Re: Aca
 

Okay, but it's still expanding one of the biggest (the biggest?) non-defense portions of the government. Which sounds like it will be difficult to get into a bathtub.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

I don't think I ever got an answer on this. No matter. I'm sure you'll take the latest Manafort revelation in stride. Under the table payments that match the ledger discovered relating to the Ukraine payouts detailing his pro-Russia work don't prove a thing when it comes to collusion. That's true. But let's add this to the amazing amount of contacts, payments, and relationships Trump's people had to Russia.

http://thehill.com/policy/internatio...payouts-report

I'm guessing we can skip over Kushner's failure to disclose dozens of meetings with foreign leaders (including ones with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., and Sergey Gorkov, the head of Russia’s state-owned Vnesheconombank) when he applied for top-secret security clearance too?

Let's move on to your Rice garbage. Does the fact that no one seems to think Rice did anything wrong mean anything to your analysis? The classified docs Nunes was handed by the Administration which he based all of his garbage on contradict his conclusion, Trump's bullshit, and yours, when it comes to Rice.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/11/politi...ims/index.html

I guess you'll avoid saying you were wrong by telling us you need to personally read the classified documents if they're ever released. Maybe something even better?

TM

Re: Come on.
 

I realize he wasn't trying to say that Hitler didn't gas his own people. His internal views are what make it possible to make the leap in logic that allows him to distinguish the two. Why would anyone say, "Not even Hitler stooped so low as to use chemical weapons on his people," [combined with the rest of his explanation] if they didn't think German Jews weren't his people?

And the answer that he was talking about dropping bombs vs. actually going out and rounding up everyone to torture, starve, and gas them to show that not even Hitler would stoop as low as Assad makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. None.

Exactly.

TM

Re: Come on.
 

The best "defense" I saw of Spicer's comments was that technically, the German Jews were not citizens because they had been stripped of citizenship by the Nuremberg Laws, so Spicer was right that they were not Hitler's "people."

Uh, yeah.

Re: Aca
 

You do have me on that. Grover would part ways with me there.

ETA: I'm playing the cards we have. Grover thinks he can bring in a new deck. He's delusional in that regard. But aside from SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and govt supported R&D, I'd gut as much as possible. The biggest cuts would be to Defense.

Re: Come on.
 

He'll reach China by next Tuesday at this rate.

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

I responded to this in an exchange with Adder.

I think Both HRC and Trump's campaigns engaged in criminal acts.

I didn't think HRC's email destruction or use of a private server themselves were worthy of any investigation or prosecution. I suspect they covered up more problematic relations with foreign govts via the foundation.

I don't think Trump was sophisticated enough to have engaged in anything truly illegal with Russia. From what I've seen, however, some of his people probably did so.

In both cases, there's probably some criminal shit. In both cases, it's not much. I'd be against prosecuting HRC for any technical "crime" involved in her relations with foreign govts. That's just practicing politics. And as to the allegation she and Bill stole money or improperly used foundation cash for personal expenses, whatever. No there there either.

Re: Aca
 

So basically just defense then. You know this means should be a Dem, right?

Re: L'affaire Rice
 

They were investigated and the law enforcement professionals decided that there were no charges to be brought.

You believe this because you're completely, willfully, ignorant of what happened.

They used a private server, because it was difficult/impossible to use State Department servers with the mobile devices they wanted. They assumed they could rely on her corresponding with underlines on department servers to comply with records retention requirements. When they found out that assumption was faulty, they had a vendor do searches to identify documents that needed to be returned to State for compliance with those requirements.

Having done that, the vendor - according to testimony to the FBI by at least two vendor employees, as well as the Clinton people - decided on it's own to delete the remaining emails. After all, they weren't relevant.

You think the vendor was lying to the FBI? Why?

Ah, yes, the "truly illegal" standard, which can be satisfied without actual investigation. Great.

Re: Aca
 

I'd pare each of those down (SSDI needs an audit; SS needs means testing), give education back to the states as much as possible, get rid of all agriculture subsidies... There's a good bit of fat to cut aside from just defense.

Re: How Much Acid Has Sebby Eaten? How Much Alex Jones has he Watched?
 

God this is bullshit. Don't tell me, you think she was peddling American uranium assets to the Russians?

You do realize Foundations like this get reviewed and ranked by people who have a good sense of what they are doing, and you do realize how the Clinton Foundation does in those reviews, don't you?

Re: Aca
 

Mulvaney was parroting your (and the right wing media's) talking point that SSDI is the new long term unemployment insurance, citing outdated numbers, of course.

I'm open to it, but it's politically toxic to take away something people think they paid in for. Probably just easier to tweak how it's taxed.

Meh. The states already have it, really. Federal education spending is minimal.

There are lots of small tweaks anyone could make based on their preferences, but really, if you're expanding Medicare and leaving SS more or less the same, you're not making big changes to non-military federal spending.

