US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[Great Rumbler]

In a sharply divided ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court further eroded campaign finance laws by striking down limits on the total amount that an individual may donate across political candidates and committees in an election cycle.

The decision -- written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito -- held that "aggregate limits are invalid under the First Amendment." Justice Clarence Thomas concurred with the other conservative justices but penned a separate opinion arguing that campaign finance restrictions should be wiped out further.

[Brehvolution]

It's as if those laws were just made up out of nowhere and there was no reason they were made.

[benjipwns]

Roberts said the limit of nine candidates was arbitrary and there was no explanation for why it shouldn't be ten or eleven or eight or one.

So he decided to split the difference and restore free speech only a little bit unlike Thomas.

[Joe Molotov]

My Own Final Four Bracket For America’s Future

Holy Moly! Are you kidding? You’d think one who is representing the mighty Badgers, who made it to the Final Four based on sacrificial work ethic and discipline that obviously pays off in the end, he who represents the great state of Wisconsin that hosts this underdog celebrated college basketball team, would understand that future success depends on hard work and sacrifices. The latest Ryan (R, Wisconsin) Budget is not an April Fool’s joke. But it really IS a joke because it is STILL not seeing the problem; it STILL is not proposing reining in wasteful government overspending TODAY, instead of speculating years out that some future Congress and White House may possibly, hopefully, eh-who-knows, take responsibility for today’s budgetary selfishness and shortsightedness to do so. THIS is the definition of insanity. Do we still not understand how dangerous it is to allow government to grow unchecked as we shackle ourselves with massive debt – a good portion of which is held by foreign nations who don’t necessarily like us? If we can’t balance the budget today, what on earth makes us think it will happen at some future date? The solution is staring us in the face. We need to rein in spending today, and don’t tell me there is nothing to cut when we know every omnibus bill is loaded with pork and kickbacks.

Reading the article linked below gave me the same reaction that my daughter just caused when she punked me with a very unfunny April Fool’s Day announcement. As my Dad would say after these April Fool’s announcements, “This would kill a lesser man.” This out-of-control debt is killing our economic future.

- Sarah Palin

Here’s the article:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/01/Tea-Party-Paul-Ryan-s-New-Budget-A-Work-of-April-Fool-s-Day-Fiction

I'm still trying to figure out if this means she's taking Florida to win it all, or Kentucky maybe...?

[benjipwns]

Underdog? Sarah should probably check out kenpom and do a SOS adjustment before filling out her bracket.

[Brehvolution]

Foreign nation don't like us but will buy trillions of debt? ok

[Phoenix Dark]

Palin is going to make me defend Paul Ryan, guys.

The point of a budget is to reign in spending over a period of time. Immediate cuts would be even more destabalizing than the gradual cuts in Ryan's budget. And while I think Ryan's budget is laughable, he at least...ah fuck it, I can't do it guys.

[Great Rumbler]

It's totally not worth it.

[Phoenix Dark]

Beck doing his best Lt. Kavanaugh impression 

[benjipwns]

I liked the part where the camera man was napping or whatever and so there were like five seconds of Beck's arm and desk.

[benjipwns]

Palin is going to make me defend Paul Ryan, guys.

The point of a budget is to reign in spending over a period of time. Immediate cuts would be even more destabalizing than the gradual cuts in Ryan's budget. And while I think Ryan's budget is laughable, he at least...ah fuck it, I can't do it guys.

[Great Rumbler]

Glenn Beck is the greatest comedian in America.

[Great Rumbler]

Oh, and that reminds me, I picked up a copy of American Spectator at the local book store the other day and the cover article was about how Obama was basically a king because he's just making and unmaking laws, starting wars, and spending trillions of dollars that Congress hasn't even authorized him to spend and basically nobody has the power to stop him from just doing whatever he wants to at all times. And I'm just like...dudes, what fricken world are you even living in.

[benjipwns]

I thought that went out of business years ago.

As shortfalls continued, George Gilder, a longtime supporter of the magazine who was newly wealthy from an Internet business, purchased the magazine with the goal of turning it into a profit-making glossy with significant media buzz. Numerous staff members, demoralized by the ever-looming budget crises, were laid off or departed after Joshua Gilder and Richard Vigilante took the reins and vowed to reach a new technology- and business-savvy audience. Circulation and budget losses continued and even increased in the Gilder era, and at one point the entire Washington-based staff other than Tyrrell and executive editor and web site editor Wladyslaw Pleszczynski were laid off as operations were moved to Massachusetts, where the rest of George Gilder's businesses were based. In 2003, George Gilder, who had lost most of his fortune with the bursting of the Internet stock bubble, sold the magazine for $1 back to Tyrrell and the American Alternative Foundation, the magazine's original owner (the name was later changed to the American Spectator Foundation)

The owner, R. Emmett Tyrrell, is amazing:

Tyrrell considers liberalism to be a true ideology, whereas conservatism is a philosophy.

