Werthless wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Werthless, I'm sure you realize that the first law signed by W was the Bankruptcy Law overhaul. His first priority was to make it much more difficult for people to declare bankruptcy, thereby "subverting" decades of established law. By the way, one of his biggest campaign contributors was MBNA, exceeded only by ENRON, before it's demise. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

Signing a law passed by Congress is much different from what Obama did. I'm sure you realize that.

[C]alling the bailouts “successful” is to whitewash the diversion of funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program by two administrations for purposes unauthorized by Congress; the looting and redistribution of claims against GM’s and Chrysler’s assets from shareholders and debt-holders to pensioners; the use of questionable tactics to bully stakeholders into accepting terms to facilitate politically desirable outcomes; the unprecedented encroachment by the executive branch into the finest details of the bankruptcy process to orchestrate what bankruptcy law experts describe as “Sham” sales of Old Chrysler to New Chrysler and Old GM to New GM; the costs of denying Ford and the other more deserving automakers the spoils of competition; the costs of insulating irresponsible actors, such as the United Autoworkers, from the outcomes of an apolitical bankruptcy proceeding; the diminution of U.S. moral authority to counsel foreign governments against similar market interventions; and the lingering uncertainty about the direction of policy under the current administration that pervades the business environment to this very day.

Werthless wrote:Here's a good summary of the political nature of the executive branch's foray into the bankruptcy proceedings of GM and Chrysler.

[C]alling the bailouts “successful” is to whitewash the diversion of funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program by two administrations for purposes unauthorized by Congress; the looting and redistribution of claims against GM’s and Chrysler’s assets from shareholders and debt-holders to pensioners; the use of questionable tactics to bully stakeholders into accepting terms to facilitate politically desirable outcomes; the unprecedented encroachment by the executive branch into the finest details of the bankruptcy process to orchestrate what bankruptcy law experts describe as “Sham” sales of Old Chrysler to New Chrysler and Old GM to New GM; the costs of denying Ford and the other more deserving automakers the spoils of competition; the costs of insulating irresponsible actors, such as the United Autoworkers, from the outcomes of an apolitical bankruptcy proceeding; the diminution of U.S. moral authority to counsel foreign governments against similar market interventions; and the lingering uncertainty about the direction of policy under the current administration that pervades the business environment to this very day.

Other than that, it was a success, since the unions didn't have to concede as much as they would have if an actual bankruptcy proceeding were allowed to take place. Oh, and it has cost US taxpayers $10B.

summary

JFLNYC wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Werthless, I'm sure you realize that the first law signed by W was the Bankruptcy Law overhaul. His first priority was to make it much more difficult for people to declare bankruptcy, thereby "subverting" decades of established law. By the way, one of his biggest campaign contributors was MBNA, exceeded only by ENRON, before it's demise. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

What are you talking about? BAPCPA was a 2005 bill. Clinton pocket vetoed the bill in 2000, and nothing else made it to the President's desk in the meantime.

I should have said the first bill after he was re-elected.

Do you really think when he signed it makes any difference at all as to the substance of the law and his backing of it?

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Werthless, I'm sure you realize that the first law signed by W was the Bankruptcy Law overhaul. His first priority was to make it much more difficult for people to declare bankruptcy, thereby "subverting" decades of established law. By the way, one of his biggest campaign contributors was MBNA, exceeded only by ENRON, before it's demise. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

What are you talking about? BAPCPA was a 2005 bill. Clinton pocket vetoed the bill in 2000, and nothing else made it to the President's desk in the meantime.

I should have said the first bill after he was re-elected.

Do you really think when he signed it makes any difference at all as to the substance of the law and his backing of it?

You seemed to be making some grandiose point about Bush's priorities vis a vis the timing.

If you think I'm actually defending Bush, you're nuts (particularly on this point). I'm a creditors bankruptcy attorney, and I think BAPCPA sucks.

Among voters who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, support is spread fairly evenly across the potential 2016 presidential field in a head-to-head question. Eighteen percent prefer Governor Chris Christie, 18% prefer Congressman Paul Ryan, 15% prefer former Governor Jeb Bush, 14% prefer Senator Marco Rubio, 11% prefer Senator Rand Paul, and 11% prefer Senator Ted Cruz.

Among libertarian voters who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, Paul (26%) was the most popular potential candidate, while 18% prefer Cruz, 16% prefer Rubio, and 13% prefer Ryan. Fewer libertarian voters prefer Christie (10%) or Bush (6%).
Among Tea Party voters who identify or lean Republican, Cruz is the most preferred candidate (22%), followed by Rubio (18%), Ryan (14%), and Paul (13%). Roughly 1-in-10 Tea Party voters prefer Bush (11%) or Christie (12%).
White evangelical Protestant voters have less clear candidate preferences than libertarian and Tea Party voters. Among white evangelical Protestant voters who identify or lean Republican, top preferences include Ryan (19%), Christie (16%), and Bush (15%), while roughly 1-in-10 prefer Rubio (13%), Paul (11%), or Cruz (10%)

AUSTIN-Sen. Wendy Davis isn’t the only big-name candidate for governor needing an affidavit to vote.

