dajafi wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:

dajafi wrote:Seeing as the Republicans did pretty much nothing but play politics when they were in charge--how many days in the 109th Congress were spent on flag burning? Terri Schiavo? the anti-gay marriage amendment?--it seems like too much to expect them to do anything else now that they have no power. It's annoying, but not unexpected or, given who they are in 2009, illogical.

They've been all tactics, no strategy for about 12 years now. Maybe they can return to power on a wave of Democratic corruption or failure; that still wouldn't do much to address the problems of the country.

And actually, given how bad things probably would have to get under the Democrats to push the public past Bush's failures while his party spouts the same ideas he failed with, certainly at least the Republicans who own property, or aspire one day to do so, should be praying that Obama does okay.

Dajafi, this response essentially seems to amount to "The Republicans did it, now we get to". No arguments they did it, but that doesn't make you doing it any better. Never mind the fact that I think the GOP has about the same amount of decent ideas on the economy as the Dems and it stands to reason it might have been nice to use their input.

That's the fear I've always had with Obama even as I supported him - he may pay lip service to bipartisanship, but sure seems to vote Dem all the time.

No, the "now we get to" is just your reflexive pox-on-both-houses cynicism.* I made no point like that. Not sure why you're often so quick to jump on me as the knee-jerk liberal water-carrier, but I'm pretty sure there are better choices for this.

*which is not to say you might not be proven correct, but we'll see.

Sorry, first I did originally have pacino in the address but my computer crashed and I was in a hurry. I jump on you because I expect the best of you...if East Fallowfield was here, I certainly wouldn't address him.

Second, it's not so much the "pox on both your houses" as much as it is, don't tell me something's different when both parties do it. The reason you're more okay with this is because the legislation is more to your liking than whatever the Republicans could have cooked up (and the current legislation is also probably more to my liking).

Warszawa wrote:

She took the case to the Supreme Court, which upheld the appellate court's view in a 5 to 4 opinion written by its newest member, Justice Samuel A. Alito, a Bush appointee. At the time, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was appointed by President Clinton, gave a rare oral dissent, saying she hoped Congress would reverse what the court had done.

What a dick

huh?

jeff2sf wrote:

dajafi wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:

dajafi wrote:Seeing as the Republicans did pretty much nothing but play politics when they were in charge--how many days in the 109th Congress were spent on flag burning? Terri Schiavo? the anti-gay marriage amendment?--it seems like too much to expect them to do anything else now that they have no power. It's annoying, but not unexpected or, given who they are in 2009, illogical.

They've been all tactics, no strategy for about 12 years now. Maybe they can return to power on a wave of Democratic corruption or failure; that still wouldn't do much to address the problems of the country.

And actually, given how bad things probably would have to get under the Democrats to push the public past Bush's failures while his party spouts the same ideas he failed with, certainly at least the Republicans who own property, or aspire one day to do so, should be praying that Obama does okay.

Dajafi, this response essentially seems to amount to "The Republicans did it, now we get to". No arguments they did it, but that doesn't make you doing it any better. Never mind the fact that I think the GOP has about the same amount of decent ideas on the economy as the Dems and it stands to reason it might have been nice to use their input.

That's the fear I've always had with Obama even as I supported him - he may pay lip service to bipartisanship, but sure seems to vote Dem all the time.

No, the "now we get to" is just your reflexive pox-on-both-houses cynicism.* I made no point like that. Not sure why you're often so quick to jump on me as the knee-jerk liberal water-carrier, but I'm pretty sure there are better choices for this.

*which is not to say you might not be proven correct, but we'll see.

Sorry, first I did originally have pacino in the address but my computer crashed and I was in a hurry. I jump on you because I expect the best of you...if East Fallowfield was here, I certainly wouldn't address him.

Second, it's not so much the "pox on both your houses" as much as it is, don't tell me something's different when both parties do it. The reason you're more okay with this is because the legislation is more to your liking than whatever the Republicans could have cooked up (and the current legislation is also probably more to my liking).

It's not necessarily different, that's true. But at some point the substantive compromises required to win Republican support don't justify the tradeoff of appealing to the Democratic majorities, putting together the best possible legislation. I mean, he could have adopted Boehner's proposal as written, and maybe enough Democrats would have been in support for it to pass. But then he starts a war with his own party in the first days of the administration, *and* it's probably a worse bill based on what we know about how you do and don't stimulate demand.

Maybe I'm naive, but I believe political interest is ultimately best served by doing a good job in office. (This is why I think David Paterson is such a wanker: the guy obviously has no confidence in his own ability to govern well, so he subjugated his Senate pick to the sole criterion of who would most help him politically.)

jerseyhoya, who's very smart on the tactics, is right that ultimately Obama will succeed or fail politically based on how well the policy choices work out--not on how many Republican votes he can cajole. Obama, who's pretty savvy himself, gets this.

