**** Elections thread *****

It doesn't matter what you believe. Our system isn't about any one person or party getting their way, and doing what they did was completely out of line.

Btw I'm not relying on the media for this, so cut that anchor loose. That's a cheap tactic too btw. (I might as well say something like "surprise, a website like theredstate disagrees", or "you wouldn't agree if the dems did this")

And ya, when hundreds of thousands of employees got told "hey, uh, you may not have a job" that's a big "anti all the good things" deal. But I guess that points moot because 5 agonizing days later, they promised to pay em.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

It doesn't matter what you believe. Our system isn't about any one person or party getting their way, and doing what they did was completely out of line.

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Expressing the different positions of belief is important. It is not only your side that gets to claim to believe in the right thing.

What they did was not out of line, and it was very much in line with the ideal you express of not one person or party getting its way.

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Btw I'm not relying on the media for this, so cut that anchor loose. That's a cheap tactic too btw. (I might as well say something like "surprise, a website like theredstate disagrees", or "you wouldn't agree if the dems did this")

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I say it because I come at this from relatively strong understanding. The positions you are expressing are the ones that were formed by the media narrative at the time. It is important to know this because a lot of what we (this includes me) think we've come to through personal reasoning often isn't. But perhaps I should use a different tactic. I think I take this route because it seems softer than just straight up saying that you're wrong. It allows me to blame the media for wrongness instead of what could be more offensive in blaming a person's agency for wrongness.

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And ya, when hundreds of thousands of employees got told "hey, uh, you may not have a job" that's a big "anti all the good things" deal.

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This is worrying about mowing the lawn when there's a drought on the way. The Republic does not stand to provide jobs for people. It stands to maintain constitutional principles. Additionally, a reason people like me hold the positions we do is because we think the net employment gain is higher than not doing so. Labeling a government shutdown as bad because of only the immediate effects is the wrong way to look at it.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Yo, Rilla, food for thought (a theory I've been batting around): pragmatism is a path to tyranny. Example: take John Kasich, a guy whose defense against big government is mostly just responding to big government policies by saying "that's not realistic." When somebody wants government to pay for college, his response is that it's not realistic for the practical purposes of the tax increases it would take to enact the policy. He claims to be a conservative because of this. But I think there's nothing conservative about this, and indeed it shows that he's every bit as philosophically inclined towards government authoritarianism as his more obvious counterparts like Sanders, despite the fact that he doesn't realize it. This is because his position necessarily means that if there was a surplus, regardless of the reason for that surplus, it would mean that government paying for college would become realistic, and thus according to his rationale, government funded college would then be something he could support.

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Yes, pragmatically, I think the ideal management of Empire would be a single great actor as the Administrator of the Empire. An Aristocracy is a hedge against shitty Emperors and a Democracy is a hedge against shit Aristocracies. I prefer the hedge of Democracy, as for one I have a say and take it seriously, and for two, I'd like to think you do too.

Gov't has an interest in education. It's a part of the Henry Ford Assembly Line Introduction To Our Culture. In my autism, I always had a hard time understanding culture. I remember arguing with you and aubrey about culture's influence on me.

I came across an essay which talked about culture in the workplace and how it develops following the successful choices of early decision-makers. You see that when early powerful actors make choices which pay off, all the underlings start reading between the lines to understand the "theme". As those early actors continue to have successes, or as followers that find the theme continue to succeed, a culture becomes born.

Our culture has formed around the early successful decisions of those long dead, and among those decision, you'll find that an early education which prepares you for work on the line and higher education which prepares you to think critically are highly prized. I believe conservatism is aligned with both these values - to prepare people for productive work and also to groom the next generation of leaders who may break the mold.

You can only really argue about the mechanics of getting there.

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It's by his pragmatism that he could get from a situation of liberty to a situation of authoritarianism and not know it. This is part of why I support strategies based in ideals and principles.

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I have a hard time with ideals and principles - they seem too much like taboos.

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Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla

I have a hard time with ideals and principles - they seem too much like taboos.

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I don't understand. Is it because you don't like supporting principles of which you're unsure of their veracity or utility?

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Expressing the different positions of belief is important. It is not only your side that gets to claim to believe in the right thing.

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They arnt "expressing", they were dictaring. Also, and i cant believe i have to point this out, i havent been arguing that the dems or the rupubs have it right or wrong. My entire argument IGNORES the merits of their actions. I'm staring, quite clearly, that one side doesn't just get to decide how things are going to be and ignore the voice of the majority of the country.

[Quote]What they did was not out of line, and it was very much in line with the ideal you express of not one person or party getting its way.[quote]

How do you figure? They made a decision that directly effected the entire nation, and they did so because they didn't have the votes to get their ideals through the proper way. They don't get to decide. We do, the nation as a whole. Instead they acted in a way that more people disapproved of than Obama care itself...which actually had the votes.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

I'm stating, quite clearly, that one side doesn't just get to decide how things are going to be and ignore the voice of the majority of the country.

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Unless that one side is politicians and the other side is everyone who makes less than $250k/year.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

They arnt "expressing", they were dictaring. Also, and i cant believe i have to point this out, i havent been arguing that the dems or the rupubs have it right or wrong. My entire argument IGNORES the merits of their actions. I'm staring, quite clearly, that one side doesn't just get to decide how things are going to be and ignore the voice of the majority of the country.

