Way More Independents Than Democrats Or Republicans

[don]

Re: Way More Independents Than Democrats Or Republicans

In related news . . .

Gov. Christie says he has always been a Packer at heart.

[vt]

Re: Way More Independents Than Democrats Or Republicans

Jerry Jones and Chris Christie deserve each other.

I've always been a Packer fan.

Don't forget, the people own the team, not the 1%.

"The Packers are the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States.^[6]"

[gwynedd1]

Re: Way More Independents Than Democrats Or Republicans

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...-demographics/

Both parties will be replaced in the next 10 years by a fiscally conservative, socially moderate party.

All Independent means is they vote for both parties and without a parliamentary system dissenting votes are thrown away.


I am also on the other side of that bet.

[don]

Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

Via Forbes,

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, are you going to run for President?

No.

What does the Democratic nominee need to do to win in 2016?

They need to speak to America’s families about the economic crisis in this country. It starts with the recognition that Washington works for the rich and powerful and not for America’s families.

But Why?



Perhaps this is the reason... (via Open Secrets)

Despite her reputation as an anti-Wall Street populist, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is the wealthiest of the potential 2016 presidential candidates currently serving in Congress, with an estimated net worth of $6.7 million as of Dec. 31, 2013.

Four other current members are weighing runs: Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Vice President Joe Biden, technically a member of the Senate, is also thought to be mulling over a bid for the Oval Office.

Former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who left the Senate in 2012, became the first to officially join the Democratic field when he launched an exploratory committee in November.

Based on his 2012 annual report, Webb is the second wealthiest of the group with an estimated net worth of $4.6 million.

Of those seven possible candidates, four are millionaires — something that has become the norm in today’s Congress.

...

Cruz is the wealthiest Republican potential White House hopeful who’s now in Congress, with a 2013 estimated net worth of $3.2 million.

Paul, a former practicing ophthalmologist, is also likely a millionaire — his net worth was estimated at $1.3 million in 2013.

As for the remaining three, Biden, Rubio and Sanders were worth an estimated $543,000, $444,000 and $331,000 respectively in 2013, according to their financial disclosures.

* * *
According to Center for Responsive Politics research, the average estimated net worth for members of Congress was more than $1 million in 2013.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

I think Hillary's the 800lb gorilla in the room they didn't talk about in that article. Don't know what her net worth is, but it has to be more than all the others combined.

[Woodsman]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

...According to Center for Responsive Politics research, the average estimated net worth for members of Congress was more than $1 million in 2013.

I'd call them "cheap whores" to sell out for so little compared to the Kochs and Rockefellers of the world who own them. Only I have too much respect for decent, honest sex workers and wouldn't risk conflating the two.

Nice of Warren to use plain words, anyway. Actually, it's depressing to know that the remnant of people in this country with a functioning conscience and brain can get so excited about a self-evident and pedestrian statement as "Washington works for the rich and powerful and not for America’s families." You're damn right it does; since 1776 and counting, baby!

And with the largest share of Americans possessing skulls full of cottage cheese, the right wing has a fabulous medium in which to grow ever bigger, ever duller, ever meaner. On any given day two-thirds of the people can be induced to believe the dumbest, most self defeating crapola. Even on one of the most prescient sites on the Internet, we regularly hear the dumbest crap proclaimed with righteous certainty.

In their frightened, stressed out befuddlement, the people are regularly induced to turn on the ever smaller minority of legislators and leaders who will speak on their behalf and in their interest, even in the meek and mealy terms permitted today.

Such is the history of the United States of Amnesia.

Roosevelt does his best to pull the country out of a deflationary depression and he's damned as a socialist and Communist out to destroy private enterprise in order to subsidize the poor. Jack Kennedy gets drawn into a fight over steel prices, supports civil rights while trying to avoid nuclear war and he's marked out as a Communist agent. Obama restyles Mitt Romney's health "reform" plan as his own, bails out the banks, and doubles down on the Bush endless war/total surveillance/torture state and he's a Socialist crypto-Muslim. Puh-leeze, the .01% have nothing to worry about.

When the country is led by the moral equivalent of $50 streetwalkers, owned by a soulless class of inbred crypto-fascists, and guarded and monitored by a paranoid standing army with poor anger management skills, forgive me if Mrs. Warren's charming expressions of noblesse oblige fail to inspire.

[vt]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

Net worth is the wrong question to some extent. Roosevelt and Kennedy were very wealthy. Wealth doesn't mean a President wouldn't work for the people.

If Kerry had won in 2004, Teresa's inheritance would have made John one of the richest Presidents ever.

I've detailed Warren's hypocrisy elsewhere. A cardboard populist.

Webb, however seems to really care for the common man and woman.

Net worth of a million? Not a big deal. If a married professional couple both work and contribute to IRAs and 401Ks, plus pay off their home over their career they will easily have a total net worth of $1 or $2 million. It's called compound interest.

Warren is 65, Webb is 68; they've had four decades to compound a career of professional earnings. Nothing sinister with this. Watch there other actions, such a Warren triple dipping for two years from the private, public, and academic sectors.

[DSpencer]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

And with the largest share of Americans possessing skulls full of cottage cheese, the right wing has a fabulous medium in which to grow ever bigger, ever duller, ever meaner. On any given day two-thirds of the people can be induced to believe the dumbest, most self defeating crapola. Even on one of the most prescient sites on the Internet, we regularly hear the dumbest crap proclaimed with righteous certainty.

iTulip is the perfect place to understand why we are unlikely to get out of our political mess anytime soon. Despite reading and debating many of the same articles we are all left with our original thoughts and bias. You still somehow believe that it's "the right wing" which is responsible for all our problems. Others decry the one party system but likely end up pulling the lever for one side of it or the other most of the time.

