Not sure why Dems are trying to stop Republicans from voting on health care tomorrow. I don’t always wish a motherfucker would hold a vote on destroying millions of people’s health care but there’s no way on earth this thing passes the Senate. I mean, look at these poll numbers:
Public sentiment is particularly lopsided in favor of an aspect of the current health-care law that blocks insurers from charging more or denying coverage to customers with medical conditions. About 8 in 10 Democrats, 7 in 10 independents and even a slight majority of Republicans say that should continue to be a national mandate, rather than an option for states to retain or drop.
These Tuesday group moderates, or whatever they’re calling themselves these days, are correct:
The latest changes, hammered out by Freedom Caucus Chair Mark Meadows (R-NC), and one of the moderates’ own, Tuesday Group co-chair Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), allows states to opt out of ACA insurer mandates in a way that would essentially gut its pre-existing conditions protections, the Holy Grail of the promises many Republicans made about their replacement.
“I spent the whole work period hearing from people pissed about pre-existing conditions,” one moderate lawmaker told CNN on Wednesday. “This isn’t helpful.”
Another moderate was overheard by the Hill telling a staffer: “If I vote for this healthcare bill it will be the end of my career.”
If these idiots walk the plank on this unpopular piece of shit…
Corner Stone
I don’t understand why they don’t want them to hold the vote? I thought the saying was, “give em enough rope” ?
Fair Economist
If they hold the vote it’s possible they may pass it. Also, whether it gets passed or not, the longer this drags on the better for us, because the proposal is just awful and the more the voters look at it the more they hate it.
Gravenstone
Josh Marshall had a piece about the delay, and this supposition is that the delay helps the “moderate” Republicans to stand against the pressures of their caucus. Not sure if it’s true, but I can see the argument if I squint hard enough.
randy khan
I think the way the politics of this play out is that even threatening to hold the vote hurts the Republicans, and strangely enough it may hurt the ones who would vote against it even though they didn’t vote at all. Among other things, the die-hard Teahadis will be mad that they didn’t get their repeal.
But the reason I don’t want a vote held is that I don’t want to risk it coming out the wrong way, which would strengthen Trump’s (and, possibly, Ryan’s) hand for other things. I want it dead, dead, dead, and for it to be a notable failure early in the Administration.
TenguPhule
Betting everything on Mcconnell not revoking the legislative filibuster and not finding 51 Republican votes in the Senate is not the safest of options. Especially not if the Russians do have something on him.
Humboldtblue
Meanwhile the California state Senate health committee is working on a single-payer bill that pretty much everybody else looks at and laughs. California spent more than $360 billion dollars on health care last year and the measure would bar private insurance companies from covering the same services and the single-payer bill.
Opponents point out the cost and how that would assuredly lead to massive tax hikes in one of the country’s most heavily taxed states.
Oh, the bill is supported by the very influential California Nurse’s Association and they had Bernie Sanders supporters along for a hearing yesterday. Another Sanders backer has promised to run against Pelosi who hasn’t faced a run-off since, what, forever?
VincentN
Ah, poll numbers. I seem to recall a recent election that relied heavily on those…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Ah, those mythological GOP “moderates”. There aren’t any but the Villagers anoint a few so they have an “out” for never reporting 24/7 that the modern GOP is batshit insane.
I can guarandamntee you that these so-called “moderates” would love nothing more than to gut the ACA and pass the saving upwards to the rentier class but realize it’s political suicide in any but the most gerrymandered of Repub districts. These so-called moderates get the poor optics of this…and are the ones caught in a vice. Good.
clay
Well, if the House can’t even hold a vote, then it feeds into the narrative of “Even with all levers of power, Republicans are too incompetent to govern. They can’t even schedule a vote, much less pass a bill.”
Since Trump ran specifically on “only I can blah blah blah”, then failure to make even minimal progress especially undercuts his bloated claims.
zzyzx
Why? Because trusting on Republicans not to do something because it’s illogical isn’t the best bet.
randy khan
@VincentN:
And the polls actually weren’t wrong, as Clinton won the popular vote by about the margin as the poll aggregate predicted. Whatever you think about why the election ended the way it did, it was not a result of a polling failure.
randy khan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I, too, find the word “moderates” grating, as they’ve purged any real moderates from the party, but there is an ideological spread in the Republican caucus, and there needs to be some term for the ones who are on less-right edge of the caucus.
clay
@TenguPhule:
True, but not because of…
I really doubt Putin cares what kind of health care we have. He didn’t hack our election to micromanage our domestic policy. He did it to get sanctions lifted, to break up NATO and the EU, to make America lose moral superiority in the eyes of the world. Why would he care if Medicaid gets gutted?
randy khan
@clay:
This.
raven
Fresh Spanish Mackerel sammy’s for lunch. Bohdi and Lil Bit are so happy that it doesn’t freeze well!
p.a.
@clay: +10
TenguPhule
@clay:
The chaos the destruction would cause and civil unrest resulting from it are things he definitely would though.
Corner Stone
@clay:
I get that angle but why be blunt about it? Now the D’s have said out loud they would obstruct the R’s if they could. Why not talk trash about the bill the whole time and let the R’s fight themselves over how or when to have a vote?
smintheus
The fear is that the Senate might pass a more ‘moderate’ version doing a more ‘moderate’ amount of damage, and then in conference with the House something passable could emerge.
It’s like if I had an arsonist for a neighbor I’d try to stop him when it looks like he’s going to set fire to his own property when the other whackadoodle neighbor who lives in between might compromise with that other idiot by agreeing to set fire instead to my house.
Jeffro
Cole tweeted a snippet of Bill Burr’s “I’m Sorry You Feel That Way” special…the segment about the NFL draft. Made my afternoon! (Don’t tell Cole =)
Major Major Major Major
Or, it’s not eleventy billion dimensional chess, and the democrats would rather not risk it inching closer to passage. David said just yesterday (wasn’t it?) that the real point of the ‘new’ AHCA is just to reach a conference committee.
ETA: smintheus beat me.
rikyrah
Dolt45 is setting up the ZEGK to be the fall guy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/04/27/daily-202-trump-is-setting-up-paul-ryan-to-be-his-fall-guy/590120cfe9b69b3a72331ed5/?utm_term=.79b658d9fef8
Timurid
@TenguPhule: If the AHCA actually becomes law, there could be real civil unrest. That bill is effectively an act of war. Bin Laden got shot in the face for much less.
kindness
Making Republicans look as incompetent at ruling as they actually are is always a plus in my book. And if it gives the vapors to Trump and he tweets a storm about it Democrats are in even better shape.
Bring on the sand in the gears in addition to the mockery I say.
eemom
@raven:
Hi raven — did you hear that Suzanne, the late night GOOD mod at FDL back in its pre-shit days, passed away last week? Very sad….
rikyrah
A well placed source is telling me-IC has tape that was delivered to Moscow by Page. Details hacking for removing sanctions. Quid Pro Quo.
— Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) April 27, 2017
The Moar You Know
Fake news. There are not two GOP moderates in the United States, much less Congress.
Petorado
Can we quit with calling the jerkiest Congressional jerks the “Freedom Caucus”? The “Flaming A-hole Caucus” is far more accurate and descriptive of who these knuckleheads really are. Enough of letting this country’s far right co-opt symbols and terms that they do nothing but disrespect and pervert.
raven
@eemom: Aw, I didn’t. I wonder how Christy is with her Lupus?
germy
Yes, no, maybe
Can you repeat the question?
sukabi
@Gravenstone: stalling also gives the CBO time to score the pos…something the Rs don’t want. Makes their lying a bit more difficult.
rikyrah
The Far Left Is Still Out Of Touch With Black Voters
This week, the internet was set ablaze with hot takes relating to former President Obama’s decision to get paid to speak at a healthcare conference. The conference was organized by Cantor Fitzgerald, a bond firm, which apparently makes it an enemy of state to the far left. The consensus among the far left is that Obama’s decision to get paid to speak is evidence of political corruption. On its face, this is just an absurd statement with no basis in fact: Obama is legally barred from running for President again, and his wife, Michelle Obama, has repeated indicated she has no interest in politics. How can the money be a bribe for the Obamas if they have no future in public office?
But when you dig deeper to the root of the criticism, you start to see some ugly truths about the far left and race in America. You start to see why Sanders’ movement was overwhelmingly white and struggled mightily to get the support of the people of color they needed to have any chance at winning the primary. There is a major disconnect between Sanders and his followers and the majority of Black voters in this country, and the latest spat with Obama is just the most recent indication of that.
…………………………………..
The Vitriolic Criticism Of Obama Highlights Black Voters’ Problems With The Far Left
In late 2016, nearly 9 out of 10 Black voters approved of President Obama. To many Black voters, he is the symbol of success for Black America. You might not agree with everything he has done, and I certainly haven’t agreed with everything, but you have to respect him for what he means to Black Americans-making it to the height of American politics and withstanding eight years of racist attacks. Sanders and his movement see Obama as symbolic of evil neoliberal corporate interests. Therein lies the disconnect. The far right holds disdain for Obama for some of the same reasons that the far left does: they see him as beholden to special interests instead of “those of the people.”
