Kamala Harris and the RFK assassination

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Sandy, these are good points eh?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/26/politics/us-troops-afghanistan/index.html

Obama actually committed more troops to Afghanistan, about 17, 000

Second, 2013 precedes 2014.  Greenwald first started writing about Snowden in 2013

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/snowden-and-greenwald-the-men-who-leaked-the-secrets-104970/

This is why i see no point in reading anything Varnell writes. Thanks to you I had to read this.

Also,  WIlson, Ike and Truman all preceded Kennedy.  There were only two of the five that came after. 

Obama just represented continuity, especially in terms of US foreign policy. An unremarkable presidency. 

[Cliff Varnell]

10 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Sandy, these are good points eh?

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/26/politics/us-troops-afghanistan/index.html

Obama actually committed more troops to Afghanistan, about 17, 000.

That fact was never in dispute.  What I took issue with was this:

Did he get us out of Afghanistan?  Its pretty bad when Trump does the things that Obama should have done.

But Trump hasn’t got us out of Afghanistan!

 Out of what orifice does DiEugenio pull this stuff?

10 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Second, 2013 precedes 2014.  Greenwald first started writing about Snowden in 2013

So what?  That wasn’t the issue DiEugenio raised when he wrote:

In foreign policy, did Obama, on his own, stop any of the NSA surveillance programs W started?

The answer is yes, Obama pushed for the 2015 Freedom Act which ended bulk collection of electronic communication by the NSA.

10 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/snowden-and-greenwald-the-men-who-leaked-the-secrets-104970/

This is why i see no point in reading anything Varnell writes.
 

Authoritarian personalities hate getting shown up.

10 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

Thanks to you I had to read this.

Also,  WIlson, Ike and Truman all preceded Kennedy.  There were only two of the five that came after. 

 

[Cliff Varnell]

On 8/14/2020 at 11:02 AM, Chris Barnard said:

Obama just represented continuity, especially in terms of US foreign policy. An unremarkable presidency. 

So the opening to Cuba “represented continuity” — of what?

The Iran nuclear deal represented a continuity of what?

When Obama and Putin negotiated the removal of chemical weapon stockpiles from Syria whose policy was that a continuation of?

Unremarkable critiques from DiEugenio and whoever this guy is.

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 8/12/2020 at 7:06 PM, W. Niederhut said:

Jim,

      Are you familiar with Alan Blinder's analysis of the effectiveness of the Obama/Dem Stimulus Recovery Act of 2009? *  The reason I ask is that there was a deluge of Republican disinformation in the mainstream media from 2009 onward about the Great Recession and the Great Obama Recovery of 2010-17.

      Krugman's main criticism at the time was that the Democratic stimulus plan didn't go far enough, but it was, certainly, effective in reversing the economic ship wreck of the Great Recession of 2008-10.   It was enacted with ZERO support or cooperation from the Republicans left in Congress after the 2008 debacle.   Galbraith & Keynes would have approved of it.

     People tend to forget about the severity of the economic crash that Obama inherited from Bush and Cheney in January of 2008-- widespread bank failures, plunging GDP, and surging unemployment.  Obama deserves an A+ for managing that disaster.

      Also, the role of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in causing the Great Crash of 2008 is somewhat controversial.  The causes of the crash were complex--  mainly having to do with investment banking fraudulence in the ratings and sales of sub-prime mortgage-backed derivatives and lax sub-prime mortgage lending standards-- what Alan Greenspan described as, "the failure of banks to regulate themselves."  As Bill Clinton and others pointed out, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, if anything, actually mitigated the Great Crash of 2008 by allowing commercial banks like Bank of America to buy failing investment banking firms like Merrill Lynch.

*  https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/the-financial-crisis-lessons-for-the-next-one

 

Thanks William.

I just can't understand how both those on the right and the far left hate Obama.

Back before the crash, I experimented quite a bit with day trading (buying and sell stocks within a short period of time for -- hopefully -- a quick profit). I never did well, but I learned a lot by watching CNBC, the business channel, all the time. I recall when, in 2007, stock trading guru Jim Cramer cried on live TV, he was so upset about the disastrous direction the investment banks were going and that nobody in government was doing anything to stop it before it was too late. He predicted they would all collapse unless something were done, and soon.

