American Politics

[Tiny 12]

Gee, I guess this 100 years long "good luck" with Dem economic stewardship vs "bad luck" with Repub economic stewardship continues without interruption. LOL.

So now the 20-20 hindsight of top Nobel Laureate economists has perhaps concluded that Biden's brilliant and masterful understanding that being cornered into dealing with an incompetent Trump / Repub-appointed Fed Chairman during the Great Dem Recovery meant really big stimulus legislation was required in order to offset a whole host of likely miscalculations and missteps by that Fed Chairman that most certainly could plunge us into another prolonged and crippling Great Repub Recession rather than the rapid soft landing recovery from Trump's typically atrocious Repub stewardship results was just a plain ol' "lucky policy mistake", huh?

LOL. OK.

'Really bad economics': Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz explains where the Fed went wrong on inflation.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...on/ar-AA1g5C6K

Stiglitz is every bit as much a partisan Democrat as Paul Krugman or Larry Summers. Maybe worse. And I'm not sure exactly what earth shaking material you're seeing in that post that paints you or him as omniscient. For example, he says "It's really bad economics, because the Fed saw that the government had passed this enormous recovery program, and if all that money had been spent, it would have been inflationary," before he goes on to qualify that by saying things were bad. Yeah, it's common knowledge, too much economic stimulus, in particular Biden's American Rescue Plan, ignited inflation. His comment, "the price rises were often driven by other factors, such as a shortage of key components like semiconductor chips" is certainly correct as applied to the last part of 2021 and on into 2022, but complete bull shit as an excuse for excessive fiscal stimulus. Inflation hit the USA months before other countries, not because of semiconductor shortages but because of Biden's bill.

The Fed should have been more aggressive, raising rates, after Biden's bill was passed, although Stiglitz never seems to say that. In fact, he never really says where the Fed fucked up. The article closes by saying it actually didn't fuck up, that we're probably in for a soft landing.

And so now you're blaming inflation on Jerome Powell, who was appointed to the Fed Board of Governors by Obama. I believe the Fed board approved changes in interest rates unanimously or with one or two dissenting votes every time. And believe Lael Brainard, another Obama appointee who's to the left of you and who was Powell's chief competition for Biden's pick for chair, voted with Powell every time.

This quote of Stiglitz's is telling,

"When they passed that act, they thought there'd be some companies taking advantage of it and it would cost over 10 years $271 billion. Now the estimates by many sources is well over a trillion dollars," Stiglitz noted.

Yes, Democrats passed over $5 trillion in unfunded spending in 2021 and 2022. And the Inflation Reduction Act will cost maybe $750 billion more than Biden said it would, just putting us that much closer to insolvency. Thankfully McCarthy and the House Republicans clawed back about $1.5 trillion of that, by using the same strategy that you criticize Gingrich for below.

BTW, I can probably find at least two Nobel Prize winning economists who agree with my free market views for every one who agrees with your social democratic views.

[MarquisdeSade1]

Gee,

I guess this 100 years long "good luck" with Dem economic stewardship vs "bad luck" with Repub economic stewardship continues without interruption. LOL.

So now the 20-20 hindsight of top Nobel Laureate economists has perhaps concluded that Biden's brilliant and masterful understanding that being cornered into dealing with an incompetent Trump / Repub-appointed Fed Chairman during the Great Dem Recovery meant really big stimulus legislation was required in order to offset a whole host of likely miscalculations and missteps by that Fed Chairman that most certainly could plunge us into another prolonged and crippling Great Repub Recession rather than the rapid soft landing recovery from Trump's typically atrocious Repub stewardship results was just a plain ol' "lucky policy mistake", huh?

'Really bad economics': Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz explains where the Fed went wrong on inflation."

https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-ap...n-the-bad-ones

You oughta be ashamed of yourself LMAO.