Black people can see this, they aren’t stupid. They see that the political fringe on the left and most of the right hates Obama for some of the same reasons. So when the far left comes out and says that the first Black President should be held to a different standard than Presidents before him — that he doesn’t deserve to get paid for his post-Presidential work or shouldn’t be compensated — the Black community feels that one of its largest symbols of success is under attack from an overwhelmingly white political movement.
Why does the far left believe the first Black president should be held to a standard of making less money? Why does the far left believe that the first Black president doesn’t deserve to be compensated for his work? These are the issues that resonate with the black community. The rebuttal will be, well, the money is corporate, the money is from Wall Street. Well, nobody in the far left was coming for Sanders when he invested his money on Wall Street. Nobody on the far left was coming for The Young Turks when they took $4 million from Republicans. There are a plethora of organizations and publications on the far left that take big money from corporate donors, Republicans, and Wall Street investment bankers. But they are not viciously attacked for making money or taking in millions in donations. Why do they hold the first Black President to a standard they don’t hold themselves to? They haven’t just come for Obama either. They’ve heavily criticized activist DeRay and the Black women behind Safety Pin Box for making money for their work, accusing them of being beholden to corporate interests. When Obama, DeRay, or Safety Pin Box is making money, all of a sudden the far left has a problem with it. But when their own organizations and publications are taking Wall Street or corporate donations, there is no anger, no criticism, no vitriol.
Do you see how Black people see this? How we look at this and say “They don’t want Black people to succeed or to be represented in politics, business, or media? They don’t want Black people to make money?” This is a movement that hates identity politics, refused to campaign in the diverse southern states, and calls out prominent successful Black people for getting paid for their work. Vox wrote an article saying that Obama shouldn’t have taken the money not because it was corruption (it clearly wasn’t) but because of the optics could make it appear so. Well, think about how the optics of how the far left appears to Black people. From a Black perspective, you can see how the far left and the far right’s criticisms of prominent Black people appear very similar?
kindness
@germy: Guess we need to start asking Sanders to show his tax returns again. Every fucking reporter that talks to him.
Corner Stone
@Jeffro: Cole really needs to change his twit handle. Every time I see it I read it as “Schrodinger’s Dong”.
The Moar You Know
@clay: Because this:
is not his long game. Those are immediate goals, and you are accurate in citing them. But there’s more, as the guy on TV used to say. The long game is to internally destabilize America and Western Europe, have them fall into internal disarray, preferably civil war, so that he can move into the power vacuum left behind. That’s why he’d certainly like to see Medicaid get gutted.
Putin is not a short-term thinker. That’s one reason he’s truly dangerous.
Major Major Major Major
@germy: it’s not like he volunteered it, he was asked. Obama said the same thing.
Chris
Because I don’t trust the moderates not to cave, and because the sooner it dies the better.
Better a bill that dies in the Senate than a bill that passes, but even better a bill that dies in the House, and better still a bill that never even comes to a vote.
Spanky
Oops! Chalk one up for the sheep:
WaPo:
More.
Suzanne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
TROOF. The only real centrists are Dems. There’s no real moderates in the GOP anymore. There’s only more vs. less spine, but the policy goals remain the same. Let ’em twist in the wind over it.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: The more I see of these the more worried I become that nothing’s ever going to come out of it.
germy
encephalopath
With their fractured caucus, it’s becoming clear that Republicans don’t have a governing majority on a bunch of issues. So you have to wonder, what CAN they actually pass?
Anything? Can they pass a budget? Are they just going to snipe at one another and be content with making the legislature do nothing for the next two year? That’s been their only proven skill since the mid 90s.
Stick with what works, I guess.
trollhattan
@kindness:
My preference is acknowledging he’s past his sell-by date and no longer relevant, so stop pointing cameras at his every utterance.
Spanky
@raven: Well, she’s on LinkedIn and I think Facebook, although I can’t reach either one at work. Lawyer.com says her practice status is Inactive.
Not much to go on, other than LinkedIn is relatively new-fangled, and she’s active enough that she thought it worth while to be on it.
randy khan
@encephalopath:
I really hope that’s the case. If they don’t have a governing majority, the damage will be much less than it could be.
Major Major Major Major
@encephalopath: they can probably agree on some wars.
efgoldman
@TenguPhule:
I know you live in the worst of all possible worlds in your mind, but why do the Russians give a shit about health insurance in the US, or any where else? It’s not like it would get us into a war with Iran or get the oil embargo lifted.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: That MattY piece in Vox was a whole bunch of bullshit. Why shouldn’t he take their money? This isn’t a fucking nonprofit enterprise here. I accept as much compensation as I can get for my effort. I then vote to turn it around to society in the form of taxes, or donate to nonprofits with a mission I believe in. The Left would do better if we would stop acting like capitalism is a sign of moral failure. GOD MattY is stupid.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: I don’t want to keep betting on Republicans doing the smart thing. I don’t like the odds.
japa21
@Timurid: Which is why, in the minds of many, 11/9/2016 will go down in history as a greater tragedy for the US than 9/11/2001.
David Lowe
If this bill passes the House, it will be heavily amended in the Senate and then sent to a conference committee. Then whatever the conference committee produces has a good chance to pass both houses and become law. The best opportunity to stop the repeal is before it reaches the Senate.
This is a tax bill, and tax bills have to start in the House. It’s in the Constitution.
BCHS Class of 1980
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I refer to them as the “endangered”
acallidryas
Remember when a lot of people were like, “Ha! I hope the Republicans do nominate Donald Trump, since there’s no way he’d be elected!” Yeah….. that’s why we don’t want this atrocity to pass the House. I hope we’ve all learned a valuable lesson about under estimating Republicans’ abilities to be awful and overestimating their integrity/caring about the country.
germy
@Major Major Major Major:
Who knows? Maybe he would have won.
I mean, if I’d come here a year ago and said I thought the freaking donald was going to win the election I would have been laughed right out of this place.
Patricia Kayden
@encephalopath: Republicans are great at obstructing Democratic Presidents. They’re lousy and ineffective at actually getting stuff done when they’re in charge of everything. They’re behaving exactly how you’d expect a dog to behave if he finally caught that elusive car and didn’t know what the hell to do with it.
Major Major Major Major
@acallidryas: relatedly, this is why strategic crossover voting is stupid.
@germy: I mean, he might have! It’s not really worth talking about. He’s right.
Spanky
@efgoldman: See @The Moar You Know: . Anything that destabilizes the US is a plus in Vlad’s beady eyes. And such a bargain!
Origuy
@Spanky: I’ve seen Russians drive in Moscow. They’re probably worse in the Black Sea.
Chris
@Suzanne:
This.
The party is diverse enough that with nothing but Dems you’ll probably arrive at a reasonable middle ground between the different interests or factions that are usually viewed as “liberal” and “conservative” – business and labor, economic and environmental concerns, soft power and hard power, law and order vs social justice, etc.
BCHS Class of 1980
@raven: That brought back memories of many years ago when I actually read FDL. Christy was from WV I think.
Chris
@SatanicPanic:
This.
Spanky
@Origuy: Has the dashboard cam video surfaced on Youtube yet?
SatanicPanic
@Suzanne: Normally I like Matt because he’s not hand-wringing about this kind of thing. That came out of left field for me, but sadly maybe it is just about race. Related but this is why I don’t trust populism, even from the left- once you start encouraging people to get angry about economic misfortune, it tends to get out of hand. And no matter what point you started from and who your original enemies were, white people have a strong tendency to eventually settle on brown people as the real bad guys.
rikyrah
They settled with Dr. Dao.
UNDER 30 DAYS it took for United to pay him.
Damn.
He.got.PAID.!!
BCHS Class of 1980
@Corner Stone: Which means it’s both there and not there until he loses his pants.
Spanky
And I never did get what Doug!’s reference to Ruby Tuesday has to do with anything.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: There will always be a reason to criticize President Obama for many White dudes on the extreme left. He was never lefty enough for them and whatever he does now will be fodder for criticism. I’m so glad that he served his terms with dignity and class and is now free to do whatever the hell he wants. May he earn all the money and enjoy the world.
clay
@The Moar You Know:
I dunno…. We’d need Adam to comment, but my understanding is that he wants more money and a tighter grip at home. Sanctions hurt his pocket, so he wants them lifted. NATO encroaches on his borders, so he wants it destabilized.
Take over the world? He doesn’t have the military to do it by force, or a diverse enough portfolio to do it economically. (China would much more likely fill that vacuum than Russia.) I mean, he’s 64… He can’t be playing TOO long of a game… (And I don’t think he’s the type to give two shits about his legacy; he only cares about himself. He’s very Trump-like in that regard.)
