Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

De facto, not official.

We already have a form of world govt in terms of corporate power. Does anyone doubt the top 10 multinationals have more power than 90% of govts?

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

Again, I'm not sure why it's so important to you defend a tiny group of people who can't be bothered to separate themselves with a movement of actual bigots.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

New Board Motto!!

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

Or who spend their time electing actual bigots.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

The notion that many "America First" people are just good folks who think we should put the interests of our citizens above those of citizens of foreign countries is just fucking stupid nonsense. Can you name one fucking group in the entire country who advocates that we should put the interests of citizens of foreign countries over the interests of our own citizens? You are constantly desperate to defend the indefensible, to minimize the hatred and bigotry. Why? Because you see the greatest problem facing our country is that a bunch of hysterical, hyper-sensitive, hair-on-fire liberals have made it hard to be openly racist or sexist in our society, and focus all their energy on pushing forward their Tyrannical Feminazi Political Correctness Agenda instead of taking the very simple and straightforward steps you have previously outlined to solve all of our country's economic problems?

Some real early Parliament for the Daily Dose. You can hear the shadows of later songs in this cut. "Breakdown":

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

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

There you go again. Soon you'll be calling everyone who hates people different than them bigots.

Re: I love a man in uniform
 

Reading my sister's FB page today, which is her and her military family friends discussing today's announcement, is very sad. They're anticipating purges before too long ...

Re: I love a man in uniform
 

An administration official explained to Axios (via The Plum Line in WaPo) why they're doing this:

Re: I love a man in uniform
 

That sounds completely despicable, until you realize that all is fair in politics.

Re: I love a man in uniform
 

I hate Debbie Stabenow, but she is safe.

Re: I love a man in uniform
 

The pissed off military families I'm seeing are located in Virginia. They connect this with a big litany of other issues that have arisen for military families during the administration, including killing funding for childcare programs, cutting training time and pay for active duty, and cutting the program that lets illegal immigrants enroll in the military (a sizable source of recruits).

Dems are heavily recruiting candidates among veterans, and a lot of very diverse candidates. Bring it on.

Re: I love a man in uniform
 

Oh, good point.

eta: It's odd, though. If the blue-collar voters in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin realize that, they won't care anymore, and then what's the point?

Re: I love a man in uniform
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHVI5fAzWq0 the re line put this bug in my ear

Re: I love a man in uniform
 

someone gets me

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Sebby (and others) might find this interesting.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

The Republicans have finally come up with a way to sell their healthcare bill.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

For the most moderate Republicans in the Senate [1], why would you vote for the so-called skinny repeal? You've already taken votes against GOP bills that could hurt you in the primary. If you vote for this, you know that you are voting for a joint-conference process that will produce a bill much like the others, that you will be shut out of that process, and that you will be given another take-it-or-leave-it vote on a bill you don't like. If you vote for that one, you will piss off everyone. So why vote for that gun to be put to your head?

[1] There are no moderate Republicans.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

You can pick whatever battles you like, but at best you are talking about people who chose a slogan with a freighted past and associate with with a pretty dubious crowd. Why are you invested in defending them?

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

I've never met a prosecution in which I didn't want to poke a hole. Nor have I met a belief or narrative, however hefted it might be, which wasn't worth destabilizing or criticizing.

Skepticism is a good thing. And avoiding generalizations even better. Particularly in a world where we're all being encouraged to see things in black and white.

It's all grey. It's all subjective. A sworn enemy in one area is an ally in another. The list of true heroes and true villains out there can be counted on a few hands.

Binary thinking is annoying.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

More democratic controls may appear possible based on history. But where we are now? I don't see it possible anymore. I think Trump may prove the petri dish for the theory that multinational commerce is the ultimate government, states very much subordinate powers.

Sure, he may get a Foxconn factory in Michigan, start some trade wars, etc. But this is small ball. The globalization genie is so long out of the bottle, and so powerful, I just can't imagine how he can "MAGA" for his constituency of global economy losers.

Kind of reminds me Bill Clinton's comment about being elected President, only to learn the bond market actually ran the country.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

That does encapsulate a lot of my thinking. You're focusing on peripheral social issues while no one addresses the economic issues.

I'm quite passionate in support of LGBT rights, I think Trump's immigration policy is idiotic, and Sessions' "tough on crime" position deplorable. But I also happen to think these issues are detracting us from addressing the main issue that drives everything else: The disappearance of the middle class, and our bifurcation into a society of haves and have nots.

The political classes have no enlightened response to wealth inequality. The Right wants to simply let it persist. The Left thinks it can remedy it with redistribution. Nothing happens, the problems worsen, their impact frustrates efforts at growth, and we argue about... transgender military officers.

