Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

[5mn_Major]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

You sound like the people at the Strib who always predict Minnesota may vote R in the coming election and are never even close to being right.

Strib had a poll saying that Romney was within 3% of Obama in the state right before the election. Even a GOP friend of mine was claiming Romney had a good chance here. I laughed and told him I was sure it was a ruse. Sure enough Romney dumped money into the state for a weekend...and Minnesota went on to be a solid blue yet again.

 

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

Again and again I tell you, and again and again you duck it: my concern is that she be a Democratic candidate. The old battle axe can pleasure herself with her brass knuckles and I won't care; she just needs to back the right policies (which it is Bernie and Liz' job to force her to do), choose the right nominees (which she hopefully will), and at a bare minimum keep the slime at AEI and out of power for another couple terms (which is why you have no worries about me and mine bolting).

Kep, please. I'm not "ducking it". I just think your position is ludicrous. Now doesn't that make you feel better? I read somewhere that Hillary was the 11th most liberal Senator when she was in office. That hardly makes her Joe Manchin.

Nobody is going to give you tax rates equivalent to Sweden, so you're bound to be perpetually disappointed in ANY Dem nominee. Where I would like to see Hillary make her mark regarding taxes is on corp giveaways (oil industry tax breaks to start), carried interest nonsense, and offshore tax shelters. All that is fairly simple to do with a Dem Congress and doesn't involve angering Wall St too much.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

Republican attitude in a nutshell. And we keep electing these clowns?

http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/07/news/economy/issa-poor/index.html?sr=fbmoney050715issa0230story

He's addressing those who receive gov't aid. In how many nations in the world do you see poor people who are also fat? In most countries, you're not going to see a lot of fat, poor people. The poor are struggling to put food on the table, but here we're concerned that they're eating too much high calorie, cheap food. We, along with a few other rich nations, have poor people who are fat and have some form of shelter. It's not a common situation for the world at large.

There are those that live on the streets, but those on the streets won't benefit from whatever social program gov't puts into place. They're generally rejecting society, either out of mental illness or some other situation. They mostly rely upon charitable shelters for their nightly housing, if they can find any or bother to seek out any.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

Nobody is going to give you tax rates equivalent to Sweden, so you're bound to be perpetually disappointed in ANY Dem nominee. Where I would like to see Hillary make her mark regarding taxes is on corp giveaways (oil industry tax breaks to start), carried interest nonsense, and offshore tax shelters. All that is fairly simple to do with a Dem Congress and doesn't involve angering Wall St too much.

"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones." As a start, by all means let's do all the things you list (though if you think Wall Street won't be "angered" you're crazy -- any effective measure will face bitter Wall Street opposition for every penny of lost profit).

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

He's addressing those who receive gov't aid. In how many nations in the world do you see poor people who are also fat? In most countries, you're not going to see a lot of fat, poor people. The poor are struggling to put food on the table, but here we're concerned that they're eating too much high calorie, cheap food. We, along with a few other rich nations, have poor people who are fat and have some form of shelter. It's not a common situation for the world at large.

There are those that live on the streets, but those on the streets won't benefit from whatever social program gov't puts into place. They're generally rejecting society, either out of mental illness or some other situation. They mostly rely upon charitable shelters for their nightly housing, if they can find any or bother to seek out any.

Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. What he will never address is the working poor. Or the complete destruction of the middle class his party is presiding over.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

There are those that live on the streets, but those on the streets won't benefit from whatever social program gov't puts into place.

I don't think this is true at all. My only experience with the homeless is in large cities and of course it's anecdotal, but there it is OVERWHELMINGLY mental illness and substance abuse, both of which are hellish ways to live. It isn't some La Boheme choice. Proper hospitalization and treatment would go a long, long way towards rehabilitating those who can be cured (which is likely a higher percentage than we think) and at least giving some measure of comfort and safety to those who can't be. Homelessness is one of the problems that can be fixed by throwing money at it: more hospital beds, more qualified medical staff, bigger treatment budgets, and once they are stable job training, job programs, and directly just buying them they're effing homes!