I think he does want destabilization of the West, but not so he can fill the void, but because it amuses him, and helps him achieve the goals I already stated. In other words, I think we mostly agree, you and I, except about which is the cause and which is the effect.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: That’s what happens when you’re guilty as hell. They need to cut out that stupid policy which led to this settlement.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: As I recall they said this two weeks ago too. Always waiting for Fitzmas?
ruemara
@Humboldtblue: I was hearing that this single-payer bill was not going well. Ugh, I’m gonna have to piss off people who know me, with facts.
@Suzanne: The whole thing is pissing me off and reminding of way too much of my life. On FB, I expressed a wish that all the critics grab a rusty pitchfork, some KY and go town on all their orifii. This is yet another lefty blindspot coming out and I still don’t see any soul searching making a change.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman: I know you don’t have an ounce of imagination, but just this once, pretend you do.
Spanky
@Origuy: Also too: Eight thousand sheep and apparently only one ram.
efgoldman
@rikyrah:
Ahem. From the article:
Assumes many, many facts not in evidence, including “thought”, “planning”, and “strategy” by Citrus Shitweasel, and any sort of competence by Granny Starver.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
I have to say as a white person, my eyes were snapped WIDE open in 2008 when I saw how many supposedly liberal white people lost their goddamned minds when they suddenly had a black boss. That was a huge shock to me.
And I can’t help but notice that the only white people who are held to the same standards that Black people are just happen to be Bill and Hillary Clinton. ?
Millard Filmore
@rikyrah: If you are engaged in a conspiracy against the government, never forget that each telephone, cell phone, TV, and any internet connected device with a microphone can be commandeered to record your actions. All without invading the room to plant bugs.
sukabi
@Suzanne: think he’s bought into the whole bullshit package put out by the Republicans that states that a Democrat can’t / shouldn’t be able to use their experience / expertise to earn a living or even just pick up some extra money WITHOUT approval from the village. And definitely if they do make money they need to donate it all or they are betraying all their (former) supporters.
Pure bullshit, and funny how the same “standards” don’t apply to anyone else.
lowercase steve
I don’t see why not. Pelosi is just humiliating them. It is a political loss whether or not they hold the vote and whether or not it passes.
Don’t hold the vote and look feckless and bullied.
Hold the vote and you get a government shutdown and write the campaign ads against anyone who votes yes.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Paging Dr. Freud. LOL.
Corner Stone
@BCHS Class of 1980:
Since he now has a girlfriend I would think knowledge of where one’s dong is at all times could be important.
Suzanne
@SatanicPanic:
This culture has long expected minorities, women, LGBTs, etc. to take the high road, when we don’t expect it of whites, men, straights, etc. The personal is political for people who aren’t straight white dudes.
Liberals are capitalists. I am a capitalist. I believe that capitalism is best served by a strong social safety net, but I absolutely believe that no one else is going to look out for my best interests, so I am going to do it. BHO should absolutely be compensated for his labor, and there is nothing even remotely immoral about maximizing one’s personal advantage if others’ needs are adequately met. This party needs to get over its reflexive instinct that wealth and power are in and of themselves bad.
Flashing back to the conversation I had on John’s Facebook wall in which someone asked me incredulously, “You think that you deserve to make more money than me because you went to college and I didn’t?” To which I said, “Yes, absolutely.”
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
MattY was also one of the people leading the charge against Chelsea Clinton on Twitter to demand that she pinky-swear she’s never running for office.
Lips pursed, as rikyrah says.
TenguPhule
@Mnemosyne:
Because Bill Clinton was the first black president.
FTFNYT and their Clinton rules bullshit, which morphed into the Obama rules bullshit.
Major Major Major Major
@Millard Filmore: and microwave!
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Yep. I can imagine Trump boasting about when he says “jump”, Senators ask, “how high?” in his post-Presidential memoir.
Barbara
Here is what I think is going on, although I am not letting up on my Facebook awareness campaign to one and all to call their Republican representatives: The Free-to-be-Dumb Caucus are currently seen as having been pivotal in the repeal failure the first time around. They are also the ones who most vociferously pledged to repeal the ACA and the ones whose constituents are most likely to hold it against them for not having repealed the ACA — even if it is just through a primary from the right. Yet, they do know that the so-called moderates are actually more resistant to repeal. They want a visible, widely reported event that shifts responsibility for the failure of repeal to the so-called moderates.
efgoldman
@Petorado:
Our media overlords use the appellation they have chosen for themselves.
I like my designation of kkkrazy kkkaukus. Hits all the important points.
Suzanne
@sukabi: This is why minorities and women make the entirely valid claim that they have to be “better” than their peers just to keep pace with their peers. No one expects a white man to turn down ludicrous levels of compensation.
Corner Stone
@SatanicPanic:
It’s not about counting on being smart or making a smart decision. That was not what happened on the first AHCA non-vote. They started pissing in each other’s cereal with no help from the D’s.
Just suggesting we don’t give them a rallying point while they are in the process of strapping their wrists together and holding a knife in the other.
TenguPhule
@Suzanne:
And this is the fundamental failure of the Trumpsters. Its always an eternal 1950 in their minds, when ignorance didn’t stop you from making a good living which unions had bled and died to give them.
Neldob
@randy khan: I find it obsequious and grating to call republicans conservative, seeing as they are absolutely not. Neither are they moderate.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
The worry is about the Senate. A bill out of the house means the Senate has to respond. And trusting THEM to do the smart thing is gambling with people’s lives on the line.
Barbara
@Suzanne: Matt Yglesias is a child of privilege and a trust fund baby through and through. He is a good guy most of the time and a competent writer. But give me a break. If someone paid me $400,000 to speak I would take it, especially since I am never running for public office. Truly, I am not going to give them anything other than the prestige of my presence and the wisdom of my words. The habit of engaging in self-inflicted idiocy over the smallest of matters is embarrassing.
ETA: Meanwhile, President and Princess Dumbshit are openly and obviously selling real access in exchange for real money but the press has to go berserk over a guy who has no access left to give.
SatanicPanic
@Suzanne: I feel like a lot of this “you can’t make money or you’re bad” thing is coming from people who are either privileged with jobs that make it so they don’t have to care- college professors, or Senate seats in small Northeast states- or they’re students or something. If someone asked me to speak for $400K, it would have to be somewhere truly evil before I said no. I’d turn down Kim Jong Un. But bankers? Whatever, who cares.
efgoldman
@rikyrah:
Well it’s actually a bribe for the girls when they run for office with Chelsea Clinton.
Christ on a cracker, these assholes are as bad as the mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging RWNJ flying monkeys.
They are not Democrats, they’re never going to vote for Democrats. We should no more reach out to them than we should to the racist RWNJ WWC.
Fuckem
Kristine
@raven: Yum! I had pretty much the same thing for lunch–toasted roll, cole slaw–but roasted salmon instead of mackerel. It was good.
liberal
LOL. “Moderate”. Americans for Democratic Action gives this douchenozzle a 5% rating.
Spanky
@Corner Stone: Well, he keeps it in a box, but is it alive or is it dead?
Mnemosyne
@Barbara:
And this is probably the most depressing part of what we’re stuck in: the only thing the party in power knows how to do is blame everyone else for their failures. They have no clue how to actually DO anything.
SatanicPanic
@Corner Stone: Oops, I thought we were talking about the AHCA. I agree with you on Russia.
Geeno
@Corner Stone: I would not want a quantum dong. I like knowing where it is..
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
Hillary is a woman. Bill was (to many, still is and always will be) Arkansas “white trash.”
Neither is comparable to being black, exactly, but both tend to trigger similar disdain in many of the same circle. Including, sadly, some parts of the purist left.
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: And thank God for that. Seriously, Paul Ryan’s obvious incompetence is the only thing I actually like about him.
TenguPhule
@SatanicPanic:
“If you can’t eat their food, drink their wine, screw their women and then vote against them, what’s the point of being in politics?”
Being paid to tell bankers to behave more ethically should be applauded, not condemned.
Suzanne
@Suzanne: I’m remembering a story in which a black woman got harassed or arrested by security or the police at Barney’s when she went it to buy an expensive handbag. There was a not-small amount of protest from working- and middle-class white people who were aghast that she would spend her money on an expensive luxury item. (I think the woman was a middle-class black woman with a job, and she had saved up her money for the bag.). But no one bats an eye when rich white kept women have the same handbag.
Like, maybe spending a grand on a handbag is dumb, but why do we expect black women to be morally superior and not buy those things? Why is it not objectionable when rich white women married to Gordon Gekko have them?
Tim C.
Blocking it in the House is even better than having it fail in the Senate because we can still nail the supporters for supporting a terrible, no-good, very bad, terrible horrible and unpopular bill, but to the true believers the GOP seems weaker and weaker by the day when they can’t even get it to a vote.