I couldn't find a video of the crying incident, but here's another of Cramer's meltdowns over this... watch the first 60 seconds:

 

The following year the banks began to collapse. Following that I recall seeing on CNBC economists and other financial experts being interviewed. After a several weeks they were all pretty much in agreement that the worst recession since the Great Depression was about  to occur, and many -- including Paul Krugman -- were worried that it would develop into a second Great Depression. And that was even if a stimulus package were passed.

The people here who think Obama was a poor president seem to have forgotten how bad it got, with unemployment reaching 10% and home values plummeting. The stock market crashing and taking with it retirement savings. People walking away from their home because it was worth less than the mortgage on it. Companies going out of business, GM being the biggest one.

Obama and the Democrats are the ones who saved America (and the world) from a total economic collapse. It blows my mind that there are people who say Obama was a bad president. And especially who say that he handled the recovery poorly.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 8/12/2020 at 9:43 PM, Cliff Varnell said:

On 8/12/2020 at 8:44 PM, James DiEugenio said:

.  With the Obama/Biden actions of 2009, Wall Street brought Washington, the White House and the American taxpayers to their knees.The annual deficits rose under Obama as compared to Bush, and they were pretty bad under W. They did not begin to stabilize until about 2013. But even then, they were worse than they were under W.

 

That's because Obama had to pay for the Bush's war with Iraq (which wasn't in Bush's budget), and had to pay for recovery from Bush's Great Recession. If you remove those two items, Obama added relatively little to the national debt.

 

Quote

Trump has wrecked the economy with his criminal incompetence but DiEugenio reserves his wrath for Obama.

Go figure.

 

Edited August 14, 2020 by Sandy Larsen

[Sandy Larsen]

On 8/12/2020 at 10:23 PM, Cliff Varnell said:

On 8/12/2020 at 10:18 PM, Cliff Varnell said:

 

Note the periods when household incomes grew the fastest: Clinton and Obama.

 

 

Thanks Cliff.

[Sandy Larsen]

On 8/12/2020 at 10:58 PM, Cliff Varnell said:

The Obama Recovery

By Paul Krugman December 28, 2014

Suppose that for some reason you decided to start hitting yourself in the head, repeatedly, with a baseball bat. You’d feel pretty bad. Correspondingly, you’d probably feel a lot better if and when you finally stopped. What would that improvement in your condition tell you?

It certainly wouldn’t imply that hitting yourself in the head was a good idea. It would, however, be an indication that the pain you were experiencing wasn’t a reflection of anything fundamentally wrong with your health. Your head wasn’t hurting because you were sick; it was hurting because you kept hitting it with that baseball bat.

And now you understand the basics of what has been happening to several major economies, including the United States, over the past few years. In fact, you understand these basics better than many politicians and commentators.

Let’s start with a tale from overseas: austerity policy in Britain. As you may know, back in 2010 Britain’s newly installed Conservative government declared that a sharp reduction in budget deficits was needed to keep Britain from turning into Greece. Over the next two years growth in the British economy, which had been recovering fairly well from the financial crisis, more or less stalled. In 2013, however, growth picked up again — and the British government claimed vindication for its policies. Was this claim justified?

No, not at all. What actually happened was that the Tories stopped tightening the screws — they didn’t reverse the austerity that had already occurred, but they effectively put a hold on further cuts. So they stopped hitting Britain in the head with that baseball bat. And sure enough, the nation started feeling better.

To claim that this bounceback vindicated austerity is silly. As Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford University likes to point out, if rapid growth after a gratuitous slump counts as success, the government should just close down half the economy for a year; the next year’s growth would be fantastic. Or as I’d put it, you shouldn’t conclude that hitting yourself in the head is smart because it feels so good when you stop. Unfortunately, the silliness of the claim hasn’t prevented its widespread acceptance by what Mr. Wren-Lewis calls “mediamacro.” 
 

Meanwhile, back in America we haven’t had an official, declared policy of fiscal austerity — but we’ve nonetheless had plenty of austerity in practice, thanks to the federal sequester and sharp cuts by state and local governments. The good news is that we, too, seem to have stopped tightening the screws: Public spending isn’t surging, but at least it has stopped falling. And the economy is doing much better as a result. We are finally starting to see the kind of growth, in employment and G.D.P., that we should have been seeing all along — and the public’s mood is rapidly improving.

What’s the important lesson from this late Obama bounce? Mainly, I’d suggest, that everything you’ve heard about President Obama’s economic policies is wrong.

You know the spiel: that the U.S. economy is ailing because Obamacare is a job-killer and the president is a redistributionist, that Mr. Obama’s anti-business speeches (he hasn’t actually made any, but never mind) have hurt entrepreneurs’ feelings, inducing them to take their marbles and go home. 

