Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

[Woodsman]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

The Democratic party would triangulate it's own mother:

And the GOP would pimp her out by the hour. They're perfect for each other.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Buchanan: On a Fast Track to National Ruin

Nice find Raz.
Mr. Buchannon sums it all up pretty well.

[lektrode]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

since drive-by commentary seems to be the theme on this one..

+1

but i still say that the Dems are THE ALLTIME whirled champion triangulators

starting in the 60's, when the 'great society' bankrupted the country, leading to the closing of the gold window (and the US$ being backed by something other than political promises - which really started in 1913...)

then the all time whirled champion triangulator himself (looking rather charmingly boyish here below)
really got the ball rollling in the late 90's

and altho it remains to be seen just what 'his legacy' will actually be - with the TRILLION DOLLAR GIVEAWAY (to the med+drug+legal+ins mob) known as the 'affordable' care act - our latest triangulator-in-chief (rhymes with thief) seems highly unlikely to do nearly as much for The Rest of US as his cheerleaders in the lamerstream media continuously try to have us believe?

methinks the Repubs are pikers in the game of triangulation

And the GOP would pimp her out by the hour. They're perfect for each other.

[vt]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

The media are all Pravda now:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/...ia-207228.html

[lektrode]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

I largely agree with Matt on this one.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...other-20150514

"Centrist" is just another term for someone who would gladly mug a thousand middle class grandmothers just to buy the Manhattan jet set crew another Gulfstream.

uh huh...
yup.

The media are all Pravda now:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/...ia-207228.html

and the devil wears prada...



Golden Hillary.

[don]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

This is how it works

Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband made at least $30 million over the last 16 months, mainly from giving paid speeches to corporations, banks and other organizations, according to financial disclosure forms filed with federal elections officials on Friday.

The sum, which makes Mrs. Clinton among the wealthiest of the 2016 presidential candidates, could create challenges for the former secretary of state as she tries to cast herself as a champion of everyday Americans in an era of income inequality.

(note the rapid fire reverse on the TPP vote - they heed their masters' call)

[jk]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

The media are all Pravda now:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/...ia-207228.html

i found the most interesting name on that list was richard mellon scaife. this is roughly equivalent to seeing the clinton foundation donors list include the koch brothers.

[Woodsman]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

i found the most interesting name on that list was richard mellon scaife. this is roughly equivalent to seeing the clinton foundation donors list include the koch brothers.

"It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business."



From vast conspiracies of murder most foul, to lunch chums and friends.

Newsweek reported Ruddy praised Clinton for his Foundation's global work, and explained that the interview, as well as a private lunch he and Scaife had had with Clinton (which Ruddy says was orchestrated by Ed Koch), were due to the shared view of himself and Scaife that Clinton was doing important work representing the U.S. globally while America was the target of criticism. He also said that he and Scaife had never suggested Clinton was involved in Foster's death, nor had they spread allegations about Bill Clinton's sex scandals, although their work may have encouraged others. Ruddy and Scaife again met Clinton for lunch at his office in September 2008. "We had a great time with him," Ruddy said of the meeting. He added, "We consider Bill Clinton a friend and he considers us friends." Forbes indicated the relationship between Ruddy and Clinton has continued and described them as "lunch chums."

During a 2010 campaign swing through Florida, President Clinton departed from his schedule to make a visit to Newsmax's offices in West Palm Beach. After a private meeting with Ruddy, Clinton toured Newsmax's offices and met with its staff.

A May 2009 New York Times Sunday magazine profile on the former president, "The Mellowing of William Jefferson Clinton," offered more details of the relationship between Ruddy and Clinton. The Arkansas Times said details about the friendship between Ruddy and Clinton in the New York Times profile was the "most amazing revelation" of their profile of the former president. Ruddy told the Times though he remained a "Reagan conservative", he had re-evaluated the Clinton presidency and suggested he had earned high marks as president for success in ending welfare, keeping government in check, and supporting free trade. Ruddy also noted that the Clinton Foundation was doing remarkable work globally.

