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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
Various reports cast doubt on the reasons for Christie's ouster, and the level of stability in the campaign.
Christie's diminished role with Trump's transition is due at least in part, according to multiple news outlets, to Jared Kushner, the president-elect's son-in-law, whose father was convicted in a case prosecuted by Christie when he was U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Charles Kushner, a prominent Democratic donor, was sentenced to two years after pleading guilty to tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign donations. But unnamed transition aides told Bloomberg that the Kushner-led purge was because the transition hadn't progressed or gotten as far as Trump wanted, not the conviction.
USA Today
The purge indicates the emphasis on loyalty — and significant influence of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, husband of Ivanka — that characterized Trump's campaign will carry over into his White House.
Multiple sources indicated that Christie was demoted because he wasn't seen as sufficiently loyal to Trump, failing to vocally defend him at key moments on the campaign trail.
NBC
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As I've said before, I don't think Trump will be good (he is too tied to the Republican apparatus) but neither would Clinton be much good. However, in the last month of the campaign I have become increasingly disillusioned with the Democrats as a party and I think they would have headed in the wrong direction under her leadership.
My attitude is actually quite similar to Sanders': to the extent Trump is willing to push for the things I want, I'm with him. To the extent he is against those things I will oppose him. And I hope he creates a political realignment that will help repair a dysfunctional political system in this country.
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What kind of political realignment do you want to happen?
and how it would help with the dysfunction in politics?
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On November 17 2016 02:51 zlefin wrote:
What kind of political realignment do you want to happen?
and how it would help with the dysfunction in politics?
Democrats should be better leftists of the European breed. Basically socialist to a large extent.
Republicans should be a right-leaning worker's party that defends cultural values and emphasizes a more free market approach but doesn't shill ridiculously hard for the corporations.
Both sides should accept that socialized healthcare and education are the best systems and push for their implementation.
Trump forces both parties to realign since his two victories (primary and general) undermine both parties and their main positions.
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A Democratic group accuses Donald Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor, Steve Bannon, of receiving illegal payments from a super PAC during the presidential campaign.
The Democratic Coalition Against Trump has reported Bannon to the FBI, saying that he broke campaign finance laws when the pro-Trump super PAC Make America Number 1 paid $950,090 to Bannon’s company, Glittering Steel LLC, PoliticusUSA.com reported Tuesday.
An FEC filing was brought to the public attention on Monday by The Daily Beast, which reported that a complaint was made on Oct. 6 by the Campaign Legal Center to the Federal Election Commission stating that Republican donors Robert and Rebekah Mercer paid Bannon for his work on the Trump campaign
Yahoo
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Plausible political realignments;
though I do'nt see that affecting the dysfunction, the dysfunction is less a matter of alignment but more of process.
the notion of not having a party shilling for corporate interests seems unlikely given how much money they have to throw into the process.
repositioning the parties can help, encouraging a shift toward craziness and untruth in doing so hurts, net effect could be positive or negative; 'tis to be hoped they improve it, but I'd consider it unlikely.
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We absolutely need a pro-corporate party. That can be toned down significantly without undermining the general idea of being pro-worker.
Low taxes and fair labor laws are not mutually exclusive, and so on.
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I guess then the question is what constitues the correct amount of shilling? at what point does it become shilling ridiculously hard?
how does one, in general, get someone to do the right amount of shilling?
businesses often have interests contrary to workers; while it's not necessartily true, it sometimes is. and that viewpoint is stronger and more antagonistic in america than it is in europe; unless you fix that underlying antagonism, trying to have both on the same party won't work so well.
fix the underlying problems, and everything else falls into place.
vote for me!
