Politics As Usual

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Wanting to have a choice doesn't mean that more choices still is necessarily good. Think about the shape of the Laffer Curve. Otherwise you'd just use the telephone book as a ballot (or, if the Republicans had their way, the Yellow Pages). Though I agree that there is a certain weird parallel here to events in Minnesota and Missouri, inasmuch as Nader looks and sounds like he's dead.

So you feel that having one D and one R is enough choice. Of course if the D starts collecting some bad baggage you should be able to switch. but we don't need more competition. Seems to me that you'd get Bill Gates on board if you'd just articulate this "1 choice is enough choice" position as a platform plank.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
So you feel that having one D and one R is enough choice. Of course if the D starts collecting some bad baggage you should be able to switch. but we don't need more competition. Seems to me that you'd get Bill Gates on board if you'd just articulate this "1 choice is enough choice" position as a platform plank.

Dying in a fiery airplane crash is not "collecting some bad baggage." You seem to be a little unclear about exactly what happened to Senator Wellstone.

And one choice is not really a choice, is it? A little conundrum for you to think about.

[Gattigap]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
isn't it pretty to think so....

I invented that.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Dying in a fiery airplane crash is not "collecting some bad baggage." You seem to be a little unclear about exactly what happened to Senator Wellstone.

Senator Wellstone's baggage is between him and St. Peter. I was refering to NJ. I guess with as many races as you guys have tried to fuck with, I can't just make a subtle reference. I will be more specific as to which criminal acts I refer in the future.

And one choice is not really a choice, is it? A little conundrum for you to think about.

better to ask, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Gattigap
I invented that.

Fuck. Really? I paid Atticus a 20$ fee for the right. :bang: :liar:

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Senator Wellstone's baggage is between him and St. Peter. I was refering to NJ. I guess with as many races as you guys have tried to fuck with, I can't just make a subtle reference. I will be more specific as to which criminal acts I refer in the future.

Since you have agreed that we are talking about whether a dead man should be on the ballot, the relevant precedents are MN and MO, and the answer is "no." But thanks for playing.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Since you have agreed that we are talking about whether a dead man should be on the ballot, the relevant precedents are MN and MO, and the answer is "no." But thanks for playing.

You have no idea how close you are to the truth! But the truth circa 1960. that was the last time a Dem candidate actually had something to offer. he was mobbed up, and those mob connections let him steal the election. but times have changed...witness Daley's spawn failed to follow dad when he couldn't steal the 2000 election.
But I digress. ty's right. Back in the day Nader would be dead, and Pocelli or whatever his name was would have died to. ty is correct, just not for today is all.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
You have no idea how close you are to the truth! But the truth circa 1960. that was the last time a Dem candidate actually had something to offer. he was mobbed up, and those mob connections let him steal the election. but times have changed...witness Daley's spawn failed to follow dad when he couldn't steal the 2000 election.
But I digress. ty's right. Back in the day Nader would be dead, and Pocelli or whatever his name was would have died to. ty is correct, just not for today is all.

I have a thoery on what Rove did after the election. I'm sure its not in writing, but my impression is that Chicago and a few other cities that did things like bus public housing residents to the polls are getting killed in this economic environment. I think the others were in maybe Ohio and PA. My impression is that they are getting far less a proportion of federal money for things like homeland security grants than are other cities. Which is to say, more directly, I seem to recall that Daley and a few other dems did their best to skew the results (his brother was Gore's campaign chairman goshdarnit), and Rove is making their constituencies pay for the mistakes of their idiot leaders.

On another note, did anyone else note the timing of Daley's departure from SBC a week before their unions announced a strike? People at SBC sure did. Someone doesn't want to sabotage their political name by being on the wrong side of unions. He he he.

Hello

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Club, I'm kinda worried that your're running out of time and you have a big job ahead of you, so I'm going to give you little help. Here's a post from Matthew Yglesias's blog -- it sounds like other people have been having a similar conversation. (I'm not recreating the links, but if you want to see them you can go to his post [url=http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/]here[/i].)