In July 2012, Ruddy was a member of the official delegation that accompanied President Clinton on his five-nation tour of Africa, reviewing Clinton Foundation initiatives in the area of health care, HIV/AIDS programs, education and poverty alleviation.

"Christopher Ruddy." Wikipedia

[lektrode]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

"It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business."...

From vast conspiracies of murder most foul, to lunch chums and friends.

why ALL of this ought to be investigated: (but since the henhouse is all focused now on 'police brutality', in what will quite likely end up being The Defining Issue of 2016 - assuming they havent completely burnt down the economy of main st by then)

NBC Universal, News Corporation, Turner Broadcasting and Thomson Reuters are among more than a dozen media organizations that have made charitable contributions to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, the foundation's records show.


The donations, which range from the low-thousands to the millions, provide a picture of the media industry's ties to the Clinton Foundation at a time when one of its most notable personalities, George Stephanopoulos, is under scrutiny for his previously undisclosed $75,000 contribution.


The list also includes mass media groups like Comcast, Time Warner and Viacom, as well a few notable individuals, including Carlos Slim, the Mexican telecom magnate and largest shareholder of The New York Times Company, and James Murdoch, the chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox. Both Slim and Murdoch have given between $1 million to $5 million, respectively.

any questions here?

nope...
baltimore is faaaaaaar mo impo`tent

[jk]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

Trade and Trust


MAY 22, 2015

One of the Obama administration’s underrated virtues is its intellectual honesty. Yes, Republicans see deception and sinister ulterior motives everywhere, but they’re just projecting. The truth is that, in the policy areas I follow, this White House has been remarkably clear and straightforward about what it’s doing and why.
Every area, that is, except one: international trade and investment.
I don’t know why the president has chosen to make the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership such a policy priority. Still, there is an argument to be made for such a deal, and some reasonable, well-intentioned people are supporting the initiative.
But other reasonable, well-intentioned people have serious questions about what’s going on. And I would have expected a good-faith effort to answer those questions. Unfortunately, that’s not at all what has been happening. Instead, the selling of the 12-nation Pacific Rim pact has the feel of a snow job. Officials have evaded the main concerns about the content of a potential deal; they’ve belittled and dismissed the critics; and they’ve made blithe assurances that turn out not to be true.
The administration’s main analytical defense of the trade deal came earlier this month, in a report from the Council of Economic Advisers. Strangely, however, the report didn’t actually analyze the Pacific trade pact. Instead, it was a paean to the virtues of free trade, which was irrelevant to the question at hand.
First of all, whatever you may say about the benefits of free trade, most of those benefits have already been realized. A series of past trade agreements, going back almost 70 years, has brought tariffs and other barriers to trade very low to the point where any effect they may have on U.S. trade is swamped by other factors, like changes in currency values.
In any case, the Pacific trade deal isn’t really about trade. Some already low tariffs would come down, but the main thrust of the proposed deal involves strengthening intellectual property rights — things like drug patents and movie copyrights — and changing the way companies and countries settle disputes. And it’s by no means clear that either of those changes is good for America.
On intellectual property: patents and copyrights are how we reward innovation. But do we need to increase those rewards at consumers’ expense? Big Pharma and Hollywood think so, but you can also see why, for example, Doctors Without Borders is worried that the deal would make medicines unaffordable in developing countries. That’s a serious concern, and it’s one that the pact’s supporters haven’t addressed in any satisfying way.
On dispute settlement: a leaked draft chapter shows that the deal would create a system under which multinational corporations could sue governments over alleged violations of the agreement, and have the cases judged by partially privatized tribunals. Critics like Senator Elizabeth Warren warn that this could compromise the independence of U.S. domestic policy — that these tribunals could, for example, be used to attack and undermine financial reform.
Not so, says the Obama administration, with the president declaring that Senator Warren is “absolutely wrong.” But she isn’t. The Pacific trade pact could force the United States to change policies or face big fines, and financial regulation is one policy that might be in the line of fire. As if to illustrate the point, Canada’s finance minister recently declared that the Volcker Rule, a key provision of the 2010 U.S. financial reform, violates the existing North American Free Trade Agreement. Even if he can’t make that claim stick, his remarks demonstrate that there’s nothing foolish about worrying that trade and investment pacts can threaten bank regulation.
As I see it, the big problem here is one of trust.
CONTINUE READING THE MAIN STORY131COMMENTSInternational economic agreements are, inevitably, complex, and you don’t want to find out at the last minute — just before an up-or-down, all-or-nothing vote — that a lot of bad stuff has been incorporated into the text. So you want reassurance that the people negotiating the deal are listening to valid concerns, that they are serving the national interest rather than the interests of well-connected corporations.
Instead of addressing real concerns, however, the Obama administration has been dismissive, trying to portray skeptics as uninformed hacks who don’t understand the virtues of trade. But they’re not: the skeptics have on balance been more right than wrong about issues like dispute settlement, and the only really hackish economics I’ve seen in this debate is coming from supporters of the trade pact.
It’s really disappointing and disheartening to see this kind of thing from a White House that has, as I said, been quite forthright on other issues. And the fact that the administration evidently doesn’t feel that it can make an honest case for the Trans-Pacific Partnership suggests that this isn’t a deal we should support.