[Tiny 12]

2. America would highly benefit from a strong multiparty system, but that's a wishful thinking. As a centrist, I would love to see nutjobs on the right and the left stay in their own fucking parties. Especially on the right. There are real, certifiable fascists deeply entrenched within the Repub. Party. At least, lefties ain't calling for a civil war.

In the words of Socrates, "Know thyself." You are a mainstream Democrat. Or at least I've never seen you deviate from the Democratic Party platform in your posts.

3. Your argument that Gore would cause the same financial catastrophe as Dubya is laughable. Sorry, that's just nonsensical 100%. I'd love to see the train of thought that led you to this conclusion.

On the other hand, no, don't bother, LOL.

I never said anything remotely like that (bold text).

You and Tooms want me to use the same partisan logic that you do: recessions are a function of the party of the president, not oil price shocks, Fed policy, business and economic policies, etc. Or to the extent that they are caused by those events, it's the president's fault. A classic example is Tooms attributing the 2020 recession to Trump instead of COVID.

As to the 2008 recession, there were a number of causes. High oil (and fuel) prices led to lower disposable income and thus lower personal consumption. Fed policy was contractionary. Excess housing stock and lower residential investment played a part. As the prices of houses fell, the wealth effect kicked into reverse and people spent less money.

We were already into a recession when the mortgage and banking crisis hit. And what caused that? Yeah, you can attribute part of it to bad government. There was bipartisan support for increasing home ownership. Policies and actions by government supported entities (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and government agencies like the Federal Home Loan Bank encouraged lax lending standards and high loan to value ratios. Republicans blame Democrats for forcing banks to lend to customers who weren't creditworthy because of Clinton's Community Reinvestment Act. And Democrats blame Republicans and the Bush administration for lax regulation. And both have a point. However the 2008 recession probably would have occurred regardless of who was president.

4. You probably came up with this argument to support that claim of Obama being a terrible president, which is also laughable.

My big complaint about Obama is that he divided the country. And yeah, part of that was the Republicans' fault too. Before he was elected, Democratic and Republican politicians more or less got along. Obama set the tone with his comment, "Elections have consequences," followed by total abandonment of bipartisanship. He was also sanctimonious and arrogant in the extreme. As to my original point, yes, he perhaps wasn't quite as bad a spendthrift as Bush, Trump and Biden, but he was still bad.

6. Finally, I find Toom's economic data references quite convincing while your attempts to counter them are not.

Of course you don't. You're a partisan Democrat.

And no, I'm not a statistician or economist, but from what I understand neither are you.

I use statistics and macroeconomics from time to time at work. And project economics a lot. I'm better versed in project economics than most economists

So there.

"So there?" Please, you're sounding like Paulie.

[MarquisdeSade1]

Ross Douthat.

By Ross Douthat.

Opinion Columnist.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.

Over the last few weeks Sohrab Ahmari, well known as a leading intellectual exponent of a combative Trumpian conservatism, has been making the rounds explaining why he's giving up on right-wing populism.

That's a slight overstatement; his new book, "Tyranny, Inc. ," on the cruelties of corporate power in America, bears blurbs from leading populist Republicans like Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio. But he describes these figures as "shining exceptions on the right," whose willingness to consider interventionist economic policies contrasts with the broader trend in which populism is "turning into a niche / trashy online-media product," with no policy content beyond resentment of elites.

No doubt Ahmari's liberal readers would respond, it's always been that way! But part of the reason that the "Tyranny, Inc. " author and his circle earned so much attention in the Trump era is that the age of populism really did unsettle economic orthodoxies on the right.

The Trump administration often defaulted, as Ahmari laments, to warmed-over Reaganite policymaking. But Trump's victorious campaign really did kill off, for a time at least, the Tea Party-era emphasis on entitlement reform and hard money. And Trump did follow through on elements of his economic nationalism — while the Biden administration has embraced similar ideas on trade and infrastructure, to the point where it's fair to say that both parties have been reshaped by Trump's '16 campaign.