How do you figure? They made a decision that directly effected the entire nation, and they did so because they didn't have the votes to get their ideals through the proper way. They don't get to decide. We do, the nation as a whole. Instead they acted in a way that more people disapproved of than Obama care itself...which actually had the votes.

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The way in which you frame it is as if your side has the moral high ground. You say things like "they acted in such a way that people disapproved..." That's not relevant nor is it even known. This is not a democracy; representatives of a Republic do not have any duty to fall in line with the media narrative. It was not one group obstructing the rightness of another group. The shutdown wasn't even a tactic but a consequence of votes. The "will of the people" is non-sequitur. The Democrats are not entitled to new spending. The shutdown was a byproduct of the refusal by the Democrats to reign in Washington's profligacy as the Republicans were trying to do so. If to pay your mortgage you take out other loans and eventually those other lenders stop loaning funds to you, you don't get to blame them for you getting kicked out of your house. But that's what the Democrats and the media (and your argument) posit. The shutdown has nothing to do with obstructing government function, but with some of the lenders trying to reign in profligacy.

Related, I can turn the entire thing around and say it was the Democrats who were obstructionist and people who hold positions like yours who were obstructionist. It is not a privilege, but a right, for Senators to not approve spending if they wish to not approve spending. It is also the duty of legislators to uphold and engage constitutional principles. Just because it is immensely popular these days to disregard constitutional governance and to write a blank check to an executive who pushes to undermine the constitution doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.


If you get only one thing out of this, make it the mortgage analogy. By not voting to raise the debt ceiling, the shutdown was a consequence. It would have been nice if the media had held the Democrats' feet to the fire for their intense irresponsibility, but that didn't happen. As is reflected in your version of what happened, the Democrats are the good guys and the country is unquestionably entitled to increases in profligacy, while the Republicans are baddy obstructionists who want to undermine the (obscure) will of the people. It's not so.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

The way in which you frame it is as if your side has the moral high ground. You say things like "they acted in such a way that people disapproved..." That's not relevant nor is it even known. This is not a democracy;

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If calling it not a democracy helps you sleep better at night, fine. Fact is, we decide things in this nation by voting.

And yeah, considering they tried and failed multiple times to repeal obamacare, turning to defunding the government so that they can get their way pretty much gives me the moral high ground. (PS; when democrats halt judge nominations and do shit like this, im against it as well...but we're talking about the shutdown)

Disapproval rates for your viewing pleasure
-http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/shutdown-poll-gop-disapproval-grows-098284
-http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-americans-not-happy-about-shutdown-more-blame-gop/
-http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2013/10/03/fox-news-poll-voters-support-obamacare-delay-disapprove-congress/
-http://freebeacon.com/issues/americans-disapproval-of-congress-hits-41-year-high/

We cant know that people disapproved of their actions just like we cant know if people disapprove of obamacare. They both rest on the same assumptions about how we measure people's approval.

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representatives of a Republic do not have any duty to fall in line with the media narrative. It was not one group obstructing the rightness of another group. The shutdown wasn't even a tactic but a consequence of votes. The "will of the people" is non-sequitur. The Democrats are not entitled to new spending. The shutdown was a byproduct of the refusal by the Democrats to reign in Washington's profligacy as the Republicans were trying to do so. If to pay your mortgage you take out other loans and eventually those other lenders stop loaning funds to you, you don't get to blame them for you getting kicked out of your house. But that's what the Democrats and the media (and your argument) posit. The shutdown has nothing to do with obstructing government function, but with some of the lenders trying to reign in profligacy.

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Media narrative my ass. Ted Cruz spoke on the damn floor for 21 hours trying to get obamacare defunded, Speaker Boehner refused to let bills even get to the floor, and everytime the Senate attempted to get a normal funding bill through, it got denied because this group of republicans just couldnt fathom passing a spending bill that didnt include their last ditch "please work please work, we've tried every other way to get rid of obamacare" method. This isnt media narrative, on the contrary, those reports stating otherwise are conservative attempts to change history and remember what happened in a better light than what it was.

"Dems not entitled to new spending" now thats a non-sequiter. We're not getting into another "why have government" debate. Our nation currently relies on funding, and even libertarians would agree that just flat out stopping it isnt the correct approach.

Idk what youre even talking about with the mortgage thing. That isnt what happened at all. The republicans were not attempting to stop funding because we're in debt, they were doing it to undercut obamacare...as seen in the actual bills that hit the floor. It was not that we were providing funding to 800,000 workers that didnt deserve it, that was never an issue that anyone ever brought up. This was entirely about healthcare, and a subset of republicans refusing to go along with it.

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Related, I can turn the entire thing around and say it was the Democrats who were obstructionist and people who hold positions like yours who were obstructionist. It is not a privilege, but a right, for Senators to not approve spending if they wish to not approve spending. It is also the duty of legislators to uphold and engage constitutional principles. Just because it is immensely popular these days to disregard constitutional governance and to write a blank check to an executive who pushes to undermine the constitution doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

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Ya, anyone can make any argument. That doesnt mean theyre rational or even supported by evidence. Once again you're turning this into some "we need to stop spending because we're in debt" argument, but again, that isnt what this was about. Its not the media who say so, it was the legislation. Boehner can say "debt ceiling" all he wants, it doesnt change the fact that bills were sent back and forth between the house and senate and the only difference was the funding of obamacare.

