The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Joe Bauer]

Texans have short memories I guess.

Just a couple years ago when millions of Texans were doing without power and freezing to death, concerned for his state's citizens Cruz jets down to Cancun to lounge around on their warm sunny beaches, with straw hat, shorts and sipping margaritas and ogling the bikini clad beach babes!

CANCUN CRUZ !

Instead of being furious at their cocktail sipping, Cancun beach babe ogling non-caring senator for leaving them in their most vulnerable and stressed situation back in record freeze Texas...

They vote him in ...again!

Edited November 10, 2022 by Joe Bauer

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

Ben still doesn't get it.

Yes, the 5-4 GOP Citizens United ruling has completely corrupted U.S. politics, but that doesn't mean there are no significant policy differences between Donks and Phants on issues like tax policy, healthcare, gun control, women's rights, LGBT rights, and climate change mitigation.

Here's one major example.  The GOP is the party of climate change denial.

Defense contractors give money 50/50 Donks / 'Phants. 

Does that explain the warmongering we see in both parties, but lately perhaps a little more heavily in the Donks? 

[W. Niederhut]

10 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Defense contractors give money 50/50 Donks / 'Phants. 

Does that explain the warmongering we see in both parties, but lately perhaps a little more heavily in the Donks? 

Yes, Ben, the military industrial complex is a HUGE problem.  We all know it.

But you're ignoring all of the other major partisan policy differences that I enumerated--on climate change, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, tax policy, gun control, women's rights, LGBT rights, etc.

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Ben, So you're super pro corporate management. .

And of course, you're completely for  the working guy!

I get it! You just love everybody!

 

And for all other of you guys who think Citizen's United is a "1st Amendment Free Speech " issue.

Was this free speech on election morning?

 

 

Because Musk never tweeted it.

 

"People are challenging his statements that social media should not be moderated because of "free speech".

I think the movement is pretty clever. He can't speak against censoring misinformation, and then turn around and censor anything that he feels misrepresents himself.

Like the common person shouldn't get protection against lies against them? (eg. Sandy Hook parents)

But a billionaire can use his influence to censor anything against him?"

The ACLU thought Citizens United was the right decision. 

I have reservations, but to say corporations do not have free speech...gets policy out onto a slippery slope and maybe an icy precipice. 

So corporations, companies and rich sole proprietors have to get government permission before they speak? Where do you draw the line? 

Yes, the US political system today, as it has been for decades, is defined by legal corruption and grifting, and financial elites are very strong, even dominant. They control M$M as well. 

So the problem is...Trump! Trump! Trump! The 1/6 insurrectionists!

Frankly, in gloomier moments, I think the US is a lost cause. The globalists rule and that means the US employee class has to compete against global labor pools. 

Wages have been stagnant in the US since the late 1960s, and I see no hope they will ever go higher, within the globalist system. 

The "middle-income" trap (lower-income in reality) that so many emerging nations find themselves in is also due to globalized labor markets. 

Where labor is cheap---that is where manufacturing will go, and that is where imported workers come from. 

Trump? So when Trump passes from the scene (which I hope is yesterday) you think life will be better? You realize studio apartments in  downtown L.A. rent for $2,500 a month?  

That foreign capital flows into US assets, such as property, inflate asset prices such as housing? That is capital gotten from huge US trade deficits. (Th CCP owns the Waldorf hotel in NYC, btw. Check it out). 

Trump was a bonsai tree in a redwood forest of legal corruption and a global war on labor. 

Good luck. I do not see a good future for America. 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

3 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

Yes, Ben, the military industrial complex is a HUGE problem.  We all know it.

But you're ignoring all of the other major partisan policy differences that I enumerated--on climate change, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the ACA, tax policy, gun control, women's rights, LGBT rights, etc.

I think you do not pay enough attention to the results of the open borders policies favored by the Donks and the establishment GOP. 

Wages have been stagnant in the US for 50 years, and have maybe another 50 years to go...

See my recent response to the ever-lovable Kirk. 

Good luck in America.

[Matthew Koch]

 

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Texans have short memories I guess.

