The language of No has been to damn the SNP and Alex Salmond and aim all their propaganda at them while simultaneously spreading terror among Don’t Knows. But what have they said to the key group – the people of all parties and none who are not SNP but who nevertheless want independence? To them there is nothing tailored except an unconvincing Wait for Labour to Get In. It is as though their hatred of the SNP has blinded them to the hard fact that they can’t get the Nationalist vote so there’s little point in banging on about it and anyway, non-Nationalists who vote SNP for Holyrood have lost their fear of the party and certainly of the leadership which they see as far superior to the opposition.

This group is roughly double the SNP support in this referendum and yet does not relate to the party, does not call itself nationalist and will return to voting for Unionist parties for Westminster – if there’s a No. They are mostly Labour but have lost their fear of independence and have seen enough of Salmond and Sturgeon in action to get their measure. They deprecate their own leadership yet might respond to a sincere and winning case of a reformed Union.

You hire an Eric Cantor. What do you expect him to get up to?
"Let’s look at Cantor’s résumé. Let’s look at all his investment-banking experience. Let’s look at his capital-markets experience. He has none. He has no experience or skills that would qualify him to be even an intern at a fifth-tier firm in the financial industry. I mean, come on! I love the spin. They’re pushing back this morning. They’re saying, 'This is really different! This isn’t like everybody else.'

"But Wall Street always goes with the sure bet and the well-worn path. They’re paying him a guaranteed — you’ve got to love Wall Street, you guarantee money because you can’t fail on Wall Street — they’re guaranteeing him $3.8 million. You don’t guarantee someone $3.8 million because you’re training him to be an investment banker.

"Wall Street is after what it’s always buying in Washington: access, influence, and unfair advantage. And Cantor is a big catch for anybody who wants access. Look, if you’re in congressional leadership for X number of years, you know plenty that’s worth a lot of money. If you’re the majority leader, who’s in charge of the agenda and vote counting? One of your jobs is to make sure you’re doling out favors to people. There are dozens and dozens of House members indebted to Eric Cantor for the things he’s done for them. You’re worth a lot.

"In addition, Eric Cantor knows why some things got done and other things didn’t get done. He knows why someone voted for or against a bill or amendment. He knows how to strategically target everybody in the House on the issues that anybody cares about in a way that’s close to unique. He’s not going to crudely do it in a way that puts the scarlet-L lobbyist on his lapel. He and the rest of the influence peddlers at the highest level of government work the shadows and do indirectly what the law prohibits them from doing directly."

What does that look like? What are the issues — the legislative and regulatory fronts — that Wall Street is currently trying to shape?
"The list of issues that Wall Street has in Washington is long, deep, and broad.

"They’re going to be fighting everything from tax policy on carried interest, to derivatives, to capital rules, to making sure the [Commodity Futures Trading Commission] is never properly funded, to making sure that the biggest deregulation bill since the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the mislabeled 'Jobs Act,' is put in place.

"You could go on and on and on."
…
Is there a good way to quantify the effect on the legislative process?
"There really isn’t. The clearest example is the total lack of funding for Wall Street’s cops, the SEC and the CFTC. You’re using funding to prevent Wall Street from being policed.

"Then there’s the constant attack on the regulators. Not only are they filing bills in the House that don’t go anywhere, they’re holding hearings, they’re dragging regulators up there. Take Mary Schapiro. She was there for four years, and she testified more than once a month! I think she appeared more than 40 times. That’s a level of harassment that is just beyond the pale. You’ve got to prepare. You’ve got to go up there. They buttonhole you before and after. They make phone calls. They write letters. It’s not just the SEC and the CFTC, either. It’s all the regulators, at the [Federal Reserve] and the Treasury and elsewhere.

"You don’t need to see the outcomes in terms of passed bills. It’s what they do with the battering ram from K Street, the lobbyists and lawyers, and the one-two punch from the politicians themselves."

Why cant Obama just admit his foreign policy failed and light up the sky

TomatoPie wrote:https://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/

Christina Hoff Sommers, a former philosophy professor, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

dajafi wrote:Former Wall Street fluffer Eric Cantor is making it official. An interview with a critic about what he'll be doing in his new job

drsmooth wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:https://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/

Christina Hoff Sommers, a former philosophy professor, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

Economics majors (66 percent male) have a median income of $70,000; for sociology majors (68 percent female) it is $40,000. Economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute has pointed to similar incongruities. The AAUW study classifies jobs as diverse as librarian, lawyer, professional athlete, and "media occupations" under a single rubric--"other white collar." Says Furchtgott-Roth: "So, the AAUW report compares the pay of male lawyers with that of female librarians; of male athletes with that of female communications assistants. That's not a comparison between people who do the same work." With more realistic categories and definitions, the remaining 6.6 gap would certainly narrow to just a few cents at most.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel announced on Sunday a land appropriation in the occupied West Bank that an anti-settlement group termed the biggest in 30 years, drawing Palestinian condemnation and a U.S. rebuke.

Some 400 hectares (988 acres) in the Etzion Jewish settlement bloc near Bethlehem were declared "state land, on the instructions of the political echelon" by the military-run Civil Administration.

"We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision,” a State Department official said in Washington, calling the move "counterproductive" to efforts to achieve a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel Radio said the step was taken in response to the kidnapping and killing of three Jewish teens by Hamas militants in the area in June.

The notice published on Sunday by the Israeli military gave no reason for the land appropriation decision.

Peace Now, which opposes Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank, territory the Palestinians seek for a state, said the appropriation was meant to turn a site where 10 families now live adjacent to a Jewish seminary into a permanent settlement.

Construction of a major settlement at the location, known as "Gevaot", has been mooted by Israel since 2000. Last year, the government invited bids for the building of 1,000 housing units at the site.

Peace Now said the land seizure was the largest announced by Israel in the West Bank since the 1980s and that anyone with ownership claims had 45 days to appeal. A local Palestinian mayor said Palestinians owned the tracts and harvested olive trees on them.

"This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve and construction tender they issue, is counterproductive to Israel's stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians," the official said.

After the collapse of the last round of U.S.-brokered peace talks, U.S. officials cited settlement construction as one of the main reasons for the breakdown, while also faulting the Palestinians for signing a series of international treaties and conventions.

drsmooth wrote:

dajafi wrote:Former Wall Street fluffer Eric Cantor is making it official. An interview with a critic about what he'll be doing in his new job

Reading not too far between the lines, this may explain why, while Cantor will make personal bank, he's not landing at a headliner firm, but basically squeezing a smallish outfit that maybe has fairly specific issues they want worked on.

I'm not sure I could be easily convinced Cantor's any kind of strategic/tactical wizard based on the conduct of his last campaign.