I don't care to continue the discussion after your thoughtful masterpiece ("lol k" is so poetic), but I'm aware of that. An executive agency given new regulatory powers means it can curtail previously legal or permissible actions if within the new powers. I never mentioned, nor insinuated, creating new legislation to retroactively prosecute people, but you're allowed to read what you want, I guess.
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Serious US Election Thread (read post #2014)
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I don't care to continue the discussion after your thoughtful masterpiece ("lol k" is so poetic), but I'm aware of that. An executive agency given new regulatory powers means it can curtail previously legal or permissible actions if within the new powers. I never mentioned, nor insinuated, creating new legislation to retroactively prosecute people, but you're allowed to read what you want, I guess.
I can't tell you the exact statute because that's a rather stupid piece of trivia to know for something that is obviously illegal. I'm sure it could be found in approximately two seconds on google. I'm also not running for president on a platform of the unfairness of murderers and how I would punish them under the law.
In any case, I'm sure the statute is structured more or less like this: a section saying "there are different types of murder," many sections listing different types of murder, a section saying "all types of murder are a felony," a section saying "felony is defined in XYZ other statute and punishable by the rules stated there," and a severability clause saying "if any one of these types of murder is ruled to be unconstitutional, the other types of murder still stand as written."
In any case, I'm sure the statute is structured more or less like this: a section saying "there are different types of murder," many sections listing different types of murder, a section saying "all types of murder are a felony," a section saying "felony is defined in XYZ other statute and punishable by the rules stated there," and a severability clause saying "if any one of these types of murder is ruled to be unconstitutional, the other types of murder still stand as written."
You'd have to know literally nothing about the housing market collapse to think that there's not a single existing law that could put people behind bars. It's not a question of is there a law, it's a question of which one is going to stick the best. Con-artistry in creating CDOs that were destined to fail for a quick buck? Fraud in knowing that they would collapse? Covering it all up as things started to go south? This isn't a question for a president. This is a question for prosecutors who have the support of a president. Hell, the man leading the investigation against Hillary Clinton for her e-mail whatever (not a topic I care to talk about directly) is also the guy who would want to go after Wall Street if he had the support. I don't know how to say that that's a wonderful coincidence without sounding sarcastic.
The Obama administration learned from past failures of countless Justice departments before it that had tried and failed to prosecute executives, most notably when the Bush administration went after KPMG executives for tax fraud and embarrassed itself greatly. It's generally pretty difficult to find an individual guilty for some fraudulent action taken by the company. It devolves into he-said she-said. Who's to say whether someone individually chose to do something or if they were ordered to do it by their boss? It's really, really hard even once you are sure someone individually did do something wrong how wrong was it?
I remember that the one main guy who did get sent to jail out of all this was originally alleged to have fraudulently hidden around half a billion in losses. But by the time it came to sentence him that figure had magically been revised down to between like twenty and a hundred million. And if you can't identify how much money is going one way or another within a factor of 5-25x that's really not something you should be prosecuting. There were millions and millions of pages of documents from any of these companies that were difficult to analyze to find any individual's wrongdoing. It's a much more winnable case to just prosecute the companies and extract settlements, which is what they did.
I remember seeing a quote from Preet Bharara who was the head attorney of that New York City district of the justice department and spent the bulk of his time very successfully prosecuting insider trading. Something to the effect of "we can go after crimes we aren't sure exist or who did them, or we can go after crimes we do know happened and we know exactly who did them."
I remember that the one main guy who did get sent to jail out of all this was originally alleged to have fraudulently hidden around half a billion in losses. But by the time it came to sentence him that figure had magically been revised down to between like twenty and a hundred million. And if you can't identify how much money is going one way or another within a factor of 5-25x that's really not something you should be prosecuting. There were millions and millions of pages of documents from any of these companies that were difficult to analyze to find any individual's wrongdoing. It's a much more winnable case to just prosecute the companies and extract settlements, which is what they did.
I remember seeing a quote from Preet Bharara who was the head attorney of that New York City district of the justice department and spent the bulk of his time very successfully prosecuting insider trading. Something to the effect of "we can go after crimes we aren't sure exist or who did them, or we can go after crimes we do know happened and we know exactly who did them."
I recently made the mistake of trying to correct a right-winger about Canadian health care on Facebook and basically had myself and my country insulted to hell and back... for stating facts about wait times being largely exaggerated.
The primaries (and this election in general) have made me see some of the worst in humanity. I don't get how things got this bad with the US. What the actual fuck, man.
The primaries (and this election in general) have made me see some of the worst in humanity. I don't get how things got this bad with the US. What the actual fuck, man.
