Speaking of "You git me"
 

They brought a young associate around for me to show the ropes.

I keep saying Mr. Corrigan looks familiar . . .

https://i0.wp.com/media2.slashfilm.c...of-700x339.jpg

Re: Scarlett O’Hara’s father still smelled like the bog, and he owned slaves.
 

This is madness. There are nice lace ups. There are nice boots. There are nice loafers.

Personal preference? I’m a busy guy. I don’t have time for laces.

Re: You could really be a Beau Brummel, baby, if you just gave it half a chance.
 

Suits in business settings and court are fucking silly. They should entirely dispense with all formal dress.

But as long as the geriatrics and stiffs demand them in court, under the pretense courts are sacred, and one gets any more “justice” than he can pay for, I’ll play the game. If you have to appear in a joker’s cathedral, at least signal to the other clowns: I had it tailored better than yours.

...And I’ll live long enough to see efficient people dispense with this brand protection uniforming, old man.

"[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows..."
 

"[T]he fight was fixed/The poor stay poor, the rich get rich..."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donna-...against-bernie

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The fundraising agreement was public and offered to all candidates on the same terms.

The reason Bernie lost is clear from a different article in da beast yesterday giving one of his classic quotes: "we have got to take on Trump’s attacks against the environment, against women, against Latinos and blacks and people in the gay community, we’ve got to fight back every day on those issues. But equally important, or more important: We have got to focus on bread-and-butter issues that mean so much to ordinary Americans." He lost the damn thing himself, he has no one else to blame, fuck 'em. I'm sick of mediocre white dudes blaming everyone else when they don't come out on top.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Hey, I don’t know about all that angry shite. But what I do know is Donna Brazile, not a white male, wrote an article that popped up in my news feed stating Bernie got fucked.

I think he’d have lost anyway. But that isn’t the point.

The point is just, well, what Brazile said. Maybe it’s a big deal. Maybe not. Res ipsa loquitur.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Not sure what you have in mind, but something was very rotten in the state of Denmark.

2

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Yes, politico has a lot more detail. This looks different that the fundraising memo both candidates were offered. I'm going to have to set up a lunch with someone to find out more, because this doesn't look Kosher.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

It's almost as if the party was ignored by Obama and then run as a shell for Hillary's benefit. Like Sebby, I don't think it made a difference between Clinton and Sanders, but it doesn't seem like anyone involved was all that interested in trying to build a party or win back Congress. It would have been nice to have some real Democrats involved.

eta: Looks like the party functionaries were enriching themselves. If you're going to be a Republican, be a Republican -- they do this kind of thing better.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNoe0sCVQAENpdK.jpg

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The party was undoubtedly ignored by Obama after he won his second term, and maybe before then. I think the Obama team theory was the House and Senate dems should run it, because they still had skin in the game and he didn't need to run for reelection again, but one of the problems of separating out DCCC and DSCC operations from the party is that it takes the legislators eyes away from the National Party because they don't need it.

I don't think hiring consultants constitutes enriching party functionaries unless there is some relationship between the two, and that's not yet posited here. Sometimes people hire consultants because they're lazy and don't want to expend the energy to build an operation or they're time crunched and don't have the time to build an operation, so they hire one pre-built. Of course, my view is that both may be fine reasons for a candidate to hire a consultant but they're lousy reasons for a party to hire one.

But the idea of a candidate approval for selecting staff prior to a primary is loony toons for a party operation.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Your first sentence was right -- you should have stopped there. It was Obama's party, and once it got him elected he did not spend his time or energy to build and maintain it. There was so much potential in O4A and it was totally squandered. We are now paying the price.

You are taking a narrow view of the fundamental corruption involved here. Seem people hire consultants because they can, and because they don't actually care a whole lot about what the party ostensibly stands for. If nothing else, this whole episode shows that Hillary's commitment to political reform was skin-deep.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Traditionally, yes, the view of Presidents has been that it is "their" party when they hold office, but, in reality, at all times it ought to be the party of it's members, not of any one elected official. I think we agree, though, on the lesson, which is, we can't have a President who is not paying attention to the funding and maintenance of the Party. It's just a bad idea.

The elements I see here where I'd suggest wrongdoing is involved are not pulling in Party officers where they are supposed to be, not reporting to the full DNC body when they're supposed to, and cutting deals with candidates that aren't being vetted by the officers in particular. Those seem like pretty clear allegations of wrongdoing. What I don't see here (and it may be this is a "yet") is an allegation that someone improperly profited by this - this looks more like a power game than a money game.

Ultimately, fixing the party is going to be on the DNC members, the state parties, and the key elected officials, because they're what we've got. Want to run for DNC?

Epistemic Crisis
 

The cul de sac into which we’re headed? https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...istemic-crisis

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

He was the party's leader, and he abdicated that role. I am a huge fan, but that was a huge fuck-up.

Spoken like a lawyer. The wrongdoing is that they raised money from Democrats and wasted it on consultants instead of building the party. If you think of the party apparatchiks and consultants as a class of cronies, the money was spent to enrich those insiders rather than to do get anything done.