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If you get only one thing out of this, make it the mortgage analogy. By not voting to raise the debt ceiling, the shutdown was a consequence. It would have been nice if the media had held the Democrats' feet to the fire for their intense irresponsibility, but that didn't happen. As is reflected in your version of what happened, the Democrats are the good guys and the country is unquestionably entitled to increases in profligacy, while the Republicans are baddy obstructionists who want to undermine the (obscure) will of the people. It's not so.

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No, that isnt how it happened. This was not about the "debt ceiling". The media didnt hold the dems feet to the fire because it isnt something that happened. You're falling for the spin, not the facts.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

If calling it not a democracy helps you sleep better at night, fine. Fact is, we decide things in this nation by voting.

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Sure. That doesn't mean you get to ignore the votes you wish to ignore. Everybody always talks about how Obama being president is a mandate for their ideas, and everybody forgets that Congress is voted for as well and has far greater of a legislative "mandate" than the executive.

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And yeah, considering they tried and failed multiple times to repeal obamacare, turning to defunding the government so that they can get their way pretty much gives me the moral high ground. (PS; when democrats halt judge nominations and do shit like this, im against it as well...but we're talking about the shutdown)

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You're saying that people who negotiate for your side have the moral high ground and those who don't do not.

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Disapproval rates for your viewing pleasure
-http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/shutdown-poll-gop-disapproval-grows-098284
-http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-americans-not-happy-about-shutdown-more-blame-gop/
-http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2013/10/03/fox-news-poll-voters-support-obamacare-delay-disapprove-congress/
-http://freebeacon.com/issues/americans-disapproval-of-congress-hits-41-year-high/

We cant know that people disapproved of their actions just like we cant know if people disapprove of obamacare. They both rest on the same assumptions about how we measure people's approval.

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Opinion polls are virtually meaningless. They provide some measure of accuracy when it comes to predicting elections, but when it comes to assessing where people stand on "the issues," they fall apart because wording can get pretty much any answer a pollster is looking for. A simple example is that when you poll for support of Obamacare you get a much different response than when you poll for support of the main tenets found in Obamacare.

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Media narrative my ass. Ted Cruz spoke on the damn floor for 21 hours trying to get obamacare defunded, Speaker Boehner refused to let bills even get to the floor, and everytime the Senate attempted to get a normal funding bill through, it got denied because this group of republicans just couldnt fathom passing a spending bill that didnt include their last ditch "please work please work, we've tried every other way to get rid of obamacare" method. This isnt media narrative, on the contrary, those reports stating otherwise are conservative attempts to change history and remember what happened in a better light than what it was.

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5% of what happened isn't 100% of what happened.

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"Dems not entitled to new spending" now thats a non-sequiter.

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The entire thing exists becuase of this budgetary disagreement.

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Idk what youre even talking about with the mortgage thing. That isnt what happened at all. The republicans were not attempting to stop funding because we're in debt, they were doing it to undercut obamacare...as seen in the actual bills that hit the floor. It was not that we were providing funding to 800,000 workers that didnt deserve it, that was never an issue that anyone ever brought up. This was entirely about healthcare, and a subset of republicans refusing to go along with it.

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You're looking at the 5% and calling it the 100%. This has been a long-running budgetary battle and Obamacare was the focal point this particular time around

I see a strong probability that Cruz takes the nomination somewhat easily on 2nd or maybe 3rd ballot.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

I see a strong probability that Cruz takes the nomination somewhat easily on 2nd or maybe 3rd ballot.

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Nowhere even close.

What do you think is going to happen?

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

What do you think is going to happen?

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Trump gets reelected.

Figured.

I think Trump is for sure playing to lose now. Obv he's doing so in a way that makes him look like a god to his followers, which was the point all along.

His claims abut Ted breaking the law with a SuperPAC and stealing the WI election makes little sense otherwise.

Spoon approved!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slate..._s_brests.html

Sometimes I wonder if he has, like, a managed Tourette's or something.

Since it is now confirmed that Trump will not win the nomination, I'll ask: Spoon did you ever think Trump was going to win or was it all a troll?

Trump still easily wins the nomination and has something like 3:2 against Clinton.

Ah so a troll then.

Wuf, what does Trump do if he gets a majority of the vote...but doesnt win the nomination?

Hes gonna say "I was treated unfairly, so im not gonna honor my pledge"

Then hes gonna go independent and take his 40% with him, just to stick it to the republicans.

To prevent this, they'll give it to him. They wont like it, but theyll do it.

Also, he could potentially still win it outright.

(not trolling)

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Wuf, what does Trump do if he gets a majority of the vote...but doesnt win the nomination?

Hes gonna say "I was treated unfairly, so im not gonna honor my pledge"

Then hes gonna go independent and take his 40% with him, just to stick it to the republicans.

To prevent this, they'll give it to him. They wont like it, but theyll do it.

