[worry]

A what?

[worry]

This is real: http://time.com/4225...ten-free-meals/
Ted Cruz Pledges Not to Provide Gluten-Free Meals to the Military

[Obdigore]

So what, if Cruz becomes President every celiac is just discharged from the military, since they wont be able to eat MREs? This is like saying he's not going to provide boots because it makes the muscles in your feet weaker, and we want a strong military.

You know, for when he starts world war three in the middle east.

This post has been edited by Obdigore: 17 February 2016 - 12:19 PM

[Terez]

New NBC/WSJ poll shows Cruz leading Trump for the GOP primary nationwide. It's just one poll, but Cruz is all over it already.

[Abyss]

Very eloquent of him.

[Terez]

I watched bits of Kasich on Hardball earlier; I can only take so much of a show where 90% of the sentences don't get finished. Then I watched like 5 minutes of the Trump town hall before giving up.

The battle for the non-white vote is getting ugly and just plain weird on the Democratic side. Most of the time I feel like I shouldn't even get into the debate, but then sometimes I can't help it, and I always end up regretting it. Bernie surrogate and rapper Killer Mike told a story at Morehouse (first stop on the historically black college tour) about a progressive woman who told him she was voting for Bernie because "having a uterus doesn't qualify you to be president", and however much false equivalency has gone into the pillories, he really should have known that was a dumb thing to say and should have apologized for it immediately. This is just one small piece of the drama and it would be tedious for us to recount it all here as it's ongoing, but this trite stuff plays such a huge role in the dynamic of any race; we'll know what was significant when the next votes are cast (starting this Saturday in Nevada for the Dems and South Carolina for the GOP).

There's also a lot of drama concerning the realism of Bernie's proposals. Some economic advisors to Obama and Clinton signed onto a letter basically proclaiming Bernie's macro policy paper (written by an Amherst guy named Friedman) to be fairy dust, but the letter didn't have any substantive arguments. They just declared his proposals to be unserious with all the authority of the establishment. Maybe they're right (I have some reason to doubt) but the least they could do is explain why.

Meanwhile the NYT editorial board, having endorsed Hillary already, wrote another editorial urging her to embrace the $15 minimum wage instead of $12. Apparently they've seen the value of moving the goalposts and find this to be Bernie's most realistic policy proposal for that reason. And they want her to do whatever it takes to win, because god forbid Bernie win the nomination.

[Tsundoku]

Are you shitting me? THIS is what superdelegates are about? This basically means you guys had better stop calling yourselves a democracy, because you're an oligarchy.

http://www.news.com....ee22961c2a909aa

[Silencer]

Tsundoku, on 18 February 2016 - 12:58 PM, said:

Are you shitting me? THIS is what superdelegates are about? This basically means you guys had better stop calling yourselves a democracy, because you're an oligarchy.

http://www.news.com....ee22961c2a909aa

Oi! They *prefer* the term 'Republic'. XD

[Terez]

Yes, we are a Republic. We have all sorts of funny quirks like this. Of all the things that threaten our democracy card, this isn't it. If superdelegates were ever to go against the popular vote, which they haven't in modern history, it would create a popular backlash, and the problem would be solved.

There was an attempt to reform the rules after 2008:

http://www.newsweek....delegates-71649

Newsweek said:

"People ask: isn't it enough for folks to have floor privileges and a hotel room and not have an actual vote?" says rules-committee co-chair James Roosevelt Jr., a grandson of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. "The answer is: what you're doing is creating two classes of delegates, people with the vote and people without the vote. Clearly, the people at the grassroots level should be the predominant voice. But if you don't give elected officials a real voice, they are basically second-class citizens."

These people's hubris is unreal. I mean, superdelegates can go vote like everyone else.

The Intercept has a piece on Hillary's lobbyist superdelegates:

https://theintercept...ters-be-damned/

[Terez]

This is the most amazing thing I have seen in a long time.

This post has been edited by Terez: 19 February 2016 - 01:06 AM

[Terez]

By the way, speaking of the superdelegates, the DNC (Democratic National Committee, basically the party leadership) has gotten really unpopular lately, even among Hillary supporters. The chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, has been taking most of the fire because of the party's failure to mobilize and support Congressional candidates who can win, and because of the Democratic debate schedule this season which seems to have been designed to benefit the presumed frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, to keep her opponents out of the spotlight where they could gain publicity, and to keep her fresh for the general election. DWS was the co-chair of Hillary's 2008 campaign, and she's an all-in corporate New Democrat. She was basically forced by popular demand to add more debates to the schedule.