The opportunity cost of our plutocracy is that we underfund these programs. That money is going here instead. That's the society we've chosen to be since 1980, and its moral bankruptcy is finally driving us into actual bankruptcy.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

I don't think this is true at all. My only experience with the homeless is in large cities and of course it's anecdotal, but there it is OVERWHELMINGLY mental illness and substance abuse, both of which are hellish ways to live. It isn't some La Boheme choice. Proper hospitalization and treatment would go a long, long way towards rehabilitating those who can be cured (which is likely higher than we think) and at least giving some measure of comfort and safety to those who can't be. Homelessness is one of the problems that can be fixed by throwing money at it: more hospital beds, more qualified medical staff, bigger treatment budgets, and once they are stable job training, job programs, and directly just buying them they're effing homes!

The opportunity cost of our plutocracy is that we underfund these programs.

I completely agree that it's largely a mental illness and addiction issue, but you can't force people into treatment facilities if they're not endangering people. How many people have these services available to them but don't take advantage of them? Vets are a common sight amongst the homeless - both true vets and those merely claiming to be in order to angle for better handouts. The true vets have access to the VA; whether or not that's funded enough would go to your point (usually not funded as it should be).

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

I completely agree that it's largely a mental illness and addiction issue, but you can't force people into treatment facilities if they're not endangering people. How many people have these services available to them but don't take advantage of them? Vets are a common sight amongst the homeless - both true vets and those merely claiming to be in order to angle for better handouts. The true vets have access to the VA; whether or not that's funded enough would go to your point (usually not funded as it should be).

The VA is massively underfunded. Massively.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

I completely agree that it's largely a mental illness and addiction issue, but you can't force people into treatment facilities if they're not endangering people. How many people have these services available to them but don't take advantage of them? Vets are a common sight amongst the homeless - both true vets and those merely claiming to be in order to angle for better handouts. The true vets have access to the VA; whether or not that's funded enough would go to your point (usually not funded as it should be).

A couple things. First: other than people who have literally had a psychotic break, I don't think you've got to worry that people who are at risk from the elements and the predations of the violent (from strangers, cops, and each other) won't take a hand up. Second: I honestly can't understand why the first thought is always "what about the con artists?" As I've said before, I'm willing to tolerate a pretty high error of "unworthy" aid recipients to get the worthy their aid, rather than risk the error of the worthy not getting their aid so we can stick it to the frauds. I think the relative weight people place on these two risks literally distinguishes two basic personality types*. I'm sure you're as intellectually aware of my position as I am of yours, and that just as I can't climb into your head you can't climb into mine. I just think it's weird (being one type) that that is what you'd first think of (being the other type), rather than just making it an afterthought. It's like saying, "but if we turn the hoses on the fire, we'll ruin the carpet!" I am sure you could come up with a similar piquant metaphor for me.

* More and more I think "left" and "right" are, in some way, genuinely different at some structural level "below" ideas -- psychological, physiological, whatever brain chemistry counts as, etc. For once I don't mean that as a normative statement -- I'm not saying one side's smarter or better. It's not a huge difference, but more like one that affects people's intuitions or associations. You can probably reduce almost any assertion to a statement that has the possibility of both false positive and false negative errors, and it's as if "left" and "right" reduce to which of those errors one immediately starts to worry about. It would be ironic if after having spent the last several millenia trying to convince each other through logic and rhetoric, the reason we have the opinions we do turned out to be a handful of alleles buried in our cells.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

How to Lose Virginia. Step 1.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

Clownter is Coming.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

How to Lose Virginia. Step 1.

Losing, I'm not so sure. There are some real crazies in the mid-Atlantic that actually believe "throw more money at the problem" works, and they're on both sides of the aisle. A real solution would be to see where all of that gas tax money is actually going, because I bet a lot of it goes towards pet projects.

 

[Handyman]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

No, I understand how it works. And you could be right. But, I'm not taking any chances. We elected that Pawlenty clown and are still recovering from it.

Name your price, name your odds and name a time and I will bet you. There is (almost) zero chance this state votes GOP in the next election. It would take a Minnesotan at the top of the ticket, from Minneapolis, with a track record of being a centrist for it to even be an even money chance...

I get your bit, but come on Minneapolis controls where the electoral votes go and Minneapolis is as blue as it gets.

 

[Handyman]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

I won't blow a gasket, but typically what Politico "reports" is dubious. It's the Bleacher Report of political sites, which a sub-speciality of fellating Beltway conformists.

