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Oct 08, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
Economist's View
I have a new column:JohnH : October 07, 2016 at 09:10 AM , October 07, 2016 at 09:10 AM... ... ...
Donald Trump has promised to make deregulation one of the focal points of his presidency. If Trump is elected, the trend toward rising market concentration and all of the problems that come with it are likely to continue.
We'll hear the usual arguments about ineffective government and the magic of markets to justify ignoring the problem.
If Clinton is elected, it's unlikely that her administration would be active enough in antitrust enforcement for my taste. But at least she acknowledges that something needs to be done about this growing problem, and any movement toward more aggressive enforcement of antitrust regulation would be more than welcome.
"We'll hear the usual arguments about ineffective government" which has been amply demonstrated during the last 7 years by negligible enforcement of anti-trust laws.supersaurus -> JohnH... October 07, 2016 at 10:05 AM , October 07, 2016 at 10:05 AMOnce again we have a stark 'choice' in this election...one party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just get rid of them. Like flipping a coin: heads, the predator class wins; tails, we lose.
Vote third party to register your disgust and to open the process to people who don't just represent the predator class.
"Vote third party to register your disgust..." and waste the opportunity, at least in a few states, to affect the national outcome (in many states the outcome is not in doubt, so, thanks to our stupid electoral college system, millions of voters could equally well stay home, vote third party, or write in their dog).JohnH -> JohnH... , Friday, October 07, 2016 at 04:32 PMThomas Frank: "I was pleased to learn, for example, that this year's Democratic platform includes strong language on antitrust enforcement, and that Hillary Clinton has hinted she intends to take the matter up as president. Hooray! Taking on too-powerful corporations would be healthy, I thought when I first learned that, and also enormously popular. But then it dawned on me: antitrust enforcement is largely up to the president and his picked advisers. If Democrats really think it is so damned important, why has Clinton's old boss Barack Obama done so very, very little with it?"Peter K. -> DrDick... , Friday, October 07, 2016 at 01:13 PM
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/10/07/some-clintons-pledges-sound-great-until-you-remember-whos-presidentOne party who won't enforce existing laws and another who will just get rid of them...a distinction without a difference.
Who do you prefer to have guarding the chicken house...a fox or a coyote? Sane people would say, 'neither.'
Yes and Clinton supporters attacked Sanders over this during the primaries.Henry Carey's ghost : , Friday, October 07, 2016 at 09:35 PMJosh Mason thinks a Clinton administration may push on corporate short-termism if not on anti-trust. We'll see, but seeing as the Obama administration didn't do much I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary doesn't either.
http://jwmason.org/slackwire/links-for-october-6/
"At Vox,* Rachelle Sampson has a piece on corporate short-termism. Supports my sense that this is an area where there may be space to move left in a Clinton administration."
* http://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2016/10/3/13141852/short-term-capitalism-clinton-economics
Economists have said for thirty years that free trade will benefit the US. Increasingly the country looks like a poor non-industrialized third world country. Why should anyone trust US economists?>They ignored the housing bubble, don't seem to understand the connection between manufacturing and wealth (close your eyes and imagine your life with no manufactured goods, because they are all imported and your economy only produces a few low value-added raw materials such as timber or exotic animals) then you will see that allowing the US to deindustrialize was a really, world-historic mistake.
Trust in experts is what has transformed the US from a world leader in 1969 with the moon landing to a country with no high speed rail, no modern infrastructure, incapable of producing a computer or ipad or ship.
Trump_vs_deep_state will outlive Trump and the people's faith in economists will only be restored after the next financial collapse if all of the financial sector is liquidated, all the universities and think tanks go bankrupt and the know-nothing free traders disappear from our public discourse.
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Nov 02, 2016 | truepundit.com
New York Police Department detectives and prosecutors working an alleged underage sexting case against former Congressman Anthony Weiner have turned over a newly-found laptop he shared with wife Huma Abedin to the FBI with enough evidence "to put Hillary (Clinton) and her crew away for life," NYPD sources told True Pundit.
NYPD sources said Clinton's "crew" also included several unnamed yet implicated members of Congress in addition to her aides and insiders.
The NYPD seized the computer from Weiner during a search warrant and detectives discovered a trove of over 500,000 emails to and from Hillary Clinton, Abedin and other insiders during her tenure as secretary of state. The content of those emails sparked the FBI to reopen its defunct email investigation into Clinton on Friday.
But new revelations on the contents of that laptop, according to law enforcement sources, implicate the Democratic presidential candidate, her subordinates, and even select elected officials in far more alleged serious crimes than mishandling classified and top secret emails, sources said. NYPD sources said these new emails include evidence linking Clinton herself and associates to:
- Money laundering
- Child exploitation
- Sex crimes with minors (children)
- Perjury
- Pay to play through Clinton Foundation
- Obstruction of justice
- Other felony crimes
NYPD detectives and a NYPD Chief, the department's highest rank under Commissioner, said openly that if the FBI and Justice Department fail to garner timely indictments against Clinton and co- conspirators, NYPD will go public with the damaging emails now in the hands of FBI Director James Comey and many FBI field offices.
"What's in the emails is staggering and as a father, it turned my stomach," the NYPD Chief said. "There is not going to be any Houdini-like escape from what we found. We have copies of everything. We will ship them to Wikileaks or I will personally hold my own press conference if it comes to that."
The NYPD Chief said once Comey saw the alarming contents of the emails he was forced to reopen a criminal probe against Clinton.
"People are going to prison," he said.
Meanwhile, FBI sources said Abedin and Weiner were cooperating with federal agents, who have taken over the non-sexting portions the case from NYPD. The husband-and-wife Clinton insiders are both shopping for separate immunity deals, sources said.
"If they don't cooperate they are going to see long sentences," a federal law enforcement source said.
NYPD sources said Weiner or Abedin stored all the emails in a massive Microsoft Outlook program on the laptop. The emails implicate other current and former members of Congress and one high-ranking Democratic Senator as having possibly engaged in criminal activity too, sources said.
Prosecutors in the office of US Attorney Preet Bharara have issued a subpoena for Weiner's cell phones and travel records, law enforcement sources confirmed. NYPD said it planned to order the same phone and travel records on Clinton and Abedin, however, the FBI said it was in the process of requesting the identical records. Law enforcement sources are particularly interested in cell phone activity and travel to the Bahamas, U.S. Virgin Islands and other locations that sources would not divulge.
The new emails contain travel documents and itineraries indicating Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, Weiner and multiple members of Congress and other government officials accompanied convicted pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein on his Boeing 727 on multiple occasions to his private island in the US Virgin Islands, sources said. Epstein's island has also been dubbed Orgy Island or Sex Slave Island where Epstein allegedly pimps out underage girls and boys to international dignitaries.
Both NYPD and FBI sources confirm based on the new emails they now believe Hillary Clinton traveled as Epstein's guest on at least six occasions, probably more when all the evidence is combed, sources said. Bill Clinton, it has been confirmed in media reports spanning recent years, that he too traveled with Epstein over 20 times to the island.
Laptop Also Unveiled More Classified, Top Secret Breaches
According to other uncovered emails, Abedin and Clinton both sent and received thousands of classified and top secret documents to personal email accounts including Weiner's unsecured campaign web site which is managed by Democratic political consultants in Washington D.C.
Weiner maintained little known email accounts that the couple shared on the website anthonyweiner.com. Weiner, a former seven-term Democratic Congressman from New York, primarily used that domain to campaign for Congress and for his failed mayoral bid of New York City.
At one point, FBI sources said, Abedin and Clinton's classified and top secret State Department documents and emails were stored in Weiner's email on a server shared with a dog grooming service and a western Canadian bicycle shop.
However, Weiner and Abedin, who is Hillary Clinton's closest personal aide, weren't the only people with access to the Weiner's email account. Potentially dozens of unknown individuals had access to Abedin's sensitive State Department emails that were stored in Weiner's email account, FBI sources confirmed.
FEC records show Weiner paid more than $92,000 of congressional campaign funds to Anne Lewis Strategies LLC to manage his email and web site. According to FBI sources, the D.C.-based political consulting firm has served as the official administrator of the anthonyweiner.com domain since 2010, the same time Abedin was working at the State Department. This means technically Weiner and Abedin's emails, including top secret State Department emails, could have been accessed, printed, discussed, leaked, or distributed by untold numbers of personnel at the Anne Lewis consulting firm because they can control where the website and it emails are pointed, FBI sources said.
According to FBI sources, the bureau's newly-minted probe into Clinton's use and handling of emails while she served as secretary of state, has also been broadened to include investigating new email-related revelations, including:
- Abedin forwarded classified and top secret State Department emails to Weiner's email
- Abedin stored emails, containing government secrets, in a special folder shared with Weiner warehousing over 500,000 archived State Department emails.
- Weiner had access to these classified and top secret documents without proper security clearance to view the records
- Abedin also used a personal yahoo address and her Clintonemail.com address to send/receive/store classified and top secret documents
- A private consultant managed Weiner's site for the last six years, including three years when Clinton was secretary of state, and therefore, had full access to all emails as the domain's listed registrant and administrator via Whois email contacts.
Because Weiner's campaign website is managed by the third-party consultant and political email guru, FBI agents are burdened with the task of trying to decipher just how many people had access to Weiner's server and emails and who were these people. Or if the server was ever compromised by hackers, or other actors.
Abedin told FBI agents in an April interview that she didn't know how to consistently print documents or emails from her secure Dept. of State system. Instead, she would forward the sensitive emails to her yahoo, Clintonemail.com and her email linked to Weiner.
Abedin said, according to FBI documents, she would then access those email accounts via webmail from an unclassified computer system at the State Dept. and print the documents, many of which were classified and top secret, from the largely unprotected webmail portals.
Clinton did not have a computer in her office on Mahogany Row at the State Dept. so she was not able to read timely intelligence unless it was printed out for her, Abedin said. Abedin also said Clinton could not operate the secure State Dept. fax machine installed in her Chappaqua, NY home without assistance.
Perhaps more alarming, according to the FBI's 302 Report detailing its interview with Abedin, none of the multiple FBI agents and Justice Department officials who conducted the interview pressed Abedin to further detail the email address linked to Weiner. There was never a follow up, according to the 302 report.
But now, all that has changed, with the FBI's decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation and the husband and wife seeking immunity deals to testify against Clinton and other associates about the contents of the laptop's emails.
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Nov 03, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
Muse minus Time chubbar Nov 3, 2016 10:18 AM ,
Steve Pieczenik additional video on "Lolita express" HRottenC enabled/participated in pedophilia as well, more intel leaks to come from US gov. insiders:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12zVlaZyX3Q
Julian Assange is a hero as well as the US moral citizens standing up against this evil criminal monster!!!
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May 18, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
There are good reasons to harbor serious reservations about The Donald, given that he changes his position as frequently as most people change their clothes. But so far, he has been consistent in making an argument that is sorely underrepresented in the media and in policy circles: that our war-making in the Middle East has been a costly disaster with no upside to the US. Trump even cites, without naming him, Joe Stiglitz's estimate that our wars have cost at least $4 trillion.
As Lambert put it, "I hate it when Trump is right."
If you think Trump is overstating his case on Hillary's trigger-happiness, read this New York Times story, How Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk .
And on Clinton's role in Libya , which Obama has since called the worst decision of his presidency:
Mrs. Clinton's account of a unified European-Arab front powerfully influenced Mr. Obama. "Because the president would never have done this thing on our own," said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser.
Mr. Gates, among others, thought Mrs. Clinton's backing decisive. Mr. Obama later told him privately in the Oval Office, he said, that the Libya decision was "51-49."
"I've always thought that Hillary's support for the broader mission in Libya put the president on the 51 side of the line for a more aggressive approach," Mr. Gates said. Had the secretaries of state and defense both opposed the war, he and others said, the president's decision might have been politically impossible.
And yes, that's this Ben Rhodes .
kj1313 , May 13, 2016 at 7:15 am
MtnLife , May 13, 2016 at 8:02 amBest assessment yet. This is a great speech bite from Donald but I have no idea if he means it. (Though I don't agree with it just look at his Muslim Ban stance) Half the time he makes coherent reasonable arguments, the other half the time I think he definitely is a Clinton Mole. I don't know which Trump I'm getting hour to hour much less day to day.
Jus' Sayin' , May 13, 2016 at 1:32 pmExcept for that last minute of Trump_vs_deep_states, I almost thought that was a Bernie speech. An interesting general election plan is to take Bernie's ideas with a healthy dash of Trump spice in an attempt to coalesce the angry populist vote. It'll be interesting to watch Hillary circle the wagons of the content, elite center in an attempt to hold off the marginalized hordes of angry "savage plebs", especially if the convention seems stolen. Still hoping for some miracle to pull Sanders through.
jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 8:22 amMiracle indeed, Sanders is the last hope to avoid total disaster. Maybe he can help mitigate HRC's hawk stance in the ME. I think Israel is a lost cause though as the problem child with nukes.
marym , May 13, 2016 at 9:24 amIn all seriousness, why is his Muslim ban idea bad? Or for that matter why would it, in principle, be a bad idea to ban nearly all foreigners from entering the US? After all, it's not as if the US has some actual need for foreigners to enter considering the large and growing desperately poor domestic population. Especially considering that heretofore (let's be real here) both legal and illegal immigration has been mainly exploited to destroy domestic labor conditions in the US.
This is a fact a lot of ostensibly good-hearted progressive and wealthy liberals conveniently ignore (they'd probably cry themselves to sleep if they could no longer help to improve the lot of that below minimum wage illegal immigrant maid they hired). Well, the working poor aren't ignoring it, and the lid is going to blow soon if this keeps up. Donald Trump and the popularity of his Muslim ban is only an early sign of the brewing discontent.
jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 10:09 amHe didn't propose banning Muslims as a way to address our jobs and economic problems (which it isn't), he proposed it as a way to address domestic terror (which it isn't). It's a political tactic to stir up and implicitly sanction hate, prejudice, divisiveness, and violence.
fresno dan , May 13, 2016 at 11:05 amNot arguing your point, however how are Trump supporters reading this? These people are already against any immigrant coming into the US for economic reasons, and in all honesty they are looking for any excuse whatsoever to view immigrants in a bad light.
Just to add to that a bit, it's also why immigrant crime is always being hyped up and exaggerated by Trump supporters. The real issue deep down is that immigrants are threatening them economically, and they'll use any justification whatsoever to get rid of them.