Also, he could potentially still win it outright.

(not trolling)

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He's only getting a plurality, not a majority.

Given how the remaining states are about to play out, he probably only gets to 1237 like 0.8% of the time. If he hits something like 1200, he could still win on first ballot since a handful of unbound delegates might vote for him while the bound delegates who don't want to wouldn't have a choice, but he won't even hit that number. He'll be around 1100.

He can't/won't run as an independent. The sore loser laws are enough of a roadblock, as he will unlikely have an easy time getting on some important general election ballots. There won't be a large conspiracy among delegates to support Trump, as the vast majority of them are Cruz/anti-Trump people. The movement before the convention will be all about building coalitions, for which Trump will do virtually no work. He doesn't spend money, he doesn't have competent management. He's losing delegates like crazy because he's not even trying to select them.

Trump doesn't want to win. This is all public relations. None of his behavior points towards a campaign trying to win, but it does point towards a man working his brand. He has zilch delegate game and state infrastructure. He just wants to be able to say he could have been the President except it was stolen from him.

Cruz probably has at least 95% of the equity to win. Some percentage of the time it will come on the 1st ballot by way of unbound delegates being wooed or coalescing on the inevitable. Some percentage of the time will be on the 3rd or 4th ballot. A huge percentage of the time will be on the 2nd ballot, often of which will be in a landslide. Don't be surprised if the 2nd ballot is something like 1600 for Cruz and 800 for Trump.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Trump still easily wins the nomination and has something like 3:2 against Clinton.

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Also, Trump takes this on the second ballot.

How? Will a majority of delegates, who are professed Cruz supporters and professed Trump detractors, succumb to the fascist fifth-grader theatrics?

All 41 of the state delegates in my state were on Cruz's slate of supporters.

Laaaaaaaaaaaaandslide second ballot Cruz victory.

It's funny too since the heart of Washington is arguably the most left-liberal region in all of western society. But that doesn't mean it goes for clownstick fuckwads. Seattle may adore its big government, but it doesn't adore big nastiness and big anti-intellectualism at least.

poasting becuase im defo gonna wanna reference it again

http://www.redstate.com/uploads/2016...er-4-7-161.jpg

Redstate is about as reliable as Hillary Clinton.

That image is reliable. Still, redstate is highly biased. I haven't found a politics/news site that isn't. That's different than reliability, but whatever.

Trump is getting ramrodded in the delegate selection. Of the 24 selected in North Carolina so far, 21 are for Cruz, 2 for Kasich, 1 uncommitted, and a big fat zilch for the fascist fifth-grader. The same trend has been happening with the other close to a dozen states that have been selecting delegates over the last weeks.

All Cruz needs to do is keep Donald from hitting 1237 and he runs away with this.

This man will easily stomp Hillary's ass

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhMdy07TPIs

And it will change politics for a generation.

http://i.imgur.com/2Umzspc.gif

https://i.imgur.com/PgZtz0j.gif

The "Inevitable Trump" crowd will come out of the woodworks after next Tuesday. It'll last through the subsequent Tuesday and probably another week.

There's hope in the Cruz camp that Trump will be kept from dominating NY and the NE primaries, but I don't see it. He'll probably get around 70 delegates in NY and is likely to win all the NE states. Cruz would beat him if Kasich wasn't around, but enough anti-Trump people are likely to move to Kasich instead of Cruz since this is the Northeast we're talking about and they adore their totalitarian jerks. This will allow Trump to win them all with a 40% floor.

But after that will be a long stretch of Cruz winning everything. Denying a first ballot win will come down to California, where Cruz will crush (but not sweep).

love it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9In0Xf8HH4k

still in denial about trump being the nominee?

why would i be in denial when not much in projections have changed? he is still not on path to get the nomination. even after he has a great day tomorrow, he won't be on path to get the nomination.

he's on basically the same path as he was a month ago when i said he's not gonna win it.

if he crushes indiana and california, he'll be the nominee. the other way is if a significant amount of unbound delegates back him on the first ballot for the purpose of trying to stop the (wrong) assessment of dismantling the party by not gifting him the nomination.

so, yeah, i loathe trump, but i also don't like letting my emotions cloud my judgment.

so i'll take this time to say that he really is smashing some fools by being smarter than their utter stupidity. he's getting swaths of voters to ignore it when he does things they absolutely loathe (like say that men should go to restrooms with their daughters) and vote for him just because he said "we're getting killed and we're gonna build a wall". he's consolidating some skeptics somewhat by convincing them that the nomination is being stolen from him, so they want to stop that by voting for him.

related: he's also running about as good as anybody can. it's not every day that literal horse's ass kasich would run while 1 for 38. it's not everyday that soembody could win his home state with fewer votes than his main opponent won a much smaller state by yet be declared a juggernaut becuase of it. regardless of his epic luck, trump couldnt have gotten this far without his tactics. if we're using a fisherman/fish dichotomy, he's exemplifying fisherman. i just wish this was coming from somebody who isn't a diehard leftist.

It looks like if Trump wins the nomination, it will come by way of a major shift towards him on the back of the "theft" narrative that arose in just the last couple weeks. The numbers showing this shift aren't in yet, but I'm afraid they may be coming.