Attorney General Greg Abbott, the Republican who’s expected to get the party nod to face the Democratic senator next year, also will have to attest to his identity when he votes, according to campaign spokesman Matt Hirsch.

That’s because, like Davis, Abbott has a different name on his driver license than that on the voter rolls.

On his driver license, he’s Gregory Wayne Abbott, Hirsch said. In the voter registration file, he’s simply Greg Abbott.

Under the law (through an amendment offered by Davis, D-Fort Worth, to the measure she opposed), voters whose recorded names differ slightly in this way can vote if they sign an affidavit.

Abbott has championed the voter ID measure requiring a photo ID to cast an in-person ballot.

He plans to vote early for the Nov. 5 election, Hirsch said.

U.S. intelligence officials studied the document published by Le Monde and have determined that it wasn’t assembled by the NSA. Rather, the document appears to be a slide that was assembled based on NSA data received from French intelligence, a U.S. official said.

Based on an analysis of the document, the U.S. concluded that the phone records the French had collected were actually from outside of France, and then were shared with the U.S. The data don’t show that the French spied on their own people inside France.

U.S. intelligence officials haven’t seen the documents cited by El Mundo but the data appear to come from similar information the NSA obtained from Spanish intelligence agencies documenting their collection efforts abroad, officials said.

Both the reports in Le Monde and El Mundo were co-written by Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who originally revealed the extent of the NSA's surveillance programs based on the documents from Snowden.

pacino wrote:Libertarians are young white males who are economically more conservative than Republicans and a more nuanced, mixed bag on social issues, but a majority still oppose same sex marriage?

Compared to the general population, libertarians are significantly more likely to be non-Hispanic white, male, and young. Nearly all libertarians are non-Hispanic whites (94%), more than two-thirds (68%) are men, and more than 6-in-10 (62%) are under the age of 50.

The party affiliation of libertarians skews significantly more Republican than Democratic. Close to half (45%) of libertarians identify as Republican, compared to only 5% who identify as Democrat.

cshort wrote:The NSA spied on the Pope during the conclave. FFS.

dajafi wrote:In terms of how to right-size government... I keep coming back to this idea of radical decentralization. It makes more and more sense as the country geographically self-sorts by ideology: keep a national currency, defense, and the constitutional framework, and otherwise devolve as much as possible to the state and local levels. What's lost in efficiencies of scale--a real concern--IMO would be more than gained in citizen buy-in.

I think devolutionary federalism is a concept mostly associated with the right, but otherwise I don't get why more liberals aren't on board. We have bigger government in NYC because most of us think we need it to regulate complicated systems and uncountable commercial interactions, etc. Government is and should be smaller in those low-density red states with more senators than congressional reps. Why we should tell them what to do or vice-versa is beyond me.

cshort wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:
Now here is a lie with some teeth to it.

Well if you're digging up old chestnuts

Wizlah wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:Newsflash: We spy on our allies and they spy on us.

Keeping a phone tap one of the leaders of your allies for up to ten years isn't spying. It's indiscriminate surveillance. And saying it's just spying is a poor excuse in light of the volume of indiscriminate trawling. 60 million phone records of spanish people is not spying. It's indiscriminate surveillance. GCHQ and the NSA's trawling of any electronic communication that used the transatlantic fibre optic cable is not spying, it's indiscriminate surveillance.

Arguing that this is all 'just spying' when in actual fact you are breaking the rights of foreign citizens by trawling through anything we send or browse is insulting. It's an attempt, at best, to ignore the seriousness of what's been done. At worst, it's an attempt to trivialise and ridicule those who have unearthed these facts. It reeks of the worst kind of entitlement i.e. 'we do it because we can.'

jerseyhoya wrote:I appreciate that. The common defense in this thread from liberals has been "BUT BUSH", and it's good to mix up which previous Republican the left bashed for doing (or not knowing) XYZ so of course it's OK that Obama is now doing (or not knowing) XYZ.

jerseyhoya wrote:I appreciate that. The common defense in this thread from liberals has been "BUT BUSH", and it's good to mix up which previous Republican the left bashed for doing (or not knowing) XYZ so of course it's OK that Obama is now doing (or not knowing) XYZ.

pacino wrote:
i don't think he's that great of a president, to be honest. i think he's done some obvious things, some long-term decent things, but is very defensive and afraid of confrontation or holding to long-held convictions for hte sake of some false civility/bipartisanship that the other side will never allow. he's nowhere near the worst president of my lifetime, though.
.

Werthless wrote:
Other than that, it was a success, since the unions didn't have to concede as much as they would have if an actual bankruptcy proceeding were allowed to take place. Oh, and it has cost US taxpayers $10B.

summary

cshort wrote:
With the ACA creating all of these sound bites, the last shutdown will be a distant memory. This has much more of a direct impact on the average citizen

cshort wrote:Hoyer came out today and admitted they knew all along people would lose their healthcare This will be all over the air in Oct.