DWS has a primary challenger this year: Tim Canova, a progressive in the tradition of Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. A take from Yves Smith:

http://www.nakedcapi...st-primary.html

There's a good chance DWS could lose in a Bernie wave. I wish I knew more about other Congressional races. Another one I've been following is Russ Feingold's race to take back the Senate seat he held for 18 years in Wisconsin, a purple state. He lost to a Republican in the Tea Party wave of 2010, and he lost because he was on record as being one of the most "liberal" people in Congress. He voted against the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. He co-authored the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, which was largely rendered obsolete by Citizens United.

I'm not sure whether Bernie would help Feingold in Wisconsin so much as Feingold would help Bernie in Wisconsin, which is again a swing state. And it's mostly considered a swing state because Republicans do so well in non-presidential years when Democratic turnout is lower. That's how Feingold lost in 2010; senators serve 6-year terms, a third of which are up for election every 2 years. That's how Scott Walker won elections: gubernatorial elections are in odd-numbered years, which is even worse for turnout than midterm years (like 2010 and 2014, when the Democrats lost seats in the House and Senate).

Another interesting tidbit about Feingold is that he voted to impeach (try) Bill Clinton, though he ultimately voted against conviction.

Warren and Feingold have both declined to endorse in the presidential primary so far.

[worry]

While I'm not as confident as Terez about what these elites will decide to do, I do agree that if superdelegates "flipped" the popular decision there'd be some major blowback for the party, and hell to pay. But if you want to feel real terror about American "democracy", here you go:


P.S. it's great to have this show back. Might be the best political comedy show on TV now that Colbert Report is dead.

Also I've watched the two episodes of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee so far and it's pretty decent. It's attempting the not being stuck behind a desk thing, and is maybe working a little more than Trevor Noah's similar attempt (which strays into late night monologue a little often, given his penchant for standup).

Lastly, I watched the Triumph the Insult Comic Dog Election Special on HULU and it was way better than I expected. It's somewhere between his old Late Night pieces and Da Ali G Show.

[Terez]

Here's an excellent article from Jacobin (socialist mag) on Bernie's electability (which, by the numbers, is far superior to Hillary's):

https://www.jacobinm...trump-election/

[worry]

Told you guys people do this all the time:



(And this one is on USA Politics, so it's on topic).

[Illuyankas]

Trying to imagine how Hillary or Bernie'd look after eight years of being president if it did this to Obama

[worry]

Pro-Cruz PAC trying to vacuum up the fence-sitting white power vote away from Trump: http://www.postandco...C1603/160219283

[Terez]

Quoting myself because I wanted to follow up on something.

Terez, on 18 February 2016 - 05:37 AM, said:

There's also a lot of drama concerning the realism of Bernie's proposals. Some economic advisors to Obama and Clinton signed onto a letter basically proclaiming Bernie's macro policy paper (written by an Amherst guy named Friedman) to be fairy dust, but the letter didn't have any substantive arguments. They just declared his proposals to be unserious with all the authority of the establishment. Maybe they're right (I have some reason to doubt) but the least they could do is explain why.

Economist James Galbraith criticized the authors of the letter for exactly these reasons in his own letter, discussed and linked here:

http://www.huffingto...4b0ec6725e25f49

I will quote Galbraith's letter here anyway:

Galbraith said:

The Honorable Alan Krueger
The Honorable Austan Goolbee
The Honorable Christina Romer
The Honorable Laura D'Andrea Tyson

Dear Alan, Austan, Christina and Laura,

I was highly interested to see your letter of yesterday's date to Senator Sanders and Professor Gerald Friedman. I respond here as a former Executive Director of the Joint Economic Committee – the congressional counterpart to the CEA.

You write that you have applied rigor to your analyses of economic proposals by Democrats and Republicans. On reading this sentence I looked to the bottom of the page, to find a reference or link to your rigorous review of Professor Friedman's study. I found nothing there.You go on to state that Professor Friedman makes "extreme claims" that "cannot be supported by the economic evidence." You object to the projection of "huge beneficial impacts on growth rates, income and employment that exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans about the impact of their tax cut proposals."

