Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

[LynahFan]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

right now a gay man and a straight man have the exact same "right" to marry a woman.

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Men and women don't have rights - citizens do. We don't believe that only men have the right to own property or to vote. Why would we believe that only men have the right to marry women?

[Kepler]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

The rationale for the gov't subsidizing marriage is that it perpetuates the continuation of that society. I've got no problem with the gov't purely going to cival unions, but right now a gay man and a straight man have the exact same "right" to marry a woman.

Sure, but if the break exists as a recognition of the value of raising kids, then gay or straight has zero to do with it, as both can raise families. A gay couple who raise an adopted child together are certainly doing more for society than some straight male playing Johnny Appleseed and then bolting.

If the purpose of the tax break is about giving birth to kids, then marriage or single has nothing to do with it, and in fact the males should have nothing to do with it legally (they're fungibles); it should be extended to the mother, whatever her marital status or orientation, as a fee for service.

[MinnFan]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Men and women don't have rights - citizens do. We don't believe that only men have the right to own property or to vote. Why would we believe that only men have the right to marry women?

Cool, then the progressive income tax is unconstitutional since it treats citizens differently.

The reason it is constitutional is because it treats people in the same circumstance in the same manner. That is the legal standard. Hence, if you make the same amount of money you are taxed at the same amount. Just like if you are a woman you can marry a man.

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

It's very possible the economy won't see a major improvement or decline prior to the election.

Hmm...I see that Pres Obama is trying to evade a law that Sen Obama voted for: 60-day notice of layoffs. Under the budget sequestration rules, unless a budget compromise is reached, layoffs will have to start, and the notices by law would have to be sent to those affected....in the week before the election! He's now trying to find a way to wriggle out of the law that he himself voted for.

My browser and the wsj website are feuding for some reason and so I can't post the link.

[bronconick]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Hmm...I see that Pres Obama is trying to evade a law that Sen Obama voted for: 60-day notice of layoffs. Under the budget sequestration rules, unless a budget compromise is reached, layoffs will have to start, and the notices by law would have to be sent to those affected....in the week before the election! He's now trying to find a way to wriggle out of the law that he himself voted for.

My browser and the wsj website are feuding for some reason and so I can't post the link.

Probably because of this. No one wants to guess at who gets blamed if they shut down again, so they quietly agreed to push it off until next March.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/01/us...ding.html?_r=1

[LynahFan]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Cool, then the progressive income tax is unconstitutional since it treats citizens differently.

The reason it is constitutional is because it treats people in the same circumstance in the same manner. That is the legal standard. Hence, if you make the same amount of money you are taxed at the same amount. Just like if you are a woman you can marry a man.

Your last sentence makes no sense to me and doesn't follow from your argument.

The progressive tax treats everyone the same, in that everyone's first $6k of income is taxed at 0%, everyone's next $31k are taxed at 12.6%, etc. I see no way to draw any analogy to marriage out of that.

[Bob Gray]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Men and women don't have rights - citizens do. We don't believe that only men have the right to own property or to vote. Why would we believe that only men have the right to marry women?

So men and women have equal say over reproductive decisions over the baby they conceived together. Check. I'll give you credit though, that's one of the more imaginative lines of thinking I've seen in awhile to justify the agenda you're pushing.

[Bill]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Agree with this.

And in the absence of real numbers, it will come down to perception which is why both campaigns are hyperactively trying to out-frame one another right now. The ads during the Olympics have been a hoot (living next to a battleground state is fun).

I think today was a tiny "victory" for Obama because the whole Echo Chamber was ginned up to ream him if we had had another flat quarter. But that victory won't even last past dinnertime -- by then the next gaffe or accusation or handler's comment will have seized the media magpie's attention.

I'm surprised the Obama people haven't run ads about this. During the 2008 campaign every Republican hack was squealing that Obama would give us double digit inflation. The current inflation rate is 1.7 percent.