The "stranger things have happened in politics" is happening right now. A guy having gone 1/38 is gifting an election to somebody he and his ilk don't want, and a guy who isn't actually that close to winning may be convincing a bunch of people that the win is being stolen from him, and thus turning his non-winningness into winningness.

You think he'll win now then?

Also how did you think today was going to go? Were these meant to be in the bag for Trump or is it a bit of a shock how well he's done (I read he is winning/won them all)

Thing is, trump is acting with this "theft" stuff exactly how I thought he would. It's 2fold, it rallies people who hate that their votes don't count, but it also very easily and cleanly sets up the independent run.

Sidenote: his views on bathrooms will net an increase in votes. Most people don't care, and many republicans are very much opposed to the anti-gay views of some of the more outspoken members of their party

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Originally Posted by ImSavy

You think he'll win now then?

Also how did you think today was going to go? Were these meant to be in the bag for Trump or is it a bit of a shock how well he's done (I read he is winning/won them all)

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I don't think he'll win, but I think this provides him a path.

Today was always going to be a big day. He was expected to win by strong margins, but it's possible that he's gonna win by even bigger ones. Still, his total turnout is shabby. These leftist states are giving him victories with lowish total votes. Also today isn't as big as the media makes out. The total number of delegates is smaller than it looks.

This all comes down to Indiana and California. If Trump doesn't get a big bump from this "theft" bull, Cruz can win Indiana and then it's convention time.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Thing is, trump is acting with this "theft" stuff exactly how I thought he would. It's 2fold, it rallies people who hate that their votes don't count, but it also very easily and cleanly sets up the independent run.

Sidenote: his views on bathrooms will net an increase in votes. Most people don't care, and many republicans are very much opposed to the anti-gay views of some of the more outspoken members of their party

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Trump's supporters hate the bathroom thing. The Trump sycophant sites (Drudge, Breitbart) went lights out on Trump for a whole day after that happened.

His stance could gain him votes in the general, but Trump's base in the primary hates it. These are blue collar fathers. They're more afraid of men in girls' bathrooms than just about any other group.


About the "theft" thing, I'm just surprised that it seems it may be catching on so well. I mean, people don't pay any. fucking. attention. whatsoever. It just confuses the fuck out of me that people can so easily believe things that are so obviously not true. Trump was right, he really can shoot somebody and lose no votes.

If you assume people are generally stupid, it still doesn't get you to a Trump win. You have to assume people are horrendously, outlandishly, preposterously stupid. That'll get you to a Trump win.

The guy more or less disavows the things he has said that got him supporters in the first place, yet his supporters don't even know about it, and usually when they learn about it they just rationalize it away. This is some "Jesus rode dinosaurs" level idiocy.

When I say most of Trump's followers are morons, it isn't because of the positions they hold, but that those positions are different than Trump's positions. They simply pay such little attention that most of them are voting for somebody whom they disagree with.

These are people who loathe taxes. Trump wants to raise taxes. They hate Obamacare. Trump wants to keep it. They despise illegal immigration. Trump loves it. And when they're asked about all these things, the positions they say Trump holds are the opposite of what he actually holds.

I should add that I have beloved family that fits this description. They're intelligent people, but, like, the only things they have even heard about Trump are that he said he'll build a wall and BLM protested him. Yet they're pretty hardcore supporters of him.

inb4 blog /spoon

Trump is doing a lot better than he was a month ago. He's outperformed polls since Wisconsin and Kasich/Cruz have gone into complete desperation mode. If he wins Indiana, he's a favorite to get 1237

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

It's a tactic just like the others. There are those who believe that the continual raising of the debt ceiling and funding of the rapidly inclining socialist and statist agenda is causing intense damage to peoples' lives.

Put some of this in perspective. The government's intrusion into your life is drastically higher than it was intended to be and than it would have been at most points in history. The country didn't start out with an IRS, it didn't start out with an unfathomably bloated job-killing anti-production welfare system, it didn't start out with untold numbers of burdensome regulations. For most of its history, it didn't have these or only had them in small ways. These things are causing incredible damage, and the time we live in right now is only a revving of the engine of more of these destructive elements.

Fighting against that by using a negotiation tactic of shutting down some periodic government functions is not only legitimate, but it's the least of what would be considered reasonable to the framers of our government.

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I just wanted to make a comment on your assertion that social welfare policies are job killing and anti production.

In 1932 we had no social welfare policies in place. No Medicare, no SCHIP no EITC no Medicaid, no unemployment insurance, no food stamps, no Social Security, no TANF, no Public Housing, no Meals on Wheels, no Headstart.

If you lost your job, people had a tendency to lose all their belongings, their house, their car, everything. If you didn't work, you starved. If you were old and didn't save for retirement, you died homeless (kinda like Edgar Allen Poe).

Under these economic conditions and such a strong incentive to work for a living I would imagine the year 1932 would have been a hotbed of employment, work, production and a booming economy given all that incentive to work. Let me just check a quick Google search and find out if these ideal economic conditions led to a Golden Age of Capitalism in 1932.