Meanwhile, a populist intellectual ecosystem exists on the right, through think tanks like American Compass and journals like American Affairs and Ahmari's own Compact, where before the Trump era there was little more than a scattering of gadflies. The Hawley-Rubio-J. The. Vance faction in the Senate is small, but more influential than any past equivalent. And Trump himself, the Republican front-runner, is still making promises — new cities! New tariffs! Flying cars! — that smack more of industrial policy than supply-side economics.

So why is Ahmari despairing of his cause? In part, he's reckoning with forces he probably underestimated before — the folk libertarianism of the G. O. P. 's donor base and the cynicism of its celebrity-industrial complex.

But then Ahmari is also disillusioned because, while remaining socially conservative, he has personally moved farther to the left than some of his fellow populists.

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With its potent anecdotes of corporate malfeasance and its (somewhat overstated) account of the ruthlessness of American economic life, "Tyranny, Inc. " is a book more in the pessimistic spirit of Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" than — well, to take a personal example, than "Grand New Party," the book I co-authored with Reihan Salam 15 years ago making the case for a more populist conservatism. Ahmari sometimes describes his view of American capitalism as close to that of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and there is simply no way to infuse the full Sanders vision into the current Republican coalition; in that sense, he's right to deem himself politically homeless.

Finally, though, Ahmari doesn't always fully reckon with how recent material and cultural changes complicate his argument that cultural renewal depends on economic transformation — that "efforts to change the culture without reforming the economy are futile at best. ".

If so, what should we make of the fact that the American economy was arguably worse, and yet the culture healthier, 10 or 20 years ago than today?

When Barack Obama ran for president, inequality had been rising since the 1980's and the health care safety net had a significant hole. When Trump ran for president, household income had been stagnating since 2000 and economic policymakers had let the unemployment rate stay unnecessarily high.

But today inequality may actually be declining, wages have risen generally and risen faster for the working class, unemployment is extremely low and we are closer to universal health care than we were 20 years ago. Meanwhile, the big Biden-era problem for wage earners has been an inflation spike, which a Bernie Sanders agenda seems ill-equipped to solve.

Yet despite these economic improvements the cultural fabric looks more frayed than ever, with liberals as well as conservatives fretting over the slow fade of church and family, with crime and homelessness returning to American cities while a haze of marijuana settles over twentysomethings, with a spiritual despair shadowing every social rank.

You can blame Covid for deepening this era of bad feelings. You can argue that our social malaise just shows economic improvements haven't gone nearly far enough. And you can pin blame for certain social trends — internet addiction among teenagers, say — on bad actors in big business.

But in terms of priority and urgency, I wonder if Ahmari's harder-edged social conservative side — the anti-pot, anti-porn, anti-crime aspects of his politics, let's say — may actually be more relevant to our situation than the New-Deal-liberal side that's earning him new interest from the left.

Cultural conservatism absolutely needs an economic policy, and corporate power absolutely shapes the culture. But our own social crisis feels a little less economically determined, a little more essentially cultural, in 2023 than at any previous moment in my adult life.

[EihTooms]

Gee, I guess this 100 years long "good luck" with Dem economic stewardship vs "bad luck" with Repub economic stewardship continues without interruption. LOL.

So now the 20-20 hindsight of top Nobel Laureate economists has perhaps concluded that Biden's brilliant and masterful understanding that being cornered into dealing with an incompetent Trump / Repub-appointed Fed Chairman during the Great Dem Recovery meant really big stimulus legislation was required in order to offset a whole host of likely miscalculations and missteps by that Fed Chairman that most certainly could plunge us into another prolonged and crippling Great Repub Recession rather than the rapid soft landing recovery from Trump's typically atrocious Repub stewardship results was just a plain ol' "lucky policy mistake", huh?

LOL. OK.

'Really bad economics': Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz explains where the Fed went wrong on inflation.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...on/ar-AA1g5C6K

The Federal Reserve "didn't do their homework" and mischaracterized the spike in inflation that has plagued the U.S. economy over the last two years, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

U.S. inflation started to gain pace in early 2021 as the economy emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic, rising from an annual 1.2% in December 2020 to a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022.

