it at all. He's pointing out reality.

The best reason to worry about the deficit is because it's forcing politicians to unnecessarily cut investments.
 
B

Black Mamba

Member
empty vessel said:
I think he rather obviously isn't. What's with the apologetics? It's bizarre.
Click to expand...

Because at no point in that article does he argue we must cut anything and he says there's no economic reason to fear the deficit. He mentioned the situation leaves us with low taxes, high spending for "entitlements" and axing investments. Per your own logic he must be arguing for higher taxes in that article, but you don't mention that.

I don't see a single thing he's wrong about in that article. The deficit scare is exactly why politicians on both aisles are arguing for cuts to things like science research.

I personally think you misread the piece. Gotchaye and myself read it completely differently.
 
P

Piecake

Member
My impression of the article is that he thinks discretionary spending is more beneficial to a nation than medicare and social security because its an investment in the future, and if we need to cut something, it shouldnt be our investment in the future, it should be medicare and social security.

I dont think he wants to cut social security or medicare. I simply think he is working in the confines of today's political reality where Obama has stated that deficit reduction should be a balanced approach - cutting spending and raising taxes. Klein just wants to see that cut taken from medicare and social security, not future investment. Not really sure why military is future investment though...

Personally, I think a cut in social security is absurd and a cut in medicare benefits even more so since that will just end up costing the nation more money in the long run. If we can cut medicare costs, and not benefits, well, i guess that would be perfectly fine with me
 
N

NYCmetsfan

Banned
Piecake said:
My impression of the article is that he thinks discretionary spending is more beneficial to a nation than medicare and social security because its an investment in the future, and if we need to cut something, it shouldnt be our investment in the future, it should be medicare and social security.

I dont think he wants to cut social security or medicare. I simply think he is working in the confines of today's political reality where Obama has stated that deficit reduction should be a balanced approach - cutting spending and raising taxes. Klein just wants to see that cut taken from medicare and social security, not future investment. Not really sure why military is future investment though...

Personally, I think a cut in social security is absurd and a cut in medicare benefits even more so since that will just end up costing the nation more money in the long run. If we can cut medicare costs, and not benefits, well, i guess that would be perfectly fine with me
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As with probably any sane and logical person. We over pay for health care.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
empty vessel said:
I think he rather obviously isn't. What's with the apologetics? It's bizarre.
Click to expand...

At no point in the article does Klein advocate "staunchly for cuts to Medicare and Social Security," as you said. Neither the text nor the graph included advocate for Social Security benefit cuts. And Klein's focus is on the rising cost of healthcare, not about slashing benefits. The article is about how if unaddressed, we will see other governemtn functions squeezed, which is what is happening now. He does not say this needs to be so, just that it is happening. His conclusion is the opposite of what you presented it to be.

Just as interest rates posed a threat to the economy in the 1990s, insufficient government spending on research and development, infrastructure and education poses a threat going forward. Many of the technologies that drive today’s economy, from antibiotics to GPS to biotech to shale gas extraction to the Internet to jet engines, relied on federal funding to get started. And there’s little doubt that it’ll be difficult to build a 21st century economy atop a 20th century physical — not to mention digital and educational — infrastructure.

But the politics are tough. “When you invest in your future growth, you’re often investing in a group of people who are children and, by definition lack political power,” says Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council. “Or you’re investing in things that are precisely what you want government to do because no particular person captures the benefit but it instead benefits everyone.”

By contrast, when you try to raise taxes or cut back on health or retirement spending at a moment when health-care costs are rising and the population is aging, very specific people with very powerful lobbies feel the loss, and fight it.

In the 1990s, we managed to stop the federal government from crowding out the private sector. But so far, in the 2010s, we’ve failed to stop the federal government from crowding out, well, itself.
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Link

Link

The Autumn Wind
Talon said:
Brutal accusations from a former aide to Holbrooke over in the State Department - essentially the White House made short term decisions overriding long term goals in the service of public opinion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/o...end-of-foreign-policy.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
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I'm pretty skeptical here. Considering the hatred of Obama from the right, how come none of this has come to light before? They go all in on Benghazi, but all this is excusable? Pretty convenient that most of the accusations are about a dead man that can't deny any of it. Plus the guy has a book he's trying to sell.
 
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