Matthew Yglesias makes an important point about your letter:

Yglesias said:

"It's noteworthy that the former CEA chairs criticizing Friedman didn't bother to run through a detailed explanation of their problems with the paper. To them, the 5.3 percent figure was simply absurd on its face, and it was good enough for them to say so, relying on their authority to generate media coverage."

So, let's first ask whether an economic growth rate, as projected, of 5.3 percent per year is, as you claim, "grandiose." There are not many ambitious experiments in economic policy with which to compare it, so let's go back to the Reagan years. What was the actual average real growth rate in 1983, 1984, and 1985, following the enactment of the Reagan tax cuts in 1981? Just under 5.4 percent. That's a point of history, like it or not.

You write that "no credible economic research supports economic impacts of these magnitudes." But how did Professor Friedman make his estimates? The answer is in his paper. What Professor Friedman did, was to use the standard impact assumptions and forecasting methods of the mainstream economists and institutions. For example, Professor Friedman starts with a fiscal multiplier of 1.25, and shades it down to the range of 0.8 by the mid 2020s. Is this "not credible"? If that's your claim, it's an indictment of the methods of (for instance) the CBO, the OMB, and the CEA.

To be sure, skepticism about standard forecasting methods is perfectly reasonable. I'm a skeptic myself. My 2014 book The End of Normal is all about problems with mainstream forecasting.

In the specific case of this paper, one can quibble with the out-year multipliers, or with the productivity assumptions, or with the presumed impact of a higher minimum wage. One can invoke the trade deficit or the exchange rate. Professor Friedman makes all of these points himself. But those issues are well within mainstream norms.

There is no "magic asterisk," no strange theory involved here. And the main effect of adjusting the assumptions, which would be a perfectly reasonable thing to do, would be to curtail the growth rate after a few years – not at the beginning, when it would matter most.

It is not fair or honest to claim that Professor Friedman's methods are extreme. On the contrary, with respect to forecasting method, they are largely mainstream. Nor is it fair or honest to imply that you have given Professor Friedman's paper a rigorous review. You have not.

What you have done, is to light a fire under Paul Krugman, who is now using his high perch to airily dismiss the Friedman paper as "nonsense." Paul is an immensely powerful figure, and many people rely on him for careful assessments. It seems clear that he has made no such assessment in this case.

Instead, Paul relies on you to impugn an economist with far less reach, whose work is far more careful, in point of fact, than your casual dismissal of it. He and you also imply that Professor Friedman did his work for an unprofessional motive. But let me point out, in case you missed it, that Professor Friedman is a political supporter of Secretary Clinton. His motives are, on the face of it, not political.

For the record, in case you're curious, I'm not tied to Professor Friedman in any way. But the powerful – such as Paul and yourselves – should be careful where you step.

Let's turn, finally, to the serious question. What does the Friedman paper really show? The answer is quite simple, and the exercise is – while not perfect – almost entirely ordinary.

What the Friedman paper shows, is that under conventional assumptions, the projected impact of Senator Sanders' proposals stems from their scale and ambition. When you dare to do big things, big results should be expected. The Sanders program is big, and when you run it through a standard model, you get a big result.

That, by the way, is the lesson of the Reagan era – like it or not. It is a lesson that, among today's political leaders, only Senator Sanders has learned.

Yours,

(Jamie)

James K. Galbraith
Executive Director, Joint Economic Committee, 1981-2

Tomorrow is a big day, for the Democrats in Nevada and the Republicans in South Carolina. The campaigns are heating up to the point of desperation, fighting about immigration votes and statements and proposals on the Dem side (big Latino pop in NV) and doubling down on religion, racism, and militarism in SC. Except for Trump.

One of our numerous journalists of Polish descent got a big scoop yesterday when he discovered video of Trump saying he supported the Iraq invasion in 2002, and another comment from shortly after the war began, which together make it clear that Trump never opposed the invasion. Will it hurt his chances in SC? Maybe a little, but I doubt much. We can hope, but we can see what hoping has gotten us so far.

This post has been edited by Terez: 20 February 2016 - 04:32 AM

[Terez]

Fox just called NV for Hillary. MSNBC is reporting 53% of the vote in with Hillary winning 52-48, but they haven't called it yet. Proportional delegates in this state.

[Terez]

Bush is out.

[Terez]

I suppose I should add that Trump won South Carolina with about 33%, then Rubio and Cruz are tied for 2nd with 22% at the moment. Only 66% of the vote has been reported, though. Kasich and Bush tied at 8%; Carson at 7%.