Re: Aca
 

Let's just assume that's so. My point, which you continue to miss, is that if you were to change the law in the way you suggest, individuals would not be able to buy the policies they feel like buying. So you need to find some other principle to invoke.

Why is it more of an infringement on liberty to be forced to buy insurance than to be unable to buy insurance? In both cases, your choices are limited. Do you suffer every day because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania requires you to buy auto insurance in order to drive? If so, you are remarkably stoic about it, in comparison to the deprivation you see with health insurance.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Actually, I'm pretty sure you do care. In fact, unlike most trolls, and despite your constant protestations to the contrary, you seem to care a great deal about what people here think about your credibility. It's this weird combination faux-zero-fucks-given, say-whatever-the-fuck-I-want swagger and whimpering why-is-everybody-always-picking-on-me martyrdom.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

You know there is, you just don't like the point. To put it in terms you might get, if someone presented me with a news story by ISIS, and said it was from an "independent foreign political organization," I'd be suspicious about the agenda of the person presenting that story.

I did not say I was suspicious of Bloomberg. In fact, my actual point had nothing to do with the merits of the Susan Rice story, which is why I said, "my actual point had nothing to do with the merits of the Susan Rice story." You should know. You quoted me saying that in the very post I'm responding to.

I am pretty aware of the relatively low risk of saying outrageous things just to say outrageous things on an anonymous online chatting board that nobody reads. I'll remind you that the phrase most usually associated with me here is "unsolicited, no-strings-attached fellatio." But if you really "fully expect" that your willingness to say blatantly untrue things and mischaracterize people's arguments will result in people dismissing your arguments as bullshit, why do you always act so surprised, angry, and hurt when it happens?

I already responded to this when you said it again in another post.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

This is like saying that she was caught driving a car, which could be used as a getaway car for robbing a bank. True, but hardly a scandal. Especially if her job is to drive cars.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

stp

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Not taking sides in your basic fight, but after the French terrorist attack on that magazine and your car defense, maybe you should move away from car posts?

Re: Aca
 

I'm not advocating changing the law. I'm advocating removing the law, and the TPAs, which distort a normal market.

Because no one has a right to have a product created for or delivered to them. People do have a right to not be compelled to pay for that which they do not want. Our rights are inherently negative. We allow positive ones only with extreme reluctance.

Driving is a privilege. If you don't like the rules of the road, don't drive. You might as well as me if I object to laws against drunk driving.

This country'd be 10X better off if we were all a lot more stoic about everything.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

So this is all about my calling that clown "indie media." Hell, I'll apologize for that. He's not media. He's a nut. But he did have a scoop. That's my sole reason for the cite.

Really? Too dry? For you?

I don't like dumb. This will sound high-handed, but I often find this place, and my conservative friends, highly annoying. You're not looking long or broadly enough. You're probably not even reading people who disagree with you much. I think you should. I think the right should as well. Conservatives should be locked in rooms with Jeffrey Sachs and Robert Reich, and your sort should be locked in a room with a copy of Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, Tyler Cowen, and Jaron Lanier.

Adder should be force-fed Nassim Taleb, Reich, and Cowen until the rotten crap his dad's money manager and the shmuck who taught him Econ 101 in college bleeds out of his ears.

. . .

You should destabilize your thinking constantly. Elsewhere, I just agreed with someone - an ardent Republican - there will be no course for health care but single payer. The only question was whether it's an insurance consortium or the govt. I think the latter.

Truly, no fucks given. Except when I think... you're not. Then I find myself a mix of sad and irritated.

Nothing lets me down like tribes. Reminds me of religion. I hate it. And if I smell it, by extension, I detest the speaker of it.

Re: Aca
 

There's no such thing as a "normal" market. We get the markets our governments create, and that has been true for thousands of years.

Now you've changed your argument. Before, you were talking about liberty. I'm not talking about rights, I'm talking about liberty. If you want to have the liberty to buy insurance that covers pre-existing conditions -- and, just to state the obvious, most people do -- then you need the government to regulate the market in the way I've described. No regulation, no liberty.

You don't actually have a right not to be compelled to pay for that which you do not want. It's something you just made up. It's not in the Constitution -- indeed, check out the Sixteenth Amendment. You have to pay taxes, and no one wants to pay taxes.

The government can just restrict your liberty by calling things privileges? For someone who pretends to be libertarian, you've kinda forgotten what liberty is about.

I'm not a libertarian, and I think it's an incoherent justification for privilege and selfishness masquerading as a philosophy. You're helping me make my point.