The Fed didn't start hiking rates until March 2022 and Chair Jerome Powell repeatedly insisted that inflation was "transitory," indicating that it could be easily tamed.

"The Fed thought the source of the inflation that began in the post-pandemic era was excess demand, and you could understand why they may have thought that if they didn't do their homework," Stiglitz told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum on Thursday night.

Instead, Stiglitz said that the price rises were often driven by other factors, such as a shortage of key components like semiconductor chips.

"In an effort to drag inflation back down toward its 2% target, the Fed has now hiked interest rates 11 times in total to a target range of 5.25%-5.5%, the highest level for more than 22 years.

Considerable progress has been made, with the 12-month headline consumer price index reading falling to just 3.2% on the year in July, and multiple data points suggesting that inflationary pressures have eased considerably.

'Bad economics'

Although he does not see the aggressive monetary policy tightening of the last 18 months tipping the U.S. economy into recession, Stiglitz suggested there are lessons to be learned from the Fed's assessment of inflationary dynamics.

"It's really bad economics, because the Fed saw that the government had passed this enormous recovery program, and if all that money had been spent, it would have been inflationary, but you have to remember back just a few years ago, there was an enormous amount of uncertainty."

This uncertainty meant that firms were not investing as they ordinarily would have, while consumers did not feel comfortable deploying the pent-up savings accrued during the pandemic meaning total, or aggregate, demand was still below pre-pandemic forecasts", Stiglitz said.

"Why was there inflation? We all know the reason," he added. "Car prices in the beginning went way up why? Was it because we didn't know how to make cars? No, we knew how to make cars. American auto companies forgot to put in orders for chips, and for want of a chip, you can't make a car."

A lucky policy mistake?

Despite the Fed's rapid raising of interest rates, the U.S. economy has held up surprisingly well, though economists are still divided over whether the tightening of financial conditions will bring about a recession.

Stiglitz suggested that the economic soft landing the Fed has tried to engineer may well come to fruition, but as the result of another lucky policy "mistake," this time from the government in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act.

The IRA, the Biden administration's landmark legislation targeting manufacturing, infrastructure and climate change, was launched just over a year ago and has spurred more than $500 billion in new investment, according to the Treasury.

"When they passed that act, they thought there'd be some companies taking advantage of it and it would cost over 10 years $271 billion. Now the estimates by many sources is well over a trillion dollars," Stiglitz noted.

"That's a big stimulus to the economy that's going to be offsetting the contractionary effects of monetary policy, so we may manage our way through this by luck. The Fed had no idea of the effect of the IRA."

The Fed declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.

[MarquisdeSade1]

There needed to be a constitutional amendment to get rid of this procedure.

Until Scumbag Joe (and his junkie sidekick / bagman) came along and was installed.

If this piece of shit doesn't deserve to not only be impeached but convicted as well no ever will.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corne...ing-impeached/

They were thinking of this piece of shit when they added it to the constitution.

[EihTooms]

I've finally gotten up to speed in this thread, so here goes.

1. No, Maher is not pro-Republican. He's extravagant and a bit of a narcissist with a penchant for a good scandal. But Maher is definitely a liberal, despite his astonishingly lavish praises of some Repubs (Gee, I still can't believe his dithyrambs of DeSantis of all assholes). But that's because of his frustration with Dems, who are too disorganized and let Repubs dictate the narrative in his opinion.

2. America would highly benefit from a strong multiparty system, but that's a wishful thinking. As a centrist, I would love to see nutjobs on the right and the left stay in their own fucking parties. Especially on the right. There are real, certifiable fascists deeply entrenched within the Repub. Party. At least, lefties ain't calling for a civil war.

3. Your argument that Gore would cause the same financial catastrophe as Dubya is laughable. Sorry, that's just nonsensical 100%. I'd love to see the train of thought that led you to this conclusion.

On the other hand, no, don't bother, LOL.