[Joe Molotov]

If Glen Beck had got the chalkboard out, I would have been more convinced.

[benjipwns]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/02/scott-brown-senate_n_5076243.html

https://www.facebook.com/JackHeathRadio/posts/10151930149696065

Former US Senator Scott Brown just confirmed and announced on NH Today that he is running for the US Senate in NH and will be announcing next week. News made today on the show.

[Oblivion]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/shouts/2014/03/libertarian-police-department.html

[benjipwns]

Ha, I was going to post that.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Obligatory top comment:

This is extremely funny and clever.  I laughed throughout the whole thing and I'm a libertarian.  If you've ever been to a Libertarian convention you know how worthy we are of being made fun of.  Similarly voiced arguments can be heard on the floor on different arcane topics.  Very good. 

BTW if you ever get to read the Liberal Police Department spoof, it's even funnier.  You got the cop on a no-knock, middle of the night, pot bust kicking down doors in full body armour, shooting dogs and kids in what ends up being -- get this -- a case of mistaken identity.  A phony address given to him by an informant trying to beat his own rap.  lolol  Then you've got him listening in on telephone conversations and reading emails without a warrant while stroking himself with kevlar.  In another scene we see our liberal police officer beating a homeless man to death because he wouldn't give his real name, and then turning around and apprehending and incarcerating 800,000 African Americans with one set of handcuffs.  The laughs are a mile a minute. 

[close]

[benjipwns]

That was lame, he should have gone balls deep as a heel.

That's how I do it in converting all my foes to pure uncut anarchism day after day.

[Kara]

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303978304579475860515021286?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702303978304579475860515021286.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Thoroughly unimpressed that the Democrat boogieman could only hit the paint with Saul Alinksy name drops, quotes from a slave owner about liberty, and EPA accolades.

[Brehvolution]

Glen Beck in a uniform(that he would of course design)

[Mandark]

Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.)

Truly, he is the real victim here.

[Human Snorenado]

I also know at least 9 people that now have health insurance thanks to this, and that's just the people that have come out and said they're covered.  All of them under 35.

Add me, though I'm slightly older at 36.

[benjipwns]

Add me, though I'm slightly older at 36.

BREAKING: OBAMACARE RISK POOLS ARE MUCH OLDER AND CREEPIER

[Human Snorenado]

Add me, though I'm slightly older at 36.

BREAKING: OBAMACARE RISK POOLS ARE MUCH OLDER AND CREEPIER

My mother signed up too, she's in a weird age range where she's 63 (not yet qualified for medicare, have to be 65) but quit working last year. She's got a lot of health issues so it's very good for her.

[benjipwns]

My mom became eligible for Medicare while still working and that was quite the clusterfuck. Apparently everyone just assumes when you hit 65 you're on the full Medicare. When if you're working so much you only get one part. Even the government seemed flummoxed by this and kept trying to enroll her in the whole shebang.

[Great Rumbler]

Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents. They engage in character assassination. (I should know, as the almost daily target of their attacks.)

Truly, he is the real victim here.

Go easy on him, guys, his wealth has only tripled in the last five years, he's going through a rough stretch right now.

[Great Rumbler]

I posted about it on the last page. Apparently, the 5 conservative judges think that unless you literally put money directly in a politician's hand that it doesn't count as a bribe.

[Kara]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/03/white-house-cuban-twitter-zunzuneo-covert

Be for 55 years brehs.

[ToxicAdam]

I know it's a small deal in the grand scheme of things, but it's that kind of petty, underhanded shit that gave America such a bad name (among other countries) in the past 20-30 years. The kind of thing that 2008 Obama campaigned to correct.

[Rufus]

Didn't Russia throw out a bunch of NGOs not too long ago? The very name is funny in light of all this.

[benjipwns]

I actually clicked on the GAF thread to see you go in but im not seeing the penetration

You go harder here than there.

GAF is lame, like half the people don't understand what they themselves are posting, there were also posts being deleted in that thread. Some guy was whining because I said 50K was in the 1% globally and accusing me of trying to downplay poverty because of it. But that all got deleted.

I went harder in the Supreme Court thread because I had roped in empty_vessel and knew I could get him to agree to the government censoring and allocating speech on the internet because he had come close to saying that before. 

EDIT: Plus I don't really care about the Kochs, other than to "remind" people they've been around so long that David was the 1980 LP VP nom.

[ToxicAdam]

I think the American people should know that the members of Congress are underpaid. I understand that it's widely felt that they underperform, but the fact is that this is the board of directors for the largest economic entity in the world."

-- Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), quoted by Roll Call.

Get a brain, morans.

[Trent Dole]

....they work for around half the year and make more in one week than many people do in said year. Fuck them.