Is it right? I don't really know how to objectively answer that. But for the people doing it, this could work out in economic terms for them. So at least from their perspective it's a good idea.
marym , May 13, 2016 at 11:46 amhttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/silicon-valley-h1b-visas-hurt-tech-workers
I think people are just so angry with how the squillionaries use "politically correct" proper thinking about immigration to hide their illegal suppression of wages that even outrageous and outlandish statements by The Donald will not dissuade his supporters – – after all, the supporters could ask why is this issue of wage suppression, "by any means necessary", that affects FAR, FAR more people who ARE US citizens so scrupulously IGNORED by the media (media owned by rich??? – of course). As disturbing as what The Donald says, what is NOT SAID by the ENTIRE (except Sanders) US political establishment, is far more disturbing, as I think it shows an utterly captured political caste. As well as the rank hypocrisy that if any of these immigrants don't have health care after they arrive, the squillionaires couldn't care less if they died in the streets – no matter how rich they are, they want to make more people poorer. They are such an evil enemy that people will put up with The Donald.
It is a fact that these tech billionaires engaged in an illegal activity. It is a fact the US government simply ignored enforcing laws and refuses to punish them.
Trump in my view will not be able to do even a quarter of some of this crap like banning Muslims – laws do have to be passed. But the fact remains that Trump will probably be the only presidential nominee (not presidential candidate, i.e., Sanders), and the last one in 40 years, to even merely talk about these issues.
The fact that Trump succeeds just shows how famished people are to some challenge to the war mongering, coddling of the rich that is passed off as something that the majority supports.NotTimothyGeithner , May 13, 2016 at 12:21 pmA political strategy based on xenophobia and divisiveness supports those who benefit from xenophobia and divisiveness – those who exploit labor (including Trump who outsources jobs, hires H2-B workers, and exploits workers domestically and overseas), and those who benefit from the military-industrial-security-serveillance complex; and harms the rest of us.
It seems no more likely that Trump as president will actually promote policies that will "work out in economic terms" for ordinary people as it was to think Obama would put on this "comfortable shoes" and join a picket line (though I bought that one at the time).
jrs , May 13, 2016 at 2:22 pmHillary basically won relatively well to do minorities who voted for her in 2008 just in smaller numbers. Poorer minorities stayed home in Southern states where Internet access is less available and progressive organizations are just churches. On the surface, Sanders sounds very much like the media perception of President Hope and Change who isn't as popular as much as no one wants to admit the first non white President was terrible or they actively applauded terrible policy.
Free college probably didn't appeal to people with junk degrees from for profit diploma mills. The damage is done. People need jobs not school at this point or incomes. A green jobs guarantee act would have been a better push front and center, but again, this is with hindsight. Many minority voters simply didn't vote, and Hillary pushed that "you don't know Bernie" line to scare voters that Sanders was another Obama.
Obama and the Democrats did everything they could to undermine and stamp out progressive organization.
B , May 13, 2016 at 11:59 amAgree that jobs should be the focus (or income and meeting basic needs). Education as the focus appeals to the under 25 years old college bound crowd, but not so much to anyone older having to survive out there in the work world everyday.
kj1313 , May 13, 2016 at 3:17 pmI am a Trump supporter and I am not against immigrants or immigration. I am opposed to doing nothing in the face of a broken immigration system. I do not think it is wise for any country to have millions and millions of undocumented workers in its midst. I believe we should legalize those that are here. Those that have committed crimes not related to immigrating or over staying visas should absolutely be deported and lose the privilege of living in the US. I live in Spain, but am an American. If I broke minor laws, such as drunk driving, assault or drug possession I would be deported too, seems fair to me. I believe we have to revamp border security, though I don´t think a wall spanning the entire border would be wise or effective I personally think Trump is speaking hyperbolically and symbolically about the wall. Nonetheless, our elites sure do love living behind big walls and gated communities, with armed security, maybe we should ask them why, walls are just racist anyways, no?
Immigrant crime is not some myth, its real and sometimes it is a very tragic consequence of a broken immigration system. The fact that the cartels also exploit our broken border and immigration system is not a myth either, it is reality.
And as for a temporary ban on Muslims coming from Syria, Libya and other locations that have been devastated by the covert and overt wars of the US I support it totally, for no other reason than public safety, which is the first reason we institute government. Remember this happened just after Paris, public safety is a very legitimate concern. Also, why are Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia or the Gulf States taking in a single refugee? The Saudis have the money and the capacity to to do this. They have tents used only during the hajj that house thousands upon thousands. Where is that wonderful, charitable side of Islam?
I wish the world were different. I don´t harbor prejudice against anyone. Those that want to come and live, grow and contribute to American civilization, Come, please!! But our world is very dangerous, and we have created enemies that seek to do harm to our society and civilization in anyway that they can. We have to protect ourselves and our nation. I wish beyond wishing, that it was someone besides the Donald saying these things, but, it is what it is. I am not gonna shoot the messanger cuase I dont like his personality, or because I would not be friends with someone like him.
jrs , May 13, 2016 at 2:17 pmExcept it's recent US actions which have undermined the Middle East in general. From Saddam to Libya to ISIS etc etc.
Tony S , May 13, 2016 at 3:59 pmIllegal immigration could likely be enforced in some industries (on the lower paid scale in garment making sweatshops and so on). And this could probably best be done by prosecuting the employers doing the hiring. But I'm not at all convinced the country could run without immigrants entirely. Who would pick the crops? Ok maybe lots of people at a $15 an hour minimum wage. But at current compensation? Though I don't know if this really needs to be done via illegal immigration, it could be done by much more formalized guest worker programs I suppose.
John Wright , May 13, 2016 at 6:04 pmOr, we could just let the market work. You WILL get American workers to perform just about any job if you pay them enough. Obviously, the reasonable price point for labor is currently well below what a US citizen will accept. But if I offered a million dollars to get my lawn mowed, I would have a line out the door of American workers begging to have the job.
Guest workers are just another way to depress US citizens' wages. And immigration reform is best tackled at the employer level, like you said - anybody who doesn't make this part of his or her "reform" plan is not to be taken seriously. (I regularly mention this to conservatives, and they always look for a way to justify going after the powerless immigrants anyway.)
Katniss Everdeen , May 13, 2016 at 11:45 amHigh wages can encourage more automation or substitution of crops that require less manual labor or even cause people to exit farming as uneconomic.. But the number of workers employed in farming is relatively small.
Per this USDA document http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/259572/eib3_1_.pdf in 2000, 1.9 percent of the workforce worked in agriculture.
The World Bank has the USA workforce at 161 million in 2014 and if about 2% of this workforce is employed in farming, this is about 3.2 million people throughout the USA. And the 3.2 million count is probably not all illegal immigrant workers. This report suggests government price supports have encouraged more people to work in agriculture, implying that the government is indirectly creating low wage jobs by price supports.
From the above pdf. "For example, the institutionalization of what began as emergency income support in the 1930s has likely slowed the movement of labor out of the farm sector."
I am of the opinion that the law of one price will apply if there is relatively free movement of workers, legally or illegally, across borders.
Note, Trump never suggests e-verify and employer enforcement, which would be a low cost way of enforcing citizen employment and would avoid a costly "great wall".
Trump and HRC's investments are probably more profitable due to a lower labor cost influenced by low wage workers.
lindaj , May 13, 2016 at 3:09 pmAnd people don't OPPOSE his restrictions on Muslim immigration because they feel so charitable towards and accepting of Muslims.
We have been killing, maiming and displacing millions of Muslims and destroying their countries for the last 15 years with less outcry than transgender bathrooms have generated. And we've allowed our own civil liberties to be radically infringed. All because " THEY hate us for our 'freedoms.' " Who the hell do you think THEY are?
But it's Trump who is hateful, prejudiced, divisive and bigoted? As if "welcoming" some immigrants from countries that we callously destroyed perfectly absolves those who were busy waiting in line for the newest i-gadget and couldn't be bothered to demand an end to the slaughter.
Get a clue. Trump's not talking about murdering anybody. And no amount of puffed up "outrage" and name-calling is going to get the stain out. Not to mention it's the most sane and humane way to protect the "homeland" from the "terrorism" that we, ourselves, created.
Pespi , May 13, 2016 at 9:26 am"We have been killing, maiming and displacing millions of Muslims and destroying their countries for the last 15 years with less outcry than transgender bathrooms have generated."
Good point. I keep wondering why Hillary the Hawk's actual illegal war and murdering of Muslims is worse than Trump's ban.
Vatch , May 13, 2016 at 9:55 am"I'm against all immigration, as it's merely a lever to lower wages." "I'm against the immigration of muslims, because they're bad terrorists." There is a difference in these two statements.
jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 10:39 amYou are correct that there is too much immigration to the U.S., and it causes economic and environmental problems. However, Trump's Muslim ban would cover more than immigration. He would also ban temporary visits by Muslims (except for the mayor of London, I suppose).
I object very strongly to Muslim extremism, and a lot of Muslims have extremist views. But not all of them do. And many Christians, Hindus, and whatever also have extremist views which should be opposed. Trump's not proposing a bad on travel by extremist Christians; he's singling out Muslims because they scare millions of Americans. It's demagoguery.
Vatch , May 13, 2016 at 3:56 pmYou are not quite right there. Trump supporters do indeed want to ban Christian immigrants as well (the vast, overwhelming majority of immigrants from Mexico, central, and South America are Christians of some sort) although in the case of Christians the excuse is "violent crime" since obviously Trump supporters can not disparage Christians specifically for their Christianity. Seriously, watch any Trump speech and you'll see that he spends more time talking about why all American (Christian) immigrants need to be banned (crime) than why Muslim immigrants need to be banned (terror). Economic insecurity is at the root of all of it.
jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 5:09 pmHas Trump demanded that Christians from Europe or Canada be prevented from entering the U.S.? I'm pretty sure he hasn't. If he's really motivated by economic reasons, there's no need to specify a particular religion, such as Islam, or a particular nationality, such as Mexicans.
pictboy3 , May 13, 2016 at 10:56 amPeople from Europe and Canada already have high salaries. Or they are perceived to have high salaries in their home countries. IE they are not percieved as an economic threat. I guarantee you, show me a poor, third world country that is sending a lot of people to US right now and and I'll show you an ethnic groups that faces some prejudice. Come on, it's not well paid people with stable jobs and incomes who are going around being prejudiced against immigrants. It's the poor and the desperate who are doing it.
There is a reason for that. Ignoring that reason and pretending that it's some bizarre and unfathomable psychological illness just coincidentally affecting people who are also offing themselves from despair left and right isn't going to make it go away. Rather, you are inviting something terrible to happen. The Germans didn't decide to follow Hitler because times were good, and a friendly PR campaign encouraging openness and acceptance among the poor misguided racists and immigrant haters out there will do exactly nothing to help matters.
Jim , May 13, 2016 at 11:29 amI don't think anyone (most anyone anyway) would disagree that there are plenty of Muslims who are not extremists. The problem for us is, how do you tell the difference? The San Bernadino shooter was a health inspector, had a wife, kids, a middle class job, ties to the community and still decided to shoot up his co-workers with his wife in tow. Plenty of the European ISIS recruits come from middle class families that are seemingly well-adjusted. If these people (keep in mind Farook was a US citizen) can become terrorists, how can we possibly screen new entrants with any sort of efficacy?
I'd say it's probably worth the miniscule risk of possible immigrants turning out to be terrorists if there was some other benefit to having them come in, but if we agree there's too much immigration to the US already and it is hurting actual US citizens, what exactly is the upside to keep allowing Muslims in?
By the way, I've been lurking on this site for a few weeks now, first time commenter. It's nice to find some quality discussion on the internet. Nice to meet everyone.
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 2:38 pmWhere are these "extremist Christians" burning and burying people alive, beheading hostages, blasting away at crowds in night clubs? "Christian extremism" is a figment of your imagination. The attempt to equate Moslem violence with conservative Christians is utterly absurd. Do you seriously believe that soime Amish dude is going to run amuck in a New York night club and slaughter hundreds of people?
cm , May 13, 2016 at 2:45 pmThe Bush administration?
Skippy , May 13, 2016 at 6:07 pmA cheap shot. Please explain how the Obama administration differs from the Bush administration.
cassandra , May 13, 2016 at 5:14 pmObama does not get is morning SITREP delivered with biblical headers
"The religious theme for briefings prepared for the president and his war cabinet was the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a committed Christian and director for intelligence serving Mr Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In the days before the six-week invasion, Major General Shaffer's staff had created humorous covers for the briefings to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle.
But as the body count rose, he decided to introduce biblical quotes.
However, many of his Pentagon colleagues were reportedly opposed to the idea, with at least one Muslim analyst said to be greatly offended.
A defence official warned that if the briefing covers were leaked, the damage to America's standing in the Arab world 'would be as bad as Abu Ghraib' – the Baghdad prison where U.S. troops abused Iraqis.
But Major General Shaffer, 61, who retired in August 2003, six months after the invasion, claimed he had the backing of the president and defence secretary. When officials complained, he told them the practice would continue because it was 'appreciated by my seniors' – Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Bush.
The briefing covers were revealed for the first time by GQ after they were leaked to the U.S. magazine by a source at the Pentagon."
Disheveled Marsupial . whilst I understand the acts committed transcend time and political party's . never the less in – The Name Of – can not be white washed away
Yves Smith , May 13, 2016 at 2:48 pmcm has a point; you should have included Obama/Clinton.
Ulysses , May 13, 2016 at 3:31 pmDid you manage to miss Trump's point in the video that the US has killed millions in the Middle East, and that if US presidents had gone to the beach for the last 15 years. everyone would have been better off? And that we murder people by drone in addition to all our undeclared wars? You are seriously pretending Christians not only have blood on their hands, but started these wars and have killed people in vastly bigger numbers than we have? I'm not defending terrorists, but your position is a remarkable airbrushing.
JTMcPhee , May 13, 2016 at 3:42 pmThe worst domestic terrorist the U.S. ever produced, Timothy McVeigh, wasn't Amish, yet neither was he Muslim. Denying people the opportunity to immigrate here– based solely on religion– contradicts the principles of tolerance on which this country was founded.
Vatch , May 13, 2016 at 4:01 pmYah, this is a Great Country, isn't it, where everyone has the right to own assault weapons, and the opportunity to assemble and detonate giant bombs hidden in rental trucks, and you can do pretty much whatever you can get away with, depending on one's degree of immunity and impunity and invisibility
But the Panopticon will Save us
TG , May 13, 2016 at 12:20 pmEric Rudolph and Robert Lewis Dear, Jr., are more examples of Christian terrorists. Outside the country, there's Anders Breivik (well, he's only partially Christian, but he's definitely not Muslim).
lyman alpha blob , May 13, 2016 at 2:16 pmKudos. Well said.
Vatch , May 13, 2016 at 2:23 pmI get your point from a labor standpoint but who gets to decide to shut the door and say 'no more room at the inn'? Unless it's First Peoples I think it would be pretty hypocritical coming from the descendants of all the other immigrants who crossed over themselves at some point.