Ya think, just maybe, that politicians want us debating these issues? They want us fighting over minor items? Ya think maybe you are the sucker at the table -- taking the bait? Because I happen to think you are. You're an exceptionally bright guy, but you're triggered, in the most Pavlovian sense, by all the "soft issues" the political strategists use to divide and distract us.

It's the economy, stupid. It's only the economy. And that's all it'll ever be until we see real growth, spread more evenly. Then we can start worrying about everything else.

ETA: And have you ever noticed how much of these peripheral issues vanish when the economy is good for most people? Things like justice reform must be addressed regardless, but it's quite amazing how a lot of the social issues everybody's fighting bitterly about right now seem to fade when everyone's fat and happy.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

We need a side eye emoji.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

Many people have said many things on the board, but you picked that into which to poke holes.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

But good news, you've turned the economy over to a bunch of billionaires who will take everyone else for suckers!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Why is the globalization genie out of the bottle? A national government could decide to restrict cross-border capital flows again (and some do). It would take a financial hit, but the domestic politics might make it worth it. Why the fatalism?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Or the opposite as they flee his chaos (a thing they've done elsewhere but has thus far been pretty much unthinkable here).

Manufacturing of inexpensive items and assembly of relatively expensive ones have largely been globalized.

The entire rest of the economy - and it's a lot - has not and won't really. Either because it can't - e.g. personal services, stuff that's expensive to ship - or it's not worth it - relatively small product markets, consumer goods that reflect local preferences, etc.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

Of course you do, because those things don't affect you and you have no empathy. Meanwhile, those things are hurting actual people so maybe we have to walk and chew gum.

Funny how you're entirely in favor of the tax cuts, budget cuts and gutting of regulation that are main policy drivers this phenomenon.

We do. Progressive taxation and redistribution. You reject them out of ideology.

No. The late 1990s was as much of a boom time as there has ever been and yet gays in the military, abortion,"offensive" song lyrics and the president's sex life were very much front and center.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

I do tend to favor third rails. But I could do it with almost anything.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

The better question is why one would want to stop globalization? Its benefits outweigh its costs over the long term.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

But globalization isn't a big economic issue, it's just political cover.

Sure, in the 1980s manufacturing moving to low wage jurisdictions (as much Alabama as Mexico) hurt the Rustbelt. That was a long time ago. But wages in much of the world are way up compared to then, and have stayed flat in the US in manufacturing, meaning moving saves a lot less money, and more importantly automation means wages are also less critical, since the plant that used to take thousands of employees to run now takes hundreds. So you get a lot of political hay closing the borders but it doesn't actually help and probably hurts by killing foreign markets for stuff we do well.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

And you had an opportunity to vote for one of the few politicians who will say this out loud and didn't.

Re: Civil Asset Forfeiture
 

From where I'm standing, these billionaires appear to be doing little more than tripping over their dicks.

They may have made the low information Trump Voter a sucker, as they'll do none of what that voter wants. But that voter deserved to be made a sucker, and they're so incompetent, they can't even pass legislation to help the plutocrats they seek to serve! Taibbi called the Trump Campaign a Clown Car. The analogy holds for the Trump Administration. I can't help but wonder when Trump, in his unfiltered idiocy, defends himself by saying, "We haven't harmed anyone with any alleged corruption because we've so far been unable to do anything!"

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There were other economic reasons I did not vote for her.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Not to those hit with the costs.

The textbook case for international trade is that it makes the country better off in the aggregate, and the gains can be redistributed so that no one is worse off. But when you have a political party in this country dedicated to opposing redistribution -- and, hey, you don't identify as a Republican but you just scorned Democrats for thinking that redistribution is a solution to anything -- and it can block it from happening, then you have to come to grips with the fact that international trade has winners and losers, and the losers pretty rationally will try to block it.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Automation's the bigger issue. But global labor arbitrage has savaged the economic futures of a lot of developed economy workers for the past few decades.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Read the thing I linked to yesterday, and then say why the author is overstating the effects of international trade on the political economy.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'd favor a guaranteed income. Redistribution via govt (agencies doling the $$$ out in a complex fashion) I do not favor.

I'd pay a lot more in taxes if I could simply give it to a poor person directly.

My objection is to the apparatus used, not redistribution.

As usual, I desire an option Not On The Menu.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Two thoughts.

Give automation some time to work on those items. The professional classes' day of reckoning is coming, quickly. If not here already.

The service sector is comprised of a ton of shit, low pay jobs. Its growth outpacing all other sectors since 2008 is not something to be celebrated.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

As always, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...80a5104872.jpg

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Do you understand how insulting this should be to you and all the others posting here?