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d-usa wrote: Are we pretending that there are not people thinking this is just another reason to impeach Trump?
The attempt to build an impeachment case against Trump on campaign finance breaches over the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels is remarkably similar to the attempt to impeach Clinton on perjury for denying an affair with Lewinsky.
Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Actually, lying to the FBI period (regardless of being under oath or not) is a crime, so as long as Mueller gets an interview/chat/whatever with Trump, it's fair game.
One weird thing... as never before has the FBI indicted a sitting President for lying... even then, there are debates that a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted.
What Mueller *can* do is issue a report, which must be released to the public, that makes it clear his “subject” (ie, the President) crossed legal lines... leaving it up to Congress to impeach or the American voters to deny him a 2nd term. Just saw an MSNBC report stating that Mueller's team are planning to wrap this up by June or July. Early fireworks maybe??
However, he can be placed under oath in a special counsel setting and get ding'ed that way. (ala Bill Clinton). Which is why every attorney is probably tearing out their hair everytime Trump signals that he's willing to "talk" to Mueller. Trump is an undisciplined brash fool who'll get himself in trouble in short order.
There's a big difference in lying and lying directly to the FBI, especially during an investigation, the best example being Michael Flynn currently I think.
And again, you don't need to be under oath when talking to the FBI for lying to be a crime, from wikipedia: The statute spells out this purpose in subsection 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a), which states:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device[ , ] a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331),[11] imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both....
Also, what do mean "a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted"? A crime is a crime, and the only limit is probably how much embarrassment the US is willing to suffer by indicting a president. The only protection afford appears to be that they cannot be impeached then tried for the same crime. However, they can be impeached for one crime, then tried for another after they have left office.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/04/05 03:25:47
DQ:90S++G++M----B--I+Pw40k07+D+++A+++/areWD-R+DM+
bittersashes wrote:One guy down at my gaming club swore he saw an objective flag take out a full unit of Bane Thralls.
Grey Templar wrote: Nah, there are just as many. The difference is they are better at disguising their crazyness under a veneer of respectability. The crazyness is evident when you look at what their ultimate policy goals and ideals are. If you want specifics, Bernie Sanders is a straight up leftwing crazypants.
I think Bernie Sanders is a crap candidate with a terrible set of policies, but the fact he's cited as the crazy fringe of the left shows how massively different the two parties are.
As an example - one of the worst things about Sanders is his tendency to twist and manipulate projections to fit his desired policies. Sanders wanted free university, and released a model saying the economic growth would increase to 3.5% because of the increased number of graduates and the advantages of starting your working life with no debt. That 3.5%* growth would cover the cost to government so don't worry about the cost. Some people noted Sanders cost to government was low, it was actually a few hundred billion higher. Not to worry said Sanders, he just released a new model with growth now at 4% so it still paid for the cost. He was obviously just picking whatever growth number would mean the program was paid for.
Thing is, Jeb Bush did the exact same thing. His tax cut was funded by exactly the same method, albeit with 4% growth. When it was pointed out the cost of Jeb's tax cut didn't include people restructuring in to the tax advantaged models, he released new figures with a new growth rate to cover the cost**.
Both Sanders and Jeb Bush are grifters running the exact same con. Promsing something that'd be nice to have, and avoiding any serious conversation about how to pay for it by making up imaginary figures to make it free. But the thing is, Sanders is the far left of his party, in terms of people with responsibility and leadership in the Democrats and the greater left wing, Bernie is as bad as it gets. In contrast, Jeb Bush is the establishment of his party, he's as sensible as it gets, and after him it starts getting crazier.
The most sensible Republicans are as bad as the most ridiculous Democrats. That's the simple reality of US politics right now.
* I can't remember the exact figures. Bernie might have started with 4% and gone to 4.5%. Point is they were very improbably numbers, and there was no serious mechanism by which the proposal would drive such a radical shift in growth rates.
**Maybe the best thing in the whole 2016 debacle, outside of maybe Trump's debate rambling about 'the cyber' and how good Barron is on computers, was when Trump blindsided Bush by having a bigger tax cut funded by an even bigger imaginary growth rate, it might have been 6%. Jeb got really upset about that, how dare you make up an imaginary number bigger than my imaginary number. It took on the feeling of kids in the playground seeing who can say the biggest number. If there had been any more Republican primary debates it was just a matter of time before either Jeb or Trump said their growth rate was going to be infinity plus one.
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ScarletRose wrote: Pretty much this, I can't think of one of his policies that isn't already implemented in other modern countries in the world.
It isn't just about wanting a policy that exists elsewhere in the world. It's about having that policy fit within the existing system and tax base.