PS: I haven't heard this talked about much but does anyone really believe Trump is serious with all this immigrant-bashing rhetoric? If he is anywhere near as rich as he claims to be, he got there at least in part, and likely in large part by exploiting cheap labor. While I've never stayed in a Trump property to see for myself I'm guessing that all the hotel employees aren't direct descendants of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
lyman alpha blob , May 13, 2016 at 11:14 pmUnless it's First Peoples I think it would be pretty hypocritical coming from the descendants of all the other immigrants who crossed over themselves at some point.
Everybody outside of Africa, including "First Peoples" (if I understand that phrase correctly), is a descendant of immigrants. The ancestors of the Amer-Indians (probably) came from Siberia over the Bering land bridge during the late ice age.
It might be hypocritical for an actual immigrant to advocate restrictions on immigration, but that's not the case for descendants of immigrants. But if there are restrictions, they shouldn't be based on religion or race.
anon , May 13, 2016 at 2:37 pmI don't really think shutting down immigration is the answer. It's not practical and isn't likely to solve the problems blamed on immigration even if you could keep people out.
People don't leave their countries en masse unless there's some kind of disaster. A little less imperialism turning nations to rubble would be a much better solution.
Tony S , May 13, 2016 at 4:09 pmSo you believe that no people, anywhere, ever, have a right to determine who can join their community, contribute to their community, or undercut their community's wages and values. Except if some "First Peoples" show up and endorse the idea? Do they have divine right of kings or something? What if we got one Indian to agree? A plurality of them?
If it was right for the natives to resist the destruction of their way of life in 1492-1900, and it was, it is right for the natives to resist of the destruction of their way of life now. Even if those natives' skin now comes in multiple colors.
Vatch , May 13, 2016 at 4:50 pmWell, I have trouble believing that Trump is serious about his TPP-bashing and Iraq-war-bashing, I have trouble believing Trump's words are credible on just about any issue.
It's going to be a rough four years, whether Trump wins or loses.
different clue , May 13, 2016 at 9:50 pmWell, Sanders still has a chance, although he's a long shot. Democratic voters in Kentucky, Oregon, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the District of Columbia have a chance to save the nomination for him.
In Puerto Rico, Montana, and North Dakota, the election events are open, so anyone who's registered can vote for Sanders. In California, registered independents can also vote for Sanders.
steelhead23 , May 13, 2016 at 5:28 pmIf its hypocritical, perhaps we should live with that if it is also reality-based and pragmatic. As in " we've got a good thing going here and we don't need nobody else muscling in on our sweet racket".
Separately, many advocates of ILLEGAL immigration carefully pull a sleight-of-mouth bait-and-switch between ILLEGAL immigration and legal immigration. Accepters of carefully controlled legal immigration can still reject ILLEGAL immigration for pragmatic social-survival reasons.
NotTimothyGeithner , May 13, 2016 at 9:29 amQuite simply, the idea of banning Muslims entry to the U.S. is an affront to the very nature of the American experiment, of plurality, equality, and religious freedom. However, recent events in Europe, specifically the sexual assaults in Cologne and elsewhere show that some young Muslim men are a problem. So are some young American men. An issue we need to wrestle with is how to reduce this problem. Such problems are not about religion, they are cultural, they are about interpersonal respect and behavior. But, the West, broadly speaking, has shown horrendous disrespect to Moslems. The U.S. has attacked wedding parties and funerals, destroyed cities and countries, behaving like Crusaders. Perhaps were the West to display less barbarism toward Moslems, they would express more respect toward us. Seems worth a try.
MikeNY , May 13, 2016 at 7:17 amHe doesn't have to mean anything. Trump needs to drive potential Democratic turnout down. On one hand, reminding people how awful Hillary is effectively destroys volunteer efforts which is how voters get registered and identified for gotv. The other side is what is the perception of the average Democratic voter of Hillary's record. Hillary supporters have pushed the "tested," "likely to win, " and "inevitable" arguments for a long time now. How many people in the potential electorate understood Hillary was a hawk when they voted or didn't bother to show up? Bernie used words such as "poor judgement" for fear of being labeled sexist. Trump won't hold back.
Perhaps, Trump was a mole, but what can Bill offer that the GOP can't? Air Force One might not be the most luxurious plane, but its the Air Force plane wherever the President is. Thats respect no one can buy. Reagan was carted through the White House, so why not Trump?
bowserhead , May 13, 2016 at 9:22 amImagine Trump running to the left of Hillary on defense / interventionism, trade, and universal healthcare. That would sure make things interesting. He could win.
NotTimothyGeithner , May 13, 2016 at 10:19 amIt ain't over. She's got one countermove left which is to somehow get Bernie on the ticket and grab the enthusiastic and politically correct (if not fully-informed) millenial vote. Otherwise the dilution of the blue vote in the swing states will loom large. James Carville, astute handicapper that he is, has already sniffed out that Hillary now needs Bernie more than Bernie needs Hillary.
Michael Fiorillo , May 13, 2016 at 7:29 amSanders on the ticket would only undermine Sanders. This Is about the DLC or the status quo. The length of Sanders career has made him credible, but Hillary has already lost this same race to an empty suit. The Democrats have bled support since Obama went full Reagan, but in many ways, this is a conflict between Democratic elites and their loyalist followers and everyone else. Accepting assimilation will only hurt Sanders. Forcing a Vice President onto Hillary such as Gabbard would be a far better aim. Sanders supporters aren't interested in a status quo candidate, supported by the usual list of villains.
Hillary can get a begrudging vote, but she will never endive enthusiasm. Bernie and Hillary uniting will only annoy people.
anon , May 13, 2016 at 7:51 amYes, and then, as his long history with customers, contractors, vendors and creditors has shown, he'll fuck us.
Please don't take this as advocacy for the Other One, but Donnie's entire career is based on screwing people over; this is just another, albeit far bigger, hustle.
Don't think for a second that you could rely on him to follow through honestly about anything; it's always and forever about Donnie.
jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 8:43 amAs if HRC wont?
Ian , May 13, 2016 at 9:05 amHey, there's at least a 1% chance that Trump won't go out if his way to screw the American people considering the blackbox nature of his candidacy, whereas there is at least a 100% chance that HRC will screw the American people hard. And add in the fact that she is a known psychopath with an itchy trigger finger who will have the Red Button on her desk if she gets into the oval office Yeah. Trump isn't looking too bad now, is he?
Jason , May 13, 2016 at 2:54 pmI gotta admit that Trump has always been a wild card for me, and while he is likely to screw us, Hillary definitely will. Still the only candidate worth supporting in any conceivable sense is Bernie.
Ulysses , May 13, 2016 at 3:17 pmGiven his gleeful endorsement of torture, advocacy for war crimes, nods to totalitarianism and fascism, his own clear psychopathy, along with his racism, xenophobia, and apparent ignorance on everything from medicine to the environment, and nuclear weapons, yes he looks bad, even in comparison with Hillary Clinton , which says a great deal about just how awful he truly is.
Jason , May 13, 2016 at 3:49 pmThey are both truly awful!! If they turn out to be the top two candidates on the ballot, I will have no choice but to write in Bernie, or vote Green.
steelhead23 , May 13, 2016 at 6:29 pmI'm personally more frightened by Trump than Clinton. I've lived through almost 8 years of Obama, plus Bush and Clinton how much worse than those could another 4-8 years of the same be? Trump is a terrifying like my house on fire. But at the same time, I can certainly understand the desire to vote for the Green with a clear conscience.
Perhaps we'll get lucky, and Hillary's campaign will collapse before the convention. Bernie would be the first candidate I could really vote for (and who'd have a real chance at winning).
different clue , May 13, 2016 at 9:56 pmWhy not put your vote where your words are? We're Senator Bernie Sanders to be the candidate, my vote would be his. If he's not, and he endorses Secretary Clinton, then my vote goes to Doctor Jill Stein, my favorite candidate anyway. Given the momentum Sanders has generated, were he, instead of supplicating himself to Clinton following her coronation, to stand behind Ms. Stein Only in my dreams. Sigh
jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 3:58 pmThe DLC Third-Way Clintonite Obamacrats will not let Bernie become nominee no matter what. If the party can't coronate Clinton, the party will try to bolt the severed head of Joe Biden onto Clinton's headless body . . and run THAT.
flora , May 13, 2016 at 10:52 am"We came. We saw. He died. [Raucous laughter]"
That right there is what convinced me that the woman is a psychopath. She should have been carried out out of the interview in a straight jacket, and yet there are some people who trying to make her president. Trump may be a narcissist, but I would not say that he's psychotic.
If nothing else you need to support Trump for the survival of humanity.
jrs , May 13, 2016 at 2:34 pmThinking about a Trump/hillary_clinton. contest reminds me of the movie 'The Sting'; where a couple of honest con men take down a dishonest con man who killed their friend. I see Hillary as the dishonest con man.
MtnLife , May 13, 2016 at 8:06 amIn reality Trump is NOT to the left of Hillary on universal healthcare. Read his website.
Look since the guy is a major presidential candidate whether one likes that or not, I have no problem directing people to his website. See how he puts his actual policy positions, such as they are, in his own words.
Interventionism and trade remain to be seen as personally I think his positions on them are likely to still uh evolve as they say during the campaign season. So I'm leaving the verdict out there.
MikeNY , May 13, 2016 at 8:18 amI brought up this idea right when he became the presumptive nominee but this isn't really a pivot left. He's always been less of a hawk than Hillary. One of the few positions he has been relatively consistent on. I see him biding his time for a full pivot until Bernie is out of the picture. Here's to hoping that doesn't happen.
MtnLife , May 13, 2016 at 10:00 amLike all of my best thoughts, unoriginal. :-p
MikeNY , May 13, 2016 at 10:10 amMy apologies, my friend. Didn't mean to step on you. Meant it as a concurrence. Sipping coffee slowly today. You're one of my favorite people here for your regularly spot on, insightful comments.
Yves Smith , May 13, 2016 at 8:24 amKind words, TY.
NotTimothyGeithner , May 13, 2016 at 9:57 amYes, my big effort to tell myself that Life Under Trump may not be as horrible as I fear is that the record of outsider presidents (Carter) and celebrity governors (Schwarznegger and Jesse Ventura) is they get very little done.
John Wright , May 13, 2016 at 10:02 amModern governors are bound by devolution and mandates. They are just glorified city managers with the staff to do the city manager's job. Even popular, insider governors can do very little. The President can set the terms by which the governors operate.
jrs , May 13, 2016 at 2:46 pmI'm concerned that HRC will get more done than the Donald, but little of HRC's actions will be positive.
California handled Schwarznegger without too many problems as he tried unsuccessfully to "break down boxes".
He replaced, via recall, the forgettable democratic Governor Gray Davis who simply disappeared from politics.
As I recall, Davis papered over the CA energy crisis until after the election, figuring that when the s**t hit the fan, he'd have been safely reinstalled in office.
The recall campaign proved this a bad assumption.
Schwarznegger actually tried to do something about climate change, see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/big-energy-gamble.html
I see HRC as possibly getting more wars started, TPP/TTIP approved, a grand bargain done on SS, and providing more coddling to the financial, medical and insurance industries.
If many or all of HRC's possible negative accomplishments will not be done by Trump, then that could justify electing a president who accomplishes little..
jsn , May 13, 2016 at 11:37 amYea Schwarznegger was ok. He made a few very devoted enemies in a few unions. But he was probably far better on pushing environmental issues than Jerry fracking Brown ever was or will be. If it was him versus Jerry at this point, I might very well prefer Arnold.
Deloss Brown , May 13, 2016 at 4:08 pmI think Trump at least understands that you can't take money from people who don't have any. His casino enterprise in Atlantic City may have taught him that.
Like Anne Amnisia's link yesterday, I feel like I know where I stand with a Mussolini and can envision taking a bullet honorably in resistance where the DNC method has been slowly killing me my whole adult life and, short of Bernie, I can't see how to resist!
If he's ineffectual and doesn't start more wars, at least its more time to organize and Trump's the kind of "leader" that might give focus to resistance.
marym , May 13, 2016 at 8:48 amYves, I wish I thought you were right. But The Duck is so bizarre, so definitively unhinged, that no one can predict what he'll do. He changes positions as the wind blows. And when he follows any philosophy at all, it's the "Conservative" philosophy. He doesn't believe in global warming. He once said that there should be NO minimum wage. I'm a Bernie fan, not a Hillary fan, but I would never, ever take the risk of letting the Hare-Brained Jabberwocky into any position of power, which means, probably, that I have to vote for Hillary, and even start sending her money after the primaries. Probably.
marym , May 13, 2016 at 8:57 amHis healthcare plan on his campaign website is the usual Republican gibberish – repeal Obamacare, sell insurance across state lines, block grant Medicaid.
He suggested 20-30,000 troops to Syria in response to a debate question, then said he would never do that, but send " air power and military support" instead. ( LINK )
MikeNY , May 13, 2016 at 9:30 amedit: Position on the website is also to give veterans the ability to "choose" healthcare outside the VA system. (I'm not knowledgeable to say if this would actually help current pressing VA issues, but it is a move from a national public health service model to a private care model, so not leftward).
marym , May 13, 2016 at 12:39 pmThanks for that. I think the general idea holds, though: it's a populist remake of politics, and I think if Trump stakes out some 'unconventional' positions that are to the 'left' of HRC, he could beat her.
MikeNY , May 13, 2016 at 5:05 pmWell, if by left you meant 'left' then we agree :) His appeal is much broader, though IMO a combination of rightward demagoguery and leftward populist-i-ness.
JTMcPhee , May 13, 2016 at 9:43 amYou're right about the demagoguery. So again, we agree!
whine country , May 13, 2016 at 10:07 amThat VA notion is a dagger pointed at the heart of all those people who for whatever reason, "took the King's shilling" or drew the short straws in the draft lotteries or, before that, were nailed and "inducted" just by living in heavy-draft-quota areas. And of course the Greatest Generation, so many of whom got drug into earlier US imperial wars (Narrative notwithstanding.)
Sending GIs to docs outside the VA system (itself under siege for generations now by the same shits who bring on the Forever War that generates ever more damaged people needing those "services"), to docs who in my experience pretty uniformly have zero knowledge of vet-specific problems and diseases and injuries, who will be paid how much to treat what quota of veterans, again? Crucifying GIs on the HMO cross, so people can pretend there's "care" for them, via docs who are even more likely than VA docs (who at least have some protections against arbitrary rules and policies and firings, in a "system" run by many who institutionalize actual CARE as the main idea) to "go along with the minimization-hurry-up-and-die program"?
The whole notion is straight Rule #2: "GO DIE, FOKKER! And do it quietly, out of sight, and with minimum fuss, in a structure that so diffuses the abuses over space and time that it's extremely difficult for the affected population to even gather the numbers to show how bad it is." Straight "more continuing more opaque fog of war" bullshit. The same kind of sales BS as used to sell the rest of neoliberalist misery ("Don't whine now, fools - you voted for it, I have the validated results of the elections right here, so now it's All Nice And Legal, seeee?) from NAFTA and preceding frauds and vast FIREs, on up to the present scams.