paul krugman

[jk]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

Trade and Trust


MAY 22, 2015

One of the Obama administration’s underrated virtues is its intellectual honesty. Yes, Republicans see deception and sinister ulterior motives everywhere, but they’re just projecting. The truth is that, in the policy areas I follow, this White House has been remarkably clear and straightforward about what it’s doing and why.

Every area, that is, except one: international trade and investment.

I don’t know why the president has chosen to make the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership such a policy priority. Still, there is an argument to be made for such a deal, and some reasonable, well-intentioned people are supporting the initiative.

But other reasonable, well-intentioned people have serious questions about what’s going on. And I would have expected a good-faith effort to answer those questions. Unfortunately, that’s not at all what has been happening. Instead, the selling of the 12-nation Pacific Rim pact has the feel of a snow job. Officials have evaded the main concerns about the content of a potential deal; they’ve belittled and dismissed the critics; and they’ve made blithe assurances that turn out not to be true.

The administration’s main analytical defense of the trade deal came earlier this month, in a report from the Council of Economic Advisers. Strangely, however, the report didn’t actually analyze the Pacific trade pact. Instead, it was a paean to the virtues of free trade, which was irrelevant to the question at hand.

First of all, whatever you may say about the benefits of free trade, most of those benefits have already been realized. A series of past trade agreements, going back almost 70 years, has brought tariffs and other barriers to trade very low to the point where any effect they may have on U.S. trade is swamped by other factors, like changes in currency values.
In any case, the Pacific trade deal isn’t really about trade. Some already low tariffs would come down, but the main thrust of the proposed deal involves strengthening intellectual property rights — things like drug patents and movie copyrights — and changing the way companies and countries settle disputes. And it’s by no means clear that either of those changes is good for America.

On intellectual property: patents and copyrights are how we reward innovation. But do we need to increase those rewards at consumers’ expense? Big Pharma and Hollywood think so, but you can also see why, for example, Doctors Without Borders is worried that the deal would make medicines unaffordable in developing countries. That’s a serious concern, and it’s one that the pact’s supporters haven’t addressed in any satisfying way.

On dispute settlement: a leaked draft chapter shows that the deal would create a system under which multinational corporations could sue governments over alleged violations of the agreement, and have the cases judged by partially privatized tribunals. Critics like Senator Elizabeth Warren warn that this could compromise the independence of U.S. domestic policy — that these tribunals could, for example, be used to attack and undermine financial reform.