[benjipwns]

You laugh but Congress hasn't had a pay raise since 2009 and their pay hasn't kept up with inflation since 1992. It's time to give our board of directors competitive pay so we can attract the best and brightest.

[Joe Molotov]

Disgusting moochers, begging for a government handout. Thankfully our newly revised campaign finance laws will allow the free market to determine how much they should be paid from now on.

[Mandark]

Yeah, blah blah blah outrage.

I'm actually in favor of paying Congresspeople well, picking up a lot of their DC living expenses, and providing public funding for campaigns.

[Human Snorenado]

I'm favor of publicly executing lobbyists and selecting any random 438 college educated citizens from their home districts to serve in Congress.

[benjipwns]

I'm favor of publicly executing lobbyists and selecting any random 438 college educated citizens from their home districts to serve in Congress.

Then who are the other 97 Senators?

[Kara]

Some guy was whining because I said 50K was in the 1% globally and accusing me of trying to downplay poverty because of it.

I love that "99% of households have a refrigerator" meme they throw around because it really betrays how provincial and self-absorbed their notions of poverty are--it's just so ridiculous that someone would point out this level of material wealth virtually all Americans with a residence enjoy right. (lol @ this chart having to go to 110% because of people in the core having multiple fridges at home.)

Be whiny members of the labor aristocracy brehs.

[benjipwns]

In that one thread about how much better life is now or whatever it was, the one guy responded to me saying that on average most of GAF lives better than every other human in history by talking about how he can't afford to buy a house the size of his parents' just out of college or something.

[Mandark]

(lol @ this chart having to go to 110% because of people in the core having multiple fridges at home.)

Nope.  Look again.

[benjipwns]

Apparently Egypt is the place for cheap appliances.

[Mandark]

Not necessarily.  The X axis is GDP per capita and Egypt has a much more even distribution of wealth than, say, China or Thailand.

[ToxicAdam]

Yeah, blah blah blah outrage.

I'm actually in favor of paying Congresspeople well, picking up a lot of their DC living expenses, and providing public funding for campaigns.

The other million dollars a year they get to spend on staff salary to help them do their job is not enough?

[Mandark]

Yeah, blah blah blah outrage.

I'm actually in favor of paying Congresspeople well, picking up a lot of their DC living expenses, and providing public funding for campaigns.

The other million dollars a year they get to spend on staff salary to help them do their job is not enough?

First, that's different from what they get paid themselves and from campaign costs.  Second, I really don't know the structure of Congressional and committee staff to have anywhere near well enough an informed opinion on that.

[Mandark]

Third-world poverty really is a different animal, and when people get riled up about "China taking our jobs" or "American jobs going overseas" they should try to retain some empathy for the people who would really benefit from having those jobs available.

On the other hand, really not a big fan of having global poverty used as a rhetorical cudgel to beat back any domestic redistribution of wealth, so.

[Phoenix Dark]

I'm favor of publicly executing lobbyists and selecting any random 438 college educated citizens from their home districts to serve in Congress.

4 year is the new GED

Cheebs was ahead of the curve

[Shadow Mod]

Third-world poverty really is a different animal, and when people get riled up about "China taking our jobs" or "American jobs going overseas" they should try to retain some empathy for the people who would really benefit from having those jobs available.

On the other hand, really not a big fan of having global poverty used as a rhetorical cudgel to beat back any domestic redistribution of wealth, so.

Yeah but the jobs aren't going there out of the kindness of people's hearts to give labor so much as exploit it.

[Mandark]

Basically no jobs go to anyone out of the kindness of the employers' hearts, even the ones we'd consider (as Americans) to be well-compensated.  But people still benefit from having those jobs.

Globalization is an area where I'm probably more sympathetic to the logic-of-the-markets arguments than in other areas.  We can point to the pay and the working standards of sweatshops and factories in developing countries and say it's criminal, and it is that by the standards we're used to.  But they find people willing to work for those wages in those conditions because there aren't better options yet in those countries.  Taking away export-industry jobs won't actually help poverty.

[Rufus]

On the other hand, really not a big fan of having global poverty used as a rhetorical cudgel to beat back any domestic redistribution of wealth, so.

Oh god. "Complaining on a very high level" bla bla. Really drives me up the wall.

[Mandark]

I don't see the point of American feminism when women in the horn of Africa are having their genitals mutilated. 

[Trent Dole]

[benjipwns]

Yeah but the jobs aren't going there out of the kindness of people's hearts to give labor so much as exploit it.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.

[Great Rumbler]

Third-world poverty really is a different animal, and when people get riled up about "China taking our jobs" or "American jobs going overseas" they should try to retain some empathy for the people who would really benefit from having those jobs available.

On the other hand, really not a big fan of having global poverty used as a rhetorical cudgel to beat back any domestic redistribution of wealth, so.