In the meantime, the Military-Industrial Juggernaut continues to gain mass and momentum. Trump can natter about "war in the Mideast is a bad deal for the US" (Mideast seemingly not including AfPak, China, Africa, South America, etc.) as a "bad deal." But will he have any interest in spooling down the turbines on the enormous Milo Minderbinder Enterprises machine that is daily being "upgraded" and "up-armored" and "re-weaponed" and "re-doctrined" and "mission-creeped," with the happy participation of every business, large and small, that can wangle or "extend" a procurement or "study" contract to expand and lethality and simple bureaucratic-growth size and incompetence (as a military force, in the old sense of what armies are supposed to do for the Emperoro) of the monster, even as we blog participants do our mostly ineffectual (if intellectually pleasing) nattering?
Civilian Control of the Military is a dishonest myth - true only in the sense that the Captains of MICIndustry and drivers of "policy" are not currently Active Duty, though they all, along with the generals (who live like kings, of course) belong to the same clubs and dip deeply into the same MMT Cornucopia. And the MIC, from what I read, is quite open and pleased about the state of affairs
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 2:35 pmI would argue that the MIC is simply part of the 20 percent that derive their middle class existence by serving at the beck and call of the 1 percent. You are describing the symptoms and not the disease.
Felix_47 , May 13, 2016 at 10:41 amYep.
JTMcPhee , May 13, 2016 at 2:46 pmWe are in the grip of "credentialled" doctors and lawyers. Just as most litigation and most of what lawyers do is destructive to the average person, it is estimated that half of all surgeries done in the US are unnecessary. the HIC (health industrial complex) has brainwashed the public to believe that we need $20,000 per month medications and artificial discs. As you have doubtless seen the third leading cause of death in the US is medical mistakes. They happen in the VA and in the private sector. Maybe the notion of more medical care is better is simply not valid. At some point we will have to realize that rationing in a rational way is going to have to happen. I would rather have someone who went to medical school decide on what is going to be rationed than some lawyer or business administrator.
Jim Haygood , May 13, 2016 at 11:27 amThere sure is a lot packed into that comment. But my experience with VA doctors and other caregivers (speaking as a retired "private sector" nurse, VA care recipient and former attorney) is that except for the psychiatrists and some of the docs that perform disability examinations, the VA caregivers actually provide care, and they seem to do it pretty well, given the constant attrition of resources and burgeoning case load the neolibs are imposing. Personal tale: the Medicare 'provider" at the full-spectrum clinic I used to use was all hot to perform a "common surgical procedure that most older men need." A fee-generating TURP, which pretty rarely improves the victim's life. The VA doc, looking at the same condition and presentation, noted the down-sides pretty carefully and said that until I was a lot more "restricted," there was no way I "needed" any such invasive procedure. But then his income is not influenced by the number of cuts he makes
Most of what lawyers do any more, and this has been true for a long time, is combat over wealth transfers, economic warfare. Ever since partnership was killed off as the mandatory form of lawyer business operations, with attendant personal liability for partner actions, the rule is "eat what you kill, and kill all you can." Most doctors I know have caregiving as their primary motivation in going into medicine. (Most nurses, the same to a much greater extent, and since they start with smaller debt and fewer chances to bleed the patient and the system that bleeds the nurse pretty badly, they can carry that decency forward.)
Interesting, of course, that more and more doctors have joint MD and MBA credentials. And working with other operatives, are gradually and maybe inexorably forcing more of their fellows into "medical cooperatives" like HCA and JSA, where they become salaried wage slaves with productivity targets and metrics, and thus "rationers" de facto, by having to respond to "metrics" that are all driven by the basic business model: "More and more work, from fewer and fewer people, for less and less money, for higher and higher costs, with ever more crapified outcomes for the mope-ery." Although, I might offer, there are some of my fellow mopes who actually do benefit from those back surgeries (yes, maybe most of them are unwarranted, but not all) and meds that only cost "$20,000 per month" because of MARKETS.
inode_buddha , May 13, 2016 at 6:41 pm'Imagine Trump running to the left of Hillary on defense / interventionism, trade, and universal healthcare.'
It would be like FDR vs Hoover - with Goldwater girl Hillary playing the role of Hoover.
Nick , May 13, 2016 at 7:22 amImagine Trump winning as a GOP canidate by running to the left of the DNC canidate. The vision of the GOP having a collective ulcer/Rovian Meltdown is making me giggle like a schoolgirl all day.
Frankly, I'm *much* more worried about HRC in the Whitehouse than I am about Trump. Reason why is that he's a relative outsider, not an Establishment guy - and there is always Congress to deal with. Its not like he would have a total dictatorship, whereas HRC would be able to do far more and deeper damage to the nation.
My position is Sanders or bust, and I say that as a 20-year member of the GOP (now independent).
Yves Smith , May 13, 2016 at 7:30 amLike you said, he changes his positions all the time, and Clinton is no doubt a serious warmonger/war criminal, but he did also say that he would "bomb the s- out of ISIS," which one might also be inclined to characterize as trigger happy.
I am equally terrified at the prospect of having Clinton or Trump at the nuclear controls, which is why we should all send Bernie a few bucks today. The MSM have already gone into full Clinton v Trump general election mode, though that is certain to change once Bernie wins California.
P , May 13, 2016 at 7:45 amIf you read what Trump has said about our foreign policy, he has been consistent in his view that the US can't and shouldn't be acting as an imperalist. He does not use those words, but he's said this often enough that I've even linked to articles describing how Trump is willing to depict America as being in decline, and this as one manifestation. In addition, his foreign policy speech was slammed basically because it broke with neocon orthodoxy. I have not read it but people I respect and who are not temperamentally inclined to favor Trump have, and they said it was sensible and among other things argued that we could not be fighting with China and Russia at the same time, and pumped for de-escalating tensions with Russia as the country whose culture and interests were more similar to ours than China's.
Having said that, calling out our belligerence and TPP as bad ideas seem to be the only issues on which he's not been all over the map (well, actually, he has not backed down on his wall either .)
The other reason to think he might stick with this position more consistently than with others is that his core voters come from communities where a lot of people have fought in the post-9/11 Middle Eastern conflicts. Our armed forces are stretched to the breaking point. Trump has strong support among veterans and active duty soldiers, and it's due to his speaking out against these wars.
Trump can probably get away with continuing to shape shift till Labor Day, since most voters don't make up their minds till close to the election. It's not pretty to watch him make a bold statement and then significantly walk it back in the next 24 hours, particularly if it's an issue you care about and he's said something that is so nuts that it sounds like he cares more about his Nielsen rating than what makes sense for the country. If he can't put enough policy anchors down by the fall and stick to them, he will lose a lot of people who might give him a shot out of antipathy to Clinton.
miamijac , May 13, 2016 at 8:06 amThis guy has been writing some great stuff this cycle.
http://theweek.com/articles/622864/how-hillary-clinton-could-blow
Nick , May 13, 2016 at 8:05 amlike's bait and switch.
Yves Smith , May 13, 2016 at 8:30 amThat may well be the case and he was right to call out the Iraq war as a "mistake" during that debate (given his otherwise unconventional rhetoric, however, I was actually a bit disappointed that he didn't use the more correct term war crime), but he has also said that he wants to bring back torture and then some.
As far as I'm concerned though, the race right now is between Clinton and Bernie and I'm fairly confident that Bernie still has a good chance since he is sure to take California (which, luckily for Bernie, will seem like a huge surprise).
In a match up between Trump and Clinton my own personal thoughts (that a democratic – i.e. neoliberal – white house will at least continue to move people to the left, whereas a republican white house will only galvanize people around bringing another neoliberal to the white house) are irrelevant because I have virtually no doubt that Trump will win.
bowserhead , May 13, 2016 at 8:50 amYes, his enthusiasm for torture is pretty creepy and you get a taste of it here indirectly: "That Saddam, he was a really bad guy but he sure could take care of those terrorists!" While Trump does seem to genuinely disapprove of all the people our wars have killed for no upside (a commonsense position in absence among our foreign policy elites), he seems overly confident that we can identify baddies well and having identified them, we should have no compunction about being brutal with them.
jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 9:34 am"That Saddam, he was a really bad guy but he sure could take care of those terrorists!"
His meaning here is we should have stayed out of it and let the "really bad guy" (Saddam) handle Al Quaeda. Of course, the Bush neocons dishonestly morphed Saddam into Al Quaeda. You know the rest of the story.
fresno dan , May 13, 2016 at 11:23 amI'm willing to bet that he's saying a lot of this stuff for his audience–people who are generally a pretty angry and bloodthirsty lot. I'm not saying that he's not going to come out for peace, love and contrition when he's elected president, but I think it is safe to say that his rhetoric now is completely unrelated to how he'd go about actually governing.
OK, so normally that'd be a horrible admission–if the Democrats hadn't had the brilliant idea of foisting Hillary onto the American people. What a brain-dead move! I myself could have been persuaded to support Bernie, but Hillary is the Devil incarnate as far as I'm concerned.
ggm , May 13, 2016 at 2:17 pmOne fact that we have to remember is all the people who designed, advocated for, implemented, and defended "enhanced interrogation" and than who use "Clintonisms" to say we no longer use torture (because we never did – "enhanced interrogation") AND because we are "rendering" them someplace else and our friends are doing the enhanced interrogation – well, such lying devious people in my view are far, far worse than The Donald.
In my view, there appears to be considerable evidence that the US still defacto tortures – and that is far, far worse than the appalling, but at least truthful statement of how Trump feels. And of course, pink misting people may not be torture, but it can't be separated.Again, which is worse:
A. The Donald up front advocates a policy (of torture), people can be mobilized to oppose it. No legalisms, dissembling, and every other term that can be used to obfuscate what the US is REALLY doing.
B. The US government asserts it no longer tortures. How many readers here have confidence that that is a factually true statement, that can be said without word games?
Is saying we should torture WORSE than saying we don't torture, but WE ARE???jrs , May 13, 2016 at 2:51 pmI feel the same way. It's preferable to have someone take the morally reprehensible pro-torture stance than to pretend to be against it while secretly renditioning prisoners and so forth.
pretzelattack , May 13, 2016 at 4:16 pmA good argument for reelecting George W Bush I suppose. Everything was pretty out in the open in the W administration you have to admit.
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 7:44 pmexcept for the fake wmds that started it. and abu ghraib. and the reasons the contractors were hung in fallujah. and the fake alliance between saddam and al quaida. and outing valerie plame when joe wilson blew the whistle on the fake purpose of the aluminum tubes.
Seas of Promethium , May 13, 2016 at 7:44 pmLet's not forget the warrantless surveillance program!
Also, Wilson blew the whistle on the yellowcake uranium. The aluminum tubes were another mole in the whack-a-mole game.
Ian , May 13, 2016 at 9:10 amEverything was pretty out in the open in the W administration you have to admit.
"The United States does not torture." -GWB
Rhondda , May 13, 2016 at 11:22 amEnough electoral fraud has been evidenced that I think that the numbers are going to be gamed to be closer to the non-representative polling that flood the MSM. He may win, but they aren't going to allow him to win by a lot in such a delegate heavy state.
jrs , May 13, 2016 at 2:54 pmUnfortunately, I think you are quite right that the California numbers will be rigged/gamed. I had become quite cynical about American politics, thanks to Obama the More Effective Evil's reign and the Bush and the Supremes Florida gambit back in 2000. But this primary vote rigging has really moved my marker so far that I am not even sure what word to use what's more cynical than super duper cynical?
I no longer believe - any of it .
Northeaster , May 13, 2016 at 8:45 amSo here's an idea I've been pondering how can the people try to prevent or find this? Could we exit poll outside the voting places? Yes it would be a limited sample of just one local place but it's something and in aggregate if lots of people were doing this
I too think they might try to game California. And this is quite alarming considering California is usually too unimportant to even game. I figure the elections are usually honest here, probably because they just don't matter one whit. But this time it might matter and they might steal the vote.
Roger Smith , May 13, 2016 at 7:25 am"core voters come from communities where a lot of people have fought in the post-9/11 Middle Eastern conflicts. Our armed forces are stretched to the breaking point. Trump has strong support among veterans and active duty soldiers"
This.
People tend to also forget that there's a lot of us Gen-X'ers that were deployed over there over 25 years ago, when it was popular, for the same damned thing. Nothing has changed. Sure, some leadership folks have been taken out, but the body count of Americans soldiers has only risen,and the Region is now worse off.
The "first time" we had more folks die from non-combat related accidents than from actual combat. Some of us are sick of our political and corporate establishment selling out our fellow soldiers and Veterans, even worse is the way they have been treated when they come home. I'm not a Trump supporter, but this part of his message not only resonates with me, but angers me further. Why? Because I know that if Hillary Clinton walks into The Oval Office, even more Americans are going to die for lust of more power and influence.
HRC is simply the evilest human being I have ever seen in politics in my lifetime. Trump may be an idiot, crass, authoritarian, and any number of negative things, but he is not "evil" – she is.
Pavel , May 13, 2016 at 8:01 amIf the mash up continues as Clinton v. Trump and barring any character sinking actions of Trump, this man will win in November. To paraphrase Shivani, Clinton is speaking entirely in high minded self-interest, while Trump has latched onto and is pressing a actual truths of reality (regardless of his personal convictions or what he wlll actually do if elected).
Trump is more liberal than Clinton here. What exactly are her redeeming qualities again?
Roger Smith , May 13, 2016 at 9:16 amI can't really think of any HRC redeeming qualities. "Retail politicking" doesn't seem to be one of them. Lambert, you no doubt saw this video of her confronted with rising health insurance costs post-ACA? Her word salad response doesn't begin to address the real issues
During a recent town hall event, a small business owner explained to the Democratic front-runner that her health insurance has gone up so significantly for her family that the thought of providing benefits to her employees is secondary at this point.
"As a small business owner, not only are you trying to provide benefits to your employees, you're trying to provide benefits to yourself. I have seen our health insurance for my own family, go up $500 dollars a month in the last two years. We went from four hundred something, to nine hundred something. We're just fighting to keep benefits for ourselves. The thought of being able to provide benefits to your employees is almost secondary, yet to keep your employees happy, that's a question that comes across my desk all the time. I have to keep my employees as independent contractors for the most part really to avoid that situation, and so I have turnover"
"We do not qualify for a subsidy on the current health insurance plan. My question to you is not only are you looking out for people that can't afford healthcare, but I'm someone that can afford it, but it's taking a big chunk of the money I bring home."
To which Hillary responded, to make a long story short, that she knows healthcare costs are going up, and doesn't understand why that would ever be the case.