4. You probably came up with this argument to support that claim of Obama being a terrible president, which is also laughable. Because it was fucking Dubya who left him holding the bag, which didn't prevent Obama from turning the country around despite unprecedented, sustained and callous sabotage from the Republicans.

5. Yes, Tooms' view of the Democratic party is a bit idealistic. Mine is more cynical, as I believe that most politicians from both parties are self-serving assholes. That being said, Trump did leave Dems for Repubs because he knew he wouldn't be tolerated by Dems. And assholes like Ramaswamy wouldn't be tolerated either. I guess Repobs attract more ambitious assholes than Dems. I wonder why (no, not really).

6. Finally, I find Toom's economic data references quite convincing while your attempts to counter them are not. And no, I'm not a statistician or economist, but from what I understand neither are you.

So there. Good night!

You do know that Maher, just like any virulent pro-Repub Bothsider / Neithersider, doesn't have to KNOW that helping Repubs win elections is the inevitable result of his Bothsider / Neithersiderism, right? They can and still usually do tell themselves they are just being Fair and Balanced, Libertarians, liberal at heart, saying these things for the Greater Good and all that.

If anything, the ones who are most convinced in their own mind that they have only the best intentions at heart and, hey, just trying to improve the game of the side they tend to prefer anyway, which is likely where Maher falls, can do even more harm to the country by their seeming sincerety than the more obvious pro-Repub loons.

Witness how easy it was for Maher to lock into the memory that 2004 election year on his knees begging Nader not to run stunt as atonement for his incomparable contribution to helping put GW Bush in the WH in 2000 and make some of us forget WHY he felt he needed to atone for that unforgivable sin in 2000.

LOL. In Marquis' link for it the comments from other Bothsider / Neithersider Third Party suckers appear not to even understand why their hero Maher would betray their cause in 2004 with that stunt. They didn't even remember what Maher did in 2000 to create that colossal Repub mess in the first place.

But Maher sure remembered. Hence the 2004 begging stunt.

And his self-gratulatory, oft-repeated by him announcement that he donated $1 Million to the Obama Campaign was simply another atonement and memory fogging stunt.

But it was all too little too late. The classic disastrous Repub damage done by his "Bothsider / Neithersider" endorsement of Nader in 2000 had already been done and still lingers. What difference does it make what was really going on in Maher's mind when he did it? None that I know of.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"I've finally gotten up to speed in this thread, so here goes.

1. No, Maher is not pro-Republican. He's extravagant and a bit of a narcissist with a penchant for a good scandal. But Maher is definitely a liberal, despite his astonishingly lavish praises of some Repubs (Gee, I still can't believe his dithyrambs of DeSantis of all assholes). But that's because of his frustration with Dems, who are too disorganized and let Repubs dictate the narrative in his opinion.

2. America would highly benefit from a strong multiparty system, but that's a wishful thinking. As a centrist, I would love to see nutjobs on the right and the left stay in their own fucking parties. Especially on the right. There are real, certifiable fascists deeply entrenched within the Repub. Party. At least, lefties ain't calling for a civil war.

3. Your argument that Gore would cause the same financial catastrophe as Dubya is laughable. Sorry, that's just nonsensical 100%. I'd love to see the train of thought that led you to this conclusion.

On the other hand, no, don't bother, LOL.

4. You probably came up with this argument to support that claim of Obama being a terrible president, which is also laughable. Because it was fucking Dubya who left him holding the bag, which didn't prevent Obama from turning the country around despite unprecedented, sustained and callous sabotage from the Republicans.

5. Yes, Tooms' view of the Democratic party is a bit idealistic. Mine is more cynical, as I believe that most politicians from both parties are self-serving assholes. That being said, Trump did leave Dems for Repubs because he knew he wouldn't be tolerated by Dems. And assholes like Ramaswamy wouldn't be tolerated either. I guess Repobs attract more ambitious assholes than Dems. I wonder why (no, not really).