Re: Batshit Insane like Fox
 

But, really, isn't the lesson of Fox that there is no such thing as unsolicited, no-strings-attached fellatio in the workplace? Yet another lesson they refused to learn from Bill Clinton.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

This sounds like a "No."

Here's the problem. You sometimes actually sound like you want to talk substance. But even then you approach it like you're the outsider taking on groupthink. Why not just bring it up and talk about it? Everyone here wants to talk substance. No one here thinks you have a unique outsider's perspective. If you have an opinion, share it. But stop with this stupid "I'm taking on the narrative" bullshit whenever anyone disagrees with you. The fact that many people think something you said is ridiculous is not evidence of an echo chamber. It's evidence you've said something ridiculous.

Again, I'm not picking the Democrat side because I feel like I'm a member of their tribe. When I take a stance on an issue, it's because I've thought about that issue. And every single issue I've thought about that Trump has taken any sort of position on, I've fallen on the opposite side. You see that and think I will buy whatever Democrats sell. That ain't it. I am against the Republican Party (and especially Trump's brand) on every single substantive issue. So, when I shit all over it, that doesn't mean I'm a Pelosi warrior. It means the Republicans are almost always wrong.

I don't care who the President is. If anyone were in office and there were the number of connections to the Russians and the unwillingness to ever take a stance against or even criticize Putin, I would want that shit to be investigated thoroughly and independently. The fact that you keep asserting that there's nothing there makes no logical sense. If there is nothing there, there should be no fight against a thorough investigation. There wouldn't be constant obfuscation and distraction. Nunes' actions alone make absolutely no fucking sense. And if you think this accusation against Rice is anything more than obfuscation and distraction (and you just said above there is zero evidence of anything nefarious), you're nuts.

If Trump could express one thought in a way that made me think he understood fucking anything, I wouldn't consider him to be a complete clown. If he could control himself when being criticized and not act like a child, I wouldn't call him a child. If he expressed the ability to empathize with anyone who isn't a billionaire, I wouldn't think he was a complete piece of shit. These aren't Democratic positions. They are natural reactions to what my eyes see.

So drop the echo chamber, tribal, garbage. It's stupid. And although you say a lot of stupid shit, I don't think you're stupid. If you disagree with something, say so and support it. But enough with the caricature bullshit already.

TM

Re: Aca
 

We get the markets that emerge based on demand. The government then steps in and regulates them.

Rights and liberty are inextricably intertwined here, if not synonyms for purposes of this discussion. To suit you, I'll go with "liberty."

You have the liberty to purchase what you like. And the producers of products have the liberty to produce whatever they like. If they don't want to produce a certain product, they don't have to do so. If the govt wishes to have that product available to people, it can step in and produce it.

Medicare can expand to cover pre-existing conditions.

Again, however, it is not liberty -- in fact, it's a perversion of the concept of liberty (hence, I described your argument as sleight-of-hand earlier) to suggest producers of a product must create bespoke offerings because certain people want them.

Take your concept of market "liberty" to its ends. Where does this "liberty" to compel the market to provide you products cease? You can claim infringement on your liberty because there's not a mortgage available for person with 560 credit, or there isn't full tort auto insurance available to a person at limited tort rates, or that there must be a new class of airline ticket between the current tiers.

You're advocating for exclusively consumer liberty, with removal of producer liberty.

Taxes are an exception. The correct way to provide the consumer "liberty" you advocate is by increase of taxes to provide a Medicare expansion to provide insurance to people with pre-existing conditions.

By the way, re your first sentence, can the govt compel you to buy a Hyundai? Could it mandate that, even though you'd like to get a Subaru, you have to buy a Hyundai? No. This applies to all products.

Yes.

I didn't say I liked it, but the govt can exercise control over the use of that which it builds and owns. And note -- it does not require those without cars to subsidize the car insurance risk pool by nevertheless purchasing insurance. Nor does it require all of those insured to purchase maximum coverage policies. It allows the entirety of the marketplace to purchase cheap policies which extremely limit their benefits in the case of injury. Not unlike catastrophic health insurance plans.

I'm not addressing the privilege argument. That's neither data nor logic. That's the emotional stuff I was talking about earlier.

As to selfishness, you're right. Libertarianism is selfish. But considering the Left has ballooned our debt by making unrealistic promises and seeks to create a more robust welfare state which will sap dynamism, someone has to be selfish.* Yin, meet yang.

And all ideologies are incoherent. Yours -- something I suspect would resemble a European welfare state -- would wreck this country. Mine would make it colder place, and also perhaps ruin some of its kinder elements. But we can meet in the middle. Because we both understand ideologies must by bent to get anything done. And we both know if either of us wee to get all of what we want, it'd be very bad. The problem is, instead of meeting in the middle, many of us are being factionalized. Which is what the moronic true ideologues desire.