In the abstract, sure, but not with my current life.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

So, the new tax bill contains a "bubble bracket" where a 45.6% rate will apply while the benefit of the 12% bracket is recaptured. When you combine that with losing the interest deduction on more than 500K and the cap on SALT, I'd say big city lawyers are going to join the folks in the bottom half of the income brackets in ponying up to fund the tax cut for billionaires.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The SALT cap alone would destroy NJ’s housing market.

These numbers are starting points to give Trump an alibi when he passes a tax bill of epic proportions we cannot afford. “The people on the coasts and those sleazy realtors made me give up the SALT and interest deduction caps, with which it would not have created any more debt!”

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The "throw out something crazy and compromise down to the merely aggressive" strategy might work when you go through regular order and the only people paying attention to the first draft sleep within an hour of the white house, but when you need public support for a bill you're trying to pass on a tight timeline without committee process or input, it's not really a good strategy. You quickly kill the credibility that might have gotten your bill through.

You'd think they might have figured that out by now, given that they've been doing it all year.

From what I'm seeing right now, I'd say they're chances of getting a tax bill this year are collapsing.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

To pass, the bill must grow the deficit by no more than $1.5 trillion over ten years, and not at all after that. Otherwise they need 60 votes in the Senate, which they won't get.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

One more Trump plan, DOA.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Good point. He’s pressed to get this done before year’s end, no?

Good. This bill is stupid. We don’t need tax “simplification.” Taxes aren’t that fucking complicated.

This thing looks like a giant, petulant “fuck the coasts” project coupled with a blowjob to billionaires.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The provisions on taxation of corp's foreign profits would have been a massive gift to my international clients, though. So I would have had more work sending shit to China to help pay for my newly inflated tax bill.

Is he just trying to see how much cravenness he can get away with or something? I remain stunned at what morons these people are.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

I am a lawyer. As a past party apparatchik, and a current party activist, I also care about the party as an institution, something very few people actually do.

I think party apparatchiks add a lot of value, especially if you can keep them for a few years, because they tend to be hard-working, modestly paid younger people who build personal relationships that help the party. Spending money on them IS what you do to get things.

Consultants who charge by the hour are just a bad use of money. But it's not any more tawdry than practicing law.

Re: Epistemic Crisis
 

If only people who lived in swing states voted for candidates who respected the very institutions that set the standards of what constitutes truth and fact this article mentions. Wouldn't that be something.

TM

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Who? Ryan? Trump? Republicans generally? Ryan wants to get away with as much un-taxing of the rich as he can. Trump doesn't give a fuck about any of this bill except what his accountant says he will save in taxes. Republicans want tax cuts no matter the cost to this country and the best plan for them is for rich people in blue states to pay for their cuts. And even if the plan hurts a bunch of their constituents, they don't give a fuck because they know their constituents only hear, "cut cut cut." That's it. This shit isn't difficult to understand.

TM

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

I do too. When I was much younger, my grandfather told me that the only two institutions that had ever tried to do anything for him were the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Democratic Party. I have loyalty to the party, but also high expectations.

I have a sibling who worked in Democratic politics for years. It's not a way to get rich, but I don't object to paying for staff. What is the money for? Better staff than television ads.

Exactly. Not sure other consultants are better. Some are taking a cut of advertising spend, etc.

Re: Epistemic Crisis
 

No question about it.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Well, everyone involved in managing this bill just seems to be a moron, because they seem to be doing it in a way that is destined to fail.

Now I know for people like Ryan, trying to hold a caucus together when the nationalist right, the plutocratic right, and the religious right, a lot of this may not be about getting the bill through but instead about who gets to point fingers at who when it fails, and maybe what he's doing makes sense there. I can't understand Republican infighting well enough to understand that.

But for Trump and the administration, who just need to get something through so they stop looking so incompetent, I don't see the defense. Find two little things you can do, get them done, and call it a big win.

Re: Epistemic Crisis
 

That seems like a real fancy way of saying a lot of folks are cray cray.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

Same with IL. A $1M house in my sleepy 'burb pays about $25k in property taxes.

Of course, the reason IL's property taxes are so high is because Illinois democrats, mostly Michael Madigan, the nation's longest tenured state speaker, have flushed this state's finances down the drain. Democrats in Illinois aren't typical democrats - they are more like a state sanctioned mafia. Once the kiddos are in college, I'm out. I'm not going to be the last person to turn out the lights - this state is fucked.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The question is: where you going?

I enjoyed my one year of living in Chi-town all those years ago, but the politics of the place were wild. Those were the days when Harold Washington was Mayor and Jesse Jackson was running for President, and the old white machine(s) were more than a little confused.

Friend of mine is real pissed.
 

When he just got wind of the Brett Ratner story after Halloween. For the price of buying a shrimp cocktail (and ditching his pants) he could’ve had a Halloween costume.

Rigged? Sen. Warren: Yes
 

I’d like a three or four party system, and that looks like where we’re headed: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...clinton-244487

Re: Epistemic Crisis
 

The old saw, “If you believe in nothing, you’ll believe in anything,” meant a relativist could follow any policy.