6. Finally, I find Toom's economic data references quite convincing while your attempts to counter them are not. And no, I'm not a statistician or economist, but from what I understand neither are you.

So there. Good night!

Right wing fascists? Stop reading wikipedia for your poli-sci 101 terms.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...ng_points.html

Anderson Cooper anyone?

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...ment.html?s=04

BTW ever hear the axiom "Figures don't lie, but liars do figure" LMAOOOOOO.

So beware of anyone throwing around stats all day and night.

Lastly did you know the field of economics is not a "hard" science its extremely politicized LMAOOOOOOO.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"Fuck! Is he crazy? That's a rhetorical question.

I moan and complain about Biden's Progressive handlers but they may have a useful purpose. Like preventing World War III. ".

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...e-by-debating/

I hope all 4 are taken back to the morgue by Midnight.

Pelosi.

Feinstein.

Biden.

McConell.

Anyone remember the blood curdling screams from the libtards in Hollygay when Our Lord and Savior was still in the Oval office.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...e-disappeared/

[MarquisdeSade1]

I've finally gotten up to speed in this thread, so here goes.

1. No, Maher is not pro-Republican. He's extravagant and a bit of a narcissist with a penchant for a good scandal. But Maher is definitely a liberal, despite his astonishingly lavish praises of some Repubs (Gee, I still can't believe his dithyrambs of DeSantis of all assholes). But that's because of his frustration with Dems, who are too disorganized and let Repubs dictate the narrative in his opinion.

2. America would highly benefit from a strong multiparty system, but that's a wishful thinking. As a centrist, I would love to see nutjobs on the right and the left stay in their own fucking parties. Especially on the right. There are real, certifiable fascists deeply entrenched within the Repub. Party. At least, lefties ain't calling for a civil war.

3. Your argument that Gore would cause the same financial catastrophe as Dubya is laughable. Sorry, that's just nonsensical 100%. I'd love to see the train of thought that led you to this conclusion.

On the other hand, no, don't bother, LOL.

4. You probably came up with this argument to support that claim of Obama being a terrible president, which is also laughable. Because it was fucking Dubya who left him holding the bag, which didn't prevent Obama from turning the country around despite unprecedented, sustained and callous sabotage from the Republicans.

5. Yes, Tooms' view of the Democratic party is a bit idealistic. Mine is more cynical, as I believe that most politicians from both parties are self-serving assholes. That being said, Trump did leave Dems for Repubs because he knew he wouldn't be tolerated by Dems. And assholes like Ramaswamy wouldn't be tolerated either. I guess Repobs attract more ambitious assholes than Dems. I wonder why (no, not really).

6. Finally, I find Toom's economic data references quite convincing while your attempts to counter them are not. And no, I'm not a statistician or economist, but from what I understand neither are you.

So there. Good night!

Civil War 2. 0.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...ot_comply.html

W is a worthless POS but everyone knows he didn't cause the meltdown of 2008 that was a gift from Bubba!!

[Xpartan]

Fuck! Is he crazy? That's a rhetorical question.

I moan and complain about Biden's Progressive handlers but they may have a useful purpose. Like preventing World War III.

Really? Why did his fair and clear statement that Putin can't stand in power have to be walked back?

Because Putin is a head of state, and there are diplomatic protocols and blah blah blah blah blah?

I've got news for you. Putin is not a head of state. He's a head of a mafia organization. A gangster, albeit a spineless one.

Putin laughs at your diplomacy. He has an orgasm every time you're walking back things he doesn't like. The only thing he does understand, respect and fear is brute force.

Hitler said famously after Chamberlain gave him Czechoslovakia in exchange for 'peace' -- they think I'm a gentleman, well, I'm not a gentleman.

When the fuck are we going to learn?

[Tiny 12]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...utm_term=first

Fuck! Is he crazy? That's a rhetorical question.

I moan and complain about Biden's Progressive handlers but they may have a useful purpose. Like preventing World War III.

