Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

At this point, there is no investigative body that wouldn't be politically captured.

I could certainly believe that, but in the end what is verifiable is that there is only one that broke with its own rules to announce an investigation it knew had a very strong likelihood of influencing an election. While others may be just as politicized, this is the only one that is formally so to this extent. Which goes back to SLF's point about integrity in the system.

[Wild Hoss]

Institutional integrity is irrelevant. People will believe or deny what the FBI says depending on whether its what they want to hear or not.

This is life in post-factual America. Its been around longer than we think.

[Da Geezer]

DSL:

In the clear insofar as he apparently didn't lie to the FBI and won't be prosecuted under the Logan Act, which no one expected anyways.

Under which no one has been prosecuted since 1799 (one person indicted in 1803). With the Logan Act, along with the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Federalists were trying to suppress political opposition in the Fifth Congress.

Things I learned today:

1. Obama signed a Presidential Order post-election which gave the NSA's raw data to all 16 intelligence agencies for the first time in US history. Thus it is harder to find where the leaks originated.

2. The reason the Rs are dealing with Obamacare first is that it can be a 2017 budget item, whereas tax cuts can only be done in the 2018 budget (in October of 2017).

[Da Geezer]

froot:

The best 5 guys I've ever been to was in Glasgow.

Keep your sexual predilections to yourself, please.

[Da Geezer]

SLF:

Hillary did nothing illegal, and yet the Republicans wanted to kill her. Literally.

Utter nonsense. Comey drew a distinction between "gross negligence" and "extreme carelessness" which no one could explain. Hillary did, in fact, violate the Espionage Act, as Comey explained in July. What she did was illegal, but the DOJ decided not to prosecute a candidate who was the presumptive president-elect.

I'd appreciate a link where a Republican wanted her killed.

[iam416]

Institutional integrity is irrelevant. People will believe or deny what the FBI says depending on whether its what they want to hear or not.

Yeah, so this is true for the partisans. And it has been that way for a long, long time. I don't believe it's true for the, perhaps, fabled middle. I think it's clear each party as, at best, a plurality in this country. Convincing the middle is what matters. I would put the middle at roughly 10-15% based on the assumption that I don't think DJT goes lower than 40%. I think it's probably closer to 45/45. In any event, the 10 is what matters and, in particular, the 10 in contested states.

In that vain, a recent poll found that DJT gets whipped by the generic D, but that DJT beats Warren: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...-match-up-poll

The numbers are 43-35 for Generic D vs Trump and 42-36 for Trump vs Warren. The poll was taken AFTER McConnell nixed Warren's rant against Sessions.

There are a lot of conservative writers that I read that love Warren as the face of the Ds. They think she's a bad on the campaign trail and carriers with her the worst kind of D baggage -- East Coast elitist. Now, not many people know her story, so that would obviously up her numbers. But, I tend to agree that she's not a great candidate to reach what I'm going to refer to as the Middle Middle -- the swing voters in the midwest.

Anyway, it's grossly premature, but gives me hope that perhaps the Ds will go more traditional D in 2020. The D primary will basically be a king/queen maker. I really can't see a R winning in 2020. They can choose almost anyone and win. But, who they choose will matter a great deal in how effectively they can maintain the power that is coming their way.

[froot loops]

froot:

Keep your sexual predilections to yourself, please.

What a creep

[hack]

I thot it was funny. Just barely worth it kind of funny, but worth it is worth it.

[Da Geezer]

In that vain, a recent poll found that DJT gets whipped by the generic D, but that DJT beats Warren: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...-match-up-poll

Yup. Like the Iowa poll that DSL posted. When you add a named Dem, the polls change.

I do agree that it is setting up for the Dems to have a big win in 2020, much like the Rs did in 2010. It is a census year, so a Dem sweep in 2020 would have large ramifications. What Dem is "on the bench" who is more moderate than Warren? And can that Dem win a primary?

[hack]

We'll see how Corey Booker presents himself, I guess. Ds most certainly can be counted on to learn the wrong lessons from what just happened, so I'm not surprised if someone wraps up an establishment-wing nomination. One more go-round for the old and bankrupt wing of the party, perhaps, before Bernie's crowd owns it.

Warren's bootstraps backstory and her consumer-protection angle should really and truly be great and a very easy sell. But I agree that it's probably likely she gets painted as an "eastern elite", proving once more how some words just have no meaning anymore.

[Wild Hoss]

Yeah, so this is true for the partisans. And it has been that way for a long, long time. I don't believe it's true for the, perhaps, fabled middle. I think it's clear each party as, at best, a plurality in this country. Convincing the middle is what matters. I would put the middle at roughly 10-15% based on the assumption that I don't think DJT goes lower than 40%. I think it's probably closer to 45/45. In any event, the 10 is what matters and, in particular, the 10 in contested states.