Originally posted elsewhere by Matthew Yglesias
Get Rid of All The Discretionary Spending
Brian Doss tries to defend Jacob Levy's odd math. Let's recap the state of play. Jacob wants to close the gap between expenditures and revenues, currently running at around $500 billion. He also wants to privatize social security, which will cost $1 trilliion over a period of several years. He also wants to "get serious" about the war on terrorism and Middle East democracy promotion: Right now, the Iraq War is costing about $100 billion off-budget per year. Jim Turner proposed democratization initiative has an $11 billion per year price tag, which probably isn't enough, but we'll stick with that. And Jacob also wants to see taxes cut further. I contend that this could only be achieved by dismembering Medicare.

Brian's thought is that this is wrong, and we could achieve our savings through the 33% of the budget dedicated to domestic discretionary spending. This, as Steve Verdon writes is around $424 billion per year. So if we just eliminated that, we would still be left with a $76 billion deficit, before Levy's new spending initiatives and new tax cuts. Let's also note that eliminating domestic discretionary spending is not exactly consistent with getting serious about terrorism, since that figure includes all of our homeland security spending. It also includes the money to do such minor things as keep the electricity on in the White House and other government buildings. FBI? Gone. Indeed, all federal law enforcement agencies would be gone, along with all federal prosecutors and all federal judges. All federal regulations whatsoever would be unenforceable without money to pay the salaries of the regulators. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of wedded to the idea that someone is watching our nuclear waste and making sure the plants don't melt down. Eliminating national parks strikes me as a good idea, but a good libertarian would favor turning those into private fee-for-service enterprises, so I won't complain. Much federal highway spending is wasteful, but not spending anything on our highways doesn't seem like a very good idea, either. I could go on.

The point is that even if you did this, you would not close the budget deficit, much less make room for new spending on SS privatization or military and foreign affairs (indeed, you would have to close all the embassies, since Steve includes the foreign operations budget in his "other" category) much less tax cuts. Eliminating federal education spending, moreover, would, as I indicated in the original post, make federal vouchers policy a bit superfluous. It can't be done like this. If you want even less revenue than we have now and you want a balanced budget, you need to cut defense spending and Medicare -- pretty drastically -- both of which are projected to grow a great deal according to current estimates of our national needs.

[Say_hello_for_me]

What is the deal with this idiot? After the Abu Ghraib scandal unfolded on her watch, she was removed from command and disclaimed any responsibility. Personally, I think her and several of her immediate subordinates should be court martialed and dishonorably discharged.

And now she tells the BBC she ran into an Israeli interrogator (b/c he said, I'm not an Arab, I was born in Israel or something).

I don't think the answer to the following question will depend on your political viewpoints. What would you do to punish her, if anything, for Abu Ghraib and, now more directly, for her conversation with the BBC (whether her information is correct or not)?

Hello

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
What is the deal with this idiot? After the Abu Ghraib scandal unfolded on her watch, she was removed from command and disclaimed any responsibility. Personally, I think her and several of her immediate subordinates should be court martialed and dishonorably discharged.

And now she tells the BBC she ran into an Israeli interrogator (b/c he said, I'm not an Arab, I was born in Israel or something).

I don't think the answer to the following question will depend on your political viewpoints. What would you do to punish her, if anything, for Abu Ghraib and, now more directly, for her conversation with the BBC (whether her information is correct or not)?

Hello

This is not a defense of her, but if there wasn't a sense that she is being scapegoated for the actions of her seniors, people would be much harder on her.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
I can't read Ty's blogs and the truth. you read Ty's quote. It didn't sound like she blamed those bombings on Iraq?

to put it in terms you might understand, Dems can't be trusted with power during a period like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Everyone might think it was okay you were in charge during the Hobbit, but you all were ignoring gathering dark forces as it turned out. See?

This is a movie reference, right?

[Skeks in the city]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
What would you do to punish her, if anything, for Abu Ghraib and, now more directly, for her conversation with the BBC (whether her information is correct or not)?

Nothing, she didn't treat prisoners any worse than Slave treated pledges in his frat -- at least as Shifty tells it.

[ltl/fb]

How long do flags stay at half-mast for a dead president?

[the Spartan]

Originally posted by Skeks in the city
Nothing, she didn't treat prisoners any worse than Slave treated pledges in his frat -- at least as Shifty tells it.

So Lyndie Englund didn't give reacharounds either?