For instance, lots of places have free or heavily subsidised university education. Nothing crazy about that. But Sanders policy was to have the state take on tuition payments with no architecture to control university costs, and with an entirely fictional mechanism to fund it.
Crazy isn't just in how far left or right your policy is, crazy is in how much your policy has really been thought through, with its weaknesses and complications properly considered and accounted for.
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Grey Templar wrote: Isn’t compromise the foundation of a functional democracy? Everybody is lamenting that there isn’t enough compromise these days. Yet you now spin this as me trying to hold dying infants hostage. You are better than that Ouze.
You don't get to list random things, then complain other people don't take you up on that deal.
"If you agree to remove all legislation controlling the purchase and sale of fully automatic weapons, then I will dress up like Hamburglar every second Friday between the hours of noon and two. If you don't take the deal then you're not compromising!"
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“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Let me see, as a Canadian, with my wishy-washy Prime Minister Trudeau it makes the contrast with Trump almost scary, no it IS scary.
None of my business I know, I remember being asked prior to his election who would be the next American President?
I had answered "The one they deserve.".
I am SO terribly sorry.
I'm getting the impression that you are sorry for making that statement. If that's true, then please do not be. Trump is absolutely 100% the president we deserve. If anything the last election cycle and the course of this administration has shown Americans are, on average, just kinda nasty people. Politicians may represent the worse end of the citizens that elected them but that still says volumes about the American people. Not only was their widespread support for unjustified hatred, spiteful self-harm, and outright delusion but even more citizens didn't care enough about the country to spare a few hours of their life to vote.
A democracy elects what it deserves... and we did.
This is why I stopped bothering with our PM discussions.
Hillary Clinton is a flawed politician in a lot of ways, I think everyone knows I think she was okayish and nothing more than that - I'm no Hillary booster. But claiming she was crazy is utterly ridiculous. Clinton, for good and for bad, was a centrist campaigner fixated on the nuts and bolts practicality of policy, her defining principal was the one key thing she gave her husband during his term 'the politics of the practical'. But you claimed she was crazy, just to gak on an actual discussion about the real and important differences between the two political parties.
Also the other names you listed were also crappy, dishonest bits of empty name calling. But it was easier just to start with the first one.
Anyhow, how you respond to being called on your effort there, and how everyone else responds really matters if people want to not just have the US politics thread back, but actually make it a useful platform for discussion. Because if you just carry on making obviously junk arguments like that and everyone just accepts it, then it will back to what it was before, playing chess with pigeons. But if you commit to a base level of honesty, to making arguments not just because they work for your team but because there's actually some truth to them, then we might actually start having a meaningful conversation.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
LordofHats wrote: You can't run an education system without teachers, and we bleed them out so fast now that they either quit or become seat fillers. We get the education you pay for America, and we wonder why so many kids are so damn stupid.
Paul Krugman has just put up a piece making an interesting point right now about the difference in many states that very closely links to education.
He starts talking about the post war period, where the poorer states steadily caught up to the wealthier states. States that once had large populations of near subsistence level farmers lacking basic facilities like indoor plumbing started to transform, resource extraction and heavy industry brought much higher paying jobs to these states, and they started to catch richer states. As an example, here's Kentucky incomes compared to Massachusetts;
As you can see there was a long period of catch up, then things started to go wrong in the 70s, and they've now been falling for a while. And that's not just a Kentucky thing. Mississippi income reached 70% of Massachusetts, it's now down to 55%. Well, it's the rust belt thing.
What happened was the driver of jobs, particularly higher income jobs started to change. Growing jobs and growing incomes was more about educated workers in service sector jobs. It wasn't an insurmountable, impossible problem, places around the world and in the US have invested in education and transformed their economies. The problem came in places where there was a dominant culture of hostility to education. In those places they've gone looking for other solutions, mostly tax cuts coupled with service cuts, the most harmful of which was the cuts to education. And even now, decades after the problem first showed, most of these places still don't understand where they've gone wrong.
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Vulcan wrote: Compared to many nations we pay quite a bit more for education than most developed nations: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp. Only Austria, Norway, and Switzerland pay more per student (the U.K. and Belgium come very close). And yet, for that expense we rank fairly low for education among developed nations: https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading. Other nations spending far less per student routinely get significantly better education results. When you fall behind nations like Estonia in education despite spending nearly twice as much per student, there's something wrong with your system that merely throwing money at won't help.
Fixing how you BUDGET the money you spend might help, though. So little of that money we spend on education actually makes it into the schools. Far too much of it is siphoned off by highly-paid administrators... who in many districts actually outnumber the teachers, and yet never see a single child in the course of their work.
You're right that the US spends, on average across the country, more than most countries, but you're a bit off on the rest.