Just a couple years ago when millions of Texans were doing without power and freezing to death, concerned for his state's citizens Cruz jets down to Cancun to lounge around on their warm sunny beaches, with straw hat, shorts and sipping margaritas and ogling the bikini clad beach babes!

CANCUN CRUZ !

Instead of being furious at their cocktail sipping, Cancun beach babe ogling non-caring senator for leaving them in their most vulnerable and stressed situation back in record freeze Texas...

They vote him in ...again!

Joe.  Cruz was not on the ballot two days ago when I voted.  He was two years ago in November 2021 when he beat Beto O'Rourke by 2%.  The great freeze out began Sunday February 14, 2021 as far as the ice/power outages (it had been below freezing a couple of days already staying in the 20's and teens).  Bought my wife flowers on the last trip to town for five days.  Down to 0 that night with sleet and snow.  Power started going off.  The next day or Tuesday was when Cruz left us for Cancun.  

Edited November 11, 2022 by Ron Bulman

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I think you do not pay enough attention to the results of the open borders policies favored by the Donks and the establishment GOP. 

Wages have been stagnant in the US for 50 years, and have maybe another 50 years to go...

 

        So, Ben, since wages have been stagnant while the marginal increase in wealth in the U.S. has all gone to the top 1% since the Reagan revolution-- as Thomas Piketty has shown-- should we all simply vote for 'Phants and stop worrying about the de-funding of Social Security and Medicare?

       Should we stop worrying about Big Oil-funded GOP climate change denial, the pro-corporate Koch/GOP SCOTUS, and Citizens United?

      Is that your argument? 🤥

[Matt Allison]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Defense contractors give money 50/50 Donks / 'Phants. 

Maybe those guys do, but the billionaires? The Kochs? The Waltons? The Uhlein's? The Mercers? And on and on? All funding dark money operations pouring 100s of millions of dollars to Republicans.

That's why the Supreme Court voted the way they did, completely along partisan lines.

[Matt Allison]

Ted Cruz was last on the ballot in 2018.

Hopefully Beto will be back for a rematch in 2024.

[Kirk Gallaway]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

The ACLU thought Citizens United was the right decision. 

So who is the ACLU?, God?, Glenn Greenwald? Who cares what any of these people or groups say?

 

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I have reservations, but to say corporations do not have free speech...gets policy out onto a slippery slope and maybe an icy precipice. 

But it's not really about free speech, it's about money! You wouldn't like me at all! I'd go much further. I would make the campaign donations much more limited and very transparent. The whole problem is that we've got to get the money out of politics! It's without a doubt the easiest thing we can do in one fell swoop that will transform everything!

I don't think we need to. But I'd be willing to listen to public financing! And be judicious about it! Wouldn't it say something about how effective with money a candidate is if they had say,  20% of the money for campaigns that they currently have? Everybody's get sick of all the ads anyway , so by the end, we're all going crazy! Imagine what the people of Georgia are going to have to go through again in the run off  if it turns out to be critical!

But whether public financed or not. RFK was asked about campaign finsancing in 1968 and threw it back on the networks, saying "Hey you guys have a responsibility to the public, to give us, as candidates, free time". If they each got a free half hour a week during a campaign.. That might be a good thing. But the truth is, most of the public  wouldn't have the patience to sit through it. They've all been conditioned for sound bytes. But at least it would be fair and they could do their own spot ads.

People think there's so much power against it, and there is, but there's a lot of public support for campaign finance reform. But they have to get a strong consensus on the way to go, and there are a number of ways to go, but the differences, outside of public financing wouldn't be that divisive. If it was an integral part of one candidates platform, that might be a start. It's too bad we couldn't have a national referendum. But if that ever happened, you know in the closing weeks the donor class would go crazy with ads against it, completely misrepresenting what it is. But that's whats done all the time anyway, and it's not always successful.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Kirk Gallaway

[Benjamin Cole]

33 minutes ago, Matt Allison said:

Maybe those guys do, but the billionaires? The Kochs? The Waltons? The Uhlein's? The Mercers? And on and on? All funding dark money operations pouring 100s of millions of dollars to Republicans.

