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

So much truth.

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

Typically by serving a writ of execution or garnishee interrogatories on the employer.

Varies by state. If it's a consumer/commercial guarantee creditor, there are lots of exemptions. If it's spousal support, don't bother contesting.

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

I was running three conversations. It's hard to deal with Ty and Hank and TM at once. Don't take it as a slight, but I don't think about my replies to you in as much detail.

Like this last comment of yours... A tax voter is an ideologue?

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

Everybody but BLM. Justice reform first.

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

Nobody sober wants to hear In a Gadda da Vida, again.

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

We don't because Trump's an asshole who hired a piece of shit like Sessions.

All the more reason for Paul and Booker to restart their justice reform initiative.

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

From the Roth thing I linked yesterday:

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

That is a fantastic bit of writing.

But now I'm regretting calling Trump an asshole. When I used that term, I did so without considering the one thing that may disqualify him from its application: His endless whining.

The hallmark of an asshole - what makes his company preferable to that of a douchebag, tool, shmuck, or prick - is his Teflon composition. An asshole does not care. He'd never whine he was being treated unfairly. He'd assume that part of the game.

Say what you will of an asshole, he's not entitled. He offers no quarter and expects none. There is something respectable in that. I wouldn't want it over for dinner, and I wouldn't want my kid to emulate it, but it does demand a grudging acknowledgement of its talents.

Trump is only part asshole, more man-baby. A coddled bully who's truly annoyed at being compelled to punch outside his weight. A true asshole wouldn't cry. He'd have put his ego aside and played the game.

A true asshole with all the advantages President Trump was given would have already gotten tax reform and ACA repeal done. This 80% man-baby in asshole's clothing has no chance of getting either.

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

I listened to a chunk of Morning Joe driving this morning. The references to AntiFa were numerous. The criticisms of the Left, by this recently very anti-Trump program (not just AntiFa, but college "snowflakes" [their word] dis-inviting speakers) were many.

One would swear there were loads of violent Leftists around the nation, rather than just a few pockets of these twits here and there. One would assume the same about Nazis. A mass media consumer might assume idiots banning speakers at Berkeley and assaulting a professor at a Charles Murray speech are the rule, rather than embarrassing and quite infrequent exceptions. That consumer might think these "snowflakes" are an actual danger to free speech, rather than garden variety college kids with their heads up their asses, whose whining will cease, quite brutally, when they graduate.

If one were a cynic, he'd guess the media loves the Nazis v. AntiFa and "college leftists against the First Amendment" narratives, and that it is giving outsized coverage to minor phenomena to gin up ratings.

If one were a serious cynic, he might think a lot of politicians love this stuff because it gives them something with which to rally their low information voters. Finally, he'd assume, if America were a giant poker game, there are an awful lot of suckers at the table. Perhaps more so than ever before.

While onward persists our 2% "recovery" and conversion to a Gilded Age economy.

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

Yes, Sebby, someone who consistently places a single interest above all others is an ideologue.

This has been your moment of basic political science.

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

Well, I'm pretty sure that no one who has ever participated in BLM would agree with you but okay.

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

Other politicians can seem inauthentic because they are trying to speak for a group and compromise their own individuality. Trump doesn't have this problem. He is an authentic asshole, speaking for himself. When he does occasionally say things scripting for him by his staff, he doesn't sound very happy to doing it and it doesn't sound like him because it's not. He's usually very authentic. But this makes him a terrible legislator, because he doesn't purport to speak for anyone but himself. Why should Congress change the tax code or healthcare laws in the ways he wants? Because he wants a win? That's not a very good reason, and he doesn't have another.

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

Not sure why it's cynical to think that a person whose job is to sell advertising would be interested in figuring out which programming sells advertising.

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

Not disagreeing but another problem is that he mostly doesn't know or care how healthcare or the tax code is changed, he just wants to be able to say it changed, which means he's a non-player helping get a deal done.

The GOP is accomplishing nothing because it's a mess and it has no leader.

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

Kind of humorous.

