I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Sessions is going to hire GOP hacks who will enlist DOJ in suppressing voting and prosecuting "fraud".

Right. Or that.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

I don't see how. Honestly, the side that likes Trump will see any movement away from his win as illegitimate and the side that like Hillary or Stein will see anything that doesn't swing things to Hillary as the same.

The end result is less trust in the system and stronger pushes for vote suppression.

Which is why Team Hillary wasn't pushing this (Along with it being super unlikely to change anything)

Nate Silver's good for something. I like his take.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/...e-the-outcome/

TM

[ferrets_bueller]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/28/us/ohi...ter/index.html

TM

I saw the news earlier. THIS proves my point in a perverse way: The guy didn't have a gun. He had a knife. And he is the only one dead.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller

I saw the news earlier. THIS proves my point in a perverse way: The guy didn't have a gun. He had a knife. And he is the only one dead.

Exactly.

TM

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

And Obama is only going to look better and better.

I don't think anyone after Bill Clinton is going to look good. Obama will look better than Bush II, no doubt about that at all. But these last 36 years have been:

- Reagan borrows and spends way to temporary "prosperity."
- Bush I presides over hangover following economic sugar high of Reagan Presidency.
- Clinton lucks out with tech boom and balances budget
- Bush II walks into collapse of tech bubble and "cures" it with residential r/e bubble (historically, the bubble of last resort in decaying societies)
- Bush II puts $3 trillion war on govt credit card, off-balance-sheet (totally fucking up the middle east and goodwill accrued by the US post 9/11, permanently damaging our credibility on the world stage)
- Bush II/Greenspan housing bubble predictably blows up in everyone's faces, causing Great Recession (really, more of a depression for some, recession for others)
- Bush II presides over bank bailout, throwing moral hazard out the window and clearing up any confusion over whether we live in a "socialism for the rich and powerful, austerity for the rest" society
- Obama inherits worst conditions of any President since FDR, keeps steady hand on economy and avoids catastrophe
- Obama decides to implement national health care reform, but is forced to compromise on ACA, which is deeply flawed but serves as foot-in-the-door for eventual single payer system (if a D succeeds him)
- Obama tries to undo damage in the middle east, but it's beyond cure, and worsens, with emergence of Daesh, etc.
- Obama's following of "conventional economists" in using monetary policy and trickle down economics to fix economy not only fails but exacerbates untenable wealth disparity occurring as a result of tech and offshoring
- Brexit ushers in period of Balkanization
- Trump runs on nationalist platform which appears likely to initiate trade wars
- Frexit? Italexit? New cold war with Putin?

Obama, Clinton, and Bush I look like steady hands. I think they'll be recalled fondly. But none did anything truly impressive to change an otherwise ragged and declining trajectory of the nation. In some circles, this is quiet heroism. I happen to reside in those circles, and think Obama did a far more important job than history will ever acknowledge.

But holding the fort down in crisis as he did involved a tremendous amount of pragmatic thinking, and pragmatism won't put anyone at the top of the list of best Presidents. I think Obama will be recalled as the adult to cleaned up the absolute disaster of the Bush II Presidency, which will go down in history as the very worst of the last 100 years.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Totally agree, but we shouldn't be looking to Hillary's campaign for that. First step, I think, is to fix the DNC.

The DNC is split in the same manner as the RNC: Establishment vs. Populists. In the RNC, it's the neoliberal economics/global trade crowd versus the protectionists. In the DNC, it's the neoliberal economics/global trade crowd versus the progressives.

Notice a pattern?

I don't see how you reconcile those groups under one tent in either party.

ETA: If you meant reforming the DNC by getting rid of the fixers who created the email trove Wikileaks exploited, good luck. The only lesson those people will learn from this episode is to avoid email, or use better encryption (either of which fits Assange's aims, btw: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/want-k...ld-decade-ago/).

[SEC_Chick]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Right. Or that.

TM

A bunch of Trump supporters think it's their turn. A lot of them still recall the refusal to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation. To them, what is the difference? It's not as if the DOJ under Obama was above politics.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

We are already here. Voter suppression is going to explode over the next four years. Republicans will pack the courts with assholes who will uphold voter suppression laws. The DOJ will not investigate anything. Voter fraud is, effectively, now truth. Holding a recount will not affect this significantly in either direction.

TM

This is not hyperbole. The GOP is going to game it like we've never seen before.

But in fairness, so were the Democrats. I agree with letting felons back onto the voting rolls, but that was a naked play for new votes. And immigration reform would only create more D voters.

