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The American Presidency: Ka-Powell!
Elki
get busyModerator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
get busyModerator, ClubPA Mod Emeritus
Words you are unlikely to see me post in the next pages of this thread: "X is off-topic," because I'm just going to warn you here. This thread is a bitch to keep up with and mod when it's on-topic, and impossible when people use it as a dumping ground for any political news story. If it's not directly related to Obama v. McCain don't post it.
Think it's really important, and still want to post it?
If you quote a youtube video, throwing a spoiler around it would be appreciated.
AND NO BLUE DOTTING!
OK? Glad we got that cleared up.
here's some stickers for you guys:
Sig:
Av:
They should be transparent so you can actually stick them on things (see my av)
The Economist.com wrote:MY COLLEAGUE expects conservatives to minimise the meaning of Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama by arguing that Mr Powell doesn't represent them. I'm sure he's right and I'm sure they're right. But Mr Powell's endorsement says more about John McCain than it does the Republican Party.
Mr Powell's explanation of his endorsement will be familiar to Democracy in America readers, but the source matters. Colin Powell, alone among Republicans, holds non-partisan and military credibility to match John McCain's. Like Mr McCain, Mr Powell's reputation suffered due to his association with George W Bush. Watching Mr Powell this morning, one can imagine it is Mr McCain's conscience critiquing the campaign.
Expect Republican commentators to focus on Mr Powell's stated concern for Mr McCain's judicial appointments as evidence of his estrangement. But as Mr McCain's nearest analog in American politics, Mr Powell's endorsement measures how far Mr McCain has strayed.
Daniel Larison wrote:There is an idea circulating out there that the killer combo of Joe the Plumber and “spread the wealth†may save the election for McCain. Now you might say that this is just whistling past the graveyard, but that doesn’t do it credit. This is really more like four-part harmony singing in a freshly-dug grave as the dirt is being piled on.
This is something that I didn’t elaborate on last night, but the idea that the message of Spread The Wealth would be a political loser at the present time is bizarre, which makes McCain’s insistence on identifying Obama as the “spread the wealth†candidate even more bizarre. I mean, does McCain want to get crushed in a landslide? Let’s think about this. There is an economic downturn coming on the heels of an era of wage stagnation and growing economic inequality, the financial sector has imploded thanks to the combined blunders of government and holders of concentrated wealth and Obama’s use of a phrase that on its own could easily be mistaken for an expression of neo-Harringtonian distributism is supposed to be politically radioactive? Consolidation of power, concentration of wealth and centralism all stand condemned for having created the present fiasco, and there is supposed to be a political downside to talking about distributing wealth?
Contra Pethokoukis, Long’s slogan was Share Our Wealth, which definitely had a more direct appeal to economic solidarity and redistribution than “spread the wealth†suggests. In theory, a true believer in an unfettered market would hold that his economic model more equitably and efficiently creates and then spreads the wealth, but there is no disagreement that wealth can and should be â€spread around.†McCain halfway hinted at this last night, but he had already tried to make the use of the phrase into something terrible. Integral to a social vision of a broad middle class of property-holders is the idea that wealth is widely and more or less evenly distributed, and there is an assumption in this vision that this is best for political and social stability, as it prevents the sort of dangerous stratification that prevails in societies in which a wealthy oligarchy dominates a poor underclass. If conservatives cede distributist language to left-liberals, they are not only abandoning an important part of their intellectual and political tradition, but they are also surrendering their ability to speak on behalf of middle-class Americans and they appear to be giving up on the idea that a relatively more free market system can better distribute wealth than a welfarist system organized by the central government.
Then again, the frequent attack on Obama’s redistributive policies* seems bizarre in the wake of the bailout that McCain also supported, which is very plainly a redistribution of our wealth to financial institutions. The argument in its favor is supposed to be that we will all suffer if it is not done, but there is no question that it is ultimately redistributive. No one who supported the bailout can credibly fling the label socialist as an insult or use “spread the wealth†as a bludgeon. It is a clear act of the government using its power to take taxpayers’ dollars (or funds borrowed on public credit) and allocate it elsewhere. Even though the bailout provokes at least a large plurality to strong opposition, both candidates supported it, so it is not clear that the bailout or talk of redistributive policies hurts one more than the other.