Not so, says the Obama administration, with the president declaring that Senator Warren is “absolutely wrong.” But she isn’t. The Pacific trade pact could force the United States to change policies or face big fines, and financial regulation is one policy that might be in the line of fire. As if to illustrate the point, Canada’s finance minister recently declared that the Volcker Rule, a key provision of the 2010 U.S. financial reform, violates the existing North American Free Trade Agreement. Even if he can’t make that claim stick, his remarks demonstrate that there’s nothing foolish about worrying that trade and investment pacts can threaten bank regulation.

As I see it, the big problem here is one of trust.

International economic agreements are, inevitably, complex, and you don’t want to find out at the last minute — just before an up-or-down, all-or-nothing vote — that a lot of bad stuff has been incorporated into the text. So you want reassurance that the people negotiating the deal are listening to valid concerns, that they are serving the national interest rather than the interests of well-connected corporations.

Instead of addressing real concerns, however, the Obama administration has been dismissive, trying to portray skeptics as uninformed hacks who don’t understand the virtues of trade. But they’re not: the skeptics have on balance been more right than wrong about issues like dispute settlement, and the only really hackish economics I’ve seen in this debate is coming from supporters of the trade pact.

It’s really disappointing and disheartening to see this kind of thing from a White House that has, as I said, been quite forthright on other issues. And the fact that the administration evidently doesn’t feel that it can make an honest case for the Trans-Pacific Partnership suggests that this isn’t a deal we should support.

paul krugman

[LorenS]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

I emailed my senators strongly opposing the trade deal. Bennett(D) sent an auto reply that didn't even acknowledge the content of my email, so I have no idea where he stands. Gardner(R) sent a reply saying he would carefully consider the plan before voting on it. So, neither one of them would commit but at least someone in Gardner's office opened my email and knows how I stand on it. Bennett's response sounded like one of my out of office notifications.

[wayiwalk]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

Good note, I just contacted mine. Added a note to Menedez to the effect of, "what do you have to lose? The admin threw you under the bus already, why not support Warren's bill for public release of the text, and oppose the bill as well"

We''ll see how THAT goes.

[LorenS]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

Wacky idea of the day: If a random group of 12 people can make life and death decisions as a jury; maybe, it's not so important who serves as legislators. How about we pick legislators the same way? Randomly select a few people from every district. In the "unelection"; the public gets a few "challenges" to eliminate obvious deadbeats and who is left represents us. With technology we don't even have to move the unlucky souls to that pit of corruption in DC, they can work from home, or a publicly funded office.

[sadsack]

Re: Another "Giant Sucking Sound" ?

Wacky idea of the day: If a random group of 12 people can make life and death decisions as a jury; maybe, it's not so important who serves as legislators. How about we pick legislators the same way? Randomly select a few people from every district. In the "unelection"; the public gets a few "challenges" to eliminate obvious deadbeats and who is left represents us. With technology we don't even have to move the unlucky souls to that pit of corruption in DC, they can work from home, or a publicly funded office.

I wonder if Phil Dick was motivated by a disgust with 1950's politicians (he certainly felt that way later on) when he suggested something similar (Wiki):

Solar Lottery takes place in a world dominated by logic and numbers. Loosely based on a numerical military strategy employed by U.S. and Soviet intelligence called minimax (part of game theory), the Quizmaster, head of world government, is chosen through a sophisticated, computerized lottery. This element of randomization in the society serves as a form of social control since nobody, in theory at least, has any more of an advantage over anybody else in becoming the next Quizmaster.

Society is further entertained by a televised selection process in which an assassin is also allegedly chosen at random. By countering and putting down these threats to his life (using telepathic bodyguards as defense), the leader gains the respect of the people. If he loses his life a new Quizmaster, as well as another assassin, are again randomly selected. Quizmasters have historically held office for timespans ranging from a few minutes to several years. The average life expectancy is therefore on the order of a couple of weeks.