You can say that the R's efforts are vile, as suppression is intended to keep people from exercising rights, while the D's efforts are aimed at being more inclusive. And no one can argue with that proposition. However, it does remain a fact that both parties were seeking to retain control by procedural means. It just happens that one's doing some serious cheating, while the other was just trying to pack the rolls.

I've heard the R's actions in this regard justified as avoidance of tyranny of a low information majority. This seems ironic given the typical Trump voter in Sticksville, but I can understand a bit of it. I think it was de Tocqueville who said that eventually democracy falls on its face because the sector of the population voting based on promises of transfers to it from the treasury becomes impossible to defeat. Ds need to learn they cannot keep promising things to people who cannot afford them on their own. Rs need to learn they cannot keep doing so while cutting taxes for their benefactors. Of course, neither will do so until its far too late.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

A bunch of Trump supporters think it's their turn. A lot of them still recall the refusal to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation. To them, what is the difference? It's not as if the DOJ under Obama was above politics.

Weren't the New Black Panthers limited to Philly and Baltimore? How many GOP votes did they prevent? I'd wager fewer than attendance at next week's Leif Garret show at the West Springfield Off-Track Betting Lounge (Upstairs).

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Sessions is going to hire GOP hacks who will enlist DOJ in suppressing voting and prosecuting "fraud".

All the more reason for recounts, which provide evidence that voter fraud is a myth.

I lived in a neighborhood in an East Coast City that had >90% election turnout with 90% D votes for many years. There was no fraud. The reality was, there were few is any Rs in that neighborhood.

People see high numbers in one direction and immediately think there must be shenanigans. No. A better explanation, at least in cities, is white and conservative flight. Conservative whites just seem to love the suburbs. They can talk about mowing the lawn, getting a new roof, their new Big Bertha driver... There's always a Talbotts nearby, every parking lot's accessible by minivan or GMC Denali, and you can grill. You can even smoke. Hell, yes -- I shit you not! You can have your own smoker next to your grill! Oh, the conversations you'll have about barbeque.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

- Bush II walks into collapse of tech bubble and "cures" it with residential r/e bubble (historically, the bubble of last resort in decaying societies)

The history books are riddled with the tales of empires lost in mortgage securities bubbles...

- Obama's following of "conventional economists" in using monetary policy

This is a funny characterization as the beginning of Obama's term was marked by a massive battle between one group of economists who said we needed significant fiscal stimulus and one who said we needed austerity to avoid crowding-out of private investment. Which one was "conventional?"

And, of course, Obama proposed and passed a stimulus bill that he likely would have preferred be bigger, as you said the other day (yesterday?) Meanwhile the states did massive austerity, which didn't help either.

Also, Obama has almost no control over monetary policy. The Fed, in the face of not much help on the fiscal side, actually did a bunch of very unconventional things. I think the consensus, by no means unanimous, is that those things helped. I'm not sure there was more the Fed could realistically have done.

Regardless, the obstacle to doing more, either fiscally or with monetary policy, was the GOP.

New cold war with Putin?

That seems like the opposite of the likely outcomes re Putin.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The DNC is split in the same manner as the RNC: Establishment vs. Populists. In the RNC, it's the neoliberal economics/global trade crowd versus the protectionists. In the DNC, it's the neoliberal economics/global trade crowd versus the progressives.

The difference is that the two factions in the DNC more or less agree. Their differences are tactical - how far to push and when - more than ideological.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Weren't the New Black Panthers limited to Philly and Baltimore?

It was two guys in military clothing standing around outside a polling place, looking all scary and black -- in other words, enough great visuals for FOX News to run with the story for weeks. To be talking about this again after an election in which thousands and thousands of people did not vote because of GOP vote suppression -- oh, the irony. Except that it's not irony -- it's the flip side of a conscious strategy.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I agree with letting felons back onto the voting rolls, but that was a naked play for new votes.

You have a wonderful power to remove all moral thinking. Yeah, no one could see felon disenfranchisement - coupled with an explicitly racists war on on drugs - as a means to continue the political power of the southern whites, or even just as fundamentally unfair as perpetual punishment. Gotta just be naked politics.

I will renew my suggestion that you watch The 13th.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by SEC_Chick

A bunch of Trump supporters think it's their turn. A lot of them still recall the refusal to prosecute the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation. To them, what is the difference? It's not as if the DOJ under Obama was above politics.

This response is extremely random in that it doesn't seem to be connected to anything.

TM