[EihTooms]

Damn it Tooms, I must be losing my touch. I fancied myself a MasterBaiter. But you didn't take the bait and came back with a clever, succinct reply. Hats off, honestly.

I'm glad to see that you're finally giving Republicans credit for positive results. I don't think you should be so hard on Democrats, as some have from time to time done positive things. Along with Newt Gingrich and other Republicans, Clinton balanced the budget, for example.

Haha. That was a casualty of late night texting, still having my posts Moderated for several hours and not being able to edit and correct mistyped. Don't worry. I have since corrected it.

I can't recall one "positive" result of Repub stewardship that was not overwhelmed and erased by their consistent negatives.

Particularly the humiliating resignation / ouster of Newt Gingrich, a terrific positive, that, alas, was still overwhelmed by his herculean efforts to prevent the historic Clinton / Dem Prosperity Juggernaut in the 1990's from being even greater than it was. All those silly time and money-wasting threats to shut down the government unless we let Newt shit all over the economy and destroy millions of jobs that ended with Clinton winning the battles anyway.

[Xpartan]

Good memory Xpartan. Indeed, they literally got down on their knees and begged Nader not to run. See 3 minutes and 30 seconds into this video.

https://videosift.com/video/Bill-Mah...der-not-to-run

Tooms' characterization of Maher as pro-Republican and condemnation of both Maher and Moore is curious. As is his faith in the mainstream Democratic Party and his worship of every Democratic President of the past 100 years. Buy hey, it's harmless, especially since he escaped hyper-blue California for Thailand. And a lot healthier than being a Branch Davidian or member of the Jonestown church.

I've finally gotten up to speed in this thread, so here goes.

1. No, Maher is not pro-Republican. He's extravagant and a bit of a narcissist with a penchant for a good scandal. But Maher is definitely a liberal, despite his astonishingly lavish praises of some Repubs (Gee, I still can't believe his dithyrambs of DeSantis of all assholes). But that's because of his frustration with Dems, who are too disorganized and let Repubs dictate the narrative in his opinion.

2. America would highly benefit from a strong multiparty system, but that's a wishful thinking. As a centrist, I would love to see nutjobs on the right and the left stay in their own fucking parties. Especially on the right. There are real, certifiable fascists deeply entrenched within the Repub. Party. At least, lefties ain't calling for a civil war.

3. Your argument that Gore would cause the same financial catastrophe as Dubya is laughable. Sorry, that's just nonsensical 100%. I'd love to see the train of thought that led you to this conclusion.

On the other hand, no, don't bother, LOL.

4. You probably came up with this argument to support that claim of Obama being a terrible president, which is also laughable. Because it was fucking Dubya who left him holding the bag, which didn't prevent Obama from turning the country around despite unprecedented, sustained and callous sabotage from the Republicans.

5. Yes, Tooms' view of the Democratic party is a bit idealistic. Mine is more cynical, as I believe that most politicians from both parties are self-serving assholes. That being said, Trump did leave Dems for Repubs because he knew he wouldn't be tolerated by Dems. And assholes like Ramaswamy wouldn't be tolerated either. I guess Repobs attract more ambitious assholes than Dems. I wonder why (no, not really).

6. Finally, I find Toom's economic data references quite convincing while your attempts to counter them are not. And no, I'm not a statistician or economist, but from what I understand neither are you.

So there. Good night!

[Tiny 12]

Woulda Coulda Shoulda.

If the past 100 years of crap results Coulda happened under Dems instead of under Repubs and (if) all those positive results Coulda happened under Dems instead of under Repubs, they Woulda.

But they didn't.

Damn it Tooms, I must be losing my touch. I fancied myself a MasterBaiter. But you didn't take the bait and came back with a clever, succinct reply. Hats off, honestly.

I'm glad to see that you're finally giving Republicans credit for positive results. I don't think you should be so hard on Democrats, as some have from time to time done positive things. Along with Newt Gingrich and other Republicans, Clinton balanced the budget, for example.