For starters, US the better parts of US results aren't well represented by average performance stats. For lots of reasons, the US puts more resources in to dragging the lowest performing kids up, and more resources in helping the best performing kids really excel. If you look instead at competency rates among the bottom 20% the US does very well, and it also does very well in the highest performing areas. Alongside that, the US also has a stupid amount of school organised extra-curricular activities. Other places these are run outside the school, the effect is they're added to the US total, but not to other countries.
But probably the biggest reason is state and local discrepancies. Most countries have in some form or another a system to spread school funding evenly, so every kid in place gets not exactly the same amount of funding, but something that's always reasonably close. In the US because the funding model is primarily local you get enormous discrepancies - a kid in a real Mississippi backwater might get a fifth of a kid in a NY city public school. The result is a simple marginal return thing - a place spending $5,000/kid in one district and $1,000/kid in another district will get worse results overall than a place spending $3,000/kid in each district.
So no, it isn't about that old 'so many administrators' is an easy, politically safe attack. But it is nothing to do with what's actually going on.
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LordofHats wrote: Personally though my main pet peeve is that citizens themselves don't support education meaningfully. They want it. They want it to be good. But when Billy starts throwing racial slurs at teachers their response is "you must be lying" (true story not joking). Parents need to take responsibility and support the education system for it to work, but I find that they don't. Not all of them, maybe not even most of them, but we've all been in school.
Very good point. That said, it isn't just about supporting the education system, but parents need to be the first and most important educators for their kids. When you read to your kids every night, your kids have a big step up. When you spend time with them on their schoolwork, not just to get them through their homework, but to actually engage with them in what they're learning and expand it beyond the textbook, you're kids will be miles ahead.
Some parents do that. Some parents don't. When you don't, it doesn't matter how much money gets spent on your kid at school, they'll be behind the other kids.
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whembly wrote: Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Okay, I'll explain it with more words. Just it was repeatedly said in the 90s that it wasn't about Clinton having sex, it was about him perjuring himself to cover it up, now we hear people saying that it isn't about Trump having sex, it's about the $130k payment made being a breach of campaign financing laws. In both cases you have a tawdry even that gets everyone's attention, and a technical breach of the law. People push a case forward on the technical breach, but the real drive is about catching someone else having sex, and getting at a political enemy.
I cherry picked that because I thought it was pretty insightful.
If that's me not agreeing with you... then, I don't know what's going on here.
Self-motivated reasoning is a pretty normal thing. It's a bad thing, but its an ordinary part of the process. That's different to denial. Right now a remarkably large share of Republican voters are claiming they don't know if Daniels and Clinton had sex. They hear that Trump's lawyer and bagman Michael Cohen wrote up an NDA for Daniels to not talk about sex with Trump and paid her $130,000, which Cohen now says he did despite Daniels account being a lie, and without the knowledge of Trump. And ridiculously they believe this account, or think it might be true, or they don't even hear about it at all because they've put up walls of ignorance.
That's a very different thing to rationalising. There's limits to rationalising, the arguments will only stretch so far. But when you just straight up pretend facts are different to what they are, or just refuse to learn the pertinent facts, well there's no limit to how far that can take a person, even to the point of pretending Trump is an okay president.
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whembly wrote: What Mueller *can* do is issue a report, which must be released to the public, that makes it clear his “subject” (ie, the President) crossed legal lines...
Which may be released to the public. Mueller submits his report to DoJ. Either the house or the president can choose to release it, but neither has to.
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Wolfblade wrote: Also, what do mean "a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted"? A crime is a crime, and the only limit is probably how much embarrassment the US is willing to suffer by indicting a president. The only protection afford appears to be that they cannot be impeached then tried for the same crime. However, they can be impeached for one crime, then tried for another after they have left office.
It's debatable, but most constitutional scholars will argue that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Like so much in the constitution, the argument is implicit, there's nothing saying it in plain black and white, but in reading through the work in its entirety the intent of the framers was that a president should be impeached and once removed from office, then criminal proceedings could begin, or else criminal charges would have to wait until his presidency concluded.
However, while that's the majority opinion it isn't the only opinion. A minority of constitutional scholars argue there's no such restriction, and when any other elected official can be indicted while in office, you can't just read between the lines to grant that protection to the president.
End of the day, it's never been tested in a court of law, and it probably won't ever be tested, because if you have a criminal conviction against a president you don't want to squander that by losing a precedent on a technical, procedural point of law. It's simply smarter to make the charge known and pressure congress in to impeachment.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2018/04/05 06:19:38
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Trump having an affair with a porn star is, IMO, literally the least odious thing he's done. That's between him and Melania in my book, and I suspect she might have known a dude who has been married like 5 times and cheated on every single one of them might have a problem with fidelity. The truth is probably literally no1curr.