Of course, left in all this is my belief that it doesn't much matter what he does (outside of the very extremes, obviously), the economy is going to improve and Obama will get the credit.

jeff2sf wrote:Of course, left in all this is my belief that it doesn't much matter what he does (outside of the very extremes, obviously), the economy is going to improve and Obama will get the credit.

I agree, especially since he has 4 full years for the economy to turn around. The American people gave FDR 4 terms because they "felt" he was helping them, and that's what's important to a voter. It's Obama's ability to make people feel good about their government that will give him a relatively long leash, I suspect. In the event that the economy doesn't turn around, the GOP is simply trying to position themselves so that they can get another shot as the majority party. Right now, the Democrats can do whatever they want, and there's not a whole lot that the GOP can do about it.

Werthless wrote:I wasn't sure if this was discussion-worthy, but in the face of a $2.8B dollar loss in 2008 and a possible $6B loss in 2009, the US postal service is going to try and cut costs by eliminating a delivery day.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28897426/?GT1=43001

This means that, maybe, mail wouldn't be delivered on Tuesdays or something, a low volume day.

I'm selfishly against this because one less day of mail per week could mean the difference between as many as 4 Netflix DVDs per week and as few as 2 on my current plan. Plus the timing is ironic, given what Netflix is considering--adding a sixth day to their company work week.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... tflix.aspx

TheDude24 wrote:

Werthless wrote:I wasn't sure if this was discussion-worthy, but in the face of a $2.8B dollar loss in 2008 and a possible $6B loss in 2009, the US postal service is going to try and cut costs by eliminating a delivery day.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28897426/?GT1=43001

This means that, maybe, mail wouldn't be delivered on Tuesdays or something, a low volume day.

I'm selfishly against this because one less day of mail per week could mean the difference between as many as 4 Netflix DVDs per week and as few as 2 on my current plan. Plus the timing is ironic, given what Netflix is considering--adding a sixth day to their company work week.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... tflix.aspx

Download baby!

Back on to politics, and whether the Republican party has a future.

Some interesting stuff on 538 about the Republican vote on the stimulus, but basically saying in a dozen paragraphs what I indicated above concerning House Republican tactics.

Interestingly, this post from Redstate sort of makes the same point. There seems to be a definite purity movement among base Republicans--they're intent on chasing everyone out of the party who doesn't pass a purity test.

Remember, though, these are people who also believe that Rumsfeld was doing a good job in Iraq, that the universe was created in seven days, and that huge increases of carbon in the atmosphere has no impact on climate.

There are several problems with this. Most significantly, it brooks no real challenge to received conservative wisdom. The movement it seems has become accustomed to being told what position to take on various positions by a "leadership" and accept it without debate. Talk radio is a very top-down medium, unsuited to a conversation about what conservatives is and how to implement conservative policies. And the conservative blogosphere, where that conversation could take place, is currently an embarrassment.

Additionally, there still hasn't be recognition of the need for effective government. Even a small government has to perform its tasks effectively.

By the way, add in demographic changes just in Texas (now a white minority state, and inevitability a white minority voter state) and without at the very least doing some serious bridge building with Hispanics, and well, the electoral college math gets really, really, funky.

To Paul's point, check out Marc Ambinder todayreporting from (or maybe just "on"--not sure he was there) the RNC:

McConnell subscribes to what might be called the "sales job" theory of Democratic dominance. That is -- the message is fine; the techniques used to communicate it are not. The "sales job" theory is quite attractive to many Republicans because it relieves them of having to question whether Americans, at their corps, are beginning to distrust what the party stands for, what the party does, who the party is. What a relief! All that's need are some cosmetics. Maybe it's Mabeline. McConnell's view is shared by many Republican current office-holders. It is not the view that Republican strategists tend to hold, and it certainly is not the view of the younger conservative intellectuals, like the Atlantic's own Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam.
...
Other evidence, including exit polls from 2006 and 2008, locate this problem at a microskeletal level: it cannot deal with globalization, with a flat world, with religious diversity, with institutional decay. Since the 1960s, the GOP's DNA has dutifully replicated activist cells to inflame and attack on culture, and Democratic efforts to minimize the demands and pressure of culture haven't worked. The selection of Sarah Palin got them replicatin' again, but then reality -- in the form of a global economic crisis -- intruded, and Republicans couldn't fight their way out of a plastic bag.

I think it really is comparable to the Democrats' problems from the late '60s to the early '90s, when they couldn't reconcile the basic contradiction in their worldview: too interventionist in the economy, not interventionist enough in foreign policy or assertive about values (basic stuff like "crime is bad; work is good") at home. At the risk of making Buddy Groom happy, I'll grant that it was Bill Clinton more than anybody else who closed the gap by reining in both tendencies.