In that vain, a recent poll found that DJT gets whipped by the generic D, but that DJT beats Warren: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...-match-up-poll

The numbers are 43-35 for Generic D vs Trump and 42-36 for Trump vs Warren. The poll was taken AFTER McConnell nixed Warren's rant against Sessions.

There are a lot of conservative writers that I read that love Warren as the face of the Ds. They think she's a bad on the campaign trail and carriers with her the worst kind of D baggage -- East Coast elitist. Now, not many people know her story, so that would obviously up her numbers. But, I tend to agree that she's not a great candidate to reach what I'm going to refer to as the Middle Middle -- the swing voters in the midwest.

Anyway, it's grossly premature, but gives me hope that perhaps the Ds will go more traditional D in 2020. The D primary will basically be a king/queen maker. I really can't see a R winning in 2020. They can choose almost anyone and win. But, who they choose will matter a great deal in how effectively they can maintain the power that is coming their way.

I put emphasis on the fabled part. People might be willing to swap candidates based on specific conditions (economics, primarily), but the Truly Centrist Unicorn is a hard sell for me, especially when it comes to individual issues.

I agree on Warren though...she is a damp towel. You win elections by firing up your base, and she doesn't. Maybe even the opposite.

Booker probably fires up the minority vote, which is critical to the current D playbook, and probably provides a successful path without changing much. That will be a tempting course for the D power structure to follow. I think you and I agree that they need to play for middle-class whites in order to build a more sturdy base, but that possibility hinges entirely on Trump. If he delivers for them, they're off the table, probably for years. If he doesn't, they'll be ripe for the right message. We might not know which case is true in three years, when the D primaries ramp back up.

But who knows. The entire political paradigm has shifted, and I don't think anybody has a firm grasp its new structure yet. And DJT is the wildest of wildcards.

[iam416]

Yeah, I'm not going to predict 2020. Well, I guess I did. Heh. And that's bad news for civil America as I've been 100% wrong about DJT.

IMO, Bernie, as a politician, carries the populist progressive mantle well. He's a good politician. He connects. I disagree with him, but gotta respect his game. His backstory of basically not working a hour in his life other than in politics matters not. Warren, IMO, has the backstory but is desperately lacking charisma. She is, IMO, akin to HRC (who also had a good backstory).

Corey Booker -- man, fuck if I know about him. He's not a true believer and I think the Ds will sniff that out pretty quickly.

Anyway, that's all my opinion. As I've said, I've been wrong way more often than I've been right in the past 18 months, much to my disappointment.

If he delivers for them, they're off the table, probably for years.

I have a hard time believing this will happen, but, see above. If it does happen, well, then he may deliver the White House to the Rs for a long time -- provided they follow up with his awful populism. If the Rs can get a majority of the B10, then they have a really strong electoral path.

[Whitley]

We'll see how Corey Booker presents himself, I guess. Ds most certainly can be counted on to learn the wrong lessons from what just happened, so I'm not surprised if someone wraps up an establishment-wing nomination. One more go-round for the old and bankrupt wing of the party, perhaps, before Bernie's crowd owns it.

Warren's bootstraps backstory and her consumer-protection angle should really and truly be great and a very easy sell. But I agree that it's probably likely she gets painted as an "eastern elite", proving once more how some words just have no meaning anymore.

The progressive wing of the Dems are already very active. A lot of Bernie's people are teaming up with The Young Turks to form their own Democratic wing. The argument being that there used to be really strong progressive leadership in the country (MLK, Robert Kennedy etc.) in and out of politics. However, since the Dems have been taking corporate money that has gone away. And the thought is to not take corporate money and that grass roots can raise the money. Given Social media that just might be possible.

A lot of the town hall people and protests and marches are being organized by this wing (calling themselves Justice Democrats). They right now are looking to field candidates up and down the ballots for the 2018 elections. This includes state legislatures as well. Within their first 24 hours, they got 68,000 members signed up.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/23/progressives-launch-justice-democrats-to-counter-primary-corporate-legislators/?utm_term=.062374e9f613

[hack]

I think we'll get a sense of how many centrist unicorns there really are quite soon. On paper, a good number of those people should have already noted the Goldman Sachs flavor of political appointees and are ready to move on. Some may take more convincing, which results over time could provide. Others just aren't gonna be moved. The question is how large each of those constituencies are.

[iam416]

A quick point -- I do realize it's almost cavalier to talk politics instead of policy when, in the credible opinion of some, we're heading for a trainwreck. However, I enjoy the political angle of it all because it's more dispassionate. I enjoy talking about Bernie Sanders as a politician more than I do Berne Sanders the socialist-progressive-whatever. And I'm also of the "turning around the Queen Mary"/the institutional morass check when it comes to the federal government.