This story line never made much sense. The truth is that the private sector has done surprisingly well under Mr. Obama, adding 6.7 million jobs since he took office, compared with just 3.1 million at this point under President George W. Bush. Corporate profits have soared, as have stock prices. What held us back was unprecedented public-sector austerity: At this point in the Bush years, government employment was up by 1.2 million, but under Mr. Obama it’s down by 600,000. Sure enough, now that this de facto austerity is easing, the economy is perking up.

And what this bounce tells you is that the alleged faults of Obamanomics had nothing to do with the pain we were feeling. We weren’t hurting because we were sick; we were hurting because we kept hitting ourselves with that baseball bat, and we’re feeling a lot better now that we’ve stopped.

Will this improvement in our condition continue? Britain’s government has declared its intention to pick up the baseball bat again — to engage in further austerity, which does not bode well. But here the picture looks brighter. Households are in much better financial shape than they were a few years ago; there’s probably still a lot of pent-up demand, especially for housing. And falling oil prices will be good for most of the country, although some regions — especially Texas — may take a hit.

So I’m fairly optimistic about 2015, and probably beyond, as long as we avoid any more self-inflicted damage. Let’s just leave that baseball bat lying on the ground, O.K.?

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/29/opinion/paul-krugman-the-obama-recovery.html

 

 

Jim should read this.

 

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

So the opening to Cuba “represented continuity” — of what?

The Iran nuclear deal represented a continuity of what?

When Obama and Putin negotiated the removal of chemical weapon stockpiles from Syria whose policy was that a continuation of?

Unremarkable critiques from DiEugenio and whoever this guy is.

 

 

Am I alone in thinking that, Cliff? To me it looked like vast swathes of the population that voted to elect Obama were that disenfranchised and sick of his party’s governance by 2016, that they turned around voted for an unstatesman like egotist to run the country, who for all intensive purpose is the polar opposite. So really, if you’re disagreeing with me, you’re disagreeing with the electorate. If the public perceived him to have been a good thing, they’d have opted for a Dem in 2016 and continuity of Obama policies. Instead here we are ... 

[Cliff Varnell]

On 8/14/2020 at 12:21 PM, Chris Barnard said:

Am I alone in thinking that, Cliff? To me it looked like vast swathes of the population that voted to elect Obama were that disenfranchised and sick of his party’s governance by 2016, that they turned around voted for an unstatesman like egotist to run the country, who for all intensive purpose is the polar opposite. So really, if you’re disagreeing with me, you’re disagreeing with the electorate.

Not at all.  Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes in the face of a multifaceted voter suppression campaign which included:

1)  The disenfranchisement of millions of non-white voters thru GOP voter ID laws and voter roll purge programs.

2)  The intervention of FBI Director James Comey, who re-opened the bogus Clinton e-mail investigation which turned the last 11 days of the campaign into non-stop Hillary bashing on all the cable news channels.

3)  The proven collusion between the Trump campaign, Russian military intelligence, and Wikileaks in the well-timed release of the DNC and Podesta e-mails.

Was it Obama’s fault Hillary ran a poor campaign on top of all that?  Or his fault that Bill Clinton visited AG Loretta Lynch which caused her to recuse herself from the Clinton e-mail investigation?

Quote

If the public perceived him to have been a good thing, they’d have opted for a Dem in 2016 and continuity of Obama policies. Instead here we are ... 

On the morning of October 28, 2016 there were 3 stories in the news cycle on CNN and MSNBC: 1) the continued controversy over the Access Hollywood pussy-grabbing tape, 2) the continued controversy over Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, and 3) a new poll showing Clinton with a 10 point lead.

By early that afternoon until Election Day there was only one story on cable news — Hillary’s e-mails on the computer of a sex pervert.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Not at all.  Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes in the face of a multifaceted voter suppression campaign which included:

1)  The disenfranchisement of millions of non-white voters thru GOP voter ID laws and voter roll purge programs.

2)  The intervention of FBI Director James Comey, who re-opened the bogus Clinton e-mail investigation which turned the last 11 days of the campaign into non-stop Hillary bashing on all the cable news channels.

3)  The proven collusion between the Trump campaign, Russian military intelligence, and Wikileaks in the well-timed release of the DNC and Podesta e-mails.

Was it Obama’s fault Hillary ran a poor campaign on top of all that?  Or his fault that Bill Clinton visited AG Loretta Lynch which caused her to recuse herself from the Clinton e-mail investigation?