TenguPhule
@Geeno: But then you wouldn’t know how fast its going.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Kay fell for the rhetoric a little bit and was arguing yesterday that it was a form of double-dipping between a government job and a government pension, but I think we were able to talk it down. It seemed to be a combination of feeling that speaking fees are out of control (which isn’t the fault of the speakers) and some actual double-dipping that was going on in her county.
Barbara
@SatanicPanic: There may be some jealousy or just shock at the thought that someone could make that kind of money just for speaking. Asking why this comes as a shock in a nation where Kim Kardashian is an independently wealthy woman just for letting you see her strut around in her own home is probably the best way to respond to some of these people.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think dragging it out is a good idea – the longer the Republicans think about it the more their fractions will go at it with each other.
eemom
@Spanky:
The so-called “moderates” call themselves The Tuesday Group.
And to paraphrase another famous lyric, moderate’s just another word for 2018 to lose.
Millard Filmore
@TenguPhule:
I went to college and have a nice middle class salary. It has always been irksome that Longshoremen, who if they had known me in high school would have spit on me as they pass by, are paid AT LEAST as well as me.
liberal
@Humboldtblue:
LOL. Heavily taxed? Certainly not when it comes to real estate taxes.
Barbara
@Suzanne: No one bats an eyelash when non-rich white women spend oodles of money on handbags. My theory on expensive handbags is that no one worries that they won’t fit or will make them look old or fat. It’s amazing what women spend on handbags.
Suzanne
@SatanicPanic: I think there’s just a small-but-vocal contingent who sees entirely valid concerns about income inequality and then blows that up into notions of personal worth, and that’s when we get Wilmer-ish idiocy.
Mike J
@Chris: Read Toni Morrison’s original article in which she coins “first black president”.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/10/05/comment-6543
LurkerNoLonger
@Patricia Kayden: Damn right, Patricia. He doesn’t answer to anyone anymore. By the way, why is this even an issue?
efgoldman
@acallidryas:
They couldn’t find integrity if you handed them a dictionary and spotted them the first four letters.
And they absolutely positively don’t give a flying fuck about the country or their voters.
The thing they care most about is getting re-elected, and especially in districts that went to HRC or were close, they know their prospects next year in those districts are tough enough, so….
Corner Stone
@TenguPhule:
Possibly the stupidest quote about politics I repeatedly keep hearing. For my entire life. And it has never once been true.
TenguPhule
@Suzanne:
Young White woman married into money = respectable whore
Black woman with money = dirty thief
I blame Sherman for not burning Atlanta with the slave owners inside of their homes.
liberal
@Barbara:
Right. With Kim Kardashian, just like with a politician (ex or otherwise), there’s the possibility for corruption.
liberal
@rikyrah:
LOL. Yeah, sure.
lowercase steve
@efgoldman:
It’s not a bribe for Obama but I do understand the squeamishness about this from a regulatory capture perspective. SEC regulators know that if they are friendly to banks while in government there will be cushy jobs waiting for them when they leave. The threat of withdrawing that sort of benefit may influence the regulator to go soft. So really any government official (not just the president) who can expect to make a ton of money after office if they are business-friendly may be compromised.
That is not specific to Obama;it is really about the creation/sustaining of a norm that can undermine good government. Now deciding that Obama is the one who has to make the stand while a bunch of other white politicians get a pass…that is something. But the larger point remains.
Corner Stone
@Geeno:
But what if it could travel through time and be in multiple places at once? Maybe it could resolve a lot of the world’s previous injustices.
Gravenstone
@Mnemosyne:
Funny you mention this, because guess who the White House is blaming for Flynn? That’s right, Obama!. Fucking bastard Twitler can’t take responsibility for a single damned thing. It’s always the fault of that skinny Black guy who came before him.
Major Major Major Major
@liberal: @liberal: @liberal: God, you’re dull.
TenguPhule
@lowercase steve:
But Obama is getting speaking fees AFTER leaving office and AFTER trying to regulate Wall Street. And after being given grief about NOT being business friendly by the business lobbies. Why shouldn’t he be allowed to get some of his own back?
Jeffro
Bill Burr still killing me here…talking about adopting a kid from a sweat shop and a kid soldier…an attempted helicopter suicide…the stupidity of having a gun for self defense…LOL…
randy khan
@lowercase steve:
The truth of the matter is that you don’t need to be friendly to the people you regulate to get a cushy job once you leave government. I work in a regulated business and the companies regularly hire the people who give them the most trouble – I’ve argued that it’s actually the best way to get a good private sector job because the companies want you out of their hair.
D58826
ANY way to grease said plank to help them on their journey?
SatanicPanic
@Suzanne: We also have our own contingent of moral scolds. They just harp on taking shorter showers or giving up meat instead of the stuff the right always acts angry about. I wish people would not encourage the scolds.
Felonius Monk
Because voting on a weekend is like voting in secret. Nobody will be paying attention, so the rethugs will think everything is cool.
SatanicPanic
@lowercase steve: That’s maybe it or it might just be that having the president show up at your corporate event is a big deal. Clubs will pay celebrities to come party at their club and Obama is very much a celebrity.
Elie
@Suzanne:
I agree its crap — We are in this horrible place of ongoing judgement or purity screening all Democrats who were or are in leadership of the party. Its a bad hang over from Bernie but not just because of him. Its the times — people are unhappy and not able to feel that they have any possibility of change. We don’t see our possibilities as abundant anymore. We feel like we are all fighting for scraps instead of that growth and success are in front of us. How will we have to change this? Through positive engagement and action. Once we (the Democrats and progressives), get on a roll of electing some good folks and other successes, I believe some of this bitching and sniping will diminish. (At least I hope so!)
Mike J
@Barbara:
People always act upset when others make a lot of money for something they don’t deem worthy, like speaking or sports or singing. The question I ask is, if the employees were to make less money for their work, where would all those excess dollars wind up?
Geeno
@TenguPhule: Sadly, at my age, I’m painfully aware of how “fast” it’s going.
efgoldman
@Barbara:
I don’t know. That’s the kind of inside baseball that the Village loves, but pretty much nobody in the real world of their voters knows or cares about.
FlipYrWhig
Didja notice that the whole “Obama Wall Street speech or something” mishegoss exploded _immediately_ after a few days of bad press for His Holy Eminence Bernie Sanders? Almost like people wanted to overcompensate for something?
lowercase steve
@TenguPhule:
I’d say it is totally reasonable for him within the system as structured but that the system shouldn’t be structured that way. In that sense people are angry at him for something that is really not about him. Sure maybe you can ask that he be the ultimate saint and lead the charge against this sort of thing..blah, blah. But that is that weird thing that left wingers do again, where one savior is going to fix everything.
catclub
@Humboldtblue:
I would guess that the key to getting something that works is somehow capturing the money that employers put into employee health insurance.
As well as the money the employees put into that insurance.
Just imagine a $10k/employee tax on every employer that provides health insurance, plus a $3k tax on every employee who gets health insurance.
Geeno
@Corner Stone: You have undeservedly high expectations of my dong.
TenguPhule
@Geeno: Surely there’s an app for that.
efgoldman
@liberal:
That high? Wow he’s damned near a liberal.
Corner Stone
@Geeno: Hey, if Scott Bakula could do it…
ETA, Scott dammit. Scott Bakula.
lowercase steve
@SatanicPanic:
Sure, and most of this stuff isn’t nefarious on either side but it does distort incentives and thinking in ways that even the participants might not be fully aware of.
Hilary Clinton, for example, was not corrupt but she spent a ton of time hanging out with rich people. It is completely human to begin to sympathize with their positions, to give them the benefit of the doubt, to have their concerns become more salient than those of others who you do not constantly chat/dine/drink with. I think Obama himself talked about that bubble effect and how it subtly shapes your positions and perceptions.
ruemara
FYI, Obama is speaking at a health conference. Not for Wall Street. A Health. Conference. These purity ponies can’t even get details correct.
Barbara
@Elie: I remember reading — and I can’t remember where — about British politics between 1945 and 1970, wherein, a certain class of educated and mostly well-off people loved the working class and hated the so-called bourgeoisie — people who too transparently worked hard to earn more money, I guess — but when the average working class person was consulted about their actual desires, most wanted the same thing their bourgeois counterparts wanted. I think a lot of people, perhaps including Sanders and his purity ponies, really are committed to equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. I think these people have a hard time recognizing that inequality of outcome is not necessarily or at least not only the result of injustice. Some people really do care about money more than others, some people are better at business, get lucky, are more talented or what have you. To the extent that payment for speaking seems like a manifestation of a political class in which money trumps other values, all I can say is, money in politics is least likely to do harm at the back end of a politician’s career.
TenguPhule
And if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
His tax list is beyond epic fail. They must have made a mistake when translating it from the original Russian.
