US Politics Mega-thread - Page 2099

On July 12 2015 00:08 KwarK wrote:

And if government were a bird it'd technically be a dinosaur? Checkmate, young earthers.

Government borrowing is not the same thing as business borrowing.

WASHINGTON -- In her first major economic policy speech on Monday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faces dual tasks: contrasting her agenda with the leading Republican presidential candidates and embracing -- while still drawing distinctions from -- the president she hopes to succeed.

The former will come quite easily. The latter requires a deft touch.

Appearing at The New School, Clinton will attempt to thread this needle by taking a cue from her husband’s 1992 presidential bid. She’ll keep it simple, distilling her vision into a single idea: it’s about middle-class incomes, stupid.

Her policy suggestions are meant to supplement that proposition. According to the campaign, Clinton will offer a three-pronged vision that her aides say is designed to raise wages and protect workers.

She will call for greater public and private investments in infrastructure, clean energy and medical research; tax breaks for small businesses and policies to encourage workforce participation, especially among women, including paid leave and paid sick days, better child care services and access to education.

On July 12 2015 12:16 Danglars wrote:
Her husband also routinely answered reporter's questions, whereas she only gives speeches. She'll need to take more than just an economy angle from WJC's bid to win herself a throne too. I suppose she could cross her fingers and hope for a vibrant Trump in a third party channeling Perot.

On July 12 2015 12:25 KwarK wrote:
Bernie would probably get the White House if he got the democratic nomination and Trump ran as a third party. A man can dream.

On July 12 2015 13:37 Bagration wrote:


But once he's in the White House then what? Unless the Democrats manage to get supermajorities like they did back in 2008, the Republicans will fight tooth and nail to obstruct, obstruct and obstruct everything.

That being said, I hope that the next few years are the dying breath of the old Republican party. It's entirely obsolete, out-of-touch, and dying out. There are many fiscal conservatives in America, many of them younger Americans, but they find themselves utterly turned off by the anti-science, anti-minority, bible-thumping. The Republican party is holding America back

On July 12 2015 14:30 Danglars wrote:

I heard a lot of caterwauling about the turnout in the most recent election, the 2014 midterm election just last year. It was a sad day to be a Democrat supporter. The Republicans gained the largest house majority since 1928. Now, before I entertain death notices (not made in jest), I'll hope Democrats can find their way to the polling station and themselves come back from obsolescence in the Legislature. You know all those people supposedly turned off by religion, or hatred of minorities, or hatred of science, might surprisingly speak with their own persons and reject the elite characterizations about how they're "supposed to think."

I've got no rose-colored glasses on; I know individual candidates will have to excel above their party's sad performance on Obamacare's defunding and whatever the hell the TPP is behind closed doors. I also entertain the opposite proposition from Bagration; namely that America has wanted in the past people that will "fight tooth and nail to obstruct, obstruct and obstruct everything" when they disagree with trends in lawmaking.

For the presidency, the Democrats have had the weakest field I've seen in my lifetime, and that includes Kerry/2004 primaries. The Democratic forerunner is the embodiment of out-of-touch, her dynastic control of her party is dying out, and she excites hardly anybody. Her heartthrob contender (not the shirtless one, I mean the smiling socialist) still has to pitch his progressive economic agenda & environmental agenda to more than just tired ex-Clinton (or ex-Obama) supporters. (I don't mean to say I haven't heard loud claims in this that America's ready to embrace his platform, that America has reason to believe he can lead--I just don't find them credible)

Allow Government to Negotiate Drug Prices (79%)
Give Students the Same Low Interest Rates as Big Banks (78%)
Universal Pre-Kindergarten (77%)
Fair Trade that Protect Workers, the Environment, and Jobs (75%)
End Tax Loopholes for Corporations that Ship Jobs Overseas (74%)
End Gerrymandering (73%)
Let Homeowners Pay Down Mortgage With 401k (72%)
Debt-Free College at All Public Universities (Message A) (71%)
Infrastructure Jobs Program — $400 Billion / Year (71%)
Require NSA to Get Warrants (71%)
Disclose Corporate Spending on Politics/Lobbying (71%)
Medicare Buy-In for All (71%)
Close Offshore Corporate Tax Loopholes (70%)
Green New Deal — Millions Of Clean-Energy Jobs (70%)
Full Employment Act (70%)
Expand Social Security Benefits (70%)

On July 12 2015 14:41 GreenHorizons wrote:


Your posts seem to get more and more obtuse and esoteric.

Anyway...



Source

Looks like people just need to figure out that's the kind of stuff Bernie stands for. He doesn't have to convince America they are good ideas, he has to convince them if they actually participate things will change.

If/when Bernie wins, incumbents will be terrified at what those numbers would mean in a midterm. You'll see a very different congress with Bernie.

Not to mention, Republicans have a lot of seats coming up, and they have an atrocious message. "Vote for us or else!"