"What you're saying is one of the real worries that we're facing with the cost of health insurance because the costs are going up in a lot of markets, not all, but many markets and what you're describing is one of the real challenges."
"There's a lot of things I'm looking at to try to figure out how to deal with exactly the problem you're talking about. There are some good ideas out there but we have to subject them to the real world test, will this really help a small business owner or a family be able to afford it. What could have possibly raised your costs four hundred dollars, and that's what I don't understand."
"What could have possibly raised your costs four hundred dollars, and that's what I don't understand." - this from a woman who ostensibly is an expert on health care delivery?
The link is from Zero Hedge but in any case watch the video. Or wait for it to appear in a Trump campaign ad:
"What Could Have Possibly Raised Your Costs" – Hillary Can't Answer Why Obamacare Costs Are Soaring
P , May 13, 2016 at 7:37 am"Or wait for it to appear in a Trump campaign ad" Haha!
I am surprised she didn't pull out the "90% coverage" false-positve. We haven't seen that pony enough. The notion of imploring "scientific" method here is interesting in light of the party's blood oath to meritocracy. "There are some good ideas out there but we have to subject them to the real world test ". It also implies that the process is natural and no accountability is necessary.
Another great DNC experiment. Throwing the blacks in jail for 20 years over nothing "oh well, we need to try more!" I cannot imagine being in prison right now for some minor drug offense and hearing the Clintons spew this nonsense.
That bagel spread though
samhill , May 13, 2016 at 7:41 amThis is going to be one hell of an election If nothing else those slimeballs that Clinton represent will be killed off. Finally.
bowserhead , May 13, 2016 at 8:13 amjoe-stiglitz-tells-democracy-now-that-war-cost-will-reach-5-to-7-trillion
It's a cost to the 99%, to the 1% it's profit – a damn whole lot of profit.
JustAnObserver , May 13, 2016 at 10:05 amJeff Gundlach, one of the few iconoclasts and reigning king of bonds on Wall Street:
"People are going to start putting greater focus on Hillary (Clinton). Voters are going to say, 'No. I don't want this,'" he told Reuters. "Hillary is going to evolve into an unacceptable choice. If she is such a great candidate, how come (Bernie Sanders) is beating her?"
bowserhead , May 13, 2016 at 10:54 amIIRC Gundlach's outfit is based in California, not Wall Street. Left coast plutos for Bernie ?
JustAnObserver , May 13, 2016 at 1:40 pmGood point.
Yaacov Kopel , May 13, 2016 at 9:29 amEven more. He's based in LA so there's a 400 mile air gap between him in the goldbugging, glibertarian, wannabe John Galt culture of the Valley exemplified by Peter Theil.
How about a picture of Gundlach for tomorrow's antidote ?
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 2:34 pmIt is warm heartening to see this site who consistently leaning left warming for the Donald. Clinton is a horrible candidate, flawed human being and her presidency is guaranteed to be marred by scandal after scandal and deep polarization.
Bern would be a great choice but he has no chance, the corrupt Democratic establishment will stick with Clinton.jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 4:24 pmThe post has nothing to do with "warming" to the Donald. It's policy focused.
jgordon , May 13, 2016 at 5:38 pmI inuited months ago that the warming to Donald thing would happen. I have a growing conviction that most of the people here, maybe even you, are going to vote for Donald in November. Even Jason will vote for Donald (unless he is being employed by that pro-Hillary super pac which I don't think is the case but just throwing it out there since there are empirically speaking people being paid to produce pro Hillary comments on the internet). Barring something truly interesting and novel happening between now and then that is.
The way things are going now this plane seems set for an effortless autopilot victory for Trump. I have no doubt that everyone will regret too. They'll even regret before they cast the vote, and do it anyway. Oh man, that's some truly black humor. OK I'll make an even grander prediction: Trump will inaugurate the post postmodern era (whatever historians eventually decide to call it) where our entire conception and perception of reality as a society undergoes a radical and unpleasant change. It's a unique time to be alive. Aren't we lucky?
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 7:42 pmWait. I just had an incredible insight. We're already out of the postmodern era, and I can date it from Sept. 11, 2001as the exit. Historian are going to say that this was a short era, a transitional era of illusions, delusions and fear, where complete non-reality Trumped the real for an ever so short period of time. But now we're going to be shocked awake, and what's coming next is going to be incredible and horrific. Damn, it's such an awesome and strange feeling to see things so clearly all of a sudden! It's really happening. So this why I've been obsessing over this stuff much recently.
Noonan , May 13, 2016 at 9:38 amI tried to find a short clip of Brunhilde riding her horse into the flames in Gotterdammerung right before Valhalla collapses, which is what voting for Trump would be like for me, but I couldn't find out.
NotTimothyGeithner , May 13, 2016 at 9:52 amThe worst result of the Obama presidency is the disappearance of the anti-war left from every form of mainstream media.
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 7:40 pmThere was an antiwar left on the msm during the Bush years? Kerry's campaign message was "Ill be W 2.0." Kerry himself was that awful, but there was no antiwar left in the msm. I thought the absence was the direct cause for the rise of blogs. The real crisis is the shift of websites such as TalkingPointMemo and CrooksandLiars to Team Blue loyalist sites or when Digby brought on Spoonfed.
TedWa , May 13, 2016 at 10:01 amYep. 2006 was when the Dems decapitated the left blogosphere, and as a result we have no independent media, except for lonely outposts like this one, and whatever those whacky kidz are doing with new media.
Praedor , May 13, 2016 at 10:34 amI keep donating to Bernie because even if he somehow doesn't win the nomination, he can force Hillary to be much more like him – if HRC wants Bernie voters to clinch the deal for her. Bernie staying in and fighting to the end (and my money says he wins) is great and if Hillary doesn't become Bernie, then the only one that can beat Trump is Bernie, and the super-delegates have got to see that.
Bottom line, Hillary has to become Bernie to beat Trump. Is that going to happen? We'll see.TedWa , May 13, 2016 at 10:43 amBernie staying in until the very end serves two purposes (he CAN still win, especially when he carries California). The first is, again, he CAN win. The second purpose is to prevent Hillary from shifting right the way she REALLY wants to for the general. She will have to keep tacking left to fend off a major slide towards Bernie. The "center" (actually right wing) is out of reach for her as long as Bernie is there.
ewmayer , May 13, 2016 at 6:49 pmExactly, and I'm loving it :^)
ke , May 13, 2016 at 10:13 amSorry to rain on your thesis, but absent the nomination, all Bernie can do is to force Hillary to *message* more like him. With her, the operative phrase is "words are wind". There is nothing whatever to keep her from immediately ditching every progressive-sounding campaign stance once she is in office, just as Obama did. And I guarantee you that if she does become president, that is precisely what she will do.
dingusansich , May 13, 2016 at 10:31 amTrump knows the counterweight better than anyone. He's the guy you keep on the job because he's entertaining, knowing he will sell you out if you let him, and you let him, when it serves a purpose, to adjust the counterweight.
POLITICS, RE feudalism, is a game, and he loves it, despite the heartburn. All that debt inertia.preventing the economic motor from gaining traction is psychological. That much he knows, which is a lot more than the rest of the politicians, making him a better dress maker. But like the others, he has no idea what to do about it.
He vascillates to maintain options, including a path to the future, while others rule themselves out. Of course hiring good people is the answer, but most Americans are politicians, like anywhere else, wanting to know little more than their cubicle, because the net result of majority behavior is punishing work, in favor of consumers, competing for advantage.
If you spent this time developing skills and finding a spouse that won't cut your throat, you will do quite well. The casino isn't life; it just keeps a lot of people busy, with busy work. Government is hapless.
RUKidding , May 13, 2016 at 2:43 pmIt's hard to know if Trump sees militarization and imperialism as bad because they're bad or bad because it's not Donald Trump in charge, with a great big straw sucking Benjamins between those rectally pursed lips. It may take an agent provocateur bullshitter to call bullshit, but that says nothing about what Trump will do as president. What's likeliest, given his record, is an opportunistic seizure of the Treasury to rival the occupation of Iraq. When I gaze into my crystal ball at a Trump administration I see cronyism, graft, corruption, nepotism, and deceit of monumental dimensions, just like the gold letters spelling Trump plastered over everything he lays his stubby little hands on. Because the Clintons are appalling doesn't make Trump appealing. It's a farcical contest, and every way, we lose.
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 7:38 pmYou echo my feelings. My loathing of Clinton knows no bounds, and I cannot vote for her, no matter what. But I simply don't trust Trump. He's a gold-digger extrodinaire, and quite the accomplished showman. He knows how to play to the crowd, and he's clearly quite quick to shape shift. The wrecked tatters of what's called the USA "media" gives Trump a YOOOGE pass on simply everything and anything the man says or does.
I don't trust Trump, and although, yes, he has says a few things that I agree with – and usually stuff that no one else at his level will ever say – it's essentially meaningless to me. I think Trump would be a disaster as President, and my "take" – which is based on my own opinion – is that he'll be Grifter El Supremo and make sure that he walks off with stacks and gobs and buckets of CA$H. For him. And if the country really tanks and goes bankrupt? So What?
Plus all this about Trump not being a War Hawk? I don't trust it. With the other breath, he's constantly spewing about "building up" the damn military, which, allegedly Obama has "weakened." Like, we really need to be spending another gazillion of our tax dollars "building up" the Military??? WHY? If The Donald is so against all these foreign wars, then why do we need to spend even more money on the Military??? All that signals to me is that Donald expects to go large on MIC investments for HIMSELF.
Won't get fooled again.
hemeantwell , May 13, 2016 at 10:32 am"cronyism, graft, corruption, nepotism, and deceit of monumental dimensions"
Rather like the Clinton Foundation, though the Clintons have more tasteful building fixtures
"Because the Clintons are appalling doesn't make Trump appealing"
Very true, and vice versa.
ke , May 13, 2016 at 11:38 amThe Saudi 9/11 connection is now front stage:.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/13/september-11-saudi-arabia-congressional-report-terrorism#comment-74155478
Trump can legitimately harp on this and likely will as part of his battle both with the R establishment and the Ds. HRC will probably respond "judiciously" in a way that will make her claim to "expertise" appear to be nothing more than what it is, lockstep parroting of neocon positions. Sanders?ke , May 13, 2016 at 11:54 amStory time: so, when I married the Mrs, I offered to fix the mother in laws old bug. She turned me down and has since demand that I fix what is now a rust bucket, not worth one manhour of my time, going around to the neighbors, all critters on govt checks rapidly falling behind RE inflation, to build consensus to the end, among women using men and men using women, all of them having thrown their marriages under the bus, as if majority vote is going to get me to do something I have no intention of doing.
When hospital gave Grace that shot and sent her to the ICU, per Obamacare expert protocol, all the critters went into CYA mode, and ultimately called the family, to confirm that the wife and I must be on drugs, which they did. I don't blame the morons running the court system, and she's the mother in law.
That debt is nothing more than psychology, but it is more effective than a physical prison. Silicon Valley is the as is abutment, simply reinforcing stupid with ever greater efficiency, but it is the endpoint on a collapsing bridge with no retreat, because automation has systematically destroyed the skill pool and work ethic required to advance further, replacing them with make work and make work skills.
Competing with China and the Middle East to build carp infrastructure to keep As many economic slaves as busy as possible is not the path forward. As you have seen, govt data is far closer to being 180 degrees wrong than being correct, as designed, which you should expect, from those holding out ignorance as a virtue.
There are far more elevators that need fixing than I could ever get to, and I am quite capable of fixing them in a manner that generates power. Who becomes president is irrelevant.
Watt4Bob , May 13, 2016 at 12:30 pmMy family in Ohio is massive, they made a killing on RE and currency arbitrage, after selling all the family farms, and have nothing real to show for it, but rapidly depreciating sunk costs, waiting to do it again. Rocket scientists.
Roger Smith , May 13, 2016 at 1:35 pmThe way I read this situation is this;
If the GWOT has cost us $4 Trillion, somebody made $4 Trillion.
That/those somebodies are not about to give up the kind of behavior that makes that kind of money.
If there is any real, actual third-rail in American politics, it's the MIC budget.
This fact has never been openly acknowledged, even though the American people are pretty sure that threatening the will of the MIC cost the life of at least one well known politician.
Trump may talk about that enormous waste now, but after his private screening of the Zapruder film he's going to STFU and get with the program like all the rest.
OTOH, like Yves has pointed out, if Donald wins, he could just end up the loneliest man in DC, be ignored, get nothing done, and I'm not sure I see a down-side to that.
RUKidding , May 13, 2016 at 2:49 pmif Donald wins, he could just end up the loneliest man in DC, be ignored, get nothing done
Exactly my feeling. He will be hated and fought constantly, whereas Clinton (if nominated) is guaranteed to screw things up. Like her husband (who by the way will be there whispering in ears and making passes at maids) she will triangulate on issues and pass destructive GOP legislation and likely drag this country into another foreign policy blunder, where I am betting more young, under-educated, poor citizens with no prospects or options will be sent to slaughter (themselves and others).
fresno dan , May 13, 2016 at 6:31 pmEH? I think The Donald will just go Large on MIC investments for himself. He talks a good game, but he keeps saying that he's going "build up" the Military, even as he's stating that we shouldn't be fighting in all of these wars. Why, then, do we need to "build up" the Military?
No one ever said Trump was stupid. I'm sure he's rubbing his grubby tiny vulgarian mitts with glee thinking about how he, too, can get in on that sweet sweet SWEET MIC payola grift scam. Count on it.
Trump doesn't need to see the Zapruder film. He was alive then and knows the story, just like everyone else of a certain age. Nay, verily, he just means to cash in on it.
fresno dan , May 13, 2016 at 7:44 pmWatt4Bob
May 13, 2016 at 12:30 pm
"OTOH, like Yves has pointed out, if Donald wins, he could just end up the loneliest man in DC, be ignored, get nothing done, and I'm not sure I see a down-side to that."I too view that as a feature and not a bug. Seriously, in the last 10, 20, 30 years, I would ask, what law is viewed as making things better? Was Sarbanes Oxley suppose to do something??? Maybe the law is OK, they just won't enforce it
I know Obamacare is relentlessly disparaged here, others think it is better than nothing.
Many of you youngsters don't realize this, but there was a time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, that there were no deductibles, co-pays, narrow networks, and that you had confidence that your doctor may have over treated and tested you, but you weren't afraid that you would die because it was too expensive to treat you.
Just like I don't care if GDP goes up because i won't see any of it, I don't care about all the cancer research because I am certain I won't be able to afford it, even though I have health "insurance" .fresno dan , May 13, 2016 at 7:48 pm"Employer-sponsored retiree health coverage once played a key role in supplementing Medicare," observe Tricia Neuman and Anthony Damico of the foundation. "Any way you slice it, this coverage is eroding."