Hmmmm.....Well this is most certainly "odd" to say the least. Have you ever heard of "The Great Depression"? I haven't. Apparently there was 25% unemployment, mass shanty towns outside of every major city where the living accommodations were wooden shacks made out of scraps of wood and cardboard boxes called " Hoovervilles". We had massive breadlines and our country was at risk for a great famine, mass bank failures, mass foreclosures on houses and farms. That is so odd I was expecting a huge economic boom in 1932 given the total lack of social programs but maybe that was a fluke? Who knows.

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Originally Posted by JimmyS1985

I just wanted to make a comment on your assertion that social welfare policies are job killing and anti production.

In 1932 we had no social welfare policies in place. No Medicare, no SCHIP no EITC no Medicaid, no unemployment insurance, no food stamps, no Social Security, no TANF, no Public Housing, no Meals on Wheels, no Headstart.

If you lost your job, people had a tendency to lose all their belongings, their house, their car, everything. If you didn't work, you starved. If you were old and didn't save for retirement, you died homeless (kinda like Edgar Allen Poe).

Under these economic conditions and such a strong incentive to work for a living I would imagine the year 1932 would have been a hotbed of employment, work, production and a booming economy given all that incentive to work. Let me just check a quick Google search and find out if these ideal economic conditions led to a Golden Age of Capitalism in 1932.


Hmmmm.....Well this is most certainly "odd" to say the least. Have you ever heard of "The Great Depression"? I haven't. Apparently there was 25% unemployment, mass shanty towns outside of every major city where the living accommodations were wooden shacks made out of scraps of wood and cardboard boxes called " Hoovervilles". We had massive breadlines and our country was at risk for a great famine, mass bank failures, mass foreclosures on houses and farms. That is so odd I was expecting a huge economic boom in 1932 given the total lack of social programs but maybe that was a fluke? Who knows.

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No measure of incentives to produce can fully counteract the incentive to not produce created when the Federal Reserve restricts money to less than demanded.

Your observation is an astute one. It shows you're thinking critically about this. In an economy, you can think of individual markets as the muscles and money as the blood. All the rules that apply to the muscles depend upon the blood acting a certain way. Likewise, in the Great Depression, nothing worked while the blood of the system (money) was dysfunctional. Some policies made things better or worse, like how restricting trade (tariffs) made things worse, but the only solution was central banks no longer enacting dysfunctional monetary policy.

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Originally Posted by JimmyS1985

I just wanted to make a comment on your assertion that social welfare policies are job killing and anti production.

In 1932 we had no social welfare policies in place. No Medicare, no SCHIP no EITC no Medicaid, no unemployment insurance, no food stamps, no Social Security, no TANF, no Public Housing, no Meals on Wheels, no Headstart.

If you lost your job, people had a tendency to lose all their belongings, their house, their car, everything. If you didn't work, you starved. If you were old and didn't save for retirement, you died homeless (kinda like Edgar Allen Poe).

Under these economic conditions and such a strong incentive to work for a living I would imagine the year 1932 would have been a hotbed of employment, work, production and a booming economy given all that incentive to work. Let me just check a quick Google search and find out if these ideal economic conditions led to a Golden Age of Capitalism in 1932.


Hmmmm.....Well this is most certainly "odd" to say the least. Have you ever heard of "The Great Depression"? I haven't. Apparently there was 25% unemployment, mass shanty towns outside of every major city where the living accommodations were wooden shacks made out of scraps of wood and cardboard boxes called " Hoovervilles". We had massive breadlines and our country was at risk for a great famine, mass bank failures, mass foreclosures on houses and farms. That is so odd I was expecting a huge economic boom in 1932 given the total lack of social programs but maybe that was a fluke? Who knows.

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Correlation --->
<--- Causation

Word is that Cruz is going to announce Carly as VP today. I don't disagree with this at all; it's the right pick and the right time, but the fact that it is happening shows how tough of a situation Cruz is in. Also, if Cruz's campaign fails, this announcement will look like the casing ejected from the chamber of the bullet that sunk it.

Did Trump lose a single county from any of the five states he won by a minimum of 30 percent of the popular vote last night? It doesn't look like it.

Unstumped.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Word is that Cruz is going to announce Carly as VP today. I don't disagree with this at all; it's the right pick and the right time, but the fact that it is happening shows how tough of a situation Cruz is in. Also, if Cruz's campaign fails, this announcement will look like the casing ejected from the chamber of the bullet that sunk it.

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Carly is a terrible pick. She's a loser pick for a loser candidate who has no chance in hell of winning a legitimate candidacy.

name better

Which candidate currently running is the best or least hostile to Online Poker? I've always said I will automatically vote against anyone who takes $1 in donations of Sheldon Adelson money regardless who their opponent is. There are a lot of hostile politicians to poker in Congress, and while the Democrats certainly have some politicians hostile to poker, there does tend to be more of them on the Republican bench at the moment.

Marco Rubio said he would carve out an exception for Online Poker when banning internet gaming, to which he got a stern condemnation from Sheldon Adelson and I think he backed off and said he would instate a total ban on all forms of Online Gambling including poker.

I really don't want to see my account get seized and all my software and stuff become worthless overnight due to some shady backdoor DC Politics.