On July 12 2015 17:07 Velocirapture wrote:


In my case I think the huge barrier between me and Bernie is a lingering doubt that he can actually push these kinds of reforms through congress. I have stated before that a lot of Bernie's policies make a ton of sense to me but when you start talking about a trillion dollars here and a trillion dollars there it freaks people out. Approval has never been the issue when it comes to ideas like, "lets expand this hugely successful program" or "lets do a better job maintaining our infrastructure". It always comes down to money.

In an hour long interview he did with Katie Couric for Yahoo News he stated that he would enact a 300 billion a year tax on speculation (revenue enhancement) and mobilize millions of Americans to march on Washington to demand policy votes (policy management). I would need to hear A LOT more on these two areas before I am convinced he could do even one of those common sense reforms. And I need specifics when we are talking about such a huge pie in the sky sum, none of this "good government" reducing inefficiency stuff.

On July 12 2015 17:07 Velocirapture wrote:


In my case I think the huge barrier between me and Bernie is a lingering doubt that he can actually push these kinds of reforms through congress. I have stated before that a lot of Bernie's policies make a ton of sense to me but when you start talking about a trillion dollars here and a trillion dollars there it freaks people out. Approval has never been the issue when it comes to ideas like, "lets expand this hugely successful program" or "lets do a better job maintaining our infrastructure". It always comes down to money.

In an hour long interview he did with Katie Couric for Yahoo News he stated that he would enact a 300 billion a year tax on speculation (revenue enhancement) and mobilize millions of Americans to march on Washington to demand policy votes (policy management). I would need to hear A LOT more on these two areas before I am convinced he could do even one of those common sense reforms. And I need specifics when we are talking about such a huge pie in the sky sum, none of this "good government" reducing inefficiency stuff.

I think the issue is, frankly, it’s not just Hillary, Elizabeth, or Bernie Sanders, or anybody else. This country faces enormous problems. Our middle-class is disappearing. We more people living in poverty than at any time in the history of America. We’re the only major country without a national health care program guaranteeing health care for all people. What’s it all about? The question is this one basic question. How do take on a billionaire class, which has so much economic power, and with Citizens United, can now buy elections. Where we are moving in many ways towards an oligarchic form of society rather than our traditional democracy.

Who is prepared to do it? So let me just say this, no president, not Hillary, not Bernie Sanders, not anybody, will succeed unless there is a mass mobilization of millions of people who stand up and say, enough is enough. Koch brothers and billionaires can’t have it all.

On July 13 2015 07:02 Danglars wrote:

Comes down to money ... also comes down to the details of the plan. Talking vaguely about policy goals brews support; Drafting them into specific new statutes brews dissension (and sometimes that is just the price tag). Dropping a tax on stocks, bonds, derivatives trading, that's specific. It'll anger Wall St brokers and plenty of others.

Seems he has a soft spot in his heart for Harry Reid. I'll believe he can inspire millions to march on Washington a la Occupy Wall St when I see it.

VIENNA (AP) — Negotiators at the Iran nuclear talks plan to announce Monday that they've reached a historic deal capping nearly a decade of diplomacy that would curb the country's atomic program in return for sanctions relief, two diplomats told The Associated Press on Sunday.

The envoys said a provisional agreement may be reached even earlier — by late Sunday. But they cautioned that final details of the pact were still being worked out. Once it is complete, a formal, final agreement would be open to review by officials in the capitals of Iran and the six world powers at the talks, they said.

Senior U.S. and Iranian officials suggested, however, there might not be enough time to reach a deal by the end of Sunday and that the drafting of documents could bleed into Monday.

All of the officials, who are at the talks in Vienna, demanded anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the negotiations publicly.

"We are working hard, but a deal tonight is simply logistically impossible," the Iranian official said, noting that the agreement will run roughly 100 pages.

The senior U.S. official declined to speculate as to the timing of any agreement or announcement but said "major issues remain to be resolved."

Despite the caution, the negotiators appeared to be on the cusp of an agreement.

On July 13 2015 07:04 GreenHorizons wrote:


If/when Sanders wins the primary he will have already mobilized millions. So let's say they do march, what would that change for you?

On July 14 2015 04:15 Danglars wrote:
Just re-read the quote the good old political blowhard in today's limelight made. The disappearing middle class, no socialized health care, an empowered billionaire class with both economic means and Citizens United stealing elections. We need mobilization of the proletariat to take back society from the bourgeois! Fancy talk.

He makes an impotence claim once again ("no president ... will succeed unless ..."), which indicates he is not prophesying his coming victory (or the mobilization of votes for his election would be enough). He's looking for a vocal revolution to force measures curtailing this supposed malicious influence that is one step towards curing all the other ills he lists. Maybe he has GH in this projected popular uprising, but I doubt he'll find the millions he needs to counter the contrived oligarchy.