Are you fucking serious? I am not sure if I am reading your post correctly, but do you mean to imply that electing Bernie would lead to yet another Republican massacre in the subsequent midterm elections? The ability to swing midterm elections in favor of more progressive candidates is honestly one of Bernie's greatest strengths and is also the key to making many of his policy goals achievable. In fact, he is far more likely to do so than Hillary Clinton.
First, let us dispel the notion that a more centrist, "pragmatic" approach to policymaking is the best way to win a general election. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I would argue that this is the primary reason that Democrats lost so badly in 2010 and 2014 as it fails to generate enthusiasm among their base. Yes, Hillary is currently winning the primary with this approach, but it's hardly reflective of a general election when many states only allow registered Democrats to vote, which tend to be an older demographic that turns out more consistently. The key here is the young voters which have much more volatile levels of turnout, and as you probably know Bernie has consistently been winning about 80% of their votes in this primary season so far.
As a millennial one thing that really drives me crazy is that Hillary's campaign and the Democratic party establishment as a whole has been extremely dismissive of young voters. The issues of healthcare, climate change, and student loan debt have been around for quite a long time and "incremental" progress has been far from adequate, especially on the latter issue in which the science clearly states that we need to act aggressively as soon as we can. Instead of proposing big and bold ideas to address these issues as Bernie has done, most Democrats have instead tried to pander to voters on mostly social issues. The thing is, this does not impress younger and more progressive voters because we already know where both parties stand on such, not to mention that on a day to day basis the majority of us are not as impacted by these issues in comparison to the ones I have mentioned earlier. Hillary complained about the lack of mention of abortion in the debate questions so far, but when you realize that both she and Bernie are mostly identical on social issues as a whole, it's clear as day that they are a practically a red herring in a primary. Even in general elections, I feel they are overemphasized. Take the 2014 senate election in my own state of Colorado for example. Mark Udall decided to make the issue of abortion the core of his campaign against Cory Gardner, when in reality things like environmental issues are far more important to us. Gardner is practically a climate change denier, but he managed to win an election in a state that is as environmentally conscious as ours. The fear of Democrats to make climate change a core issue in their campaigns until very recently might have something to do with this...
So in summary, increasing voter turnout is the key to winning in 2018, and Bernie will be far more likely to accomplish that than Hillary. If he were to become elected president with a crowd-funded campaign, then there is no reason that other crowd-funded candidates at lower levels cannot win either. And in order to increase voter turnout, you need to do these three things:
- Increase excitement among your base with more progressive policy ideas.
- Be committed to end voter suppression and make it as easy for eligible citizens to vote as possible.
- Have sufficient trustworthiness, as this is a highly valued asset among independents
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Mmm, but Obama has executive authority that could be used regardless of Congress's ability to pass legislation to make progress on important fronts.
He has the authority to wind down unconstitutional NSA programs, and has the privilege of knowing more than us on the specifics of these programs. But he doesn't. He has the authority to provide humane treatment to those in imprisoned in Guantanamo, and even shut it down (though yes, where to relocate prisoners is a potential issue), but he did neither. He has the authority to push the Department of Justice into numerous investigations (financial, political, etc), but again, does not. There's surely more but I don't remember his other policies from his campaigns off the top of my head.
I remember Former CIA member Ray McGovern mentioning that Obama invested billions on modernizing nuclear weapons considering he planed to get rid of them. He also mentioned, that when Obama was constantly asked about that he said "Remember what happened to Dr King?" indicating that he was scared of his intelligence agency.
I can't remember the exact video I have seen that but maybe that article here could support my claim:
http://readersupportednews.org/opin...ds-allies-qremember-what-happened-to-dr-kingq
Obama does not have the authority to shut down Guantanamo, for the record. He HAS been transferring some of the prisoners out of it for quite some time now. They've transferred something like 80% prisoners they have already considered and are considering 30something more (I think it's down to like 40-50 people there still). If this rate continues with the remaining few, Obama will have gotten the number of detainees down to single digits. Not bad.
But he can't actually close it. Obama DID issue an executive order on the matter (13492). It has no effect without congress.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantanamoDetentionFacilities
But he can't actually close it. Obama DID issue an executive order on the matter (13492). It has no effect without congress.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantanamoDetentionFacilities
It's kind of funny, looking back at these posts, eh? When we have no idea who could win, besides the fact that it's between
Ted cruz - the zodiac killer
Bernie Sanders - no taxes, free college and free healthcare propaganda
Hillary Clinton - A liar with no back-bone
Kasich - Literally only staying in the race to fuck Trump
Trump - Build the wall. Build the wall. Build the wall.