I don't think anyone serious gets punished for breaking campaign finance law though, no matter how ridiculous it was. I fail to see the whole thing going anywhere except perhaps his lawyer losing his license or something like that.
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
Ouze wrote: Trump having an affair with a porn star is, IMO, literally the least odious thing he's done. That's between him and Melania in my book, and I suspect she might have known a dude who has been married like 5 times and cheated on every single one of them might have a problem with fidelity. The truth is probably literally no1curr.
I don't think anyone serious gets punished for breaking campaign finance law though, no matter how ridiculous it was. I fail to see the whole thing going anywhere except perhaps his lawyer losing his license or something like that.
Melania certainly went in knowing the deal. I agree it'd be hard for anyone to pretend to be offended on her behalf.
I think the reason no-one serious gets caught breaking campaign finance laws is because everyone serious is normally smart enough to walk through any one of the countless enormous loopholes in the system. Dinesh D'Souza got caught and did federal time because he's an idiot. All it takes to avoid breaches of campaign finance is to be smarter than Dinesh D'Souza, and that's just about everyone on the planet.
But Michael Cohen's position is a bit different, the circumstances were so specific there really wasn't a way to slip through. I mean, Michael Cohen is also an idiot, because he used his own name to create the shell company meant to hide the transaction. The reason you go to Delaware to set up these shell companies is because you don't have to use your real name, and that's how he got caught, but it's also besides the point of the actual financing breach. While Cohen's breach is really technical, it's one that the circumstances meant he couldn't actually avoid it, even if he was clever. If Cohen makes the payment with Trump's knowledge, to Trump's benefit, then it has to be declared. There's really no way to make a payment so directly connected to the president and not declare it.
So its a breach, but is that really the kind of rule that people think is holding the Republic together? When Trump was a candidate, there was a lot of justified concern about attacks on the free press, and about trading US wealth for personal profit, and the terrible things Trump as a candidate and Trump as a president would mean. But no-one was saying 'oh no with Trump as a candidate we may see payments made by Trump affiliates that directly benefit Trump and his campaign that are undeclared'. It's a pretty weird, technical breach of financing laws.
But because they want to get Trump on something, and because people want to keep embarrassing Trump over his weird sex stuff, people pretend the breach is a very serious, grave matter.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/05 07:21:25
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
It does seem like the severity of the matter with Stormy has been enlarged. But I would say it's a case with hard evidence. Or maybe this is just anti-Trumpers getting a bone thrown into their lap and dancing about it. Hopefully the future will be more revealing on the matter.
I try to avoid posting in this thread unless there is something pertinent to post. I tried to voice opinion in the last one, and it was declared "wrong". But this time, there are fact in dispute.
sebster wrote:In contrast, Jeb Bush is the establishment of his party, he's as sensible as it gets, and after him it starts getting crazier.
The most sensible Republicans are as bad as the most ridiculous Democrats. That's the simple reality of US politics right now.
Jeb Bush and the rest of the Bushes are progressive Republicans. They are as far from the establishment as Ted Cruz is, but in the opposite direction. Jeb Bush was basically two social issues and a donkey away from being a moderate Democrat. NOBODY on the right views Bush as party establishment. They viewed him as more palatable than Trump, which is the only reason they were throwing him in the ring. In the end, Bush's message was far too close to Clinton's message, which shows how left of GOP sentiment he really was.
sebster wrote:Hillary Clinton is a flawed politician in a lot of ways, I think everyone knows I think she was okayish and nothing more than that - I'm no Hillary booster. But claiming she was crazy is utterly ridiculous. Clinton, for good and for bad, was a centrist campaigner fixated on the nuts and bolts practicality of policy, her defining principal was the one key thing she gave her husband during his term 'the politics of the practical'. But you claimed she was crazy, just to gak on an actual discussion about the real and important differences between the two political parties.
I've said it in other forums/media, I'll say it here. Just because the left has moved as a whole further left doesn't redefine the center. The center is still the center. THAT is the crux of the issue. You barely see ANY truly centrist politicians anymore. There are notable exceptions, as the last tightly fought race where you had a centrist Democrat beat a centrist Republican, but it is FAR from the norm. Regardless, left is left. Renaming it because you want to make the other party seem farther shifted does not change the left to center. Never will.
Just Tony wrote: Jeb Bush and the rest of the Bushes are progressive Republicans. They are as far from the establishment as Ted Cruz is, but in the opposite direction.
You don't know what establishment means. It isn't a synonym for the centre of the party, as you've mistakenly assumed. The establishment are, incredibly, the guys who are most established in the system. The guys who have broadest and deepest connections within the party, and to the network of political and moneyed interests surrounding the party. Jeb Bush comes from a family of two former presidents, and the guy raised $100m before the primaries even started. Claiming Jeb Bush isn't establishment is an act of pure political ignorance.