Now the Republicans have to start finding ways to resolve their big glaring contradiction: a seemingly bottomless appetite for use of force abroad and moral compulsion at home, especially but not exclusively around sex, coupled with an absolute hands-off view toward the economy and contempt for redistributive social welfare in almost all its forms. This set of positions makes no sense, and doesn't appeal to anyone but the true believers. It also tees up wrenching contradictions like the one I once posed to Vox: when you go totally laissez-faire on the economy, middle- and low-skilled workers get squeezed the hardest, and that in turn puts unbearable pressures on their families--so you have more divorce, more unwanted pregnancies (and abortions), more crime. It's pretty much impossible to have 1950s family values without 1950s economic policies.

The Salam/Douthat crowd is at least trying to think through some of these things. The paleoconservatives don't seem to have many champions right now--Pat Buchanan isn't running again--but at least they're sort of consistent. The next set of winning Republican ideas probably will start to bubble up in the course of the 2012 campaign, though it's unlikely they'll win in 2012--I imagine we'll see something analogous to Gary Hart in 1984, when he had all the excitement and new ideas but lost to the guy with the institutional muscle behind him, in that case Mondale.

They'll be back--I hope they come back, because you know the Democrats are going to overdo it and screw up sooner or later--but probably not until the current crop of leaders gets stomped into irrelevance.

I will miss Blago mostly for his ridiculous hair.

jerseyhoya wrote:I will miss Blago mostly for his ridiculous hair.

That, and for Jon Stewart pronouncing his name like Jerry Lewis having an orgasm.

edit: to be perfectly clear, I mean how I imagine Jerry would sound at the moment of climax. I have absolutely no actual knowledge of this, and frankly just thinking about it is pretty troubling.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I will miss Blago mostly for his ridiculous hair.

That, and for Jon Stewart pronouncing his name like Jerry Lewis having an orgasm.

Do you think Wheels looks at Blago on TV and thinks to himself...wonder where he buys his rugs? I do.

jerseyhoya wrote:

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:I will miss Blago mostly for his ridiculous hair.

That, and for Jon Stewart pronouncing his name like Jerry Lewis having an orgasm.

Do you think Wheels looks at Blago on TV and thinks to himself...wonder where he buys his rugs? I do.

Nice. But I think Wheels probably just looks on with gut-wrenching envy that Blago has so much, and he so little.

I just figured all guys with toupees would assume that anyone with hair that robust must be wearing a piece.

TERRESTRIAL

I recall this being reported a couple of weeks ago, but dunno if it was mentioned here...

Barack Obama's mother in law is moving into the White House.

If that isn't a recipe for a sitcom...

Phan In Phlorida wrote:I recall this being reported a couple of weeks ago, but dunno if it was mentioned here...

Barack Obama's mother in law is moving into the White House.

If that isn't a recipe for a sitcom...

Cory in the House?

Phan In Phlorida wrote:I recall this being reported a couple of weeks ago, but dunno if it was mentioned here...

Barack Obama's mother in law is moving into the White House.

If that isn't a recipe for a sitcom...

Already done - just replace the maid with grandma

i've been misproouncing his name. i thought it was Bla-GLAAAAAAVIN-ich.

dajafi wrote:Now the Republicans have to start finding ways to resolve their big glaring contradiction: a seemingly bottomless appetite for use of force abroad and moral compulsion at home, especially but not exclusively around sex, coupled with an absolute hands-off view toward the economy and contempt for redistributive social welfare in almost all its forms. This set of positions makes no sense, and doesn't appeal to anyone but the true believers. It also tees up wrenching contradictions like the one I once posed to Vox: when you go totally laissez-faire on the economy, middle- and low-skilled workers get squeezed the hardest, and that in turn puts unbearable pressures on their families--so you have more divorce, more unwanted pregnancies (and abortions), more crime. It's pretty much impossible to have 1950s family values without 1950s economic policies.

I really liked your post, and agreed with almost all of it. But I strongly disagree with what you put in bold. Now, I know that it's probably just your opinion, but it is often presented as fact by political commentators. Economic freedoms are strongly correlated with large growth rates in GDP, and changes in economic freedom are even greater predictors of growth rates.

Now, what you're talking about has to do with inequality, which is a slightly different issue. Republicans generally concern themselves with growing the economic pie. Democrats generally concern themselves with how the pie is distributed, and don't worry too much about how fast the pie is growing, as long as it's getting bigger. This explains many (but not all, obviously) policy differences. Free trade (R issue) vs. fair trade or protectionism (D), lower taxes (R) vs. higher taxes (D), less welfare (R) vs. more welfare (D), environmentalism as a cost/benefit analysis (R) vs. conservation at all costs (D), etc. I'm obviously exaggerating the differences between R and D, but I did that because their actual policy differences are sometimes laughably similar.

Do you have some information on crime rates or divorce rates that have to do with the amount of government regulations, to back up your claim that raising government regulations lowers the crime and divorce rate? You might say "that's not what I meant," but when you claim that laissez-faire policies lead to high crime and divorce, that leads me to believe that the opposite of laissez-faire (ie. government regulation) has the opposite effect.