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On November 17 2016 02:06 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2016 01:57 Azuzu wrote:On November 17 2016 01:40 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 01:33 LegalLord wrote:On November 17 2016 01:05 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 00:59 LegalLord wrote:By the way, on the eve of his presidency, I'm curious what people think of Obama. I wrote this brief comment about his term; overall I myself approve of him but think his presidency will be remembered as "decent but not extraordinary" overall. Quick polls: + Show Spoiler +Poll: Overall, do you approve or disapprove of Obama's presidency?Approve (12) 75% Disapprove (4) 25% 16 total votes Your vote: Overall, do you approve or disapprove of Obama's presidency? (Vote): Approve
(Vote): Disapprove
Poll: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Obama's presidency overall?7 (9) 56% 2 (2) 13% 3 (2) 13% 8 (2) 13% 6 (1) 6% 1 (0) 0% 4 (0) 0% 5 (0) 0% 9 (0) 0% 10 (0) 0% 16 total votes Your vote: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Obama's presidency overall? (Vote): 1
(Vote): 2
(Vote): 3
(Vote): 4
(Vote): 5
(Vote): 6
(Vote): 7
(Vote): 8
(Vote): 9
(Vote): 10
I'd also like to hear more detailed opinions. Obama will go down in history as a middling president. He had minimal accomplishments, and what he did accomplish is about to be erased by Trump. That said, I think that he should be judged by the promise of his 2008 campaign. By that standard, he has been an utter failure and disappointment. He ran on "hope and change," not "the status quo." I suppose "hope and change, but not at the cost of the global liberal economic and political order" is the mantra of his, and that of many other "status quo" Western leaders, if you want to characterize it in a more fair and/or dickish manner. By the way, were you for or against Obama in 2008? I was against Obama. I thought he was going to be far more radical than he actually was. I also didn't like his inexperience (but if Obama taught us anything, it's that experience is vastly overrated). Yet as Obama made his initial cabinet picks, it became readily apparent that Obama wasn't going to be changing that much during his presidency. Combine that with his decision to blow all of his political capital on Obamacare, and it became clear that he was going to be very ineffective overall in terms of pushing the type of change that he campaigned on. Do you think he would have been able to make more of the changes that he campaigned on if he hadn't spent so much political capital on Obamacare? Healthcare reform is one of the big changes he campaigned on. It seems like if he didn't spend the capital on Obamacare, and instead some more minor reforms, he would still be lauded as ineffective for not passing healthcare reform. I think the problem with spending the political capital on Obamacare is that not many people really wanted it to begin with. Let's put Republican opposition aside, and look purely at the Democrats. Obama and the other pro-Obamacare Democrats in Congress had a lot of trouble whipping enough votes from members of their own Party to pass Obamacare. And let's just face reality: Obamacare has been a political poison pill for the Democrats ever since it was passed. The Republicans have successfully bludgeoned Democrats with it in every election since 2010. In short, I think that Obama made a grave miscalculation by making Obamacare his initial policy initiative. Yeah, he eventually passed Obamacare, but that victory has been about as pyrrhic as it could be.
I think the problem is that it didn't go far enough towards an effective universal healthcare approach to be meaningful, but it did go far enough to piss off most people who were inclined against it, destroying a lot of political capital with the individual mandate issue. Some people were better off for its existence, others were not. It's possibly a step towards a better system, but one that was too expensive politically to get there.
If it were up to me I'd just pay the upfront costs associated with a universal healthcare system and make it work. Nationalizing the insurance industry would be a really, really tough sell but I'm sure it would be much more effective than what Obamacare managed to do.
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I was the former nuclear missile launch officer who in October appeared in a TV advertisement for Hillary Clinton, saying: “The thought of Donald Trump with nuclear weapons scares me to death. It should scare everyone."...As I walked through a nuclear missile launch center in the ad, I explained that “self-control may be all that keeps these missiles from firing.”
We will see all of our fears—and the new president-elect’s self-control—put to the test over the next four years. When Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017, there will be no shortage of combustible tensions around the globe. And Trump will need to make some critical decisions quickly—including whether he truly wants, as he suggested during the campaign, a world in which there are even more nuclear powers than we have today.
...
In East Asia, meanwhile, a mercurial and belligerent leader of North Korea will soon be able to brandish nuclear-armed missiles to credibly threaten South Korea, Japan and the U.S. homeland with nuclear devastation. The timeline for this threat to materialize is very short—months or a low number of years...Kim Jong Un’s provocations combined with Trump’s soft-pedaling of U.S. defense commitment in Asia have put the entire region on edge and provoked South Korea to consider acquiring a nuclear arsenal in self defense.
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In the Middle East, U.S. and Russian forces are operating in very close and not-so-friendly quarters in the Syrian theater, and the specter of a region going nuclear looms larger than ever as Trump warns he will tear up and re-negotiate the hard-won Iranian nuclear deal. This ill-advised move would set Iran free to resume its nuclear program, while spurring Iran’s enemies to follow suit, as well as re-opening the debate over U.S.-Israeli pre-emptive strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities.