Barbara
@efgoldman: The people who fund RWNJ campaigns are part of the village.
Yarrow
@raven: YUM! That’s food pr0n. Looks delicious.
jeffreyw
@raven: that there is some fine picture takin, pal
efgoldman
@Millard Filmore:
Snobbery of the worst sort. They have skills you don’t, they do hard physical labor, and their job is more dangerous than yours.
I went into a trucking company management training program out of college in the late 60s. I spent the first month or so riding with Teamster union drivers who made (relative to me and the times) a ton of money. The thing that impressed me most was their professionalism and their skill. They deserved every nickel they got.
I do not have the skill to frame a wall, install water lines, or lay brick. I’m guessing that you don’t either. The people that do should be paid what they can get.
Elie
@lowercase steve:
But even as you cite, are all of our leaders to avoid any real contact with the wealthy or aspire to any wealth themselves?
See, I see that what Obama has to share is knowledge and experience that few in this world have. Add to that, he is a singularly mature, and insightful person — so his knowledge and experience can be truly made available to the people who actually NEED to hear it — the “movers and shakers” who run our financial markets and in many ways have (as we all agree), outlandish influence on our lives. Who better to talk and try to shape ANY awareness in these folks? Is Obama an ascetic saint, eschewing all material blandishments? Is that what we would need for him to do any good in this new role as retired leader of the free world?
I personally hope that we can hear some of the speeches and his thoughts. Lord knows we need a whole lot of wisdom and insight to get out of the jam we are in across the world.
Also, is being wealthy a bad thing in and of itself? Are the progressives now going to just come out with an anti-wealth, anti-money platform? I hardly think so and we know, for example, the Bernie STILL released only one year of his income taxes. Why so coy? Again, I have no problem with people making money or being rich but I think some of us do because of the times we are in and our fears that our growth and abundance are forever limited…
D58826
@ruemara: And surely he knows nothing about healthcare policy. Oh wait there is that Obamacare thing.
On the other hand and somewhat OT:
Any one want to guess how many GOP congressional investigations would result from this if it was Obama or anyone with a last name of Clinton? And would there be enough time in a 24hr news cycle for the cable channels to talk about it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tariniparti/the-convicted-con-artist-of-mar-a-lago?utm_term=.xmkRvyL1n#.crwgZVy5m
Suzanne
@Mike J:
The worst is the bullshit that goes around on Facebook about how much enlisted soldiers make vs. fast food workers, and why should fast food workers make as much or more than military guys? The answer: because they can. The real answer: because as much as we fluff the military to make them feel important, we don’t really value what they do all that much, and that’s because it’s not that valuable. Something is valuable when it’s rare. Finding more working-class dudes who haven’t figured out what they want to be when they grow up but think guns are cool is not difficult. A football player can make more than a teacher (probably a woman) and that’s fine, but a brown restaurant worker wants to make more than a white male soldier and ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.
But it’s overwhelmingly white dudes who seem to think that they are entitled to the same or better outcomes despite a lack of effort. I remember a white male coworker who was astonished to find out that raises were tied to one’s annual performance review. Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white man.
D58826
@Elie:
It is if your are a democrat. Which is why Bernie gets a pass on his multiple homes and hiding his tax info
SatanicPanic
@lowercase steve: I think that’s a fair point but kind of unrealistic. I mean, what president has ever spent significant time hanging around with regular joes? If you wanted that you’d have to settle on only electing people who were from DC so they’d have a network of people they knew before they got into politics. And they’d have to be from non-political backgrounds. Would kind of narrow down the pool of possible presidents.
FlipYrWhig
@efgoldman: Sure, fine, but in a larger sense, I have known a lot of White Working Class people who are just plain assholes, with terrible political views and terrible social views. I’m not sure why the One True Path for progressive politics is supposed to involve kissing their butts _even more_ after about 150 years of having already had to kiss them. To paraphrase Muhammad Ali, no investment banker ever called me “faggot.” The same cannot be said about contractors. How about we throw in with the decent people of whatever background and stop trying to draw the lines around white collar vs. blue or suit vs. hardhat or whatever?
Elie
@Barbara:
Well said…. sigh —
I hope that we can get back to building each other up rather than sniping and knee capping. We need some other wins badly to change our focus.
efgoldman
@lowercase steve:
Funny how there’s always one group of people who think it’s their right to decide what a second group of people get paid, voluntarily, by a third group of people. This applies to athletes, performers, CEOs, and yes, ex-politicians.
Also this “rule” applies more to certain people who aren’t white males.
Money has no morals. Someone is “worth” what someone else is willing to pay.
D58826
@TenguPhule: Well if you throw in a herd of unicorns (only green ones please) and a flying horse I might be interested in the bridge.
efgoldman
@randy khan:
Sure. It’s like data security companies hiring the best hackers.
Trentrunner
@Suzanne: Elizabeth Warren says that Obama’s speech for $ from Wall Street is “troubling.”
Is Warren a Berniebro, too?
TenguPhule
@Suzanne:
Because soldiers receive in lieu of a higher cash salary, a metric shitton of benefits both during and after service. Which overall is a lot more then the fast food worker is going to get. The sad thing is, in both cases they often still can’t afford to make a living (unless on active duty and even then only because the military covers food and housing).
Mike J
@efgoldman:
And that’s why pay toilets are called Vespasians.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
Their obsession with Chelsea is disturbing. Doesn’t even ‘ border on’. It’s flat out disturbing. They are mental.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Excellent points.
Can we leave this bullshit behind now? We ARE the base and this bullshit needs to stop already.
I find it funny that “independents” and “converts” are the most strident about the so called purity of democrats, but where are they when the real work is being done, where are they when our kids are getting killed, when our votes are being suppressed? Funnily enough one doesn’t hear the same volume of noise for those things that we hear when Obama or Hillary violate some new edit that they’ve issued. Fucking assholes.
Elie
@efgoldman:
This.
Suzanne
@Trentrunner: She might not be a Berniebro, but she is wrong on this issue. There is nothing troubling about wealth (or power) in and of itself. I am sure that BHO is very generous with his resources.
Wealth is troubling when others are going without basic needs and when an individual can’t achieve it because of the social class they were born into.
rikyrah
@Millard Filmore:
What bothers me is that the reason why they get a good salary – unions – they will spit on them.
ruemara
@Trentrunner: Yes. As she’s going around hawking her new book. And if it’s troubling to her, SO FUCKING WHAT. You don’t own Barack Obama. You’re not making his house payments or putting his kids through college or paying his bills in any way shape or form, except medical care. Don’t toss out Warren as some kind of ward against the very valid criticism of a racist double standard within democratic circles. No one was supposed to look at Jane Sanders’ little financial issues, right? Why is that?
Suzanne
@TenguPhule: Jamelle Bouie rightly pointed out that society worries about coal miners and steel workers being out of work because they’re white dudes in rural areas with single industries supporting their towns. But the retail apocalypse is decimating the jobs of minorities and women in suburbs and cities, and yet……nary a peep about saving the jobs of sales workers at Sears or Sports Authority.
efgoldman
@D58826:
Berniebots are not Democrats. They are enmeshed in a cult of personalty. They do not and will not vote for Democrats.
Felonius Monk
@rikyrah:
I see that Liz Warren is now scolding Obama about this. Apparently she has a very poor understanding of economics. Too bad.
Elie
@Trentrunner:
Again — critics are just looking at the amount of money — $400K — and not the value of the person and the information that they can impart. For Obama, his value is sky high because he has a lot to share and has demonstrated ability to get it out for people to access. That is, he is supremely articulate and intelligent — people are interested in what he thinks and his analysis of situations. For many — especially the many high ranking folks who will be in the audience — there hasn’t been anyone out there with such ability to bring some perspective on our troubled world in a long time. W was certainly not of that caliber and certainly none of the ex leaders of the European Union. Bill was a long time ago and Hillary never got there (sadly). I think that they think he is worth every penny. Also, I truly believe that he will do and give away a lot of his time for free for not for profits etc and indeed may himself be a generous donator.
Millard Filmore
@efgoldman:
Could be. I learned of this situation back in my youthful Libertarian phase so the money part could be sloughed off with “whatever the market will bear”. The part that annoyed me the most was that they REALLY would have spit on me in high school. My old age consolation is that at a ripe age, my hair color is still mostly still there, my chest is not below my belt, my knees still work, and I will outlive most of them.
Gelfling 545
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: They’re not actual moderates so much as people who would like to be re-elected.