*Let’s also remember that this entire discussion is premised on the assumption that Obama would reduce taxes on most middle-class households, and the issue at stake is whether he should raise taxes on those with higher incomes.
argumentum ad Reaganum is my favorite new phrase.Larison wrote:Why am I hearing all this glowing stuff about my president this fall? Oh, yeah: It’s a way of knocking Governor Palin. What a dunce, certainly as compared with that brainiac Reagan. ~Jay Nordlinger
Nordinger’s remarks reflect what seems to me to be a very strange habit on the right, which is to forego independent analysis of the merits of a candidate and base one’s judgement on the degree of hostility shown to the candidate by one’s opponents. Ever since the cognoscenti wrongly declared Reagan to be lacking in intelligence and policy acumen, it is now gospel that any criticism of a Republican politician that says he or she is lacking in intelligence or policy acumen is equally wrong. It might be that Reagan had demonstrated a better grasp of policy and had a greater interest in ideas than his critics gave him credit for; it does not necessarily follow that Palin is being criticized in the same inaccurate way. Perhaps in terms of raw intelligence Reagan and Palin may not be all that different, but how did each one make use of that intelligence? One of the standard raps against Mr. Bush is that he is not intelligent, which is not really true. What is so much worse about Mr. Bush is that he is reasonably intelligent but seems to lack interest in learning about things he doesn’t know, and he seems unusually resistant to information that does not conform to his assumptions. Palin displays many of the same characteristics, but in addition to an apparent lack of curiosity there is apparently a kind of resentment of those who know more than she does, which is the worst trait in someone not already familiar with policy matters.
Were the Republicans to nominate for President one Mr. Camacho (warning: some profanity) and a journalist said something unflattering about his grasp of the finer points of agricultural policy, you can already hear the refrains of â€they also said Reagan was a dunce†and “who expects a candidate to know everything about price supports or to know the name of the agriculture minister of Peru?†(Of course, no one ever asks Palin questions that are anywhere near that detailed.) It’s as if there is no objective way to compare different candidates, so conservatives have to rely on the extent of media hostility to determine their candidates’ merits.
Another response is to make excuses steeped in anti-intellectualism: “Palin may not know much, but she has good instincts.†Why are the two always set in opposition to each other? Why is it that the people with good instincts are invariably uninterested in knowledge? How can they have good instincts if they do not have an instinct for wanting to learn more at all times? It is undoubtedly true that Palin has practical knowledge about a number of things, but what we do not see from her defenders is any kind of argument that her practical knowledge is applicable in the position she is trying to obtain. The argument that Palinites keep coming back to is that Palin and Reagan are the same and are being treated the same way by journalists who are supposed to be imputing stupidity to anyone who espouses a right-leaning point of view, which has the effect of diminishing Reagan rather than building up Palin. McCain has adopted a similar argument as a way of defending his decision, and this is that many people said Reagan had no foreign policy experience (even though he understood the relevant issues in some depth) and people say the same thing about Palin, so they must therefore be wrong about Palin’s readiness. We heard the argumentum ad Reaganum when Bush was criticized for his lack of foreign policy understanding and his lack of readiness, but using Reagan to cover Bush’s weaknesses was absolutely wrong then, and it is wrong again in this case.
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Haha nice.
More updates on Serra Paylin's porn debut.
Improper commas aside, I'm amused that your old classmate felt this somehow reflected poorly on Rezko.
It's scary to think there are millions of people out there who believe all Arabs and Persians are the enemy.
I know vote fraud is committed. I know that these people aren't doing it to fuck with the country, but because they think it's best, apparently, to subvert the ideals of their country in order to keep the country on the right track.
...has "burn the village to save it" really become that prominent a belief?
You're assuming that their motives are sincere.
Spoiler alert: They aren't.
It's not so much "burn the village to save it." It more along the lines of, "Find any trumped up charge we can to get our guy elected." It would be akin to discovering that Barack Obama jaywalks sometimes, and then trying to argue that jay walking should be a capital offense.
As much as I despised her during the primaries, I might go.
With the Obama campaign opening a third office here and sending Hillary to speak, they are quite serious about splitting the Nebraska EV.
Well, I try to assume people are sincere. I mean, okay, the higher-ups are looking for more money and/or power. Fine, whatever. What about the little minions? Are they all hoping one day to have money and power so John McCain's policies benefit them? Or do they believe they're doing what's best for America? Is it just one-upmanship? "Ha-ha! My guy won! Yours lost! It's even dumber than rooting for a sports team because my guy will fuck me over just as hard as he'll fuck you, but the guy I supported still won and that will make me better than you when we're hunting each other for food in the grimdarkgrimdarkgrimgrimdark future where there is only war."
Well, look at the players last time.
Imagine a porn starring someone meant to resemble Dick Cheney.
Actually, don't
What it needs is one of those "Hi, I'm John McCain, and I endorse this message" clips at the end.
Goddam you! You just had to tell us not to think about pink elephants...
"I'm John McCain, and I'd hit it."