______
*The Right is no better, and is responsible for 1/2 the debt explosion, with its ludicrous defense industry welfare programs and general corporate/plutocrat giveaways. Which is why Libertarians favor gutting the defense budget.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

I hope you realize that no one here gives a shit about Maddow or O'Reilly. I think people may take joy in the fact that Maddow is beating O'Reilly in the ratings for a bit, but that doesn't mean anyone is a Maddow fan.

But what you fail to understand--and I think this is a real flaw in how you process this type of information--is that when people are upset about the political issues we have spent a lot of time posting about, it's because there are real repercussions to what Trump is doing and what he wants to do.

People aren't pissed off because right wing people are annoying. People are pissed off because the Department of Education is being run by someone who hates public education and who knows nothing, the head of the EPA doesn't think carbon contributes to global warming and has spent his career fighting the EPA, the DOJ is being run by a racist asshole who spent his first few weeks as AG sending overt signals to police departments that they won't be investigated and dismantling actual agreements that the DOJ and problematic police departments entered into to fix their problems, the President has deep economic ties to Russian oligarchs and that he is being investigated for colluding with Russia in an effort to help him win an election.

People are pissed off because the Secretary of State is an oil guy, because Trump can only be convinced to take action if a room full of rich people he respects tells him to. People are pissed because he quite clearly hasn't divested and seems to be making decisions based on what benefits his business (see his ridiculous Muslim ban that doesn't affect the countries in which he has business relationships). The guy has spent almost every minute of his Presidency at a Trump-branded location playing golf. He does nothing, except sign whatever is put in front of him and Tweet stupid shit. He knows nothing. And he has offended almost every ally we have and has embarrassed us all over the world.

This isn't about me being a Democrat and hating Republican issues because they come from Republicans. For me, this is about the moron in office, the assholes who put them there, and the real and damaging shit he is doing to the country. That emotion may be entertaining to you, but that's only because you don't give a fuck about anything other than your taxes and anyone who doesn't live in your house.

TM

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

Oh nooooowwww the Republicans take the Russia thing seriously. They didnt realize they were being played too?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...=.9c27125df535

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

There's absolutely no evidentiary basis for this, yet you believe it. But you're not at all partisan.

ETA: Oh, and by the way, I don't yet believe that anyone in the Trump administration did anything illegal. They definitely did things that were shady, politically damaging and potentially compromising, but we haven't seen illegal yet (aside from that one statute that everyone thinks is likely unconstitutional).

Re: Aca
 

I'm not very interested in your healthcare conversations, but you MUST see that this a terrible analogy.

If you buy a car, the government requires you to buy one that meets all kinds of federal safety standards and emissions standards. Hell, the car insurance you are forced to buy must meet certain thresholds. How is any of that different than requiring you to carry health insurance that meets certain standards?

TM

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Someone who cares about his crediblity.

As he didn't claim that - he, like everyone else, said she requested it - I don't know.

Re: Aca
 

Liberatarianism in a nutshell. Abstract freedom matters. Policy that works doesn't.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Oddly, I have as well. The only one I like is his professed desire to remove loads of regulations. But even that he fucked up with that stupid remove 2 for every 1 rule. I also wanted to see him roll back Dodd Frank. But that ain't happening.

They're wrong about a lot, but they're also a necessary counter. As I notd to Ty in another post, can you imagine a country where the Ds or Rs got all of what they want?

I don't agree here. maybe you don't, but Trump has created a very special reaction among the Left, which has been displayed here. This is in many regards personal for a lot of people. They are offended by him. It's like when Scalia gave the White House to W. But worse.

2.

I don't see it, and I have some decent sources.

Politicians I've known don't think that way, nor do their PR people. Letting the investigation out of the gate alone allows it to grab the news cycle for the next three months. Even if innocent, you have to try to kill it to avoid it becoming the sole focus of all coverage on you.

Sure they do. He's been bought off by Trump.

I said there's no evidence yet of any impropriety regarding the unmasking. As to her being the leaker, I think based on her recent TV appearance, she is clearly not. I know she's been nailed for playing a bit fast and loose with facts a couple times, but there's no way she'd bald faced lie. And there's no way someone that shrewd would be dumb enough to leak here.

I don't disagree. He's an embarrassment.