My guess:

Clinton: hostile to poker just like Obama

Sanders: if he doesn't personally think it's wrong, he would probably support a nationalized site or maybe extremely regulated private ones where only the biggest two/three could exist.

Cruz: would not ban it federally, maybe would loosen federal attacks on it. Likely personally supports it.

Trump: would probably like it to be legal for only a handful of his biggest lobbyists, but would definitely ban it if Adelson paid him enough.

Someone popular would be a much better vp pick. Carly sucks, no one is gonna go "hey, I'm gonna go vote cruz now" just because of carly. That's why she sucks.

I'm still wary about the Republicans in down ballot races simply because Sheldon Adelson is the largest Republican donor and public enemy #1 to us Online players.

Bernie Sanders wasn't anywhere near as hostile to Online Poker as Marco Rubio and Lindsay Graham have been, and Harry Reid has been a reliable goal tender in recent years at stopping further bans on Online Poker in the US.

ppa released their jokers in 2012 and it was majority Republicans. I think it still was in 2014 but I didn't see that list.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

My guess:

Clinton: hostile to poker just like Obama

Sanders: if he doesn't personally think it's wrong, he would probably support a nationalized site or maybe extremely regulated private ones where only the biggest two/three could exist.

Cruz: would not ban it federally, maybe would loosen federal attacks on it. Likely personally supports it.

Trump: would probably like it to be legal for only a handful of his biggest lobbyists, but would definitely ban it if Adelson paid him enough.

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Sanders was one of the people behind the original, much harsher bill that became the UIGEA.

One guy in Pennsylvania he wants to incarcerate people who play poker on their PC's.

Scavello’s bill would aim to curb that, making first violation a summary offense that carries a possible $300 fine and up to 90 days in jail. A second violation would be a misdemeanor bringing a chance of a $2,500 fine and up to a year in jail.

“I believe that if you hit people in their wallets, we can start to crack down on the lawbreakers,” Scavello said.

If you're a bad poker player aren't you already being hit in your wallet? Typical law maker trying to legislate morality.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

Someone popular would be a much better vp pick. Carly sucks, no one is gonna go "hey, I'm gonna go vote cruz now" just because of carly. That's why she sucks.

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like who? name names.

assuming he could pick anybody: kasich isn't popular and he would only get him ohio (maybe) yet not help win the election (need virginia too). plus he's garbage and i don't want him as vp.

rubio is popular and would have been a good pick.


carly: she takes away one of clinton's biggest weapons, she is the best attack dog of the whole field, she's the best communicator of the field, she helps send a message of pro-women from cruz, she helps on the margins in california (which might make all the difference), she gives some outsider cred to the ticket and she doesn't detract any conservative cred.

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Originally Posted by JimmyS1985

Harry Reid has been a reliable goal tender in recent years at stopping further bans on Online Poker in the US.

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I'm confused here, is he for or against it? I was assuming you meant he was helping stop passing further bans on online poker.

I had a look at his wiki page and it said he was against it but more recently has changed his views on online poker due to what many people believe is funding from Vegas Casinos who as far as I'm aware are some of the biggest opponents of online poker in the first place. So it doesn't add up.

The issue of online poker is somewhat null though. It won't be too long till the games are beaten by computers which will kill the games.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

she takes away one of clinton's biggest weapons, she is the best attack dog of the whole field, she's the best communicator of the field, she helps send a message of pro-women from cruz, she helps on the margins in california (which might make all the difference), she gives some outsider cred to the ticket and she doesn't detract any conservative cred.

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And yet, she sucked so hard that she wasn't even qualified to be in some of the main debates.

She is a terrible vp pick, and brings nothing to the table.

Jeb bush would be equally terrible. So would carson, so would christie. You want someone that actually contributes.

Lets evaluate the question a little further. What does a candidate want from a VP? How does a VP help a nominee win the presidency?

Look at Fiorina. She used to be an unknown. Then she ran, developed some support, and then got completely demolished by Trump. As far as "businessmen" go, shes outclassed. She isnt a great public speaker, and people dont care about a "woman vp" like they do a "woman potus". Worse, shes not an unknown anymore. Shes shown what shes got, and its not much. Shes tapped out. What is Fiorina's potential support? We've already seen it. Is that enough support to help Cruz beat Trump? To help Cruz beat Clinton? Not nearly.

You can take pretty much any unknown candidate and they would be a better pick than Fiorina...if only because we dont know how popular theyd be. Fiorina hit her popularity ceiling, but we dont know anyone else's.

You dont need an unknown though. Just someone that is a popular person. Merely by being popular, you may have a higher ceiling than fiorina.

trump never demolished her. she hurt trump the only time he's ever been hurt and he had to back down. her fall after that was unrelated. her poor performance in the nomination cycle is due to having specific qualities that stink for president. yet those qualities aren't that bad for vp, which is why she ran in the first place. she was always running for vp.

she was always widely supported during the primaires, just not as first pick and not as president. of the main elements vp's fulfill, she hits them quite well. the vp fills a very different role than the p. if the vp filled the same role, the he/she would just have gotten p in the first place. the vp is all about (1) attack dog, (2) debates, (3) pleasing the base and broadening coalition. carly is the best vp pick on (1) alone by a long shot since it's against hillary.

it should not be understated that she's the only person that trump has to be careful with. she already handled him once and he backed off. people pay attention when women they don't hate are attacked. trump hasn't experienced lasting damage by doing such, but he has had to call it quits when against fiorina and his attacks on heidi hurt him during that cycle (wisconsin).

the timing was strong, considering. it changes the news cycle from the "it's over" trumpening that was gonna happen after the NE primaries, and if (when) cruz wins indiana, it will make carly look like a game changer.