On the morning of October 28, 2016 there were 3 stories in the news cycle on CNN and MSNBC: 1) the continued controversy over the Access Hollywood pussy-grabbing tape, 2) the continued controversy over Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, and 3) a new poll showing Clinton with a 10 point lead.

By early that afternoon until Election Day there was only one story on cable news — Hillary’s e-mails on the computer of a sex pervert.

This is all par for the course though, Cliff. Cuts both ways. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Look at the news networks backing Hilary, you think the dems weren’t doing everything they could to smear Trump? It’s a very dirty corrupt business to get in that White House. This is Obama’s first secretary of state pick we are talking about. The election loss for the dems was actually far more simple. 
 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

On 8/14/2020 at 12:21 PM, Chris Barnard said:

Am I alone in thinking that, Cliff? To me it looked like vast swathes of the population that voted to elect Obama were that disenfranchised and sick of his party’s governance by 2016, that they turned around voted for an unstatesman like egotist to run the country, who for all intensive purpose is the polar opposite. So really, if you’re disagreeing with me, you’re disagreeing with the electorate. If the public perceived him to have been a good thing, they’d have opted for a Dem in 2016 and continuity of Obama policies. Instead here we are ... 

 

Hey, they did re-elect Obama. I think they would have re-elected him again in 2016 had he been eligible to run.

We can get an idea of which past presidents would have the best chance a winning a presidential election now by looking at a poll like this Quinnipiac University poll taken March 3–5, 2018. It asked 1,122 voters who they thought were the best presidents since World War II:

Best President since World War II:

1. Ronald Reagan (28%)
2. Barack Obama (24%)
3. John F. Kennedy (tie) (10%)
3. Bill Clinton (tie) (10%)
5. Donald Trump (7%)
6. Dwight Eisenhower (4%)
7. Harry S. Truman (tie) (3%)
7. Jimmy Carter (tie) (3%)
9. Lyndon B. Johnson (2%)
10. George H. W. Bush (tie) (1%)
10. Richard Nixon (tie) (1%)
10. George W. Bush (tie) (1%)
13. Gerald R. Ford (<1%)

(Source)

Obama and Reagan are far ahead of the rest. Either would have won in 2016.

As for Hillary, she was painted as the devil incarnate by the blogosphere (which is largely right-wing) and the FBI gave her their October surprise. But she still beat Trump by millions in the popular vote.

BTW, what you meant by "for all intensive purpose" is "for all intents and purposes."

 

[Cliff Varnell]

On 8/14/2020 at 1:10 PM, Chris Barnard said:

This is all par for the course though, Cliff.

Disenfranchising millions of voters is “par for the course” for the GOP, sure.

The intervention of the FBI in a Presidential  election is “par for the course”?  
 
Soliciting foreign intervention in an election IS par for the course for the GOP since Nixon recruited the South Vietnamese government to turn down the 11th Hour peace deal in 1968; the Reagan campaign in 1980 solicited the Iranian government to hold on to the US Embassy hostages until Reagan was inaugurated; an Australian who owned a US network prematurely called the election for Dubya Bush in 2000 — the other networks followed suit, which allowed Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to prematurely certify Bush’s victory in Florida, subsequently held up by the Supreme Court.
 
Then there’s Putin and Assange helping Trump in 2016.  Par for the course.
 

 

Quote

Cuts both ways. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

The Democrats disenfranchise GOP voters how?

The Democrats solicit foreign intervention when?

The FBI intercedes on behalf of the Democrats where?

Quote

Look at the news networks backing Hilary, you think the dems weren’t doing everything they could to smear Trump?

The news networks loved Trump!  They broadcast every speech, gave him billions of dollars in free advertising.

How many times did the Russians-hack-the-DNC story make the 24-hour cable news cycle? Twice.  June 14/15 and July 24/25.  Nothing over the last 70 days of the election, not even when the Obama Administration on Oct. 7 publicly accused the Russians of interference — that item was buried by the Access Hollywood tape.

The New York Times devoted four times the space to Hillary’s e-mails than her policy positions.

How many times did the Steele Dossier make the cable news shows over the last two months of the campaign?  ZERO.

Quote

It’s a very dirty corrupt business to get in that White House. This is Obama’s first secretary of state pick we are talking about. The election loss for the dems was actually far more simple. 