I poorly worded that statement. I'm still not sure how to word it. Essentially, a prison without prisoners is shutdown all but in name.
In honesty, Obama is center-right at best. His policies are beneficial to the wealthy, corporations, and the existing political system (Affordable Care Act, overreaching trade agreements, campaign finance, etc). He has very little regard for constitutional rights, such as privacy, and has furthered his predecessor's whittling of these rights to boot. He should not be shielded from criticism by merit of his party affiliation or how much worse the Republicans are.
Otherwise Senator Feinstein (D) must be better than Senator Burr (R), huh?
The Ted Cruz / Zodiac Killer joke isn't funny. Largely because the Zodiac Killer began before Cruz was born.
Sanders does discuss tax increases (such as Medicare) to cover his programs. And healthcare costs us regardless; a single-payer system would cost us less. The free college trope is annoying--effort would have to be put into the degree and minimum requirements must be met, otherwise you're on your own; not every Joe and Jane is going to be getting a degree all of a sudden.
Even though I dislike her, there's a bit more to Clinton than that. Most every establishment politician is much the same--the only difference is she's running for President. She'd be similar to Obama, anyway, though perhaps with more inclination in handling foreign affairs with guns or drones.
Kasich is more conservative than Romney or McCain, but only seems viable because the others are so much further to the right.
I find it to be a little funny
This again. Really not fair to compare 1972 to 2016, the simple fact is the general electorate is more liberal today than it was then, especially among the young. This statement is currently supported by modern political science texts. This is literally causing heads to explode in the GOP as pollster Frank Luntz found that young people prefer socialism to capitalism. My point is, whether or not Bernie Sanders wins now, the electorate will only progressively become more liberal, especially if we continue the trend of centrist democrats and far right republicans. The fact is young people did not grow up during the age of the cold war like the elderly has so we are not predisposed to the notion that "socialism doesn't work", and we are also far more globally connected through the internet so many of us regularly interact with people who live in other countries with the very same socially democratic policies that our establishment wonks deem pie in the sky. The fact that Bernie won the Democrats Abroad primary overwhelmingly speaks volumes. At some point, centrism will become unsustainable and a a progressive will get elected president. It's only a matter of when.
Regardless, it's clear that you live in a bubble and you really don't understand why Democrats have been consistently losing midterm elections. Hillary would still win comfortably against Donald Trump since he acts like a maniac, but what about more moderate candidates like Kasich, which could be a real possibility if the convention is contested? Many polls show her actually losing to him, and these types of polls are actually quite accurate by the time April rolls around. The reason for this is simple: To young voters, moderate Republicans and Democrats have only a marginal difference on the lives of young people, so they have no motivation to be engaged in the political process. Not speaking for myself since I will remain engaged regardless, but it's true for many others.
The affordable care act is his greatest disappointment as president in my own personal opinion. Many people who voted for him did so under the assumption that his health care plan would have a public option more closely resembling single payer. It has increased the percentage of people who have coverage, but in reality that wasn't the main issue for most middle class Americans, it was the cost of care. The ACA does virtually nothing to eliminate high copayments and deductibles of health insurance, nor prevent healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies from price gouging. I know since I had a tremendous medical emergency just a few years ago which left me several thousands of dollars in debt despite the fact that I did in fact have insurance. That's why me and increasingly many others look across our border with envy and are tired of our politicians coming up with bullshit excuses to avoid going single payer when so many other countries can do it successfully. Obama fundamentally promised great change in his campaign, but instead he pushed incremental change from day 1.
things you cannot achieve via executive fiat:
- single-payer healthcare
- free public college education
- the breakup of the big banks (if only because the President is not president of JP Morgan Chase)
- major tax hikes
- Actually, most things in a three-part govt
The "political revolution" required to swing downticket congressional votes is not occurring. More Democratic voters like Hillary Clinton than do Bernie Sanders. This is a fact. Sanders is being helped by the delegate system; he has a higher proportion of the delegates than he does percentage of the national primary vote. If the hated, vile Superdelegates give Clinton the win in a 50/50 delegate split, it is overwhelmingly likely that they will be aligned with the majority of the Democratic electorate (although i will certainly grant this wont be why they support Clinton). Incremental change can be called "change" without losing meaning - the added adjective only serves as a pejorative implying Obama blundered horribly and betrayed the people by not absolutely asserting over congress and forcing through an actual socialized healthcare bill despite half the country thinking his market-based effort to extend care to ppl who didnt have them was socialist and thus satan-sent - all while trying to bring the nation from the brink of another great depression.