All of these crises are percolating at once. They threaten to overwhelm even the savviest of presidents and advisers. Can we rely on Trump to act with diligence, competence, diplomatic skill, reason and restraint? The verdict of a plurality of the electorate who voted for Clinton and of the vast majority of foreign policy experts is one of profound doubt that he can handle the pressure. He has proved himself over and over again to be quick-tempered, defensive, prone to lash out, adamant in dividing the world into winners and losers, and quick to invoke either the use of force or the backing away from U.S. defense commitments. He is ill-informed about nuclear weapons and the policies that govern their role and use. He offhandedly entertains their use, raising doubts whether he can be trusted with the nuclear codes. The danger exists that the Trump national security team headed by an inexperienced and hot-headed commander in chief will prove too inept to defuse a crisis, and that it will escalate to nuclear conflict with devastating consequences for the country, our allies and the world.
Politico
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A bunch of unsubstantiated bullshit being peddled by the media right now about Trump's cabinet. Just wait and see what he does, their post election withdrawal from high ratings is on full display.
User was warned for this post
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On November 17 2016 03:11 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2016 02:06 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 01:57 Azuzu wrote:On November 17 2016 01:40 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 01:33 LegalLord wrote:On November 17 2016 01:05 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 00:59 LegalLord wrote:By the way, on the eve of his presidency, I'm curious what people think of Obama. I wrote this brief comment about his term; overall I myself approve of him but think his presidency will be remembered as "decent but not extraordinary" overall. Quick polls: + Show Spoiler +Poll: Overall, do you approve or disapprove of Obama's presidency?Approve (12) 75% Disapprove (4) 25% 16 total votes Your vote: Overall, do you approve or disapprove of Obama's presidency? (Vote): Approve
(Vote): Disapprove
Poll: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Obama's presidency overall?7 (9) 56% 2 (2) 13% 3 (2) 13% 8 (2) 13% 6 (1) 6% 1 (0) 0% 4 (0) 0% 5 (0) 0% 9 (0) 0% 10 (0) 0% 16 total votes Your vote: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Obama's presidency overall? (Vote): 1
(Vote): 2
(Vote): 3
(Vote): 4
(Vote): 5
(Vote): 6
(Vote): 7
(Vote): 8
(Vote): 9
(Vote): 10
I'd also like to hear more detailed opinions. Obama will go down in history as a middling president. He had minimal accomplishments, and what he did accomplish is about to be erased by Trump. That said, I think that he should be judged by the promise of his 2008 campaign. By that standard, he has been an utter failure and disappointment. He ran on "hope and change," not "the status quo." I suppose "hope and change, but not at the cost of the global liberal economic and political order" is the mantra of his, and that of many other "status quo" Western leaders, if you want to characterize it in a more fair and/or dickish manner. By the way, were you for or against Obama in 2008? I was against Obama. I thought he was going to be far more radical than he actually was. I also didn't like his inexperience (but if Obama taught us anything, it's that experience is vastly overrated). Yet as Obama made his initial cabinet picks, it became readily apparent that Obama wasn't going to be changing that much during his presidency. Combine that with his decision to blow all of his political capital on Obamacare, and it became clear that he was going to be very ineffective overall in terms of pushing the type of change that he campaigned on. Do you think he would have been able to make more of the changes that he campaigned on if he hadn't spent so much political capital on Obamacare? Healthcare reform is one of the big changes he campaigned on. It seems like if he didn't spend the capital on Obamacare, and instead some more minor reforms, he would still be lauded as ineffective for not passing healthcare reform. I think the problem with spending the political capital on Obamacare is that not many people really wanted it to begin with. Let's put Republican opposition aside, and look purely at the Democrats. Obama and the other pro-Obamacare Democrats in Congress had a lot of trouble whipping enough votes from members of their own Party to pass Obamacare. And let's just face reality: Obamacare has been a political poison pill for the Democrats ever since it was passed. The Republicans have successfully bludgeoned Democrats with it in every election since 2010. In short, I think that Obama made a grave miscalculation by making Obamacare his initial policy initiative. Yeah, he eventually passed Obamacare, but that victory has been about as pyrrhic as it could be. I think the problem is that it didn't go far enough towards an effective universal healthcare approach to be meaningful, but it did go far enough to piss off most people who were inclined against it, destroying a lot of political capital with the individual mandate issue. Some people were better off for its existence, others were not. It's possibly a step towards a better system, but one that was too expensive politically to get there. If it were up to me I'd just pay the upfront costs associated with a universal healthcare system and make it work. Nationalizing the insurance industry would be a really, really tough sell but I'm sure it would be much more effective than what Obamacare managed to do.