Dammit that's gonna give me nightmares.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Steam | Twitter
This workmate complains about "Why should the rich have to pay higher taxes? I think the lower tax brackets should have to pay the most in taxes." This coming from someone who makes less than 40k a year. I was completely floored. He then followed up this rationale with "Paying higher taxes makes people not want to be rich." I told him that if they'd start paying me 250k a year, I'd be absolutely happy to pay those taxes. How the hell could ANYTHING make someone not want to be rich?
I gave up after that. I really don't think there is any possibility of changing his mind barring an intercession by some deity or other.
Because we all know that the only thing that keeps the poor poor is a complete lack of motivation.
I find so many fucking people making less than 40k a year that think this way.
Too many people just buy into the "tax and spend liberal" meme regardless of reality. And it's those people who are already living paycheck to paycheck that this scares the most, as they have the most to lose.
"I'm sick of Obama saying he's not a Muslim! He is a Muslim, and that's not a bad thing. He just needs to admit it..."
And then he went on to say how it was crazy that people thought being Muslim was a bad thing, and how hypocritical a lot of the conservative Christians are.
I was completely blown away. At first I thought this guy was going to start slandering Obama in the worst way, and then his comment turns to horribly uninformed support.
It was the weirdest conversation about politics I've had yet.
Come on. Be classy.
Imagine Palin giving McCain an erotic massage, then at the end, McCain looks up and says:
"Hi, I'm John McCain, and I endorse this massage".
Isn't it a slight relief to think that we have a representational democracy? Hopefully the representatives are more intelligent than the NASCAR electorate.
2 years later, early voting was much improved, but that wasn't a presidential election. And this year, we're using new voting machines. I'm going to try and get my voting done tomorrow, but we'll see. I still need to figure out which way to vote on the amendments, and I have no idea who to vote for with local judges and other people like that.
My Backloggery
I don't understand the US obsession with voting machines. Surely they create more issues than they solve?
Here (in Australia) we just have pen-and-paper voting. It works fine, and is as straightforward as possible. There's nothing to go wrong. And we still get our results on election night (usually a few hours after polls close), despite having compulsory voting and a more complex voting system than the US.
Voting machines just seem to be a solution in search of a problem.
Well, I mean in the actual process of voting.
If it's pen and paper, then there are only three things that can really go wrong:
- An error with voter registration.
- You run out of ballots.
- People keep stealing the pens off the strings and you run out.
The first one is always a problem, and the second two would only affect the most half-arsed electoral commission.
The votes are usually counted by polling place. So it scales well. In theory, you would need far fewer electoral staff per capita in the US, because a lower proportion of people vote, and the voting system is still (sigh) first past the post.
The vote counting process scale pretty well.
Personally I would think that an election where you can trust your vote to be counted is worth more then a bit of potential speed, but it isn't my election system so I really have no reason to complain.
I will never understand all this blackbox shit we do in the US. Thankfully, Washington is sane and uses scantron ballots.
Massachusetts does as well. My mother said she had to wait almost an hour in 1976 living in an urban district. I've never heard of anyone else in MA having to wait that long and I've never waited more than 5 minutes, and we're one of the most densely populated states.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Ah, true. Its also harder to make paper votes disappear, even with a handy hip flask full of kerosene. Plus, most of the accusations of voter fraud in the last US election centred around not enough machines being delivered to certain areas if you know what I mean. People get put off voluntary voting by the prospect of having to queue til midnight. Especially when their casual shift starts at eight and there are three teenagers waiting to replace them if they get fired.
It's another short answer, yes, long answer, no.
There are many illegal reasons to fire people. Any halfassed manager who wants you gone for one of them will wait a few weeks and fire you for something completely random instead.
edit: to get political:
From Gov. Palin. No, that's not negative. Saying someone's a terrorist is negative, even if they were one. Saying you should argue with people about politics is pretty neutral and needs more context to be positive or negative.
Powell endorsement. Looks like I'm eating my hat on that one. Didn't think he had it in him. Not only did he have it, he brought it with some fire. In the process of endorsing, Gen. Powell said around two dozen things that someone needed to say on national television, but no one ever would. Kudos to him for that.
On the flip side, Pat Buchanan is still a tool. Powell should be "grateful" to the Republican party? WTF. Between that and an active defense of the New McCarthyism, the man should be removed from TV altogether. Before, he was kind of a crazy uncle that spouted complete bullshit which the other adults nodded and ignored. Now, it's hard for me to talk about him without Godwinning.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Above and beyond anything else or even the endorsement, after this campaign someone needed to say it loudly already. I was disappointed when Obama didn't exactly attack that (admittedly, he's got a campaign to run here), and I was very disappointed at McCain's "no, he's not an arab, he's a good man" shit.