Since 1988, the foundation says, among large firms that offer active workers health coverage, the percentage that also offer retiree health plans has shrunk to 23% in 2015 from 66% in 1988. The decline, which has been steady and almost unbroken, almost certainly reflects the rising cost of healthcare and employers' diminishing sense of responsibility for long-term workers in retirement.
.
Financial protection against unexpected healthcare costs is crucial for many Medicare enrollees, especially middle- and low-income members, because the gaps in Medicare can be onerous. The deductible for Medicare Part A, which covers inpatient services, is $1,288 this year, plus a co-pay of $322 per hospital day after 60 days. Part B, which covers outpatient care, has a modest annual deductible of $166 but pays only 80% of approved rates for most services.
====================================================
80% of 100,000$ means 20K is left over – with cancer treatments*, kidney treatments, cardiovascular treatments, such a scenario is more likely than a lot of people will imagine.*treatments don't include those foam slippers that they charge you 25$ for .
singfoom , May 13, 2016 at 2:44 pmAND
But the consequences of the shift away from employer-sponsored retiree benefits go beyond the rise in costs for the retirees themselves. Many are choosing to purchase Medigap policies, which fill in the gaps caused by Medicare's deductibles, cost-sharing rates and benefit limitations. That has the potential to drive up healthcare costs for the federal government too. That's because Medigap policies tend to encourage more medical consumption by covering the cost-sharing designed to make consumers more discerning about trips to the doctor or clinic. Already, nearly 1 in 4 Medicare enrollees had a Medigap policy - almost as many as had employer-sponsored supplemental coverage.
..
The trend is sure to fuel interest on Capitol Hill in legislating limits to Medigap plans. Such limits have supporters across the political spectrum: Over the past few years, proposals to prohibit Medigap plans from covering deductibles have come from the left-leaning Center for American Progress, the centrist Brookings Institution and conservatives such as Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).================================
please stop going to the doctor, its expensive .just expireLambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 10:50 pmFirst time poster, long time lurker. You don't think that Sanders success in the race pushed HRC to embrace debt free 4 year public college?
We'll see what specific policy commitments come out of the convention, but I don't think the current campaign would have the same issues if Bernie wasn't there.
Please don't mistake me either, ideologically I'm with Sanders and was supporting him until the NYDN article and the delegate math became pretty much impossible. If I had my druthers, he'd be the candidate, but it looks quite quite unlikely now.
I'm concerned that HRC will pivot after the election and give support to the TPP but even then I'm still anti-Trump more.
Paper Mac , May 13, 2016 at 6:40 pmActually, a poster with your email commented in 2014 under another handle. There seems to be a rash lately of infrequent or new commenters who "support Sanders but" or "supported Sanders until" lately. For some reason.
That said, you could be right on college ( see here for a comparison of the plans ). It's just that Clinton's talking point about not wanting to pay for Trump's children is so unserious I can't believe the plan is serious.
Code Name D , May 13, 2016 at 1:24 pmI dunno. I see a lot of people decry Trump's immigration ban on Muslims, but Hillary's record as SecState was incredibly violent toward Muslims internationally and also includes presiding over a defacto immigration ban from specific "problem" states- banning people for security reasons being much more tactful than banning Muslims per se.
The nativist appeal Trump is making doesn't go much farther than naming the intent of policy Hillary has been actually pursuing. Trump wants to use the demonisation of Muslims since 9/11 as a political lever to gain power and will use anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant (weird to see the two conflated so frequently) sentiment to achieve specific political goals, preferably sublating it into keynesian infrastructure programs (wall building or whatever). Hillary intends to keep bombing societies that are increasingly visibily disintegrating from the cumulative effects of climate change, colonial oppression and marginalisation, foreign intervention, etc. It's not obvious who gets the benefit of the doubt in a lesser evil contest.
bowserhead , May 13, 2016 at 1:43 pmTrump is breaking the "lesser of two evils" argument.
Let's be clear about something here. The "lesser of two evils" is not an argument to find which candidate is "the less evil." It's an argument used to justify the assumption that your candidate is the less evil of the other. While else is it that Democrats say Clinton is the less evil while Republicans argue that Trump is the less evil.
It's obvious watching leftist pundits (many of whom I respect) come out and flatly assert "Clinton is the better of the two." And there heads usually explode right off their shoulders when they run into someone who disagrees or is simply skeptical of the claim.
The real problem is when Trump dose speak on trade and war policy, he exposes the fallacy of the argument. We can't take Trump's word for it – even though we already know Hillary is likely lying, so it's still a tie. The notion that Trump might actually be honest here isn't even permitted to be considered because that would make Trump the less evil of the two.
The problem I keep running into is just how do you measure "evil?" This gets even harder to do when you can't take either at their word. There is always some deeper calculous we are expected to project on the candidates in order to arrive at our pre-supposed conclusion that our candidate is always the less evil.
It's the main reason I will not be voting for either.
Bernard , May 13, 2016 at 1:44 pmForgive me for piling on today Btw,.anyone know who this Carmen Yarrusso is? Excerpt from Counterpunch (today)
"Trump may be a (loose-cannon) unpredictable evil. But then, based on her long track record, Clinton is a very predictable evil. In fact, Trump is left of Clinton on such things as legal marijuana, NATO aggression, and trade policy. His crazy proposals (e.g. Mexican wall, banning Muslims) are just bluster with zero chance of becoming reality. If Congress can stop Obama, it can stop Trump. But Clinton has a predictable pro-war track record (Iraq, Libya, Syria) and a predictable track record of changing positions for political expediency (e.g. Iraq war, NAFTA, Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2000, immigration, gun control, the Keystone XL pipeline, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, same-sex marriage). How can you be sure she won't conveniently change her current progressive positions as president? A Trump presidency just might force Democratic Party elites to start seriously addressing the populist concerns they now arrogantly ignore.
If you vote for Clinton as the lesser of two evils, you're compromising your moral values, you're condoning the Democratic Party's shoddy treatment of millions of progressives, and you're sabotaging future real change. You're virtually guaranteeing the Democratic Party elites will put you in this position again and again. If you refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils, maybe you'll help elect Trump (or maybe your write-in or third party choice will win). But you'll certainly send a very clear message to Democratic Party elites that you'll no longer tolerate being ignored, marginalized, or shamed with false lesser of two evil choices."
singfoom , May 13, 2016 at 2:54 pmlol watching people attack Trump well, not sure if it's Clinton's army out to scare us about the horrors Trump will cause. now it's like the Devil we know vs the Devil we don't know. Kind of hard to compare Trump to Hillary. Hillary's effective brand of evil is well established and is quite thorough, shown by the primary votes in NY and AZ, for example. watching the Elites attack, belittle and completely ignore the existence of Bernie gives us a little clue of what is in store if Hillary gets her way. Trump is the "known unknown" to use Rumsfeld terminology.
Evil is as evil does. aka Hillary
this is perhaps the one and only time I ever will vote Republican. and I abhor Republicans. Hillary has earned her reputation, Trump.. well Trump or no Trump, it won't be Hillary getting my vote. Keeping Bernie out, we all lose.
jrs , May 13, 2016 at 3:09 pmNo, I don't support the current administration's drone war, nor did I support the horrible Iraq war of 2003, but that doesn't answer my question. I don't understand "Hillary is lying" as a tautology and the conclusion being that Trump is a better bet than HRC because of that.
But in regards to your question, do you think that the drone war stance will change in the next administration whether's it's HRC or Trump? Trump said he wants to get more aggressive on terrorists than we currently are, explicitly endorsing torture.
Massinissa , May 13, 2016 at 7:06 pmWell even Sanders has come out in favor of drones, so probably, unless one is die hard Jill Stein all the way. Then one's hands are entirely clean if also entirely ineffective.
Massinissa , May 13, 2016 at 7:04 pmYeah, because voting for drone strikes, imperialism and corruption is more effective at getting rid of those things than not voting for drone strikes, imperialism and drone strikes
Massinissa , May 13, 2016 at 7:09 pmBecause its totally impossible for Republican talking points to be true right?
If you havnt noticed, the Republicans are liars, but so are Clintonista Democrats.
Seas of Promethium , May 13, 2016 at 8:04 pmHey, let me tell you a secret
Theyre both liars. If youre trusting Donald to not drone strike or trusting Hillary to not torture, youre being duped.
As for your comment further down about Trump saying he wants to torture people more Its not as if Obama has stopped Bush's torture regime or closed Guantanamo. Hillary too would continue more things.
Honestly I still dont understand why Trump is so much scarier than Hillary. Their differences are mostly kayfabe. All that xenophobic racist demagogy Trump is doing? More kayfabe. Im still voting Stein, because I dont vote for corrupt imperialists.
Jerry Denim , May 13, 2016 at 2:01 pmStein is likewise kayfabe. If the party had gone with Anderson he might well have pulled a Bernie in the last general election. That just wouldn't do, so the party was rather brazenly railroaded into nominating Stein.
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 2:28 pmJust as the best lies are 99% truth the best con-jobs are the ones containing the maximum amount of truthiness. Some days I like the things I hear Trump saying, the next he gives me a sick feeling with chills down my spine. Sure, he's not sticking to the approved neo-con, neo-lib, Washington consensus script but just how stupid do you have to be to not know that Saddam Hussein was a secular Bathist dictator who executed anyone who he saw as a threat to his power, especially muslim extremists. Just because Trump can spout off a truthy factoid that is only news to the brain-dead Fox News masses doesn't mean he is any more of an honest dealer than Bush Jr. Does anyone think Bush, Cheney or Rumsfield were operating under any illusions that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11? Of course not, they either saw an opportunity or they engineered an opportunity to do what they wanted to do. Trump has shown himself to be a bully comfortable with marshaling mob violence or the threat of mob violence. He is an authoritarian and no defender of civil liberties, habeous corpus or the Geneva convention. He's exactly the type of megalomanic that would try and seize power in an ailing democracy like our own, and I have no doubts that if elected he will create some sort of Constitutional crisis that could end in a military coup or Trump installed as a dictator. He already has a silent pissed-off army of violent brown shirts on his side. I don't like the way this situation looks and people on the left with intelligence and a grasp of history are deluding themselves if they think Trump isn't a very dangerous person.
In a possibly unrelated note, I'm 99% sure someone deeply keyed the full length of my car (truck actually) yesterday while I was surfing for no other reason than my Bernie Sanders bumper sticker right here in sunny, liberal southern California. Could it have been a Clinton supporter or a joy vandal who likes keying random people's cars – sure. But if Trump wins I wonder how long it is before halal restaurants and muslim dry cleaners start getting their windows smashed, then burned. How long before Hindus and brown people start getting attacked (as a common occurrence, not outlier events that are punished as they are now) because they are confused as being Muslim or Mexican or deliberately because they just aren't white and should go home. There's a very nasty underbelly to this Trump thing and I don't like it.
Jerry Denim , May 13, 2016 at 3:25 pmI agree on the nasty underbelly. On the other hand, I find it refreshing that Trump mentions the millions of people slaughtered by our foreign policy. I don't hear that from Clinton, at all.
Jerry Denim , May 13, 2016 at 3:33 pm" I find it refreshing that Trump mentions the millions of people slaughtered by our foreign policy. I don't hear that from Clinton, at all."
Ditto, me too, but I'm not about to cherry-pick Trump's schizophrenic and ever shifting talking points then soft-peddle candidate Trump while telling people not to worry. I like silver-linings, staying optimistic and being contrarian (I wouldn't hang out here otherwise) but why ignore the very troubling subtext in the rest of Trump's speech? The anti-democratic, sneering remarks about suspected terrorists being executed immediately in Saddam's Iraq instead of "on trial for fifteen years" in pansy-cakes weak, habeas corpus America. Trump offhandedly mentions; 'Oh by the way, don't buy the lowball collateral damage numbers you hear from the Pentagon, we're unnecessarily killing a lot of brown people abroad.' But then he fans the flames of racism with stump speeches about building a wall and banning all muslims from entering the USA. I can tell you which message his supporters are comprehending if you're unsure. Despite being a politically heterodox chameleon Trump is showing his true colors. Just because Trump is willing to break with the orthodoxy while he is campaigning doesn't mean he isn't an aspiring tyrant. Don't be fooled. Trump isn't enlightened or altruistic, he's a talented demagogue pulling a Con on America- that's it.
Ron Showalter , May 13, 2016 at 2:20 pmBy the way, I wanted to add I am not in any way considering a vote for Hillary if she does in fact become the Democratic nominee. I am very troubled by the prospect of a President Trump but I will not allow my vote to be held hostage by the DNC and the very tired "lesser of evils arguments" I realized my last comment might be construed as a "Trump must be stopped at all costs" Clinton rationalization. It was not. Trump will be on the conscience of those who vote for him and those who have enabled him.
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 2:24 pmMaybe we should look at what Trump recently said at AIPAC – y'know, that itsy bitsy little lobby that seems to strike fear into the hearts of all US politicians Trump included – to get a sense of his ME policy, shall we ?
snip
'In Spring 2004, at the height of violence in the Gaza Strip, I was the Grand Marshal of the 40th Salute to Israel Parade, the largest single gathering in support of the Jewish state."
"My number one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. I have been in business a long time. I know deal-making and let me tell you, this deal is catastrophic – for America, for Israel, and for the whole Middle East."
"First, we will stand up to Iran's aggressive push to destabilize and dominate the region. Iran is a very big problem and will continue to be, but if I'm elected President, I know how to deal with trouble. Iran is a problem in Iraq, a problem in Syria, a problem in Lebanon, a problem in Yemen, and will be a very major problem for Saudi Arabia. Literally every day, Iran provides more and better weapons to their puppet states.
Hezbollah in Lebanon has received sophisticated anti-ship weapons, anti-aircraft weapons, and GPS systems on rockets. Now they're in Syria trying to establish another front against Israel from the Syrian side of the Golan Heights."
Just last week, American Taylor Allen Force, a West Point grad who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, was murdered in the street by a knife-wielding Palestinian. You don't reward that behavior, you confront it!
It's not up the United Nations to impose a solution. The parties must negotiate a resolution themselves. The United States can be useful as a facilitator of negotiations, but no one should be telling Israel it must abide by some agreement made by others thousands of miles away that don't even really know what's happening.
When I'm president, believe me, I will veto any attempt by the UN to impose its will on the Jewish state.
Already, half the population of Palestine has been taken over by the Palestinian ISIS in Hamas, and the other half refuses to confront the first half, so it's a very difficult situation but when the United States stands with Israel, the chances of peace actually rise. That's what will happen when I'm president.
We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem – and we will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel."
Yup, it's like he and Hillary are just night and day, huh?
I mean other than the fact that Hillary actually BACKS the Iran Deal but don't let that get in the way of a good "but Hillary" meeting.
The two candidates will be identical where it's most important – e.g. w/ Israel and the ME – just like all of the presidential candidates.