The "tax voters" have been the worst of all ideologues over much of my life, in the sense that they are voters whose minds are closed to any discussion that does not fit their ideological preconceptions. A good example of this is trying to talk to Sebby about healthcare policy, where he puts forward the dumbest possible ideas in practice but ones that fit his ideological comfort zone.

Lately, of course, those tax voters have been eclipsed by the Fox ideologues, who began as tax voters but then discovered hate.

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

A key issue in here is what does he want? My understanding is that we will not have a proposal on taxes from the White House, and if anyone here can give me five points that form the core of the administration's health care policy I'll give you a magical pony.

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

A tax voter has no ideology. This person is acting in the simplest form of rational self interest.

An true ideologue has an "ideal" behind his vote. YMMV, but tax voters tend to simply not want to pay taxes. They're similar to older voters who are dependent on SS, and so vote against anyone they think might cut their benefits. It's transactional.

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

huh.

That's an ideology.

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

He had to get HC done to create "savings" to build into the tax reli-- er, "reform" program. Without the former, I don't think he can do the latter.

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

i·de·ol·o·gy
ˌīdēˈäləjē,ˌidēˈäləjē/
noun
noun: ideology; plural noun: ideologies

1.
a system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.

"the ideology of republicanism"
synonyms: beliefs, ideas, ideals, principles, ethics, morals

Grover Norquist is a tax voting ideologue. He's also .01 percent of tax voters. The stockbroker down the street who votes based on taxes so he can put a few more bucks into his retirement account is not an ideologue.

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

Right. Voting solely on the basis of taxes is a system of belief, whether it's out of philosophical objection to taxes or "rational self interest" (which is itself a system of belief).

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

I agree, but it's not like it's happenstance -- Trump is the culmination of years of GOP thought on healthcare, which has been total disinterest on policy, a preference to cut taxes rather than spend money on things that help average people, a willingness to say anything on the subject for immediate political advantage, and a strong urge to stand for the opposite of what Obama did. They promised people cheaper, better care for years, and never had any way to provide it.

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

Adder's point, which is so blindingly obvious that you somehow can't see it, is that an ideology of pure self-interest is still an ideology.

A less obvious point is that your self-interested tax voters end up voting for lots of stuff which are not in their self-interest because they are being suckered by a promise of lower taxes.

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

Sure, to be an epic timmy, you can argue that any thinking can be an ideology. This would, of course, rob the word of any meaning at all.

A pure tax voter is amoral. He has no basket of notions for which he stands. He is not even voting on multiple considerations. He has one binary aim: Pull a lever that costs less. You're ascribing a level of thinking he has not reached. It's lizard brain voting.

If a pure tax voter has a true ideology, my cat has one. He acts exclusively in furtherance of getting something he wants. He has no belief or broader thought on the implications of his actions beyond the rote calculation of the moment.

Go ahead and call that an ideology if you like. Webster's may back you up. In a conversation with non-lawyer non-twits, however, anyone arguing that tax voters have ideals, or principles, would be met with:

"Shut the fuck up, Ed. You must be drunk off your ass. A tax voter's just voting his pocketbook."

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

I've pulled the lever in the past based solely on laziness. All things being equal, or not caring enough, why not just vote for probably less taxes?

Is laziness an ideal? A belief? Because I'm thinking of starting a movement... perhaps a religion.

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

I can always count on you for some humor in these dark days. Thanks for that.

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

Richard Rubin's article in the WSJ yesterday is a work of art on the Republican tax reform quandary. Apparently they are still trying to figure out whether they want a waters-edge or world-wide tax system, meaning that they've been so busy politicking they haven't figured out even the basics of what they're politicking about. And of course, everyone is starting to show up to lobby and fill that vacuum.

What a cluster-fuck.

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

He stands for lower taxes. How is this difficult?

Yes, that's what makes him an ideologue.

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

I wasn't, but I suppose you could. "I'm tired, so let's go to the earlier movie." "Oh, you ideologue." Yes, that would be stupid. If you'd care to engage with what people here are actually saying to you, that would be more interesting.

I understand your notional pure tax voter. I disagree with calling that "immoral." It's a morality. Bentham's utilitarianism is similar.