You've got a refrigerator and a TV but people in Africa don't have either, therefore billionaires shouldn't have to pay higher taxes. Ipso facto.

[Kara]

I don't see the point of American feminism when women in the horn of Africa are having their genitals mutilated. 

First, thanks for pointing out my earlier inability to look at a chart. Post from prejudice brehs. 

Second, my attempt at an earnest response to a well-earned pot shot is to ask, do you generally perceive American feminists as being OK with what is done elsewhere to women so long as it doesn't happen to them here? (I'm aware of things like #solidarityisforwhitewomen when I ask this, there are--and have been--privilege issues in feminism.) And, do they generally support political institutions that facilitate the perpetuation of these things done elsewhere but not to them?

If you replace the above questions with similar ones about Americans and the consequences of inequality*, I don't see how you can't emphatically answer "yes" to both questions. Even the young American left won't bat an eye at linking Matty "1,100+ Bengalis died needlessly and that's OK" Yglesias, at least on PoliGAF.

You're right that I'm wielding a stifling cudgel similar in form to the one Richard Dawkins wields against women afraid of being sexually assaulted in an elevator (nice chap BTW), I don't believe the function is the same (shut up women your concerns are unwarranted vs. shut up #partoftheproblem).

And to expand on my earlier post, I don't think mocking the refrigerator comment is a useful debunking of some attitudes towards inequality at home because material wealth is wealth and because it confirms my own bias about the American working class that I believe without empirical evidence (that they only care about themselves). Something like the ghastly gap in life expectancy between rich and poor is far more demonstrative imo, unlike appliance ownership appears both here and abroad barring a few exceptions like Cuba, and is very relevant when we're talking about nonsense like raising the Social Security age.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

*I would say capitalism instead but I'm trying to keep the in my response below a certain threshold.

[close]

[benjipwns]

I take too great of pleasure in any of his and Klein's posts where they can't understand how things like bank accounts or Netflix work. A butterfly flapped its wings slightly differently and they'd be making GAF threads instead of Vox.com.

EDIT: NEVR 4GET

My Horrible Relationship With Netflix
Matt Yglesias has a quick post on the Netflix movies he rented this weekend. I don't. Because I've had the same three sitting in my drawer for almost two years now. That's literally hundreds of dollars I've donated to Netflix to help subsidize the fees of people who actually use the service. Meanwhile, one of the movies is cracked and I can't find the envelopes for the other two. So I continue my philanthropic donations to the Netflix Fund for the Needy. And every month, I loathe myself just a little bit more.

By Ezra Klein  |  June 22, 2009; 6:07 PM ET

Ezra,

Step 1:
Get up, put all three movies in the one envelope, and walk to the mailbox.

Step 2:
Get on the internet, and cancel your account.

Step 3:
Wait for my email on how to set up an automatic payment to my email account for precisely the same amount.

You're life will be exactly the same. mine will be slightly better. its a pareto improvement! (well, if you ignore Netflix).

Posted by: nylund | June 22, 2009 7:16 PM

[Joe Molotov]

[Shadow Mod]

Yeah but the jobs aren't going there out of the kindness of people's hearts to give labor so much as exploit it.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.

I fuck a pizza man so...

 

[benjipwns]

Some Ygelsias classics:
https://storify.com/seanmdav/matthew-yglesias-does-not-understand-basic-account
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2007/11/satellite/47027/

There's something pretty cool about the shape of the Miami-related sprawl when you pull it out to an appropriate distance. I'd been interested to know what, if anything, is legally or practically preventing the city from just expanding further and further west if anyone happens to know.

UPDATE: Yes, yes commenters I know it's a freaking swamp but there's plenty of development on ex-swampland in Florida -- hence all the canals and weird-looking lakes.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/10/yet-more-pc-vs-mac-wars

And personal favorite:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/05/01/it_s_a_401_k_world_and_it_sucks.html

In other words: A disaster. What's needed is a much more forceful, much more statist approach to forced savings, whether that's quasi-savings in the form of higher taxes and more Social Security benefits or something like a Singapore-style system where "private" savings are pooled into a state-run investment fund.

Now since we are in fact living in a 401(k) world, here's some advice. You've got to save a lot of money for retirement. More than you think. More than you want to. And you need to put that money in a broadly diversified, low-fee fund. And you have to keep it there. Don't panic when the market plunged and sell. In fact, unless you're planning on retiring in the next decade, don't even check how it's doing. Just buy and hold and shift into something less volatile when you're near retirement. Vanguard has these good Target 20XX funds that automatically shift you into less volatile products as you get closer to your target retirement date, allowing you to do even more ignoring of the state of your investments. Which is good. The only way for anyone to make any money managing your savings is to try and trick you into making trades you shouldn't make, or buying products you shouldn't buy.