Elie
@Felonius Monk:
Naw — I think she gets it but had to say something like that. Remember she has been in trouble with some of the Bernie folks who don’t see her as loyal enough to populism… maybe she felt she had to lay down some cred with them again. Her comment was pretty nothingburger…
FlipYrWhig
@Suzanne: Remember when we supposedly learned by the outcome of the 2008 primaries and general election that we had finally moved on to no longer having to worry about the heartland white moderate? I can’t believe that in 2016 we have to suffer through all this bloviating about the further needs of the heartland white moderate, just slightly remixed to cater to the fantasies of the lefties who think that what heartland white moderates REALLY want is something something economic populism income inequality in the form of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . I got news for ya, folks: that’s not what they want. What they want is fewer brown people around.
Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)
@TenguPhule: Yuuuuuuuuup!
hueyplong
@TenguPhule: I figure we only have 1000 or so Fitzmas references in this website, and am hopeful that limit is about to be reached. It’s nearing Munich-level saturation as an analogy.
Elie
@efgoldman:
I agree — Bernie = personality cult. They are pretty subversive down here in the localities and do a lot of insider manipulation against the Democrats.
efgoldman
@FlipYrWhig:
Millard’s takeaway to me was that blue collar work was less valuable than “college graduate” work. It isn’t. There are assholes everywhere. I ran into plenty of them in my 19 years at Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC, among doctors (just look at all the RWNJ MDs in congress), lawyers, engineers….
rikyrah
Trump drives bipartisanship out of the political conversation
04/27/17 12:54 PM
By Steve Benen
………………………………………………….
HuffPost’s Jason Linkins had a piece several weeks ago that’s been on my mind lately about how the chorus of calls for bipartisanship has “fallen silent” now that Trump’s in the Oval Office.
Doug!
@Spanky:
They are called the Tuesday Group and they will all be out of office soon.
Chris
@Suzanne:
::points at Suzanne::
That’s why I’ve got no confidence – she took it! All my problems are her fault! Get her!
PJ
@efgoldman: But people do, or at least can have morals. And there are always people who will use money to influence the morals of others.
When it comes to performers or athletes, it’s typically a question of demand – how much is the person going to improve our team (which means more $ for the owners), or how many people are willing to pay whatever amount to see this act. When it comes to CEOs, there is too often a disconnect between the value that CEO provides to the company because often board members are out to lunch or on the same gravy train the CEO is on, and it pays them to keep their mouths shut – the actual performance of the company is irrelevant, so long as the workers get squeezed as much as possible everyone is happy. But there is often no real connection between company performance or value and CEO compensation. When workers lose their jobs or companies go bankrupt while executives get bonuses and golden parachutes, it is, in my opinion, immoral.
When it comes to paying ex-politicians or government officials, the question will always exist – how much is this some kind of payback for services rendered? Or for future use of influence? There may, in fact, be no quid pro quo (as seems obvious with Cantor Fitzgerald), but it doesn’t make the question go away. No one cares about whether Republican ex-officials get paid, because they’re expected to be corrupt, but Democrats will be held to a different standard.
efgoldman
@Trentrunner:
Nope.
Doesn’t mean she can’t be wrong or have a blind spot.
SatanicPanic
@FlipYrWhig: This. Honestly I don’t care if someone makes more money than me by being a plumber or whatever, just don’t be a jerk. I don’t care if you’re a millionaire from doing YouTube videos, just don’t be gross. And don’t close off opportunities for other people. That’s all I ask.
TenguPhule
@Suzanne:
Because operating a cash register is not real work.
Again, its ALWAYS the eternal 1950s in some people’s minds.
FlipYrWhig
@efgoldman: Right, I agree with that, but like Millard I’m getting tired of hearing about the unique wonderfulness and/or despair of the White Working Class Man. I have my doubts that any given White Working Class Man and I are likely to be on the same side of many issues. Which is why my view on the politics of the White Working Class Man is that they should try pestering Republicans to help them. That’s who they want to vote for, after all. At least if those were the interests championed by the Republican Party, the Republican Party would stand for something other than spite and hypothetical babies.
TenguPhule
@FlipYrWhig:
But then they wouldn’t be Republicans.
TenguPhule
@efgoldman: Unfortunately that blind spot is more common among the loudest voices in the Democratic party voting base.
Elie
@PJ:
What you seem to imply in your last paragraph, and generally in your comment, is that getting paid some “x” amount of money is defacto “corruption”. You stated that everyone “expects” Republicans to take money and ergo to be “corrupt”. Its subtle, but I ask you to examine that because it is making an equivalency between some x amount of money and corruption. While I am not naïve to think that money and corruption are not sometimes related, in what way does an ex politician who is no longer in office to influence or his wife, “corrupt” for exchanging a handsome payment for very unique knowledge and experience?
Suzanne
@FlipYrWhig: I am done worrying about the heartland white moderate. Or at least, worrying about them more than all the other people I see around me who are also in precarious situations.
@efgoldman:
“Blue-collar” work often is less “valuable”, because there are more people who can do it. There are a lot of people who can frame a wall, or could do it with not much investment of time and money in training/practice. There are fewer people who can design or engineer a wall. Those people invested more money and time into their training. Ergo, it seems entirely proper to me that those people are enumerated more highly.
Now, there’s no moral differentiator between the two types of work. Both roles are valuable to others. Both a framer and a structural engineer are important people and we need them both. But it’s not weird or snobbish to think that it’s okay for one to make more money.
Steve in the ATL
@Millard Filmore:
I represented the port authority when I was a baby lawyer. Started deposing longshoremen and was quite shocked to learn that they all made more money than I did. Called my parents and asked them why did they want me to stay in school past eight grade.
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule: Touche. But that also means that the mythic WWC is fine with that, which has a bearing on why the WWC is an unlikely place to find support for economic populism and social democracy, no matter how much Sandersites wish it to be so. West Virginia voted for a Democratic governor who was… a billionaire. Desperate West Virginians don’t seem to be clamoring for someone on par with Bernie Sanders.
efgoldman
@PJ:
It’s a stupid construct. How much is “too much?” For what job? Who decides? By law? Do we move to the great socialist paradise where everybody (including berniebots) has their income limited? Where we confiscate Bill Gates’ or Elon Musk’s or Giancarlo Stanton’s houses and bank accounts?
Sorry, no. It’s bullshit.
TenguPhule
@Suzanne:
That’s what you think. In practice, it can get a lot more complicated then that.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
Because they wanted your knees to still be with you into your sixties.
SatanicPanic
@FlipYrWhig: I got into it with my mom the other day about the tea party lady who had the video about climate change on Vox. Her video was like “here’s how you talk to conservatives so they’ll accept climate change”. I’m like- how about she goes and talks to them herself and lets us know how it goes? I have no credibility with these people. I get that everyone would benefit if they fixed their issues, but there’s not that many hours in the day. At some point they’ll have to fix their own.
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule: But is it really the Democratic base? That’s been one of the conceptual flaws with the whole discussion of the future of the Democratic Party. Do the people who are most up in arms about “income inequality” (however that’s supposed to be handled; I don’t feel like we hear that much about what that means in terms of _action_) represent the base, or are they a segment along with other segments? Do People Out There really care a lot about Wall Street and financial capitalism? I’m sure they don’t like it, but what do they want to be done about it, and how much do they really _really_ care about it as a priority? (As a thought experiment, wouldn’t you say Democrats care at least as much about gun control as they do about banking regulation? And yet not many people say that Democrats need to go all in on gun control, the way they’re starting to say they should go all in on finance [or something, it’s never that clear to me].)
Aimai
@lowercase steve: so what? Unless you think we need to be electing Robespierre to cut off the heads of the top five percent–and Mao and pol pot to drive the intellectuals into the killing fields I see no reason for concern that a top politician can see the human side of other citizens.
TenguPhule
@FlipYrWhig: It can be hard to tell from all the shouting sometimes. But I guarantee that at DKos, somebody there and friends are complaining about Obama’s behavior.
Hell, even Kay got sucked in here.
I’m pragmatic on this issue, I can see their point, but the system doesn’t care and we can’t afford to unilaterally disarm and allow only Republicans to suck up that cash. Money is power.
The Pale Scot
@clay:
I disagree with that. Vlad is a relic, a true Soviet Man as far government power and control is. The bucks matter just because it buys influence. He sees the break up of the USSR as a historical catastrophe. The guy reportedly did a stint in the KGB’s wetwork detail. All those people falling out of windows, getting run over by cars, shot, and sipping Polonium; that’s how he operates. He wants to reinstate Russian hegemony locally and influence globally.
Like most strongman, he doesn’t seem to have a plan for how to keep it going after he’s dead.
To him the goal is a strong Russia that invokes fear and respect. Sorta like a lot yahoos in the USA. He’s a KGB agent who worked at subverting western governments. He was ambitious and expected to climb the Soviet hierarchy. Like the neocons here, there are older Russians that are nostalgic for the cold war and the certainty of good vs evil that both sides bought into. To create a Russia that is a superpower is beyond reality and he knows it. Shit their population is shrinking. But he thinks it is possible to drag the rest of the world down to Russia’s level.