I generally agree with you regarding the faults of Obamacare, but that wasn't really my point. The problem is that Obama badly misjudged the level of desire that there was for a massive overhaul of the healthcare system. The error was in politics, regardless of policy.
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An intelligence consulting firm founded by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s top military adviser, was recently hired as a lobbyist by an obscure Dutch company with ties to Turkey’s government and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The revelation of that new lobbying contract, which has not been previously reported, raises several questions given that Trump is said to be considering Flynn, the former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), to take over as either Secretary of Defense or National Security Advisor.
It also raises questions about disclosure.
Flynn wrote an op-ed for The Hill on Tuesday, just before Trump’s stunning upset of Hillary Clinton, in which he heaped praise on Erdogan and called on the next president, whoever that would be, to accede his request to extradite the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen back to Turkey.
The Daily Caller
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If Obama had waited just a few years to try it I'm pretty sure that a version of obamacare would have been called for by both sides. Healthcare was really rapidly approaching a bunch of tipping points. He spent his capital trying to keep the us out of a healthcare crisis, but if one had occurred it would have made it much easier to push through whatever bills he wanted. It wound up as basically a version of health care reform most wanted by the health care industry itself.
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It's a pity it's so much harder to get things passed into law than it is to write a law that fixes them. or I guess it's somehow a good thing on the whole, and we just notice the cases where it's not.
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On November 17 2016 03:24 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2016 03:11 LegalLord wrote:On November 17 2016 02:06 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 01:57 Azuzu wrote:On November 17 2016 01:40 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 01:33 LegalLord wrote:On November 17 2016 01:05 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 00:59 LegalLord wrote:By the way, on the eve of his presidency, I'm curious what people think of Obama. I wrote this brief comment about his term; overall I myself approve of him but think his presidency will be remembered as "decent but not extraordinary" overall. Quick polls: + Show Spoiler +Poll: Overall, do you approve or disapprove of Obama's presidency?Approve (12) 75% Disapprove (4) 25% 16 total votes Your vote: Overall, do you approve or disapprove of Obama's presidency? (Vote): Approve
(Vote): Disapprove
Poll: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Obama's presidency overall?7 (9) 56% 2 (2) 13% 3 (2) 13% 8 (2) 13% 6 (1) 6% 1 (0) 0% 4 (0) 0% 5 (0) 0% 9 (0) 0% 10 (0) 0% 16 total votes Your vote: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate Obama's presidency overall? (Vote): 1
(Vote): 2
(Vote): 3
(Vote): 4
(Vote): 5
(Vote): 6
(Vote): 7
(Vote): 8
(Vote): 9
(Vote): 10
I'd also like to hear more detailed opinions. Obama will go down in history as a middling president. He had minimal accomplishments, and what he did accomplish is about to be erased by Trump. That said, I think that he should be judged by the promise of his 2008 campaign. By that standard, he has been an utter failure and disappointment. He ran on "hope and change," not "the status quo." I suppose "hope and change, but not at the cost of the global liberal economic and political order" is the mantra of his, and that of many other "status quo" Western leaders, if you want to characterize it in a more fair and/or dickish manner. By the way, were you for or against Obama in 2008? I was against Obama. I thought he was going to be far more radical than he actually was. I also didn't like his inexperience (but if Obama taught us anything, it's that experience is vastly overrated). Yet as Obama made his initial cabinet picks, it became readily apparent that Obama wasn't going to be changing that much during his presidency. Combine that with his decision to blow all of his political capital on Obamacare, and it became clear that he was going to be very ineffective overall in terms of pushing the type of change that he campaigned on. Do you think he would have been able to make more of the changes that he campaigned on if he hadn't spent so much political capital on Obamacare? Healthcare reform is one of the big changes he campaigned on. It seems like if he didn't spend the capital on Obamacare, and instead some more minor reforms, he would still be lauded as ineffective for not passing healthcare reform. I think the problem with spending the political capital on Obamacare is that not many people really wanted it to begin with. Let's put Republican opposition aside, and look purely at the Democrats. Obama and the other pro-Obamacare Democrats in Congress had a lot of trouble whipping enough votes from members of their own Party to pass Obamacare. And let's just face reality: Obamacare has been a political poison pill for the Democrats ever since it was passed. The Republicans have successfully bludgeoned Democrats with it in every election since 2010. In short, I think that Obama made a grave miscalculation by making Obamacare his initial policy initiative. Yeah, he eventually passed Obamacare, but that victory has been about as pyrrhic as it could be. I think the problem is that it didn't go far enough towards an effective universal healthcare approach to be meaningful, but it did go far enough to piss off most people who were inclined against it, destroying a lot of political capital with the individual mandate issue. Some people were better off for its existence, others were not. It's possibly a step towards a better system, but one that was too expensive politically to get there. If it were up to me I'd just pay the upfront costs associated with a universal healthcare system and make it work. Nationalizing the insurance industry would be a really, really tough sell but I'm sure it would be much more effective than what Obamacare managed to do. I generally agree with you regarding the faults of Obamacare, but that wasn't really my point. The problem is that Obama badly misjudged the level of desire that there was for a massive overhaul of the healthcare system. The error was in politics, regardless of policy.