I see your point, and I will do that as to you, Ty, and anyone else making an argument as you have here. I cannot do so in regard to GGG or Flower. I don't see this level of analysis in their stuff. I see more of a blunt, "I just hate Trump!" mentality. I mean, GGG is even citing ratings between O'Reilly and Maddow. I mean, seriously? We're picking horses in TV ratings now?

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

The idea that Trump won a campaign based on ethical smears against Hillary Clinton is perhaps the saddest thing about American politics today. Set aside Russians, set aside the corruption and self-dealing, set aside the nastiness, it is the incredible gullibility of voters, the willingness to believe that which is repeated constantly rather than that which is supported by evidence, that made this possible.

And as long as this Sebby-like gullibility continues, Democracy will struggle.

Re: Aca
 

With car insurance, or cars, you choose to enter the marketplace. With that choice comes an agreement to accept regulation. With mandated health insurance, you're not choosing to enter the marketplace.

Re: Aca
 

Your bold policy of turning the dying away from the hospital will never be a political winner. Which is why we're in this health care mess. Most people have enough compassion to believe that some amount of health care should be available to those who need it regardless of ability to pay.

The questions are how much and how do we pay for it.

Also, you're demanding that products that are not currently available me made for you. Sure, you think they'd magically appear in the absense of regulation, but still.

They just don't and they never have. I don't get to line-item my tax bill, which means I can be compelled to pay for that which I don't want.

The right really fucked themselves by adopting this ludicrous stance in a desparate attempt to undermine the ACA, which is why they can't find an alternative.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

If I desire to do so, given the Fed Crim code and a week or so to do some research, I can charge you with a felony.

I've no doubt there's something chargeable against members of both teams.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Thankfully, it's an unprovable theory.

This right here is the shrill, silly shit that drives me nuts.

I didn't fail to vote for Hillary because of her alleged criminality. I failed to vote for her because I did not care for her platform. She was More of the Same, and the alternative was, Crazy (But Perhaps Surprising to the Upside).

Objectively, I sometimes wonder how you can even function as a professional. I'm clearly not a person who cares much about a politician's criminality. Give a me criminal with a good platform and I'll happily vote for her. I've made this mindset eminently clear for years, and no-- it's not an act. Yet you argue I was gullible -- tricked into voting for someone other than Hillary because I thought her a criminal?

Take a breath. Control your emotions. Then write.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

I don't disagree. But I think we're talking about a different time. The current Republican Party is insane and doesn't even represent their own party. If you want to go back to the conservatives of the 80s, I think that's an effective counter to the liberals of the 70s. But the current Democratic Party is essentially a right leaning Republican Party from the 80s and the current Republican Party is batshit crazy.

Are you talking about caring about who the President is in the context of him possibly being owned by or colluding with Putin? Or in general? If the former, it makes zero difference who the President is when it comes to investigations. If the latter, you must realize that the reason people hate Trump is because of what he actually says and does, right?

Not sure I understand this, but there's no point in trying to convince you otherwise.

This would make sense if everything the Administration did hadn't had the effect of amplifying coverage of their connection to Russia. If they were smart and there was nothing there, they would have let Nunes kill the investigation quickly and quietly.

I don't really see anyone picking a horse in the O'Reilly-Maddow wars. I think O'Reilly is a jackass and it's fun to watch him eat shit. But that's hardly an investment.

And the people who "just hate Trump" (on this board at least) hate him for the same reasons I do. Even if you're only referring to those who hate him because he says un-PC stuff and don't know much about politics, those people actually have a legitimate reason to hate him. His tone has taken us backwards when it comes to civility, respect, and safety for minorities in this country. And that's not an opinion.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/...mpaign-n733306

TM

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

I read Cowen's blog daily and his Bloomberg view columns when they're sufficiently interesting.

Taleb is insufferable, but I read two of his books, I think. That's enough for me to not be terribly interested in what else he has to say. He a smart guy who is deeply convinced that he's he's much more than that.

I don't regularly read Reich's stuff unless it comes across my radar via social media or something, although I read one of his books, which was pretty good, because I think most of what he says is too simplistic (for strategic reasons).

I also regularly read Scott Sumner, with whom I mostly disagree on politics but at least find interesting on economics.

I do have an undergrad degree in finance, though, and my dad's money manager was my dad, and I have significant disagreements with him on investing.

Anyway, it's funny that someone who clearly reads a whole lot of crap and regurgitates it here without citation should be making reading recommendations. You should stop reading whatever makes you so sure Hillary is a criminal and the financial press altogether.

Re: Aca
 

Which is why, like any ideology, it should never and can never have anything near complete control.

Re: Aca
 

You are shifting. You just abandoned your analogy.