Polish saying, “Russians don’t feel Russian unless they have their boot on someone’s neck”
FlipYrWhig
@Aimai: Also, in 2008 we were told that Hillary Clinton was much better at the common touch than Barack Obama, who was cerebral. There’s been way too much of a retcon job lately on the history of Hillary Clinton and the working class. And I have GRAVE doubts about the persistence of white working-class ardor for Bernie Sanders, a premise that seems like a stretch to begin with and that’s been more and more mythologized since the unfortunate events of November 2016.
TenguPhule
@The Pale Scot:
And Republicans don’t feel empowered unless the victim has to pay for the boot on their neck.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
Okay, but at least acknowledge that it’s a double standard. You’re expecting one group of people to accept less pay for themselves based on your principles, but you don’t have the same expectation for a second group.
As I was saying yesterday, I think lefties bitch about this stuff because, despite the Berniebros’ shrieks about how “corrupt” the Democratic Party is, they know that the Democrats might actually listen to them. They don’t even bother to complain about the Republicans because they know the R’s are completely corrupt and will blow them off.
So think about that for a minute. Of our two political parties, one is so corrupt that no one bothers to complain about their corruption anymore, and instead focuses all of their energy on complaining about the much smaller (often symbolic or appearance-based) corruption of the Democrats.
Basically, the Democrats are the scapegoat for all the rest of the corruption going on, and it’s hurting us at the ballot box. So can we just stop? Can we focus on the fact that Trump is making hundreds of thousands, if not millions, off of being president RIGHT NOW instead of freaking out about Obama getting paid what he’s worth?
Millard Filmore
@TenguPhule:
Take things to a more simplistic level. The structure of our Western Civilization has trended to the idea that the more people that can do a job, the less useful or worthy is the labor that gets that job done. If that was true, slavers would not have gone to war 160 years ago. The end result of “worthless” labor is that very low skill jobs pay at destructive labor rates, while the company owners who would not have a business without them make money hand over fist.
The true value of that low skill labor is very heavily skimmed.
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule: Oh, definitely, the people who care care a lot and make a lot of noise. But I don’t think the great majority of the people who like Barack Obama really give a shit about what he’s doing now, and I further don’t think that rank-and-file Democrats think of Wall Street as a particular object of vehement hatred. I think it’s more like a grumbly dislike, probably on par with how they feel about televangelists. You can score points by bringing up how you don’t like them and think they should shape up, but I don’t think many people seethe with rage about their very existence.
TooManyJens
@acallidryas:
I was just coming here to say that. We can’t afford to wish a motherfucker would.
Moderate Republicans are bullshit, though I do acknowledge the existence of “scared they’ll get voted out of office” Republicans, which I guess is what that means these days. My asshole Congressman is one of the Tuesday Groupies, and he was out there shilling for the bill on MSNBC this morning. (They pushed back on his talking points at least, thank goodness. He’s not bright enough to come up with good responses on the fly.) I cannot wait to work for his opponent’s campaign.
Gelfling 545
@germy: That sounded like a rather Trumpish answer.
Tenar Arha
@rikyrah: That was a good post. (The pundits yesterday simultaneously going after Chelsea Clinton for talking and Barack Obama for earning money for talking were like a master class in how white patriarchy protects itself).
efgoldman
@FlipYrWhig:
Bernie loves the WWC, but it’s totally, 1000% unrequited.
I was crazy about the girls that sat behind me in high school French class, too, for all the good it did me.
Suzanne
@TenguPhule: Framing walls is nowhere near as difficult or as exacting as engineering them. I have done it, and I am a mediocre-at-best carpenter. And many of the tradespeople working on my buildings are not especially good at it, either. I’ll put it this way: I am an architect and I work with a lot of engineers and contractors and interior designers and other architects. And I know a lot more designers and engineers who can build things than I know contractors and tradespeople who can design/engineer things. There are certainly some trades that take more finesse and skill and practice to get good at them (specialty machining springs to mind), but the “college-educated” people bring a lot of value to projects because their work is equally important, but there are fewer of them in the market and that is reflected in their salaries.
Construction is an industry with a lot of fluctuation in pricing, and since the local economy has improved and there’s a lot of competition for contractors right now, pricing is going up. But the most dramatic jump–by far–is in drywall. Possibly the least difficult of the major trades (compared to masonry, ironwork, plumbing, electrical, fire protection, etc.). Not for any reason other than scarcity.
Chyron HR
@Trentrunner:
No, it just means that she got the message the Great One intended when he sent one of his worshipers out to primary Nancy fucking Pelosi: “Follow me or else.”
PJ
@Elie: One of money’s basic features is that it influences people – few people would go to work if they weren’t being paid for it. When does that influence become corrupt? I would say when it induces people to engage in immoral behavior, however you want to define that. It is common for ex-politicians and officials to go into lobbying, where they are being paid precisely because of their ability to influence policy makers. Is that immoral?
In the context of speech giving, sometimes whatever the ex-politician has to offer is a bunch of bromides and obvious points (viz Clinton’s speeches to GS) that could have been delivered by a blog reader. Often, the company isn’t expecting anything from the speech – what they want is a name, a celebrity, a mover and shaker that will impress everyone who has to show up for the event. The speaker isn’t being paid for the speech, they are also being paid to show up. But money can work in subtle ways, and the notion of reciprocity is always in the back of our minds. Historically, there have been politicians who have rejected gifts and payments because they feared that they would be subconsciously influenced by them.
@efgoldman: Well, welcome to your paradise of bribery and corruption. Carter Page and Michael Flynn may have some notes for you. As for me, limiting the income levels of certain people (CEOs for one), whether by prohibition or taxation, would have a salutary effect on the economy.
J R in WV
@lowercase steve:
Making a speech to a company or organization has nothing to do with regulatory capture, which necessitates taking a JOB with a regulated company after retiring from a government job regulating that company.
This is so obviously NOT the same thing as making speeches or giving advice from time to time that I wonder how Republicans, misogynists and racists manage to hold such contradictory ideas in their heads without explosions all over the nation.
Notice that short list:
1) Republicans
2) Racists
3) Misogynists
efgoldman
@Millard Filmore:
Who’s “low skilled?” Plumbers? Cabinet makers? Teamsters? Chefs? Who decides?
If your pipes freeze next winter who are you going to call to fix them?
FlipYrWhig
@efgoldman: A striking parallel. I really do think it’s essentially a political crush. Bernie and WWC, sittin’ in a tree…
PJ
@Mnemosyne: For what it’s worth, I think paying the ex-President of the US, particularly one as smart as Barack Obama, for a speech is well worth $400K for an investment bank, because it’s hard to think of anyone in this country who has his kind of perspective on how this country and the world work.
efgoldman
@PJ:
Do you go to movies or concerts? Do you buy recordings (it occurs to me that you probably download them without paying); do you buy sports tickets or watch sports on TV? Do you read best-selling books?
Then you are full of shit and a hypocrite.
Chris
@The Pale Scot:
Agree with this.
Also, I suspect that insofar as Putin has an endgame, it’s as simple as this: he wants to get even with the West by making it suffer the same fate that the USSR did. Being broken as a world power, ruined economically, sold off for parts, and forced to watch as other great powers move in on its former territory.
Right now, the West is (still, despite all its problems) rich and powerful. The West is still the center of world politics. The West has, as he sees it, gained power and influence at Russia’s expense in the last quarter century (NATO expansion) and played a huge role in corrupting and breaking Russia (the ideas of 1990s free-for-all capitalism that were supported by Western advisers). He and many others are pissed about that and want to see the West paid back in kind.
As for “what next,” I don’t think he’s thought about “what next” any more than our right wing hawks ever thought about “what next” in forty years of Cold War, and largely for the same reasons.
Elie
@PJ:
But tell me, what would an ex office holder like Obama, be influenced to DO in receipt of his payment? One could argue that in some ways he could be a type of Robin Hood — taking money from the rich to fund activities he believes in for the poor? Again, you are putting out a lot of squid ink but there is no real there there behind the ink. You just don’t like it cause you don’t like the idea that rich corporations can pay that much for Obama’s work (in this case, his ideas and knowledge). But really, you don’t really think anyone should make that much money, do you?
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
I think popular support for Sanders is a mile wide and an inch deep.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I like.
We are equal under the law. Or should be. Our abilities are not equal. I can (or could) play basketball. I was not good enough to make any college (and probably HS) team. Maybe I could have excelled at any number of careers. But I didn’t. I can do some things that most people can not and I get paid for that. Now none of what I just said should be different for anyone. We all have skills, with the proper training we can utilize them to earn a living. If our skills are better we should be rewarded for that. The hard part is that a percentage of people are rewarded all out of proportion for their skills. Or their skills are not in any way useful to the greater world/good and they get (over) paid for them anyway.