Although I'd argue that we should be spending more on veterans benefits too.

Re: How Much Acid Has Sebby Eaten? How Much Alex Jones has he Watched?
 

Yes. And he ignored the Rice part of the post. Whatever.

TM

Re: Aca
 

Sebastian does not see labels. He's label-blind.

Re: How Much Acid Has Sebby Eaten? How Much Alex Jones has he Watched?
 

I can't bother with the massive drivel salad and just respond to the occasional few trigger words I come across. I think the world of the Clinton Foundation, and really hope the assholes like Sebby spewing shit don't result in things like losing millions of doses of aids drugs for Africa.

As someone who takes charitable trust duties seriously, I just can't believe that these hateful morons' rants mean that a Foundation which, in addition to a thousand other things they do, is one of the world's leading operations addressing AIDS, became more of a negative in the campaign than a foundation that spent its money settling a lawsuit on behalf of the controlling individuals for-profit business.

Re: Aca
 

New Board Motto!!!!!

I've been slacking on the Daily Dose. So here's some wah-wah heavy funk for you. Leon Mitchison with "Street Scene":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NuYp6blQpA

Re: Aca
 

It's a great board motto, made better because it applies more to Sebby's post than the Adder post to which it referred.

As someone who spend much of their life focused on what it means to be a corporation and the advantages that brings in different jurisdictions, Adder's point was dead on.

Re: Aca
 

:(:( I was hoping for, "Basically a bunch of nuisance socks." :confused::mad:

Re: Aca
 

You acknowledge that you lack liberty when a non-governmental actor locks you up, so your assertion that there is no deprivation of liberty when the market doesn't give you choices is just silly. Suppose you live on an island and you can't drive, and
1) the government forbids motor vehicles,
2) the government taxes gasoline at steep rates, and no one offers bus or taxi service, or
3) there are no taxes or regulation of any kind, but no one offers bus or taxi service,
and as a result you can't get around.

As I use the word, you lack a certain liberty in all three cases, because you can't get around. In your world, apparently you have variable degrees of liberty -- not in 1), maybe in 2) depending on the prices, and yes in 3) -- even though your actually ability to get around is exactly the same in all three cases. You can believe this if you want, and you can use words in this way if you want -- my point is that it's intellectually incoherent. If you (sometimes) call yourself a libertarian because you actually care in some fashion about the sort of choices and freedom that individuals have, then you actually should care about things that limit people's choices and freedom, whether they seem to be the result of public or private actors.

Of course it can. That said, the idea that this is less of a threat to liberty then regulating a market is totally bizarre.

More semantics, with most of the word being done by "unreasonably." The government doesn't force anyone to offer anyone else insurance. It says, if you're going to underwrite insurance, you have to do it in a certain way. Conceptually, you have no problem with that, because you surely accept that insurers can't deceive people about what kind of insurance it's selling. So you're just arguing about whether it's "reasonable" to require that insurance include, e.g., coverage for pre-existing conditions or maternity care. The argument that it's reasonable is that if you don't have these requirements, insurers will be unable to offer such coverage and people will be unable to get it. Sounds "reasonable."

If you've got nothing else, try a slippery slope argument. I'm not making an argument that you have the right to have anything you want provided by the government if the market doesn't provide. I'm not relying on the language of rights at all. You keep muddying things that way. I'm saying that government policy which provides more meaningful choices is better, because liberty. What's the absurd result of requiring that health insurance for those older than 30 cover maternity care?

Why not? If it's easy enough for the government to regulate the insurance market so that everyone has those choices, what's the problem with making people better off? We are, after all, talking about the way that the law has been working now for several years. I'm not proposing recognizing some new constitutional right. I'm saying it's good as it is. You're proposing getting rid of regulation in a way that will make people worse off, for no apparent reason.

This is twaddle. I see a lot more innovation and dynamism when you can buy meaningful health insurance without needing to get it from a large employer. The state ought to do what it can to make sure people have meaningful choices. Obviously, in a lot of cases things that the state might try to do can be counterproductive, because they reduce the efficiency of the private sector. That's not the case here -- the whole point is that the regulations I'm talking about are necessary to make sure that a private market supplies the sort of insurance at issue.

I understand -- you use labels to describe other people, but you don't wish to be bound by them yourselves.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

Two obvious counterarguments are, (1) these markets will work better if you have private companies competing with each other to provide the services, rather than a government monopoly, and (2) the votes weren't there to enact single-payer, so that option wasn't on the table.

(1) So? (2) If the privity really bothers you, the government can act as a broker -- problem solved.

I understand the difference, but I don't understand why you think it's important, and just repeating what you're saying again as if it's obvious lacks explanatory force.