At the end of the day we don't seem to actually have much in common other than the willingness to consider and debate these issues. It appears that isn't enough to reach anything close to consensus. It seems there will always be enough people voting for the lesser of two evils to ensure that we have someone evil in power.

[astonas]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

iTulip is the perfect place to understand why we are unlikely to get out of our political mess anytime soon. Despite reading and debating many of the same articles we are all left with our original thoughts and bias. You still somehow believe that it's "the right wing" which is responsible for all our problems. Others decry the one party system but likely end up pulling the lever for one side of it or the other most of the time.

At the end of the day we don't seem to actually have much in common other than the willingness to consider and debate these issues. It appears that isn't enough to reach anything close to consensus. It seems there will always be enough people voting for the lesser of two evils to ensure that we have someone evil in power.

Perhaps. But the situation needn't be entirely bleak.

After all, if this truly were an intractable problem, then humanity wouldn't have progressed to the point that it already has.

Even if we aren't at the pinnacle of ours today, the very fact that democracies have ever existed is evidence that change is possible.

I don't know exactly how yet, but a way does exist.

[vt]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

Economics is the "study of how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable commodities and distribute them among different people."
-- Paul A. Samuelson, Economics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948)

Political science is the study of how these scarce resources are distributed within a society and between nations.

Economics and politics are intertwined to some extent. Unfortunately the minorities on the right and left are far more committed than the great majority in the middle. This is why we need a new majority independent party to overcome the radical elements.

[Woodsman]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

iTulip is the perfect place to understand why we are unlikely to get out of our political mess anytime soon. Despite reading and debating many of the same articles we are all left with our original thoughts and bias. You still somehow believe that it's "the right wing" which is responsible for all our problems. Others decry the one party system but likely end up pulling the lever for one side of it or the other most of the time.

At the end of the day we don't seem to actually have much in common other than the willingness to consider and debate these issues. It appears that isn't enough to reach anything close to consensus. It seems there will always be enough people voting for the lesser of two evils to ensure that we have someone evil in power.

If you can't or won't see the ideological basis for our experience of the last 50 to 70 years, you're probably right that there's not much for us to talk about. Enjoy your weekend.

[verdo]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

Personally, i have a hard time seeing hilary beating out rand paul if he is the republican nominee, Warren is the lefts best card. As for the rise in independents, that doesn't surprise me one bit. it's a switch i recently made myself, and as it makes the most sense to me in this environment. Austrian Ideologues who want to slash the U.S. budget by one trillion dollars in one year like Ron Paul wanted aren't going to fix what we have today. Nor are the people who want the minimum wage to be raised indiscriminantly

[vt]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

Politicians getting rich has nothing to do with ideology:

Senator’s husband stands to profit big from government deal

By Richard JohnsonJanuary 16, 2015 | 5:48pm

Ever wonder how lowly paid lawmakers leave office filthy rich?

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is showing how it’s done.

The US Postal Service plans to sell 56 buildings — so it can lease space more expensively — and the real estate company of the California senator’s husband, Richard Blum, is set to pocket about $1 billion in commissions.

Blum’s company, CBRE, was selected in March 2011 as the sole real estate agent on sales expected to fetch $19 billion. Most voters didn’t notice that Blum is a member of CBRE’s board and served as chairman from 2001 to 2014.

This feat of federal spousal support was ignored by the media after Feinstein’s office said the senator, whose wealth is pegged at $70 million, had nothing to do with the USPS decisions.

When the national debt is $18 trillion, a billion seems like small change.

[shiny!]

Re: Democrats Or Republicans: No Exit

Perhaps. But the situation needn't be entirely bleak.

After all, if this truly were an intractable problem, then humanity wouldn't have progressed to the point that it already has.

Even if we aren't at the pinnacle of ours today, the very fact that democracies have ever existed is evidence that change is possible.

I don't know exactly how yet, but a way does exist.

I wish I shared your optimism, but I'm not impressed with either humanity or our progress. We are a nightmare of a species, and democracies are only as civilized and enlightened as the people who vote.

[don]

This Was Solved a Long Time Ago

"The Founding Fathers had assumed that the political control of the country would be conducted by men of property .... The arrival of a mass democracy after 1830 changed this situation, establishing the use of party conventions for nominations and the use of entrenched political party machines, supported on the patronage of public office, to mobilize sufficient votes to elect their candidates.

"This advantage became so great in the period 1865-1880 that the forces of finance, commerce, and industry were forced to contribute ever-increasing largesse to the political machines ... (and) felt it to be unseemly that they should be unable to issue orders but instead have to negotiate as equals ....

"By the late 1870s business leaders determined to make an end to this situation by cutting with one blow the taproot of the system of party machines, namely, the patronage system (Civil Service Reform).

"This period, 1884-1933, was the period of financial capitalism in which investment bankers moving into commercial banking and insurance on one side and into railroading and heavy industry on the other were able to mobilize enormous wealth and wield enormous economic, political, and social power.

"... they expected to control both political parties equally ... some of them intended to contribute to both and to allow an alternation of the two parties in public office in order to conceal their own influence, inhibit any exhibition of independence by politicians, and allow the electorate to believe that they were exercising their own free choice."

(from Tragedy and Hope, by Carroll Quigley pp.53-55)