Use caution, Rover. The Inevitability Narrative is not good electioneering for Hillary. It emphasizes her worst characteristics (arrogance, establishment, Tracy Flick) and obscures her few virtues (gender pioneer, actually I can't think of any others).

No way she makes the same mistakes she made against Obama. She has been studying her mistakes for 8 years now they just need to download humanity and warmth into her cyborg brain and make it seem 1% sincere.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

Losing, I'm not so sure. There are some real crazies in the mid-Atlantic that actually believe "throw more money at the problem" works, and they're on both sides of the aisle. A real solution would be to see where all of that gas tax money is actually going, because I bet a lot of it goes towards pet projects.

I don't even understand the proposal. My best guess is this is a deliberately incendiary proposal to drive every Beltway commuter to threaten their local, state and federal rep with an auto-de-fé at Wolf Trap unless a real funding bill passes.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

No way she makes the same mistakes she made against Obama. She has been studying her mistakes for 8 years now they just need to download humanity and warmth into her cyborg brain and make it seem 1% sincere.

Sincerity: once you can fake that you can fake anything. Reagan taught us that.

 

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

I don't even understand the proposal. My best guess is this is a deliberately incendiary proposal to drive every Beltway commuter to threaten their local, state and federal rep with an auto-de-fé at Wolf Trap unless a real funding bill passes.

The proposal's pretty simple: Put a toll booth on every single interstate in Virginia. I-95, I-85, I-81, I-77, I-66, I-64, and so on. The long and short of it is that the state is depending on federal funding that supposedly won't be there next month (fat chance) and the state can't tighten the pursestrings, so they demand more from the peons.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

No way she makes the same mistakes she made against Obama. She has been studying her mistakes for 8 years now they just need to download humanity and warmth into her cyborg brain and make it seem 1% sincere.

I'm not so sure. I think she can lose.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

The proposal's pretty simple: Put a toll booth on every single interstate in Virginia. I-95, I-85, I-81, I-77, I-66, I-64, and so on. The long and short of it is that the state is depending on federal funding that supposedly won't be there next month (fat chance) and the state can't tighten the pursestrings, so they demand more from the peons.

An emergency excise tax hike on gas would be less unpopular. Tolling the interstates is to white people in Virginia what cops murdering people in their custody is to black people. The line in the sand. They will be burning Whole Foods and looting "Le Tache." We'll have to blow the Potomac Bridges to keep crazed NoVa whites from threatening PG County.

 

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 - It's never too late to start all over again!

Name your price, name your odds and name a time and I will bet you. There is (almost) zero chance this state votes GOP in the next election. It would take a Minnesotan at the top of the ticket, from Minneapolis, with a track record of being a centrist for it to even be an even money chance...

I get your bit, but come on Minneapolis controls where the electoral votes go and Minneapolis is as blue as it gets.

Handy we need all hands on deck. Case in point:

Its widely assumed by pundidiots that the GOP has a lock on the House of Representatives until redistricting kicks in 7 years from now. This is based more or less on a 30 seat majority for The Boner and crew. However, 26-28 of these GOP held seats are in Obama districts. So, it seems to me the trick to winning back the House is winning back the Dem seats that the GOP holds, a very similar strategy to how the GOP took back the House in 2010.

So, we need everyone to enthusiastically back the top of the ticket and the down ballot races. Yes, Dems will win Minny, but that win needs to be large enough to have a trickle down effect and oust several GOP congressmen in your state.

Oddly enough, Lizzy Warren, the hero of many a lefty, epitomizes this strategy. She was the ONLY Mass Dem not named Vicky Kennedy who could have beaten that simpleton Scott Brown before he got entrenched. However Brown had a decent chance at ticket splitting despite Obama crushing Romney in the state. The key was to have Obama run up such a big margin of victory, that even after ticket splitters Brown was still doomed. Libs stay home and Brown could have pulled through. In fact libs came out even though state was never in question, and despite winning a good share of Obama voters, Brown couldn't get 20% of the people voting Dem for President to turn around and vote for him. He might have gotten half that, which was d@ mn good truth be told.

So, get on the bandwagon. Could be the difference between Bernie Sanders getting legislation enacted or Bernie Sanders giving speeches on C-SPAN to an empty Senate chamber as part of the minority.