Suppose that my county requires every household to obtain trash-removal services. My town taxes me, and provides the service free of additional charge. The next town over doesn't tax me, and approves a handful of private companies to offer services, letting residents pick which one they want use. What you're saying is, you are freer and better off in my town because no one is forcing you to contract with a private party. That's dumb. I understand that you see a grave threat to liberty from the county requirement that you arrange to get rid of your trash, but once you're living in the county and subject to that requirement, it's pretty obvious that you might be better off being able to pick which private company you want to use.

Fine, but you're no longer defending the silly slippery-slope argument you were making a post ago.

Re: Come on.
 

If Assad is really worse than Hitler, that suggests we should do more in Syria than lob a few cruise missiles.

Re: Aca
 

Sebby, where do you get your news? What sources do you find most useful?

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

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

https://thepilotwifelife.wordpress.c...t-flight-3411/

Another look at the United thing- summary, Fed Regulations are at fault- in fact the Regs compelled the removal.

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

Question: the flight they were heading to was the next day; there was another flight later that day, that hadn't boarded yet. Was this really "must fly"?

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

I don't know. The later flights were likely full, or I've heard they were? Plus, United knew the flight was leaving. It didn't know for sure the later one would.

But i think the change that will come of this is exempting people over X years old from being bumped. it is hard enough for old people to fly, let alone dealing with that additional burden.

(oh, and whiff, first definition)

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

Hillary would have totally ignored possible civilian casualties and dropped a MOAB way before now.

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

This article is total bullshit. It's not even worth discussing how shallow her analysis is.

TM

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

Maybe you'll like this more.

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

It is one thing for ggg to whiff.......

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

Come on, we'd all be proud of Sebby if he could rise to that level.

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

Sorry. It was just such a shit article.

TM

Re: Aca
 

I think I explained this a while back...

I do not watch Fox, contrary to GGG's dull assumption. I watch or listen to their business news network every now and again, but never political coverage or opinion.

I actually like Morning Joe. It's pap, but entertaining and pretty fair. I listen also to BBC, Bloomberg, and CNN (I hate Chris Cuomo, but I like Fareed Zakaria (yes, I understand he's a bland Tom Friedman sort, but I like the subject matter he picks)).

I read almost everything, and it's random. I do plead to having a contrarian and skeptical bent, however, so there is an emphasis on authors who either debunk the consensus, explain why the answer is "none of the mainstream choices offered," or pick holes in the consensus presentation of data. I like Foreign Affairs, Taleb's online stuff ("Skin in the Game"), Cowen, Daily Mail (gossip, famous chicks in next to nothing), Guardian, RT (because Hedges does a show on it), Atlantic, Harpers, Vanity Fair, NYTimes, WSJ, WaPo, LATimes, Realclearpolitics/markets/world, Huffpo and Townhall (to see what the nuts are saying), Reason, Reddit, and all sorts of various blogs, usually linked by a story from a more mainstream source.

It truly is random. I just surf on subject matter in which I'm interested. I don't shoot any messenger except wild conspiracy theorists. Taibbi's The Great Derangement is my proxy on that stuff

Mostly, however, I read books. It's all over the place. Right now I'm reading Chuck Klosterman's What if We're Wrong? I needed something light after depressing the fuck out of myself with Cowen's Complacent Class. Books allow more long range thought, and they're not as focused as blogs on making sure they're hedged against being cited as incorrect in the comments section. Most online writing sucks because everybody is continually defending themselves in advance.

I used to read the Times and WSJ front to back every day. Did it for probably 15 years. It was a waste of time. News is fleeting. The underlying trends and forces remain somewhat the same.

I have some other horse's mouth sources. These are familiar with how the sausage is made. They're the source of the greatest amount of skepticism I have for consensus.

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

The reports say we dropped that big bomb on ISIS in eastern Afghanistan. Since when is ISIS in eastern Afghanistan? That's a long way from the caliphate. eta: Wikipedia has more.

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

I think there is a lot of debate about these little ISIS offshoots in different places and how much communication they have with the mothership in Syria, but they are all over. They get broken up and then something else gets reformed. I've seen speculation that the only time they can effectively coordinate is during the Hajj, and otherwise intl is good enough so its hard for them to have much interaction.

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

I don't think "offshoot" is the right term -- it's more like a foreign body grafted onto ISIS, if you want to be vegetative about it. Also seems like it's playing into their hands, and building up ISIS, to be describing an attack on them as an attack on ISIS.

It Already Died in the Light
 

Silly, but effective: http://m.webtoons.com/en/comedy/dust...&episode_no=54

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

No adults at home. The teenagers are getting into the liquor cabinet.

Re: Aca
 

Red, Green, Black, Gold -- all acceptable. Blue: You're a sucker.

Re: Aca
 

My favorite Funkadelic song done by Lili Haydn on fiddle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APP6-4i_pR4 (because I don'w ant to get into the Eddie/Michael debate).

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

You're suggesting that this administration may not be thinking about the implications of what it's saying? Huh.