You would think the Obama administration may have taught us something about perceiving reality oh wait that's right, it really was Hillary and not poor Obama who's been doing all that killing over the last 8 years and the Donald's really a renegade "outsider" billionaire who's just scaring the pants off of the Establishment, right?
Wow. Just wow.
Obama Hope Junkies so desperate that they're shooting Trumpodil straight into their minds.
Ron Showalter , May 13, 2016 at 2:40 pmI'm confused. What does this have to do with the topic of the post? The YouTube has nothing to do with the deplorable Beltway consensus on Israel, of which Trump is a part.
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 7:31 pmWhy, I am glad you asked.
War Is Realizing the Israelizing of the World
snip
As US-driven wars plummet the Muslim world ever deeper into jihadi-ridden failed state chaos, events seem to be careening toward a tipping point. Eventually, the region will become so profuse a font of terrorists and refugees, that Western popular resistance to "boots on the ground" will be overwhelmed by terror and rage. Then, the US-led empire will finally have the public mandate it needs to thoroughly and permanently colonize the Greater Middle East.
It is easy to see how the Military Industrial Complex and crony energy industry would profit from such an outcome. But what about America's "best friend" in the region? How does Israel stand to benefit from being surrounded by such chaos?
Tel Aviv has long pursued a strategy of "divide and conquer": both directly, and indirectly through the tremendous influence of the Israel lobby and neocons over US foreign policy.
A famous article from the early 1980s by Israeli diplomat and journalist Oded Yinon is most explicit in this regard. The "Yinon Plan" calls for the "dissolution" of "the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula." Each country was to be made to "fall apart along sectarian and ethnic lines," after which each resulting fragment would be "hostile" to its neighbors." Yinon incredibly claimed that:
"This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run"
According to Yinon, this Balkanization should be realized by fomenting discord and war among the Arabs:
"Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon."
And another link:
And another:
Who is Israel's Biggest Enemy?
So, you can see that Trump has said the right things into the right ears – read: AIPAC – as far as anyone of import is concerned – read: not any of us – and so now he's free to say whatever else he thinks he needs to.
I mean, Sheldon Adelson endorsed him so he can't be THAT scary to Israel-first billionaires and their bed-buddies, right?
Ooops, I forgot he's an outsider that everyone's scared of. My bad. Hillary will be so much worse.
Chauncey Gardiner , May 13, 2016 at 2:21 pmYou may be glad I asked, but that doesn't mean you answered.
John , May 13, 2016 at 2:59 pmRobert Parry at ConsortiumNews has written an insightful article about the damage that has been caused by both the neocon ideologues' control of US foreign policy and the neoliberals' control of economic policy, their powerful political and propaganda apparatus, and what we can expect from the legacy political party candidates for the presidency, focusing on Clinton and her past positions regarding the Middle East.
https://consortiumnews.com/2016/05/11/neocons-and-neolibs-how-dead-ideas-kill/
It is noteworthy that the dominance of failed neocon and neoliberal policies over the past few decades has coincided with consolidation and concentration of ownership of corporate media in very few hands. As with restoring the Glass-Steagall Act and breaking up the TBTFs, reinstating limits on media ownership and control is an important and necessary measure to breaking the influence these few individuals have had over national policy.
Massinissa , May 13, 2016 at 7:01 pmI'm actually considering the possibility that Trump is to the left of Hillary. He appears to be on foreign policy, at least. What do you guys think?
Lambert Strether , May 13, 2016 at 7:55 pmBeing Left of Hillary is a really really really low bar. He probably is, but thats probably because Hillary is right wing. You know, like almost all American politicians from both parties. Trumps not left of Bernie (at least not yet or not right now: I expect hes going to swing left in the general to scoop up Bernie voters), and Bernies just an Eisenhower Republican, which is admittedly to the left of basically all the other politicians today.
Quoting from memory, context foreign policy: "If our Presidents had gone to the beach every day of the year fifteen years ago, we would have been in much better shape." (Note this includes Bush.)
He's right, you know.
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Nov 11, 2016 | ronpaulinstitute.org
Ron Paul, known for his promotion of the United States following a noninterventionist foreign policy, presented Thursday his take on the prospects of Donald Trump's foreign policy as president. Paul set out his analysis in an extensive interview with host Peter Lavelle at RT.
Paul started off the interview saying that he is keeping his "fingers crossed" regarding Trump's potential foreign policy actions. Paul says he views favorably Trump's comments in the presidential election about "being less confrontational with Russia" and criticizing some of the US wars in the Middle East. Paul, though, notes that Trump has presented "vague" foreign policy positions overall. Paul also comments that a good indication of how Trump will act on foreign policy issues will be provided by looking at who Trump appoints to positions in the executive branch and from whom Trump receives advice.
Regarding Trump's foreign policy advisors and potential appointees, Paul expresses in the interview reason for concern. Paul states: "Unfortunately, there have been several neoconservatives that are getting closer to Trump, and, if he gets his advice from them, then I don't think that is a good sign."
Even if Trump wants to pursue a significantly more noninterventionist course than his recent predecessors in the presidency, Paul warns that the entrenched "deep state" that favors foreign intervention and war, special interests that have "sinister motivation for these wars," and media propaganda that "builds up the war fever" can
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www.zerohedge.com
Submitted by Karen Kwiatkowski via LewRockwell.com,
So, after getting up late, groggy, and feeling overworked even before I started, I read this article . Just after, I had to feed a dozen cats and dogs, each dog in a separate room out of respect for their territorialism and aggressive desire to consume more than they should (hmm, where have I seen this before), and in the process, forgot where I put my coffee cup. Retracing steps, I finally find it and sit back down to my 19-inch window on the ugly (and perhaps remote) world of the state, and the endless pinpricks of the independent media on its vast overwhelmingly evil existence. I suspect I share this distractibility and daily estrangement from the actions of our government with most Americans .
We are newly bombing Libya and still messing with the Middle East? I thought that the wars the deep state wanted and started were now limited and constrained! What happened to lack of funds, lack of popular support, public transparency that revealed the stupidity and abject failure of these wars?
Deep state. Something systemic, difficult to detect, hard to remove, hidden. It is a spirit as much as nerves and organ. How do your starve it, excise it, or just make it go away? We want to know. I think this explains the popularity of infotainment about haunted houses, ghosts and alien beings among us. They live and we are curious and scared.
The "Obama Doctrine" a continuation of the previous false government doctrines in my lifetime, is less doctrine than the disease, as David Swanson points out . But in the article he critiques, the neoconservative warmongering global planning freak perspective (truly, we must recognize this view as freakish, sociopathic, death-cultish, control-obsessed, narcissist, take your pick or get a combo, it's all good). Disease, as a way of understanding the deep state action on the body politic, is abnormal. It can and should be cured.
My summary of the long Jeffrey Goldberg piece is basically that Obama has become more fatalistic (did he mean to say fatal?) since he won that Nobel Peace Prize back in 2009 . By the way, the "Nobel prize" article contains this gem, sure to get a chuckle:
"Obama's drone program is regularly criticized for a lack of transparency and accountability, especially considering incomplete intelligence means officials are often unsure about who will die. "
[M]ost individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the government does not know their names," Micah Zenko, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations told the New York Times."
This is about all the fun I can handle in one day. But back to what I was trying to say.
The deep state seems to have grown, strengthened and tightened its grip. Can a lack of real money restrain or starve it? I once thought so, and maybe I still do. But it doesn't use real money, but rather debt and creative financing to get that next new car, er, war and intervention and domestic spending program. Ultimately it's not sustainable, and just as unaffordable cars are junked, stripped, repossessed, and crunched up, so will go the way of the physical assets of the warfare–welfare state.
Because inflated salaries , inflated stock prices and inflated ruling-class personalities are month to month, these should evaporate more quickly, over a debris field once known as some of richest counties in the United States. Can I imagine the shabbiest of trailer parks in the dismal swamp, where high rises and government basilicas and abbeys once stood? I'd certainly like to. But I'll settle for well-kept, privately owned house trailers, filled with people actually producing some small value for society, and minding their own business.
Can a lack of public support reduce the deep state, or impact it? Well, it would seem that this is a non-factor, except for the strange history we have had and are witnessing again today, with the odd successful popular and populist-leaning politician and their related movements. In my lifetime, only popular figures and their movements get assassinated mysteriously, with odd polka dot dresses, MKULTRA suggestions, threats against their family by their competitors (I'm thinking Perot, but one mustn't be limited to that case), and always with concordant pressures on the sociopolitical seams in the country, i.e riots and police/military activations. The bad dealings toward, and genuine fear of, Bernie Sanders within the Democratic Party's wing of the deep state is matched or exceeded only by the genuine terror of Trump among the Republican deep state wing. This reaction to something or some person that so many in the country find engaging and appealing - an outsider who speaks to the growing political and economic dissatisfaction of a poorer, more indebted, and more regulated population – is heart-warming, to be sure. It is a sign that whether or not we do, the deep state thinks things might change. Thank you, Bernie and especially Donald, for revealing this much! And the "republicanization" of the Libertarian Party is also a bright indicator blinking out the potential of deep state movement and compromise in the pursuit of "stability."
Finally, what of those pinpricks of light, the honest assessments of the real death trail and consumption pit that the deep state has delivered? Well, it is growing and broadening. Wikileaks and Snowden are considered assets now to any and all competitors to the US deep state, from within and from abroad – the Pandora's box, assisted by technology, can't be closed now. The independent media has matured to the point of criticizing and debating itself/each other, as well as focusing harsh light on the establishment media. Instead of left and right mainstream media, we increasingly recognize state media, and delightedly observe its own struggle to survive in the face of a growing nervousness of the deep state it assists on command.
Maybe we will one day soon be able to debate how deep the deep state really is, or whether it was all just a dressed up, meth'ed up, and eff'ed up a sector of society that deserves a bit of jail time, some counseling, and a new start . Maybe some job training that goes beyond the printing of license plates. But given the destruction and mass murder committed daily in the name of this state, and the environmental disasters it has created around the world for the future generations, perhaps we will be no more merciful to these proprietors of the American empire as they have been to their victims. The ruling class deeply fears our judgment, and in this dynamic lies the cure.
Jim in MN Tallest Skil Aug 20, 2016 8:22 PMI made a list of steps that could be taken to disrupt the Beast. It's all I can offer but I offer it freely.
https://www.scribd.com/document/67758041/List-of-Demands-October-6-2011
4:00 AM October 6, 2011
Kitchen Table, USA
LIST OF DEMANDS TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM FINANCIAL CATASTROPHE
I.CURB CORRUPTION AND EXCESSIVE POWER IN THE FINANCIAL ARMS OF THE US GOVERNMENT
A. FEDERAL RESERVE
1. Benjaman Bernanke to be removed as Chairman immediately
2. New York Federal Reserve Bank and all New York City offices of the Federal Reserve system will be closed for at least 3 years
3. Salaries will be reduced and capped at $150,000/year, adjusted for official inflation
4. Staffing count to be reduced to 1980 levels
5. Interest rate manipulation to be prohibited for at least five years
6. Balance sheet manipulation to be prohibited for at least five years
7. Financial asset purchases prohibited for at least five years
B. TREASURY DEPARTMENT
1. Timothy Geithner to be removed as Secretary immediately
2. All New York City offices of the Department will be closed for at least 3 years
3. Salaries will be reduced and capped at $150,000/year, adjusted for official inflation
4. Staffing count to be reduced to 1980 levels
5. Market manipulation/intervention to be prohibited for at least five years
7. Financial asset purchases prohibited for at least five years
II. END THE CORRUPTING INFLUENCE OF GIANT BANKS AND PROTECT AMERICANS FROM FURTHER EXPOSURE TO THEIR COLLAPSE
A. END CORRUPT INFLUENCE
1. Lifetime ban on government employment for TARP recipient employees and corporate officers, specifically including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase
2. Ten year ban on government work for consulting firms, law firms, and individual consultants and lawyers who have accepted cash from these entities
3. All contacts by any method with federal agencies and employees prohibited for at least five years, with civil and criminal penalties for violation
B. PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FROM FURTHER HARM AT THE HANDS OF GIANT BANKS
1. No financial institution with assets of more than $10billion will receive federal assistance or any 'arm's-length' bailouts
2. TARP recipients are prohibited from purchasing other TARP recipient corporate units, or merging with other TARP recipients
3. No foreign interest shall be allowed to acquire any portion of TARP recipients in the US or abroad
III. PREVENT CORPORATE ACCOUNTING AND PENSION FUND ABUSES RELATED TO THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
A. CORPORATE ACCOUNTING
1. Immediately implement mark-to-market accounting rules which were improperly suspended, allowing six months for implementation.
2. Companies must reserve against impaired assets under mark-to-market rules
3. Any health or life insurance company with more than$100 million in assets must report on their holdings and risk factors, specifically including exposure to real estate, mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, and other exotic financial instruments. These reports will be to state insurance commissions and the federal government, and will also be made available to the public on the Internet.
B. PENSION FUNDS
1. All private and public pension funds must disclose their funding status and establish a plan to fully fund accounts under the assumption that net real returns across all asset classes remain at zero for at least ten years.
Winston Churchill -> Sam Clemons Aug 20, 2016 7:26 PM
Watch an old program like"Yes, Minister" to understand how it works. Politicians come and go, but the permanent state apparatchiks doesn't.
sinbad2 -> Winston Churchill Aug 20, 2016 7:58 PM
Sir Humphrey Appleby: You know what happens when politicians get into Number 10; they want to take their place on the world stage.
Sir Richard Wharton: People on stages are called actors. All they are required to do is look plausible, stay sober, and say the lines they're given in the right order.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Some of them try to make up their own lines.
Sir Richard Wharton: They don't last long.
The "deep state" programs, whether conceived and directed by Soros' handlers, or others, risks unintended consequences. The social division intended by BLM, for example could easily morph beyond the goals. The lack of law due to corruption is equally susceptible to a spontaneous reaction of "the mob," not under the control of the Tavistock handlers. There's an old saying on Wall St; pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
The failed coup in Turkey is a significant indication of institutional weakness and also vulnerability. The inability to exercise force of will in Syria is another. The list of failures is getting too long.
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marknesop.wordpress.com
Patient Observer , July 23, 2016 at 7:07 pmAn interesting article on John McCain. I disagree with the contention that McCain hid knowledge that many American POWs were left behind (undoubtedly some voluntarily choose to remain behind but not hundreds ). However, the article touched on some ideas that rang true:Today when we consider the major countries of the world we see that in many cases the official leaders are also the leaders in actuality: Vladimir Putin calls the shots in Russia, Xi Jinping and his top Politburo colleagues do the same in China, and so forth. However, in America and in some other Western countries, this seems to be less and less the case, with top national figures merely being attractive front-men selected for their popular appeal and their political malleability, a development that may eventually have dire consequences for the nations they lead. As an extreme example, a drunken Boris Yeltsin freely allowed the looting of Russia's entire national wealth by the handful of oligarchs who pulled his strings, and the result was the total impoverishment of the Russian people and a demographic collapse almost unprecedented in modern peacetime history.