I think the execution played a bigger role in the discontent than the actual political difficulty, even if they are tied. If, by now, it was clear that Obamacare mostly works (for getting people covered for healthcare, with good quality care, at a low price) then it would be remembered much more fondly. Instead, we got a strange slop of compromise with a few easy propositions (parental coverage to age 26, preexisting conditions) and a few failures (the individual mandate but a failure of the public option) that really both undermine its effectiveness and its popularity.
If healthcare prices dropped and more people were covered then I'm sure it would have gone down better.
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it also didn't help that obamacare isn't even fully in effect yet; so it never got time to settle into the state necessary for it to function.
all the delays and slowness hurt iwth that.
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On November 17 2016 03:48 zlefin wrote:
it also didn't help that obamacare isn't even fully in effect yet; so it never got time to settle into the state necessary for it to function.
all the delays and slowness hurt iwth that.
It's not even that it isn't fully in effect yet, it will never be fully in effect. Killing the Medicaid expansion gutted it, as did states opting out of exchanges and foisting it on the feds.
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On November 17 2016 02:47 CatharsisUT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 17 2016 02:11 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 02:06 Nebuchad wrote:On November 17 2016 01:58 xDaunt wrote:On November 17 2016 01:57 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Unbelievable... Senate Democrats on Wednesday elected Chuck Schumer of New York to lead the party into the Trump era, while Senate Republicans re-elected Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to be the key legislative bridge to the next administration.
Schumer had hoped he might be the majority leader if his party recaptured the Senate, working closely with Hillary Clinton’s administration. Instead, the New York Democrat will serve as the party’s key counterweight to a Trump presidency as minority leader.
“We needed a sharper, bolder, stronger economic message and we needed to let Americans understand what we all believe – that the system’s not working for them and we’re going to change it,” Schumer said during a brief press conference after the elections.
Flanked by senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Schumer said Democrats would work with the incoming administration on areas where they agree, but said to expect a “strong and tough fight” where they don’t agree.
Asked about the appointment of Stephen Bannon, who has been called a champion of white supremacists, as a senior White House adviser, Schumer called his rhetoric “reprehensible” but stopped short of calling for his resignation. Source So democrats, let me ask you a question: how does it feel to now be the party of Wall Street and the big banks? Wall Street gets as much support from the republicans, when they don't get more. If you break it down, that's really just a bad/dishonest perception coming from your side to their side. So basically, nothing particularly new or groundbreaking for the democrats. They should be used to it. I haven't seen the final figures, but I'm pretty sure that Wall Street threw a ton more support at Democrats this election than at Republicans -- particularly at the presidential level. And this is to be expected given that Trump very clearly ran on a campaign that ran counter to Wall Street's interests. This is nonsense (that Trump runs counter to Wall Street interests). Lower corporate taxes and deregulation are very much in the interests of the financial sector. Have you seen what financial stocks have done since the election?
The problem with Trump for the financial sector is his protectionism and foreign policy. Trump questioning NATO etc. increases geopolitical risks. Interest rates have also been rising after he became president elect. Financial stocks aren't the whole financial sector.
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