I've said it in other forums/media, I'll say it here. Just because the left has moved as a whole further left doesn't redefine the center. The center is still the center. THAT is the crux of the issue. You barely see ANY truly centrist politicians anymore. There are notable exceptions, as the last tightly fought race where you had a centrist Democrat beat a centrist Republican, but it is FAR from the norm. Regardless, left is left. Renaming it because you want to make the other party seem farther shifted does not change the left to center. Never will.
Claiming the Democrats have moved, while leaving quiet any mention of a Republican move, is a dishonest framing and one that also has some real factual issues. But I'll leave that alone because it's utterly irrelevant to the question of Clinton's positioning.
It's a mistake, and to be fair you're far from the first to make it, to think the centre is defined just taking the far left, drawing a line to far right, and then plonking a spot in the middle and calling that the center. An approach that simple results in the center moving any time either fringe decides to get a little more or a little less radical.
Instead, the center is an approach to forming policy not based on ideology or factional loyalty, but based on an analysis of the facts, with an expectation that almost all the time the preferred solution will be found within the bounds of moderate proposals held by the two sides. This describes Clinton's approach exactly. Now, given her preferred option fell left of centre most of the time then 'center left' can be used, but that's got its own issues as well. But however we slice and dice those fine degrees, the reality remains that whembly's attempt to call Clinton a political whackadoo equivalent to Ben Carson or Rick Santorum was absolutely ridiculous nonsense.
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A Town Called Malus wrote: The left hasn't moved much further left, the right has moved miles further to the right.
The left hadn't, but there were signs of it coming in 2016. Clinton's failure to identify this and throw it a bone or two is basically the opening that Sanders came crashing through. Then Trump won and the left has begun a radicalisation that's still nothing like what Republicans did from roughly 1996 to 2016, but there's every sign they're going to start catching up. There will be 2020 primary candidates talking about universal healthcare as a must, it might even be a majority of the field. Gun control is being discussed openly, actual proposals are being discussed without any regard for how it might upset the gun rights movement. Democrats are now talking about spending priorities without feeling like it needs to come attached with a list of offsetting spending reductions or tax increases, as if they have to be the only adults who talk about how stuff actually gets paid for.
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“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
My wife has been out there every day this week. She's a therapist at one of the elementary schools here, so she's supporting the teachers.
The teachers union has been asking for a raise for teachers, support staff, and more importantly adequate funding for the schools themselves. The legislature passed a partial raise for teachers, and no additional funding for schools. And they also don't have the actual funding to pay for the raise, and after raising taxes for the first time in a couple decades to partially fund it, they are already scheduled to repeal some of those taxes before they ever come into effect. So teachers are on strike since Monday. Yesterday the House found out that most teachers only have shuttles available until 3pm, so they scheduled their session to start at 3pm thinking they would just wait for teachers to leave. My wife's school, and many others, simply moved the shuttles around and still ended up filling the capitol.
Yesterday Governor Fallin said that Teachers wanting more funding for schools are "acting like teenagers wanting a better car". So I made my wife a new sign for today:
So far our legislature has claimed that teachers have given death threats to them or their staff (Oklahoma City PD and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol did not receive any notification of any threats). The legislators then claimed "outside" agitators from Chicago and Antifa, which surprised no one.
It did result in "Antifa? No, AntiFallin!" signs though, so there's that.
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
It's a mistake, and to be fair you're far from the first to make it, to think the centre is defined just taking the far left, drawing a line to far right, and then plonking a spot in the middle and calling that the center. An approach that simple results in the center moving any time either fringe decides to get a little more or a little less radical.
Instead, the center is an approach to forming policy not based on ideology or factional loyalty, but based on an analysis of the facts, with an expectation that almost all the time the preferred solution will be found within the bounds of moderate proposals held by the two sides. This describes Clinton's approach exactly. Now, given her preferred option fell left of centre most of the time then 'center left' can be used, but that's got its own issues as well. But however we slice and dice those fine degrees, the reality remains that whembly's attempt to call Clinton a political whackadoo equivalent to Ben Carson or Rick Santorum was absolutely ridiculous nonsense.
Not quite, the center has an ideological basis itself. It's the ideology of the status quo that we take for granted and dont see as an ideology because of that.
My apologies if the website is not considered a reliable one, I've personally never heard of Alternet before. But the article is full of links to the videos, tweets, etc., which are the sources for much of the material.
"Through the darkness of future past, the magician longs to see.