That's why the Supreme Court voted the way they did, completely along partisan lines.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-01-12/citizens-united-ruling-anniversary-how-it-changed-american-politics

This article indicates in addition to the Koches, the Bloombergs, Besos and Steyers and Soros of the world (liked by liberals, I think mistakenly) are pouring money in. 

My view is both parties are elite handmaidens, and that is because I am too polite to use the word "catamite." 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

56 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

        So, Ben, since wages have been stagnant while the marginal increase in wealth in the U.S. has all gone to the top 1% since the Reagan revolution-- as Thomas Piketty has shown-- should we all simply vote for 'Phants and stop worrying about the de-funding of Social Security and Medicare?

       Should we stop worrying about Big Oil-funded GOP climate change denial, the pro-corporate Koch/GOP SCOTUS, and Citizens United?

      Is that your argument? 🤥

No, I do not follow the M$M-ordained binary system, that you have to drink the red (or blue) kool-aid, otherwise you are accused of being a dupe that drinks the red (or blue) kool-aid. 

It is tricky going to ever mention the T-word, but it was the past president who tried to build a wall on the southern border and did put tariffs on China imports.  Wages in the bottom half began to respond during the T-word's tenure.

Of course we have been damaging wages in America for two generations in, and will take two generations to fix. One cannot expect a total fix during any particular presidency. Real wages have begun falling again in America, btw. 

The Donks have decided to re-open the southern border, and also appear not to be enforcing China tariffs, or the T-word trade agreement with China. 

That does not mean I think the establishment 'Phants are great (in fact I think they are much like the Donks), and unfortunately many elements of the populist wing of the GOP seem a little nutty.

So it goes. 

Sorry, I do not think either major party is worth supporting. 

BTW, it was President Clinton that won NAFTA and WTO membership for China. 

We have different perspectives. Big deal. 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Benjamin Cole

[Benjamin Cole]

18 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

So who is the ACLU?, God?, Glenn Greenwald? Who cares what any of these people or groups say?

 

But it's not really about free speech, it's about money! You wouldn't like me at all! I'd go much further. I would make the campaign donations much more limited and very transparent. The whole problem is that we've got to get the money out of politics! It's without a doubt the easiest thing we can do in one fell swoop that will transform everything!

I don't think we need to. But I'd be willing to listen to public financing! And be judicious about it! Wouldn't it say something about how effective with money a candidate is if they had say,  20% of the money for campaigns that they currently have? Everybody's get sick of all the ads anyway , so by the end, we're all going crazy! Imagine what the people of Georgia are going to have to go through again in the run off  if it turns out to be critical!

But whether public financed or not. RFK was asked about campaign finsancing in 1968 and threw it back on the networks, saying "Hey you guys have a responsibility to the public, to give us, as candidates, free time". If they each got a free half hour a week during a campaign.. That might be a good thing. But the truth is, most of the public  wouldn't have the patience to sit through it. They've all been conditioned for sound bytes. But at least it would be fair and they could do their own spot ads.

People think there's so much power against it, and there is, but there's a lot of public support for campaign finance reform. But they have to get a strong consensus on the way to go, and there are a number of ways to go, but the differences, outside of public financing wouldn't be that divisive. If it was an integral part of one candidates platform, that might be a start. It's too bad we couldn't have a national referendum. But if that ever happened, you know in the closing weeks the donor class would go crazy with ads against it, completely misrepresenting what it is. But that's whats done all the time anyway, and it's not always successful.

About a half-century ago, as a freshman at Berkeley, in one of the first poli-sci classes I took, the Marxist TA rhetorically asked, "What is free speech, if some people have megaphones?" 

I do not have a good answer, then or now. 

On the other hand, what is free speech if regulated by government? 

Like Greenwald, the ACLU, if I have to err, I will err on the side of free speech. So it goes.

We have to agree to disagree on this one. 

[Ron Bulman]

Could Democrats still win the House majority? (msn.com)