I think today it means, if you trust no media, or if no media appears entirely trustworthy, you’ll either become a shrewd consumer of information, or you’ll just go cray cray.

The latter is far more likely in American society at large.

Re: Time for a Crash
 

So looking at the way votes are lining up, it looks entirely possible that they'll get some disaster of a tax bill through the House, and that there are Senators who can be bought on this one, unlike ACA.

It strikes me that leaves us with the traditional approach of the last four administrations: Republicans get in office, crash the economy by applying their ideological litmus tests, Dems get back in and fix it.

The difference here is that (1) we may not get a Democratic pragmatist in the form of Obama or Bill Clinton, and (2) that this particular Republican cycle is likely to see a massive outflow of working capital given the international provisions of the bill. (Nominal capital may remain here since people will use debt to formally repatriate profits while rates are low, while keeping the money at work elsewhere). Don't get me wrong, (1) may be a good thing, there are some fundamental changes I'd like to see in economic policy taking us well to the left of where Obama and Clinton were willing to go. But (2) may create work for me, but it's gonna suck for the country.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

I don't know yet. I like it here. I just don't want to get caught in the Illinois pension debt spiral.

Re: Rigged? Sen. Warren: Yes
 

On both sides, changes in campaign finance and information technology have weakened the institutional role of the parties. It doesn't mean that a third (or fourth) party is going to come into being. It means that the parties are weak. They don't control the money, or much of anything else.

Where is the point where a Republican or Democrat should rationally walk away from their party to join a third party if he or she wants more clout? Um, never? The ability to influence the choice of one of the top two people on the ballot is much more valuable than the ability to influence the choice of the third (or fourth) person on the ballot.

Re: "[There'll be some leaking in the press]/That will disclose/What everybody knows.
 

The total pension debt there is about 150% of the State's revenue - it's ugly, to be sure, but amortized over a reasonable period it's manageable for a state with a real economy.

I think you'll see bigger problems in the states that are gutting support for their already thin economy, which includes a lot of states Illinois borders. Next downturn in employment will crush some of those places.

Re: Rigged? Sen. Warren: Yes
 

We've always had weak parties. They go from really weak to very weak and back again in cycles.

Getting more parties requires a change to our voting, either to a proportional representation system with multiple candidates per district (Massachusetts did this for state elections back when we were sprouts) or a plurality wins electoral system.

Re: Rigged? Sen. Warren: Yes
 

Both parties are splitting. The extreme left on the D side and extreme right on the R side are unique parties, separate from their respective moderate wings.

Moderate Ds and moderate Rs (those being primarily focused on pocketbook issues) are closer to each other than they are to their respective extreme wings.

I see:

1. A right wing populist R party (socially conservative, anti-immigrant, isolationist, desirous of European safety net programs for "natives" [themselves] only, protectionist);
2. A moderate R party (socially moderate, against zealous regulation, free trade, emphasizing above all else neo-liberal economic policy);
3. A left wing populist D party (socially liberal, desirous of European safety net programs, protectionist); and,
4. A moderate D party (socially moderate, pro regulation, free trade, emphasizing above all else neo-liberal economic policy with enhancement of safety nets for those harmed by globalization/automation).

1 and 3 are actually quite close. They unite on the major economic issue of protectionism, and split on the major issue of who gets covered by enhanced safety nets (the right wants them limited to 'Muricans, the left wants them expanded broadly). If these two groups were smart, they'd come together. Thankfully, they're not.

2 and 4 are awfully close. They unite on the major economic issues of free trade and neo-liberal economic policy. They also aren't too far apart on social issues. Like the other two, they split over spending on safety nets. And they diverge on regulation, but not a ton (all moderates recognize there has to be some form of regulation).

Right now, one could say there are two parties: Extremists vs. Moderates. Or it could be 4 parties (Crazy Rs, Crazy Ds, mod Rs, Mod Ds). One could also see the Moderate Rs and Ds making peace with the extreme Left, creating a scenario in which its those three together versus the Extreme Right. Or it could be Moderate Rs and Ds together vs. the extreme Right, on one hand, and the Left on the other.

But I don't see the Warren/Bernie wing of the D party making peace with the Schumer wing. And I don't see the Bannon wing of the R party making peace with the McConnell wing.

Re: Rigged? Sen. Warren: Yes
 

It's been a generation since any moderate Republicans have been elected anywhere. There are no Rockefeller Republicans any more. My governor, who qualifies as moderate in today's republican party, would have been to the right of Nixon in the 60s. and people like him don't have enough umph to form a party. There are a handful of them in blue states that the rest of the Rs tolerate only because it leaves them a blue state foothold. In the long run, the last remaining ones will go down to the trumpsters.

If there is a republican split, it will be the ultra-nationalist trump voters versus the fundies. Each is a more powerful faction than any so-called moderates.

Dems aren't going to split. We fundamentally agree on most policy issues, it's more a question of approach than policy.