One chants out between two worlds: Fire, walk with me." - Twin Peaks
"You listen to me. While I will admit to a certain cynicism, the fact is that I am a naysayer and hatchetman in the fight against violence. I pride myself in taking a punch and I'll gladly take another because I choose to live my life in the company of Gandhi and King. My concerns are global. I reject absolutely revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method... is love. I love you Sheriff Truman." - Twin Peaks
My wife isn't even a teacher, she's considered support staff. She is a therapist for a program that keeps grade school kids from getting kicked out of school, and 10 kids spend half a day in her classroom (really a therapy room) for group therapy and training and then they spend half a day in a regular classroom while she works with the other 10 kids.
Even as a non-teacher with a very small group, we spend over $1,000 out of pocket each school year for supplies, classroom equipment, and snacks for kids.
I've been reading a bit about the problems the teachers in Oklahoma are going through. Seriously, this is one of the reasons why we need a federal government that can step in and provide the needed assistance when a state so totally fails like this.
My wife has been out there every day this week. She's a therapist at one of the elementary schools here, so she's supporting the teachers.
The teachers union has been asking for a raise for teachers, support staff, and more importantly adequate funding for the schools themselves. The legislature passed a partial raise for teachers, and no additional funding for schools. And they also don't have the actual funding to pay for the raise, and after raising taxes for the first time in a couple decades to partially fund it, they are already scheduled to repeal some of those taxes before they ever come into effect. So teachers are on strike since Monday. Yesterday the House found out that most teachers only have shuttles available until 3pm, so they scheduled their session to start at 3pm thinking they would just wait for teachers to leave. My wife's school, and many others, simply moved the shuttles around and still ended up filling the capitol.
Yesterday Governor Fallin said that Teachers wanting more funding for schools are "acting like teenagers wanting a better car". So I made my wife a new sign for today:
So far our legislature has claimed that teachers have given death threats to them or their staff (Oklahoma City PD and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol did not receive any notification of any threats). The legislators then claimed "outside" agitators from Chicago and Antifa, which surprised no one.
It did result in "Antifa? No, AntiFallin!" signs though, so there's that.
Just Tony wrote: Jeb Bush and the rest of the Bushes are progressive Republicans. They are as far from the establishment as Ted Cruz is, but in the opposite direction.
You don't know what establishment means. It isn't a synonym for the centre of the party, as you've mistakenly assumed. The establishment are, incredibly, the guys who are most established in the system. The guys who have broadest and deepest connections within the party, and to the network of political and moneyed interests surrounding the party. Jeb Bush comes from a family of two former presidents, and the guy raised $100m before the primaries even started. Claiming Jeb Bush isn't establishment is an act of pure political ignorance.
I've said it in other forums/media, I'll say it here. Just because the left has moved as a whole further left doesn't redefine the center. The center is still the center. THAT is the crux of the issue. You barely see ANY truly centrist politicians anymore. There are notable exceptions, as the last tightly fought race where you had a centrist Democrat beat a centrist Republican, but it is FAR from the norm. Regardless, left is left. Renaming it because you want to make the other party seem farther shifted does not change the left to center. Never will.
Claiming the Democrats have moved, while leaving quiet any mention of a Republican move, is a dishonest framing and one that also has some real factual issues. But I'll leave that alone because it's utterly irrelevant to the question of Clinton's positioning.
It's a mistake, and to be fair you're far from the first to make it, to think the centre is defined just taking the far left, drawing a line to far right, and then plonking a spot in the middle and calling that the center. An approach that simple results in the center moving any time either fringe decides to get a little more or a little less radical.
Instead, the center is an approach to forming policy not based on ideology or factional loyalty, but based on an analysis of the facts, with an expectation that almost all the time the preferred solution will be found within the bounds of moderate proposals held by the two sides. This describes Clinton's approach exactly. Now, given her preferred option fell left of centre most of the time then 'center left' can be used, but that's got its own issues as well. But however we slice and dice those fine degrees, the reality remains that whembly's attempt to call Clinton a political whackadoo equivalent to Ben Carson or Rick Santorum was absolutely ridiculous nonsense.
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A Town Called Malus wrote: The left hasn't moved much further left, the right has moved miles further to the right.
The left hadn't, but there were signs of it coming in 2016. Clinton's failure to identify this and throw it a bone or two is basically the opening that Sanders came crashing through. Then Trump won and the left has begun a radicalisation that's still nothing like what Republicans did from roughly 1996 to 2016, but there's every sign they're going to start catching up. There will be 2020 primary candidates talking about universal healthcare as a must, it might even be a majority of the field. Gun control is being discussed openly, actual proposals are being discussed without any regard for how it might upset the gun rights movement. Democrats are now talking about spending priorities without feeling like it needs to come attached with a list of offsetting spending reductions or tax increases, as if they have to be the only adults who talk about how stuff actually gets paid for.