OK, but we all know the official CPI rate is designed to make things look better than they are (for both parties). Leaving the prices for food and fuel out of the CPI doesn't exactly reflect the real world reality that we have to live with. If food and fuel were added in, I suspect we'd be a lot closer to double digits. If the Fed keeps creating boatloads of new money and/or the dollar loses it's status as the world reserve currency, inflation will skyrocket eventually. There's no way the U.S. can pay off it's debt other than doing it with dollars that are increasingly worth less and less. The ethical way would be to default on the debt, but you know the politicians aren't going to do that; they'll try to inflate it away instead, which means instead of stiffing our creditors they'll stiff all of us through much higher prices for pretty much everything.

[Kepler]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Hmm...I see that Pres Obama is trying to evade a law that Sen Obama voted for: 60-day notice of layoffs. Under the budget sequestration rules, unless a budget compromise is reached, layoffs will have to start, and the notices by law would have to be sent to those affected....in the week before the election! He's now trying to find a way to wriggle out of the law that he himself voted for.

Try again. The GOP pushed back the 60-day notice after heavy pressure from defense contractors. My company sent us emails about this every other day telling us to call "representatives who are sensitive to the needs of the Warfighter." (cough)

[Bob Gray]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

OK, but we all know the official CPI rate is designed to make things look better than they are (for both parties). Leaving the prices for food and fuel out of the CPI doesn't exactly reflect the real world reality that we have to live with. If food and fuel were added in, I suspect we'd be a lot closer to double digits. If the Fed keeps creating boatloads of new money and/or the dollar loses it's status as the world reserve currency, inflation will skyrocket eventually. There's no way the U.S. can pay off it's debt other than doing it with dollars that are increasingly worth less and less. The ethical way would be to default on the debt, but you know the politicians aren't going to do that; they'll try to inflate it away instead, which means instead of stiffing our creditors they'll stiff all of us through much higher prices for pretty much everything.

Well said.

[Kepler]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

OK, but we all know the official CPI rate is designed to make things look better than they are (for both parties). Leaving the prices for food and fuel out of the CPI doesn't exactly reflect the real world reality that we have to live with. If food and fuel were added in, I suspect we'd be a lot closer to double digits.

Perhaps, but at the same time it's a metric designed for relative comparison. If you make predictions about unemployment based on U3 then you can't switch to U6 in the middle of the comparison. Same with this metric.

Bottom line is this is the most stable race for president I've ever seen, with basically zero movement in the polls since Romney locked up the nomination and the GOP gave out the "hold your noise and support him" OOTD.

I wonder if this is the first election where we will see no bump for either candidate coming out of the conventions.

[Kepler]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

I'm guessing the Obama camp thinks they've got some more salient points to drive home given how Romney's positioned himself.

I think it's more than you can't crow about inflation when any other economic indicator is bad, because you're opening yourself up to attacks for being out of touch.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

Try again. The GOP pushed back the 60-day notice after heavy pressure from defense contractors. My company sent us emails about this every other day telling us to call "representatives who are sensitive to the needs of the Warfighter." (cough)

You work for the military-industrial complex? How do you live with yourself?

[Kepler]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

You work for the military-industrial complex? How do you live with yourself?

Comfortably. Very comfortably.

[FreshFish]

Re: Elections 2012 -- Carrion My Wayward Son!

I think it's more than you can't crow about inflation when any other economic indicator is bad, because you're opening yourself up to attacks for being out of touch.

That might be the case....or it might be the case that a zinger of a response would be "well of course the inflation rate is low! with so many people out of jobs, what would you expect? no one has any money to buy anything with! [insert tragic heroic struggling everyman / everywoman face with personal story here]"

Maybe they've learned from past screwups that they better anticipate how the other side might respond, first, before they try to hang their hat on anything to do with the economy.


Their only winning plays are to distract people's attention to anything else but the economy, or to make Mitt Romney into a despicable felonious heinous monster in order to suppress overall turn out and keep the protest votes at home.