Suzanne
@efgoldman: “Low-skill” just means something that it doesn’t take a long time or difficulty to learn. It doesn’t mean that is isn’t important. I mean, it’s probably easier to cook some eggs and bacon than it is to play NBA basketball, but eating is a bit more important to life than performing a game. “Valuable” in the marketplace doesn’t correlate to one’s worth as a person. We should stop pretending that it isn’t completely reasonable for people to maximize their resources. There’s nothing snobbish about wanting to be compensated in accordance with what the market will bear. Hell, I am fairly aggressive about maximizing my salary. My kids don’t support themselves.
raven
@jeffreyw: Thanks brah!
Lurking Canadian
@Elie: As I said the other day on LGM, I honestly feel like I’m being gaslighted by my own people on this issue.
It is a BAD thing that regulated industries and wealthy patrons are allowed to give large gifts to recently retired political figures.
Suppose you were an unscrupulous industrialist who wanted an EPA decision to go your way. If you say “do it my way and I’ll give you $100K”, that’s pretty clearly bribery. Isn’t it still bribery if you say “do it my way and I’ll give you $100K six months from now, when you quit”?
Barack Obama is not corrupt. He is not taking an after the fact payoff. But the fact that he can be paid a large sum in this way makes it a lot easier for OTHER corrupt people to take and pay bribes and get away with it. After all there’s “nothing wrong with” giant payoffs after a politician retires.
When the Supreme Court argued in Citizen’s United that corruption exists only if you can prove explicit quid pro quo, we all correctly howled with scorn. That’s like arguing it’s OK for Shoeless Joe to take the money unless you can prove he played badly. (And in fact, the oft-quoted thing about Unruh, the booze and the money is EXACTLY arguing that it’s OK for Shoeless Joe to take the money unless you can prove he played badly.)
No particular guilt accrues to Obama or Clinton or any specific person for participating in the system. But the system itself is rotten from top to bottom.
Chris
@FlipYrWhig:
I think it’s a little more than that. No one blames televangelists for wrecking the world economy. In a post 2008 world, there are still plenty of people who are furious with Wall Street, even if it’s not to the extent or in the ways that some on the left imagine.
Chris
@efgoldman:
Ha!
I, too, have previously compared the East Coast based professional left’s fixation with idealized heartland blue collar whites to an unrequited crush, or more exactly a creepy stalker who doesn’t understand that it’s never happening.
Chris
@Chyron HR:
He really wants his movement to be the teabaggers of the left. And that’s really bad news.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: I don’t care how much anyone makes as long as everyone’s needs are met to a reasonable standard. BHO should not have any hesitation at earning all the money he can. I have no doubt that he votes to tax himself significantly for the betterment of society, and that he is also personally generous.
Elie
@Lurking Canadian:
But you are left with arguing then that there is a ceiling in how much he can be given for a speech? Or he can’t be paid at all? How much is his experience and expertise worth? What are the limits of that worth? I hear your concern that he is a model for others, but do you think him becoming an ascetic on this issue would prevent others from taking corrupt payments? Do you believe he has anything to share that has a lot of value? If so, what does it mean to have it given away for free? I actually think that he will do a lot for “free” for certain interests — but why can’t he receive fair (to my mind) compensation for his singular experience and knowledge? There is no one else, literally, in this world, like him or with his perspective. What is that worth?
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
Drywall is perhaps a little less difficult as in tricky, but sheets of drywall are really heavy, difficult to handle, hard to install well, and difficult to impossible to finish well if the sheets are not attached properly.
I’ve helped good sheetrock installers, and seen the difference between a good finisher and an average finisher. And I’ve finished sheetrock in my own house, and it is much harder than it looks. A friend finishes drywall, and the other guys who work with him call him Doctor Mud, as in joint compound. He is slow compared to many drywall mechanics, but when he finishes that first coat, he’s done, and it looks great.
That’s uncommon in any finish work, and unheard of in drywall. So give those guys a little more credit. it really is harder to do right than most people believe.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
I think this actually can be generalized on right/left matters. I’ve noticed over the years that lefty advocacy groups often pay rather badly, while righty groups pay pretty close to market rates for whatever kinds of jobs they have. (I remember reading about what some righty advocacy organization was paying its top guy a few years ago, and it was right in line with what you’d make at a private sector lobbying firm for an equivalent job.) The expectation is that the moral compensation of doing good work is part of your package, and that you should be willing to do good for less money than you’d take for a regular job. (And it extends further – any new money is used to hire new people, not to pay the existing staff better.) Basically, more money means you’ve sold out, no matter what the actual facts are.
Chris
@Suzanne:
This is me in a nutshell. I care about the floor, not the ceiling. And no, the floor is nowhere near adequate in this country, but Obama’s one of the people who’s made it a little closer to that. I have better shit to worry about than whether he was overpaid for a speech.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Damn, Josh at TPM is saying this vote is really about making sure the House Moderates get blamed for HRCA defeat and not Trump. I guess this is the first round of the long predicted GOP Civil War.
Chris
@randy khan:
Is that really because lefties believe you should work for a pittance, though? Or is it because leftie groups have a much harder time getting funding, while basically anyone who opens up a “professionally right wing” outfit can count on start-up loans from all kinds of zillionaires?
FlipYrWhig
@Chris: Eh, I still have my doubts. And I don’t know what people particularly want to be _done_ about it. I think it’s a widespread dislike but not a cornerstone political belief for very many people at all. Occupy got a lot of attention but it also petered out pretty quickly. It feels overblown. YMMV.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I’m pretty sure I was agreeing with you. And still am.
I ramble a lot so sometimes it’s hard to tell.
Suzanne
@J R in WV: I’m not saying that being a good drywall person doesn’t take a significant degree of skill and effort. But lots of things take skill and effort. Being a structural engineer who designs a wall takes skill and training and intellectual rigor. There are just more structural engineers who can do drywall than there are drywallers who can engineer things. And there are more drywallers than there are structural engineers because it is more difficult/more expensive/more time-consuming for a person to get through all the years of schooling and licensure, not to mention the liability, to become an engineer than it is to train or apprentice to become a good drywaller. Ergo, it is entirely reasonable and, IMHO, not snobbery for an engineer to expect higher compensation than a drywaller. It’s not a question of personal “worth”, and both people should expect that all of their needs are met. But I don’t see inequality in their paychecks as problematic in and of itself.
satby
@efgoldman: my answer for anyone who thinks college should the main determinant for a high paying job is to tell them to Google what ironworkers do,especially when a skyscraper is going up.
Steve in the ATL
@Aimai:
Top five is a bit much, but we can work out the actual cutoff in conference. The basic idea is solid!
Lurking Canadian
@Elie: I don’t have a solution. My father worked as a regulator in Ottawa for many years. Part of his contract was a requirement that if he left, he could not work in the regulated industry for two years. Something like that would at least slow down the revolving door.
The speech thing? No solution I can see, short of massive increases in marginal tax rates. Public shame used to work, but the Republicans have developed immunity. As long as it’s raining doubloons, it’s certainly unfair to expect Democrats only to keep out of the weather.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Gunrunning to both sides and root for casualties?
TenguPhule
@Chris:
I do. In part.
JerryRich
@Barbara: I didn’t realize what handbags could cost until I saw The Divorce (2003) where a Hermes “Kelly Bag” figured prominently in the story. They can cost $5,000-$10,000 USD and more.
TenguPhule
@Suzanne:
That depends. How big a wall are you talking about?
The basic math equations will never change for an architect no matter how big the building gets because you can’t get around physics. Putting that design into effect however can vary drastically depending on the scope of the project and the skill and experience of the person hands on, as it were. All those little imperfections come into play which can mean the difference between success and failure.
Slaughter
@Gravenstone: If the moderates vote for it, they get killed by their Democratic opponent in 2018. If the vote against it, they get primaried from the right.
Lapassionara
@Mnemosyne: thank you. That is the truth.
Suzanne
@TenguPhule:
Wrong. What’s the lateral load on that wall due to wind? What about uplift? What about deflection? Are the columns in the wall or outside or inside? What about openings—how are those framed? Is there a fire rating on the wall? How does it terminate at the floor slab? Roof? Intermediate floor? What’s the UL listing? What’s the R-value? Is it continuously insulated? Is it a wall, a partition, or a barrier? How is it fabricated—on-site or pre-fabbed? If it’s pre-fabbed, how it it lifted into place? How is the parapet braced? Is it resisting shear? Moment? Is it carrying other loads, like a stair or canopy? How’s it supported? What kind of footing? What kind of soils?
A structural engineer or an architect figures all that out. And engineering takes years to learn and master, and it is far more sophisticated than plugging shit into equations. This is why it is hard, and why there are relatively few of those people, and also why they deserve to be well compensated.
Many engineers and architects worked construction in school. I know very few contractors who worked in design or engineering.
Central Planning
@randy khan: I know this thread is dead, but:
My credit card company doesn’t take moral compensation. Nor the power company. Or water.