She's a horrible "attack dog", and that label only exists because cruz is pushing it. She bit once, then tucked her tail and hid in the corner. It wasn't even a bite though, she made weak comments like "the people will judge what you said" or some other nonsense. The only fire she ever had that even resembles an "attack dog" was when she Started. Talking. Like. This. About. Abortion. Using. A. Falsified. Video.

This talk about attack dog is wrong anyway. Why does cruz need an "attack dog"? Are we saying he lacks the balls to call clinton out? To fight trump? For a losing campaign, he doesn't need a spine, he needs more popularity. She doesn't give him that, she appeared on the early debate.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

it should not be understated that she's the only person that trump has to be careful with. she already handled him once and he backed off. people pay attention when women they don't hate are attacked. trump hasn't experienced lasting damage by doing such, but he has had to call it quits when against fiorina and his attacks on heidi hurt him during that cycle (wisconsin).

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She's handled him zero times, and all she's ever done is make herself look like an idiot. He never had to attack her because all she does is destroy everything she comes into contact with, and her business "career" proves that.

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Originally Posted by JKDS

She's a horrible "attack dog", and that label only exists because cruz is pushing it.

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For decades, it has been believed that one of the main jobs of the vp is as attack dog. Cruz hasn't pushed this narrative at all. Most people in politics, including myself, put Fiorina higher on the list for possible vp a long time ago partly for this reason.

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She bit once, then tucked her tail and hid in the corner.

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You're misremembering. Trump bit, she bit back, Trump tucked. She is widely considered having won her scrimmage with him, and that it was just about the only time Trump knew he was beat and openly backed off.

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This talk about attack dog is wrong anyway. Why does cruz need an "attack dog"? Are we saying he lacks the balls to call clinton out? To fight trump? For a losing campaign, he doesn't need a spine, he needs more popularity.

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People are stupid and personas matter more than substance. Fiorina is one of the only people who can attack Clinton without being crucified in the media. Trump thinks he could too, but after the media turns on him once they get their wish of him gaining the nomination, he'll be against 24/7 coverage of being a misogynist. As for Fiorina and Trump, it has already been demonstrated that he does not have teflon when it comes to her as well as when it comes to women in general. Cruz has attacked Trump every which way from Sunday, but nothing sticks because people are stupid and don't care about substance. But they do pay attention when it's "woman vs man" stuff.

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For a losing campaign, he doesn't need a spine, he needs more popularity. She doesn't give him that, she appeared on the early debate.

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To set the record straight, he does have a lot of popularity. He's just been triangulated by Trump in such a way that he's not running away with this like he was supposed to. The people who support Trump now were mostly Cruz supporters. Trump is less popular than Cruz. Cruz wins hu against anybody in this primary. Trump probably is the second most popular and beats everybody not named Cruz hu.

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Originally Posted by spoonitnow

She's handled him zero times, and all she's ever done is make herself look like an idiot. He never had to attack her because all she does is destroy everything she comes into contact with, and her business "career" proves that.

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Yeah, so, her company did better than competitors while following the plan she constructed. After a later CEO dropped the plan, the company plummeted.

But that doesn't matter ofc...

Just because I disagree with you does not mean I'm misremembering. If you recall, I had this same opinion at the time of the event. My view hasn't changed, and the biased media alleging she won doesn't affect me in the slightest. She clearly lost, as evidenced by never having another good debate. People are looking to trumps retreat from this comment like he was forced into it, like she somehow triumphed over him. The correct move for trump was to back off that comment regardless of what was going on. Just because trump is bombastic doesn't mean he's somehow weakened or lessened by not doing the bombastic thing. He's smart, and picks his battles.

I don't think he was weakened by it either. But he did back off because it was a losing battle.

I read into Fiorina's performance overall a little differently. I always liked her but she was never my chief pick, and that goes for a lot of people. On the statistics thrown around, this would make her look less quality than she is. Her lack of having won an election before was basically kryptonite to anybody who wanted to support her for president. I liked her much more than others, but still would only support her after all the solid conservative elected officials were out of the way (Cruz, Walker, Perry, Jindal, Paul, Rubio). This was based purely on the fact that her lack of having won an election is kryptonite.

The good thing is this vanishes as VP. Nobody's gonna care that she never won elected office or about her mixed business record now. She softens Cruz's image and can attack his chief rivals with near impunity. Nikki Haley probably would have been a better pick (also a woman, governor, not hated by conservatives, liked by establishment), but she wouldn't have accepted.

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Originally Posted by wufwugy

Yeah, so, her company did better than competitors while following the plan she constructed. After a later CEO dropped the plan, the company plummeted.

But that doesn't matter ofc...

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She absolutely 100% did not do better than her competitors during her time at HP. That is not debatable.