Your cat doesn't have an ideology, and doesn't vote. Your notional pure tax voter takes the irrational step of spending the time and effort to get him or herself to a polling place and wait in line to pull a lever to express a preference that almost certainly will not have any effect on whether or not he or she pays taxes. The number of tied elections is vanishingly small, although I almost voted in one once. I do think acting out of pure self-interest would also be a form of ideology, but I don't think I've ever met a human being who acts that way, so it's a thought experiment. The kind of people you're talking about are acting ideologically and pretending that they're not. Or rather, you're pretending that they're not.

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

This arguing over definitions is kinda cute in a what-the-fuck-are-we-law-students? kind of way, but the basic way I assess whether someone is an ideologue is whether there is any chance, presented with a rational and practical argument, that they will actually consider it rather than getting lost in their ideologically reductionist worldview.

So if I say to someone, look, one way to improve healthcare is to consider total systemic costs in decision making rather than costs of just one element in the system (e.g., so the hospital doesn't just consider its bottom line, the insurer its bottom line, etc.), and they respond with something like (a) that sounds like it restricts the free market so it must be bad or (b) that sounds like government involvement and I don't want to pay for that or (c) that sounds like single payer healthcare so it has to be good, they are an ideologue. If they say, let's discuss that on the merits and figure out the pros and cons, they are not.

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

The GOP is bankrupt of ideas and morality. It really is as simple as that.

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

Well, apparently both ideas and morality aren't really necessary to win elections.

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

I'm not sure it was fully apparent until after the election.
And Hillary is a mush

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

And yet winning elections everywhere.

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

It's a combination of (1) gerrymandering and (2) an uneducated (and/or stupid) public.

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

Hey. We got power back. 25 inches of rain so far at the official flood control district by my house. 4.5 feet of water in the garage, but stopped 3 inches short of entering the house. Damage so far is the garage, loss of our cars, and insulation in the floor/crawl space. We are safe, and are stocked for another week of isolation.

Did I miss anything?

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

Good to hear you are safe. Any ongoing danger? Water still rising?

I was on vacation, so I can't tell you what you missed, other than Club checking in.

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

Everybody's nearly bankrupt of those things. Those are the wages of neoliberal economics. All is commoditized, and in a downturn, you get an irresistible rip current of cost cutting and efficiency fetishization.

And if you think one party worshipped at the altar of neoliberal economics more than the other, you're the sucker at the table.

I say this as someone who supports neoliberal economic policies. Nothing's perfect. This one was a largely silver cloud with a small but ominous dark lining. We could have addressed that (more creatively and intelligently than with mere safety nets and platitudes about "retraining and education" for the 50% of the country with dire employment [hell, survival] prospects). We decided -- both parties -- to instead kick the can down the road.

And now, this is what we get. Things are actually good right now for the lucky. It feels a lot better. But it also feels delicate... Jenga-like.

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

I agree with this. An ideologue has an ethos about how all things should work, but it's blindered. Where a pure tax voter doesn't care much about anything beyond his own tax bill, the ideologue has considered things in a broader context, and yet refused to mix policies.

There's a solid conservative economic argument for a single payer system. Unlocking all the cash hoovered up in our current rent-like system could enable growth in areas with broader and better multipliers.

I think everyone generally prefers to avoid govt intervention because, economics aside, it feels like an encroachment on freedom. This is a very positive mindset we want to retain. But when a sector of the economy becomes a true vampire squid, of govt-sized proportions, creating a situation where govt might be the only answer, conservative principles dictate that conservatives develop a more open mind.

A real conservative should be able to do the calculation that, if an industry is sucking massive otherwise growth-producing dollars from the economy, it's no different than the govt doing so. Particularly if it's in bed with the govt.

If single payer takes dollars pissed away on HC and plows them into growth producing economic activity, it seems a no brainer. I doubt this argument would work with many "conservatives," as their views seem more emotional than logical. But it'd be nice to see it made nonetheless.

No, Obama didn't make it. The ACA may work, but his argument was not terribly clear, and the law still hooked up the insurers and cost a lot.

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

Wow, so sorry to hear. Stay safe and dry.