I have a theory here: it is good for progressives that Sanders lose. if he is elected now, he will do nothing. Not enough people like him or support the things he proposes. And he will lose - the bird that landed on his podium (holy FUCK was that inspirational according to facebook) was essentially a vulture.
Personally, I think socialized medicine is probably good and efficient but with some complications due to America's essential differences from other countries and free college to be probably bad. But that's just me.
- single-payer healthcare
- free public college education
- the breakup of the big banks (if only because the President is not president of JP Morgan Chase)
- major tax hikes
- Actually, most things in a three-part govt
The "political revolution" required to swing downticket congressional votes is not occurring. More Democratic voters like Hillary Clinton than do Bernie Sanders. This is a fact. Sanders is being helped by the delegate system; he has a higher proportion of the delegates than he does percentage of the national primary vote. If the hated, vile Superdelegates give Clinton the win in a 50/50 delegate split, it is overwhelmingly likely that they will be aligned with the majority of the Democratic electorate (although i will certainly grant this wont be why they support Clinton). Incremental change can be called "change" without losing meaning - the added adjective only serves as a pejorative implying Obama blundered horribly and betrayed the people by not absolutely asserting over congress and forcing through an actual socialized healthcare bill despite half the country thinking his market-based effort to extend care to ppl who didnt have them was socialist and thus satan-sent - all while trying to bring the nation from the brink of another great depression.
I have a theory here: it is good for progressives that Sanders lose. if he is elected now, he will do nothing. Not enough people like him or support the things he proposes. And he will lose - the bird that landed on his podium (holy FUCK was that inspirational according to facebook) was essentially a vulture.
Personally, I think socialized medicine is probably good and efficient but with some complications due to America's essential differences from other countries and free college to be probably bad. But that's just me.
This argument is extremely disingenuous. Yes, Hillary has a popular vote lead in the primaries thus far. But remember, this fails to take into account the following:
1) Hillary built up most of her lead very early in the primary when fewer people have even heard of Bernie Sanders
2) A significant chunk of people have voted for Hillary based on her perceived electability advantage rather than policy preference, which explains the discrepancy you see in virtually every general election match-up poll which shows Bernie doing better than Hillary against every Republican. This statement is also supported by exit polls in most of the primaries so far, with electability being a top issue to Hillary voters.
3) The popular votes are not counted in caucus states which Bernie has won the vast majority of.
4) Bernie's popularity has only increased, while Hillary's has decreased. He has won 8 out of 9 of the last primaries, and more importantly he is trending upward in national polling averages, and should overtake her if the trend continues. Additionally, he has higher net favorability ratings than Hillary does.
5) Finally and most importantly, many primaries do not allow Independents to vote, and very few allow same day voter registrations. Exit polls have confirmed that Bernie wins these voters by huge margins and he has performed better in states with less restrictions in these areas. In the general election, both of these groups will make up a much larger percentage of the electorate than in the primary (nearly 50%!).
And sorry, Obama is a major disappointment to most progressive voters. It seems like you ignored my previous post which explains that we are trending more liberal but failing spectacularly to get them to turnout to vote, and this is exactly the reason. The democratic establishment acts as if compromising is taking the high road, but why compromise when the other side has repeatedly shown that they have little interest in doing so? The key to a downticket revolution is for the candidates to counter right-wing extremism with bold progressive ideas. The President does not have the power to do these things alone, but it is his or her responsibility to be a strong leader that stays true to his or her principles, not give up on them from the start.
This is kinda veering off topic but I feel like I need to address this. It's crap like this that gets me REALLY mad. Before you go spouting off nonsense like this, maybe you should do a bit of ACTUAL research into why Obama (or any semi-competent person given enough information) would want to update our doomsday devices. (Getting rid of them wouldn't really help us... Ever heard of North Korea? I'm sure they would be a lot more brazen against South Korea without the threat of US ICBMs)
Let me list a few facts about our nukes:
1. The average age of a warhead is 28 years old.
2. In some ICBM complexes, the doors are too rusted to CLOSE.
3. Three ICBM complexes had to share ONE wrench. When they needed it, they'd just FedEx it.
4. The US Air Force uses FLOPPY DISKS FROM THE 1960s to operate and launcher ICBMs that could start a nuclear apocalypse.
We are literally one accident, one rusted door, one delayed FedEx shipment away from nuclear apocalypse. Yet you criticize one of the few people who actually have the power to fix the flaws and lead us away from fiery death in a nuclear apocalypse.
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