Before we go and act like Republicans were the only ones becoming more radical in their views pre-2016 lets at least look at a study from a 3rd party source, and i think that a PEW study is about as independent as it gets.
Based on the graph near the top of the page it seems like the median Democrat and median Republican were fairly close in their views, but between 4994 and 2004 the views between the medians were shifting with the democrats as a whole shifting farther left. When the study was finished in 2014 both parties were far more extreme in their views compared to 2014 with slightly more Democrats to the left of median Republican (94%) compared to Republicans that were right of the median Democrat (92%). In conclusion, both parties have become more extreme and it started far before 2016. In one way that the Republicans have become more extreme than the Democrats though is their view on the other party. Based on the study above 36% of Republicans believe that the Democrats are a threat to the nation compared to 27% the other way around. I think that mainly comes from echo chambers which conservatives are probably more likely to be prey to due to their predisposition to be more wary of new ideas compared to liberals.
A more honest title would have been "Ann Coulter: We Used to Care About Ann Coulter"
Sorry for my spelling. I'm not a native speaker and a dyslexic.
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DrGiggles wrote: Before we go and act like Republicans were the only ones becoming more radical in their views pre-2016 lets at least look at a study from a 3rd party source, and i think that a PEW study is about as independent as it gets.
Based on the graph near the top of the page it seems like the median Democrat and median Republican were fairly close in their views, but between 4994 and 2004 the views between the medians were shifting with the democrats as a whole shifting farther left. When the study was finished in 2014 both parties were far more extreme in their views compared to 2014 with slightly more Democrats to the left of median Republican (94%) compared to Republicans that were right of the median Democrat (92%). In conclusion, both parties have become more extreme and it started far before 2016. In one way that the Republicans have become more extreme than the Democrats though is their view on the other party. Based on the study above 36% of Republicans believe that the Democrats are a threat to the nation compared to 27% the other way around. I think that mainly comes from echo chambers which conservatives are probably more likely to be prey to due to their predisposition to be more wary of new ideas compared to liberals.
Polarization is not radicalization. Your link shows that the two parties are farther from each other, but it doesn't show how far each side is from a theoretical center. IOW, these two situations give exactly the same numbers (using Republican, Democrat, Center)
R---------------C---------------D
R---------------------------C---D
And both would show the same increase in polarization compared to this:
R----C----D
or
R--C------D
Because those numbers in the article are removing the reference point, and all they show you is this:
R------------------------------D
It's clearly more polarized than this:
R--------D
But without the reference point you can't tell the difference between both parties moving an equal distance away from the center and one party staying where it is while the other party goes off the deep end. Obviously that's something you can't quantify the same way, but you can sure look at where the parties compare to other countries. And when we do that we see that the democrats mostly line up with centrist positions in other "western" democracies. It's really hard to make a case for the democrats being off the deep end extremists when they'd be a pretty centrist party if you moved them just across the border into Canada. The republican party, on the other hand, has gone very far to the right, to the point that major republican figures from previous generations are saying "I don't recognize this party anymore". The mainstream platform of the party is embracing far-right policies on economics, climate change, Christian theocracy, etc, that range from questionable to blatantly against facts. Their primary debates in 2016 had their mainstream candidates competing to see who could advocate the most extreme border security option, while civil engineers said "WTF no, building a wall is not realistic" and practically excommunicating the one candidate who said "I hate illegal immigration, but we need realistic solutions". And the fringe of the party now welcomes in raving lunatics like Ben "the pyramids were ancient grain silos" Carson or Rick "gay sex act" Santorum, while even Alex ing Jones is being treated like he has something to say. Put this dumpster fire of a party in any similar country and they'd be fringe extremists at best.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/05 15:20:37
There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices.
It is worth considering the positions of Democrat and Republican supporter relative to the population as whole including non-aligned voters, or indepednents or floating voteres, whatever you llike to call them. After all, there are far many more of these people that there are registered party members.
In this respect, society as a whole has moved to the left, for example on gun control, immigration, LGBT rights, and so on. Thus from a relative point of view, it's Republicans who have moved to the right.
whembly wrote: Not really... unless Mueller puts Trump under oath...then hella yeah.
Okay, I'll explain it with more words. Just it was repeatedly said in the 90s that it wasn't about Clinton having sex, it was about him perjuring himself to cover it up, now we hear people saying that it isn't about Trump having sex, it's about the $130k payment made being a breach of campaign financing laws. In both cases you have a tawdry even that gets everyone's attention, and a technical breach of the law. People push a case forward on the technical breach, but the real drive is about catching someone else having sex, and getting at a political enemy.
Okay... very good point.