With all due respect, Chris, you don’t know wtf you’re talking about.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Hey, they did re-elect Obama. I think they would have re-elected him again in 2016 had he been eligible to run.

We can get an idea of which past presidents would have the best chance a winning a presidential election now by looking at a poll like this Quinnipiac University poll taken March 3–5, 2018. It asked 1,122 voters who they thought were the best presidents since World War II:

Best President since World War II:

1. Ronald Reagan (28%)
2. Barack Obama (24%)
3. John F. Kennedy (tie) (10%)
3. Bill Clinton (tie) (10%)
5. Donald Trump (7%)
6. Dwight Eisenhower (4%)
7. Harry S. Truman (tie) (3%)
7. Jimmy Carter (tie) (3%)
9. Lyndon B. Johnson (2%)
10. George H. W. Bush (tie) (1%)
10. Richard Nixon (tie) (1%)
10. George W. Bush (tie) (1%)
13. Gerald R. Ford (<1%)

(Source)

Obama and Reagan are far ahead of the rest. Either would have won in 2016.

As for Hillary, she was painted as the devil incarnate by the blogosphere (which is largely right-wing) and the FBI gave her their October surprise. But she still beat Trump by millions in the popular vote.

BTW, what you meant by "for all intensive purpose" is "for all intents and purposes."

 

That’s purely hypothetical though. If you had chosen a set period of time for Hilary in the 2016 run, polls would say she was almost certain to be elected and she wasn’t. All those people who were couldn’t be bothered to participate in polls, suddenly turned up to vote and Hilary lost. 
 

With your table there are factors with skew that poll. For example of the people who voted for Eisenhower in an election are deceased for example. Its not a multi-varied analysis, which is really needed to produce conclusive results. 
 

Using the same logic, this doesn’t prove Obama is the worst, post WWII either:

Worst President since World War II:

1. Barack Obama (33%)
2. George W. Bush (28%)
3. Richard Nixon (13%)
4. Jimmy Carter (8%)
5. Lyndon B. Johnson (tie) (3%)
5. Ronald Reagan (tie) (3%)
5. Bill Clinton (tie) (3%)
8. Gerald Ford (tie) (2%)
8. George H. W. Bush (tie) (2%)
10. Dwight Eisenhower (1%)
11. Harry S. Truman (tie) (<1%)
11. John F. Kennedy (tie) (<1%)

 

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Cliff Varnell said:

Disenfranchising millions of voters is “par for the course” for the GOP, sure.

The intervention of the FBI in a Presidential  election is “par for the course”?  
 
Soliciting foreign intervention in an election IS par for the course for the GOP since Nixon recruited the South Vietnamese government to turn down the 11th Hour peace deal in 1968; the Reagan campaign in 1980 solicited the Iranian government to hold on to the US Embassy hostages until Reagan was inaugurated; an Australian who owned a US network prematurely called the election for Dubya Bush in 2000 — the other networks followed suit, which allowed Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris to prematurely certify Bush’s victory in Florida, subsequently held up by the Supreme Court.
 
Then there’s Putin and Assange helping Trump in 2016.  Par for the course.
 

 

The Democrats disenfranchise GOP voters how?

The Democrats solicit foreign intervention when?

The FBI intercedes on behalf of the Democrats where?

The news networks loved Trump!  They broadcast every speech, gave him billions of dollars in free advertising.

How many times did the Russians-hack-the-DNC story make the 24-hour cable news cycle? Twice.  June 14/15 and July 24/25.  Nothing over the last 70 days of the election, not even when the Obama Administration on Oct. 7 publicly accused the Russians of interference — that item was buried by the Access Hollywood tape.

The New York Times devoted four times the space to Hillary’s e-mails than her policy positions.

How many times did the Steele Dossier make the cable news shows over the last two months of the campaign?  ZERO.

With all due respect, Chris, you don’t know wtf you’re talking about.

You’re the one losing your rag here and on the attack, not me, Cliff. Which really highlights the incapacity of many Dems to actually have a free and open discussion. 
 

It’s very interesting you mention Assange, you may as well chuck Edward Snowden in there too for good measure. There is a lot of the world that thinks they were doing some good, obviously not through your looking glass though. 

[Cliff Varnell]

On 8/14/2020 at 1:55 PM, Chris Barnard said:

 

On the day of the election the aggregate polls predicted Hillary would win by 3.9%.
 
Clinton won the popular vote by 2%.

There were at least 3 million Hillary voters disenfranchised, another 2%.

The polls were balls-to -the-wall accurate.