I'm not going to argue about how we are all forced to pay for shit that doesn't necessarily directly benefit us. I just wanted to point out how bad your Hyundai analogy is.

TM

Re: Aca
 

Just wanted to put those two sentences next to each other.

For what it's worth, my understanding of econ theory is that the first one is wrong, in that supply generally creates its demand, but whatever.

Of course it can, because there's zero difference in liberty between mandating that you buy a Hyundai and taxing you and purchasing Hyundais with your tax money. You're out the cash and own, directly or indirectly, a Hyundai either way.

I'm sorry, who has ballooned our debt? It wasn't "the left" by any standard usage of that term.

(Leaving aside that our debt levels are fine)

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Which ones? Does it matter to you at all? Or just as long as it's "a lot?"

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Yup. This administration trolled it's way into the White House, but Sebby thinks more trolling is the answer.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Agreed.

I see three parties. The Tea Party, the Progressives, and the Corporate Status Quo Preservation Party, which is a mix of the old school GOP and most Democrats. It's a Mexican stand-off.

I get that people hate Trump for what he says and does. I dislike Trump for a lot of what he says and does. But hating him isn't taking advantage of the moment. He's pretty much a lame duck already. Now is when people should begin disregarding him and trying to push through moderate fixes. He'll sign whatever's popular. He has no compass of any sort beyond seeking what gets him covered.

Huge 2. Having Nunes do what he did was a monstrous fuck-up. I'm not sure anything they did is evidence of culpability, however. I think they're just way, way over their heads here.

I don't care. I don't watch him or Maddow. My sole political media watching is listening to Morning Joe a bit, Bloomberg satellite radio, CNN's New Day a bit, and maybe Fareed Zakaria here and there.

I disagree. I think a lot of people hate him on a strange emotional level.

I think he's a buffoon. To hate him requires a level of respect I can't muster for the man.

The only person I truly and deeply do hate is Jeff Sessions. That man is walking shit.

I don't hate Trump for this. I detest the degenerates who engage in it and cheer it. They're an underclass who deserve to be replaced with worthy immigrants. Trump's just the hapless firgurehead they've selected as the vehicle for their envy-based lashing out.

He's culpable, yes, but those worms were already there. He just flipped over the rock.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

You've made this stupid ham sandwich argument before, but if all you mean is that literally everyone could be charged with something (which, btw, isn't really true), why even bring it up?

You specifically believe Hillary did something criminal even though endless investigation didn't turn it up. That's because you're a partisan. (It's also because of your unhealthy news diet).

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Interesting that you took that as specifically about your vote.

I took it as those who voted for Trump being just as gullible as you.

Re: Aca
 

I could have gone with a better one. But in a 500 word post, there's going to be a weak spot. You got me.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

That's what people should be doing, but you know who isn't? The GOP Congress.

Especially on health care, we're now waiting for one of two GOP groups to decide to triangulate and work with the Dems again. Whether that's the White House or Ryan et al deciding that they actually want to fix stuff, it can be done if they're will to give up their extreme promises.

Neither will be.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Your experience in fed crim defense is?

She was smart. You always destroy the paper trail. Even the worst inference against you, or obstruction charge (which alone wouldn't be raised against a candidate for high office), beats getting caught with anything.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

I've given up reading these whole strange rants, but this kind of popped out.

Are these "indie news" sources?

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

Don't blame Congress. Blame the voters. Moderate GOP candidates get murdered in the primaries.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

These two statements do not take into account that the Republican Party controls the White House and both the Senate and the House. The Mexican stand-off is happening on one side of the aisle (Tea Party v. Establishment Republicans). The current approach of the Republican Party (whether we're talking executive orders or actual bills) seems to be a blind, undo everything we can without much thought one. The fact that you're saying, "Now is when people should begin disregarding him and trying to push through moderate fixes," seems unbelievably naïve. Who the hell in the Republican Party is interested in doing any of that?

And the idea that he'll sign whatever is popular is also incorrect based on what he's signed so far. He doesn't know what is popular. He is completely uninterested in policy and he doesn't understand any of the issues. He signs whatever the fuck Bannon puts in front of him and it would seem that the way Bannon gets him to do it is to tell him, "This undoes something Obama did."

But the idea you're pushing that the moderates should take advantage of this strange time is just not realistic.

I'm not sure I understand why you think about it this way. If you encourage assholes to do awful shit (and often promote it and reward it--as he did during a few campaign speeches), and they do awful shit, yeah, it's surely the fault of the people who actually commit those acts. But the numbers of incidents have climbed as a direct result of Trump's ascendency. That can't be ignored.

TM