I cherry picked that because I thought it was pretty insightful.
If that's me not agreeing with you... then, I don't know what's going on here.
Self-motivated reasoning is a pretty normal thing. It's a bad thing, but its an ordinary part of the process. That's different to denial. Right now a remarkably large share of Republican voters are claiming they don't know if Daniels and Clinton had sex. They hear that Trump's lawyer and bagman Michael Cohen wrote up an NDA for Daniels to not talk about sex with Trump and paid her $130,000, which Cohen now says he did despite Daniels account being a lie, and without the knowledge of Trump. And ridiculously they believe this account, or think it might be true, or they don't even hear about it at all because they've put up walls of ignorance.
That's a very different thing to rationalising. There's limits to rationalising, the arguments will only stretch so far. But when you just straight up pretend facts are different to what they are, or just refuse to learn the pertinent facts, well there's no limit to how far that can take a person, even to the point of pretending Trump is an okay president.
My read is that the Trump supporters do believe he did have sex with Daniels and simply choose to not care. (my grandpa laughs at this remembering the adoration JFK got for his philandering)That's different than denial.
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whembly wrote: What Mueller *can* do is issue a report, which must be released to the public, that makes it clear his “subject” (ie, the President) crossed legal lines...
Which may be released to the public. Mueller submits his report to DoJ. Either the house or the president can choose to release it, but neither has to.
...I did some research and you may be right... I thought the special counsel regulation required public disclosure... but I can't find where I read that.
That would be very disturbing if the DOJ doesn't publish it.
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Wolfblade wrote: Also, what do mean "a sitting president cannot constitutionally be indicted"? A crime is a crime, and the only limit is probably how much embarrassment the US is willing to suffer by indicting a president. The only protection afford appears to be that they cannot be impeached then tried for the same crime. However, they can be impeached for one crime, then tried for another after they have left office.
It's debatable, but most constitutional scholars will argue that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Like so much in the constitution, the argument is implicit, there's nothing saying it in plain black and white, but in reading through the work in its entirety the intent of the framers was that a president should be impeached and once removed from office, then criminal proceedings could begin, or else criminal charges would have to wait until his presidency concluded.
However, while that's the majority opinion it isn't the only opinion. A minority of constitutional scholars argue there's no such restriction, and when any other elected official can be indicted while in office, you can't just read between the lines to grant that protection to the president.
End of the day, it's never been tested in a court of law, and it probably won't ever be tested, because if you have a criminal conviction against a president you don't want to squander that by losing a precedent on a technical, procedural point of law. It's simply smarter to make the charge known and pressure congress in to impeachment.
So...anyone wanna take bets on how long Pruitt is going to last? I'm putting the over/under at next friday.
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To be fair, Trump has really liked other people that got the boot too. Pruitt's right hand person who has been with him through everything he's done for years resigned today unexpectedly, and he's facing multiple different scandals.
We shall see what happens I suppose
IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.
New Heavy Gear Log! Also...Grey Knights! The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.
Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
We were once so close to heaven, St. Peter came out and gave us medals; declaring us "The nicest of the damned".
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
It's a mistake, and to be fair you're far from the first to make it, to think the centre is defined just taking the far left, drawing a line to far right, and then plonking a spot in the middle and calling that the center. An approach that simple results in the center moving any time either fringe decides to get a little more or a little less radical.
Instead, the center is an approach to forming policy not based on ideology or factional loyalty, but based on an analysis of the facts, with an expectation that almost all the time the preferred solution will be found within the bounds of moderate proposals held by the two sides. This describes Clinton's approach exactly. Now, given her preferred option fell left of centre most of the time then 'center left' can be used, but that's got its own issues as well. But however we slice and dice those fine degrees, the reality remains that whembly's attempt to call Clinton a political whackadoo equivalent to Ben Carson or Rick Santorum was absolutely ridiculous nonsense.
Not quite, the center has an ideological basis itself. It's the ideology of the status quo that we take for granted and dont see as an ideology because of that.
Yes, the idea that "The Center" is the most rational, reasonable and well-educated faction is masturbatory nonsense. It's the kind of thing that only appeals to people who have watched too much of The West Wing. Never mind that attempting to form policy "not based on ideology" is pointless because it inevitably results in policy without goals. If a decision on how things should be ordered doesn't have a vision of a better society behind it then any changes will be meaningless. Talk about nihilism.
feeder wrote: Speaking of which, how common is this Survivor: White House scenario that has been playing out? More than 50% of the staff that started this admin are now gone. Is this unprecedented (unpresidented? )
Pretty sure it's the highest turnover rate for the WH, and probably has more people kicked out than the last 20 presidents combined at least. (But it's ok, Trump only hires the BEST right?)
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