An obvious problem with installing puppet rulers is the risk that they will attempt to cut their strings, much like Putin soon outmaneuvered and exiled his oligarch patron Boris Berezovsky.
One means of minimizing such risk is to select puppets who are so deeply compromised that they can never break free, knowing that the political self-destruct charges buried deep within their pasts could easily be triggered if they sought independence. I have sometimes joked with my friends that perhaps the best career move for an ambitious young politician would be to secretly commit some monstrous crime and then make sure that the hard evidence of his guilt ended up in the hands of certain powerful people, thereby assuring his rapid political rise.
The gist is that elite need a kill switch on their front men (and women).
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-when-tokyo-rose-ran-for-president/
Cortes , July 24, 2016 at 11:16 am
Seems to be a series of pieces dealing with Vietnam POWs: the following linked item was interesting and provided a plausible explanation: that the US failed to pay up agreed on reparations…marknesop , July 24, 2016 at 12:29 pmhttp://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-relying-upon-maoist-professors-of-cultural-studies/
Remarkable and shocking. Wheels within wheels – this is the first time I have ever seen McCain's father connected with the infamous Board of Inquiry which cleared Israel in that state's attack on USS LIBERTY during Israel's seizure of the Golan Heights.Cortes , July 25, 2016 at 9:08 amAnother stunning article in which the author makes reference to his recent acquisition of what he considers to be a reliably authentic audio file of POW McCain's broadcasts from captivity. Dynamite stuff. The conclusion regarding aspiring untenured historians is quite downbeat:marknesop , July 25, 2016 at 10:40 amhttp://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-will-there-be-a-spotlight-sequel-to-the-killing-fields/
Also remarkable; fantastic. It's hard to believe, and a testament to the boldness of Washington dog-and-pony shows, because this must have been well-known in insider circles in Washington – anything so damning which was not ruthlessly and professionally suppressed and simply never allowed to become part of a national discussion would surely have been stumbled upon before now. Land of the Cover-Up.yalensis , July 25, 2016 at 3:40 pm
So, McCain was Hanoi Jack broadcasting from the Hanoi Hilton?
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Aug 06, 2011 | nytimes.com
When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment, with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.
In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes, was a story something like this:
"I know you're scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn't work out. And it didn't work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods, with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can't promise that we won't make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that your government has your back again." A story isn't a policy. But that simple narrative - and the policies that would naturally have flowed from it - would have inoculated against much of what was to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands. That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement. It would have made clear that the problem wasn't tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit - a deficit that didn't exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.
And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters, but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share for it.
But there was no story - and there has been none since.
In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred."
When Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, he stepped into a cycle of American history, best exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy. After a great technological revolution or a major economic transition, as when America changed from a nation of farmers to an urban industrial one, there is often a period of great concentration of wealth, and with it, a concentration of power in the wealthy. That's what we saw in 1928, and that's what we see today. At some point that power is exercised so injudiciously, and the lives of so many become so unbearable, that a period of reform ensues - and a charismatic reformer emerges to lead that renewal. In that sense, Teddy Roosevelt started the cycle of reform his cousin picked up 30 years later, as he began efforts to bust the trusts and regulate the railroads, exercise federal power over the banks and the nation's food supply, and protect America's land and wildlife, creating the modern environmental movement.
Those were the shoes - that was the historic role - that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill. The president is fond of referring to "the arc of history," paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous statement that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics - in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time - he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.
When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his true and repugnant face in public.
IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public - a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn't bend that far.
Michael August 7, 2011
Bill Levine August 7, 2011Eloquently expressed and horrifically accurate, this excellent analysis articulates the frustration that so many of us have felt watching Mr...
AnAverageAmerican August 7, 2011Very well put. I know that I have been going through Kübler-Ross's stages of grief ever since the foxes (a.k.a. Geithner and Summers) were...
cdearman Santa Fe, NM August 7, 2011"In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it,...
SP California August 7, 2011Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress of 2008-2010, did not have the will to make the economic and social program decisions that would have improved the economic situation for the middle-class; and it is becoming more obvious that President Obama does not have the temperament to publicly push for programs and policies that he wants the congress to enact.
The American people have a problem: we reelect Obama and hope for the best; or we elect a Republican and expect the worst. There is no question that the Health Care law that was just passed would be reversed; Medicare and Medicare would be gutted; and who knows what would happen to Social Security. You can be sure, though, that business taxes and regulation reforms would not be in the cards and those regulations that have been enacted would be reversed. We have traveled this road before and we should be wise enough not to travel it again!farospace san francisco August 7, 2011Brilliant analysis - and I suspect that a very large number of those who voted for President Obama will recognize in this the thoughts that they have been trying to ignore, or have been trying not to say out loud. Later historians can complete this analysis and attempt to explain exactly why Mr. Obama has turned out the way he has - but right now, it may be time to ask a more relevant and urgent question.
If it is not too late, will a challenger emerge in time before the 2012 elections, or will we be doomed to hold our noses and endure another four years of this?
Richard Katz American in Oxford, UK August 7, 2011Very eloquent and exactly to the point. Like many others, I was enthralled by the rhetoric of his story, making the leap of faith (or hope) that because he could tell his story so well, he could tell, as you put it, "the story the American people were waiting to hear."
Disappointment has darkened into disillusion, disillusion into a species of despair. Will I vote for Barack Obama again? What are the options?
An Ordinary American Prague August 7, 2011This is the most brilliant and tragic story I have read in a long time---in fact, precisely since I read when Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt. When will a leader emerge with a true moral vision for the federal government and for our country? Someone who sees government as a balance to capitalism, and a means to achieve the social and economic justice that we (yes, we) believe in? Will that leadership arrive before parts of America come to look like the dystopia of Johannesburg?
We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues.
These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community, opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power.
Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to lead us back to America's traditional position on the global economic/political spectrum. He's brilliant and eloquent. He's achieved personal success that is inspirational. He's done some good things as president. But he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality, where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all Americans.
Taxes, subsidies, entitlements, laws... these are the tools we have available to achieve our national moral vision. But the vision has been muddled (hijacked?) and that is our biggest problem. -->
martin Portland, Oregon August 7, 2011I voted for Obama. I thought then, and still think, he's a decent person, a smart person, a person who wants to do the best he can for others. When I voted for him, I was thinking he's a centrist who will find a way to unite our increasingly polarized and ugly politics in the USA. Or if not unite us, at least forge a way to get some important things done despite the ugly polarization.
And I must confess, I have been disappointed. Deeply so. He has not united us. He has not forged a way to accomplish what needs to be done. He has not been a leader.
I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator.
Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson, have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed are even worse off than my family is.
So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not the leader I thought I was voting for. Which leaves me feeling confused and close to apathetic about what to do as a voter in 2012. More of the same isn't worth voting for. Yet I don't see anyone out there who offers the possibility of doing better.
This was an extraordinarily well written, eloquent and comprehensive indictment of the failure of the Obama presidency.
If a credible primary challenger to Obama ever could arise, the positions and analysis in this column would be all he or she would need to justify the Democratic party's need to seek new leadership.
I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans, he said "we don't disparage wealth in America." I was dumbfounded.
He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people. That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible, avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation.
I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the country as Republicans are.
Perhaps all of these are true.
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Aug 06, 2011 | nytimes.com
When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment, with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.
In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes, was a story something like this:
"I know you're scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn't work out. And it didn't work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods, with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can't promise that we won't make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that your government has your back again." A story isn't a policy. But that simple narrative - and the policies that would naturally have flowed from it - would have inoculated against much of what was to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands. That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement. It would have made clear that the problem wasn't tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit - a deficit that didn't exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.
And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters, but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share for it.
But there was no story - and there has been none since.
In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred."
When Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, he stepped into a cycle of American history, best exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy. After a great technological revolution or a major economic transition, as when America changed from a nation of farmers to an urban industrial one, there is often a period of great concentration of wealth, and with it, a concentration of power in the wealthy. That's what we saw in 1928, and that's what we see today. At some point that power is exercised so injudiciously, and the lives of so many become so unbearable, that a period of reform ensues - and a charismatic reformer emerges to lead that renewal. In that sense, Teddy Roosevelt started the cycle of reform his cousin picked up 30 years later, as he began efforts to bust the trusts and regulate the railroads, exercise federal power over the banks and the nation's food supply, and protect America's land and wildlife, creating the modern environmental movement.
Those were the shoes - that was the historic role - that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill. The president is fond of referring to "the arc of history," paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous statement that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics - in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time - he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.
When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his true and repugnant face in public.
IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public - a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn't bend that far.
Michael August 7, 2011
Bill Levine August 7, 2011Eloquently expressed and horrifically accurate, this excellent analysis articulates the frustration that so many of us have felt watching Mr...
AnAverageAmerican August 7, 2011Very well put. I know that I have been going through Kübler-Ross's stages of grief ever since the foxes (a.k.a. Geithner and Summers) were...
cdearman Santa Fe, NM August 7, 2011"In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it,...
SP California August 7, 2011Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress of 2008-2010, did not have the will to make the economic and social program decisions that would have improved the economic situation for the middle-class; and it is becoming more obvious that President Obama does not have the temperament to publicly push for programs and policies that he wants the congress to enact.
The American people have a problem: we reelect Obama and hope for the best; or we elect a Republican and expect the worst. There is no question that the Health Care law that was just passed would be reversed; Medicare and Medicare would be gutted; and who knows what would happen to Social Security. You can be sure, though, that business taxes and regulation reforms would not be in the cards and those regulations that have been enacted would be reversed. We have traveled this road before and we should be wise enough not to travel it again!farospace san francisco August 7, 2011Brilliant analysis - and I suspect that a very large number of those who voted for President Obama will recognize in this the thoughts that they have been trying to ignore, or have been trying not to say out loud. Later historians can complete this analysis and attempt to explain exactly why Mr. Obama has turned out the way he has - but right now, it may be time to ask a more relevant and urgent question.
If it is not too late, will a challenger emerge in time before the 2012 elections, or will we be doomed to hold our noses and endure another four years of this?
Richard Katz American in Oxford, UK August 7, 2011Very eloquent and exactly to the point. Like many others, I was enthralled by the rhetoric of his story, making the leap of faith (or hope) that because he could tell his story so well, he could tell, as you put it, "the story the American people were waiting to hear."
Disappointment has darkened into disillusion, disillusion into a species of despair. Will I vote for Barack Obama again? What are the options?
An Ordinary American Prague August 7, 2011This is the most brilliant and tragic story I have read in a long time---in fact, precisely since I read when Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt. When will a leader emerge with a true moral vision for the federal government and for our country? Someone who sees government as a balance to capitalism, and a means to achieve the social and economic justice that we (yes, we) believe in? Will that leadership arrive before parts of America come to look like the dystopia of Johannesburg?
We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues.
These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community, opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power.
Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to lead us back to America's traditional position on the global economic/political spectrum. He's brilliant and eloquent. He's achieved personal success that is inspirational. He's done some good things as president. But he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality, where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all Americans.
Taxes, subsidies, entitlements, laws... these are the tools we have available to achieve our national moral vision. But the vision has been muddled (hijacked?) and that is our biggest problem. -->
martin Portland, Oregon August 7, 2011I voted for Obama. I thought then, and still think, he's a decent person, a smart person, a person who wants to do the best he can for others. When I voted for him, I was thinking he's a centrist who will find a way to unite our increasingly polarized and ugly politics in the USA. Or if not unite us, at least forge a way to get some important things done despite the ugly polarization.
And I must confess, I have been disappointed. Deeply so. He has not united us. He has not forged a way to accomplish what needs to be done. He has not been a leader.
I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator.
Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson, have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed are even worse off than my family is.
So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not the leader I thought I was voting for. Which leaves me feeling confused and close to apathetic about what to do as a voter in 2012. More of the same isn't worth voting for. Yet I don't see anyone out there who offers the possibility of doing better.
This was an extraordinarily well written, eloquent and comprehensive indictment of the failure of the Obama presidency.
If a credible primary challenger to Obama ever could arise, the positions and analysis in this column would be all he or she would need to justify the Democratic party's need to seek new leadership.
I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans, he said "we don't disparage wealth in America." I was dumbfounded.
He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people. That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible, avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation.
I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the country as Republicans are.
Perhaps all of these are true.
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Dec 30, 2016 | mishtalk.com
Yesterday, President Obama expelled 35 Russian "Operatives" from the Russian Embassy .
Is there any evidence those expelled are "intelligence operatives"? Any hard evidence Russia was behind the Hillary hacks? Any credible evidence that Putin himself is to blame?
The answers are No, No, and No. Yet, once again the American press is again asked to co-sign a dubious intelligence assessment.
... ... ....
Something Stinks
The Rolling Stone comments Something About This Russia Story Stinks
In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.
The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.
If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham noted the "small price" Russia paid for its "brazen attack." The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, said Thursday that taken alone, the Obama response is " insufficient " as a response to "attacks on the United States by a foreign power."
The "small price" is an eyebrow-raiser.
Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also in the time since the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose, clearly politically motivated reporting about Russia. Democrat-leaning pundits have been unnervingly quick to use phrases like "Russia hacked the election."
This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the Russians hacked the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by some evidence, even if it hasn't always been great evidence ), or whether Russians hacked vote tallies in critical states (a far more outlandish tale backed by no credible evidence ).
As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the Russians hacked vote tallies.
And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters – like Kurt Eichenwald, who has birthed some real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted was a baseless claim that Trump spent time in an institution in 1990 – have attempted to argue that Trump surrogates may have been liaising with the Russians because they either visited Russia or appeared on the RT network. Similar reporting about Russian scheming has been based entirely on unnamed security sources.
Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration.
Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind.
Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here.
We just don't know, which is the problem.
We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across.
Where the Hell is the Evidence?
'I Can Guarantee You, It Was Not the Russians'
John McAfee, founder of the security firm McAfee Associates, says 'I Can Guarantee You, It Was Not the Russians' .
The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that the hackers constantly faked their location.
McAfee argues that the report is a "fallacy," explaining that hackers can fake their location, their language, and any markers that could lead back to them. Any hacker who had the skills to hack into the DNC would also be able to hide their tracks, he said
"If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization," McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack."
Question of Patriotism
It's not patriotic to accept accusations as facts, given US history of lies, deceit, meddling, and wars.
Related
- US Expels 35 Russian Intelligence Operatives from Russian Embassy In "Economics"
- More Bullsh*t Fake News from Washington Post In "Economics"
