Sometimes you have to talk, as he said, in the vernacular that people understand. If the caucus is composed of religious nuts (see cross-eyed head @ 1:48) then you gotta talk the talk to get your point across and do what's right by the people.

So, listening to it myself, I gotta say I'm in total agreement with Frum on this one.

To make my own personal observation, even to a pro-Hayek ideologue, don't you notice that he doesn't actually propose any economic theory at all? Not a hint of "I think if X happens, Y will result"? The only things he says are the usual political demagoguery of "if government does something, we're all doomed!"

The bumper-sticker version of Keynes's theory is that if a recession comes about from a slump in demand, government should try to step in and create demand by spending money. The Hayek answer given here is essentially "we don't understand economics," with the full meaning being "so when a major depression or recession hits, just bend over and take it like a man."

Keynes essentially says that economics is worthless as a science if it can't tell us what to do in crises like the Great Depression. In fact, that's the meaning of his "In the long run we are all dead" quote, when read in proper context:

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.

As for the constant accusations of Keynes being a central planner, this too is based on ignorance. Read Brad DeLong, and this except from Keynes's General Theory.

For the most part, I gotta say that even in a video produced by people who clearly side with Hayek, Keynes comes away looking more rational, and more vindicated by history, while all Hayek does is sputter right-wing red meat, without presenting any rationale or evidence to support his views.

>> ^MayaBaba:

Transportation Security Administration officers are working on the edge where bad people are and bad things happen. They are doing a job I for one would not wish to do, they are doing the job well!
Do I want to know about every actual terrorist or nutter, (it's not always political) they capture?
No I wouldn't. I’d rather they dealt with it secretly, and no big press release is made.
What do you think they should do when they discover a device on a passenger?
1) Tell them to go away and not do it again?
2) Take the device off them and then 2 above?
3) Expose the device to the adjacent crowd and try to embarrass the fool?
4) Say "Hands up you under arrest"?
5) Wrestle them to the ground and hope?
6) Place a handgun against their temple and pull the trigger?
I know which of those I would want to happen, but you can sleep easy because I’m not in charge; dedicated people from the TSA are in charge and make no mistake about it, thats the front line they are guarding!


Educate thineself young fool.

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/hawaii-other-states-form-caucus-to-oppose-tsa-intrusions

Written by Sen. Sam Slom, R-Hawaii

"For years, a growing number of people and organizations have raised red flags about the operations of the TSA, its costs and its effectiveness, or lack thereof, of ever identifying a single terrorist or crime, while inconveniencing and traumatizing hundreds of citizens. Now TSA will be unionized."

Besides the 'muslim' points, I actually understand where they're coming from. Fundamentally, we have to admit Obama is a weak person. I could get into it ranging from his poker buddies who say he can't show strength (folding most of the time) to his weakness during the healthcare debate (about the public option).

Americans at a core like strong presidents, even if they disagree with them, they'll shut up and let the 'commander in chief' do his thing. Bush was a great example, he was strong and people followed him. I think these caucus voters hit the nail on the head when they say there's no policy or direction (no one seems to be in charge, there's no clear vision about supporting the democratic aspirations of egyptians vs mubarak, they disowned the special envoy's comments). And that's because fundamentally there is no policy (there are empty words, however) and the actual policy is to try to please the (washington) establishment. Even though the comments about Chamberlain are obviously being said for other reasons (OMG, he's hitler, etc.), they are in a sense correct about his unwillingness to have a conflict, even if it just a verbal conflict, in order to stand up for progressive values.

Does the Black caucus (formally known as the Black Elected Democrats of Ohio) have any conservative qualified persons? Their member list is all black. Link

Maybe they are the raciest. No white members.

Unless the Black Caucus have a qualified conservative black then John Kasich I would gather is correct is saying what he said.


Nice try Ed Schultz
Netrunner are you propagating the race card?

@blankfist I don't really care what label you give yourself. If lumping you in with "the right" offends you so much, perhaps you should focus more on pulling the other people in that category back into line with something more like what you believe.

Since you never seem to be able to discern my inferences when they're not blunt and explicit, I would say that my point was that Obama-as-candidate was laying out a pretty modest platform of things liberals thought could and should be done in the 2009-2013 time period, not everything the left would ever like to do if given unlimited power to implement the policies they'd like to see.

Obama-as-President with overwhelming majorities in Congress has, predictably, fallen short of even those modest goals. I'd say on the policy level a lot of that was due to the rather high proportion of both caucuses coming from DINOs like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln.

That said, even if 2008's election had resulted in this fairytale fantasy where my specific conception of leftiness could be implemented switfly and irrevocably, I probably wouldn't have even thought to put farm subsidies on my list of Top 100 Things to Do.

In this world where even passing the most critical, common sense legislation there is (like cap & trade) requires major political battles, we're just not going to waste our energy on something that we don't think is particularly significant.

Ultimately, it's pretty much the same answer to either question at root (the politicians care more about making corporate donors happy than living up to the ideals they claim to hold true), but it does seem like it's more apt to ask why they survived under Bush than it is to ask why they haven't been eliminated by Obama since it supposedly is a priority for you guys, and the Republicans have far better party discipline than Democrats ever have.

He's a young popular senator. He can stay where he is a couple decades, pick up a committee chair, and maybe even get enough clout to get his caucus to stop being such a disappointment. We can only hope.

I don't think it's the lesser of two evils. I think it's the least evil out of a lot of people.

There's these primary and caucus thingies that we also vote in, which starts with dozens of people, and gets whittled down to only a couple major party candidates. Don't discount the primaries.

Also, I wish people would look at graphs like this one before voting.

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker, @ghark, Democrats aren't going on TV to effectively say that being a sellout to corporations is a good thing.

As a matter of fact, Democrats who vote with Republicans against their party are almost universally the ones who receive the largest campaign contributions from the industry most affected by the legislation.

In other words, the whole Republican platform is based on the philosophy of empowering corporations to do whatever they want, while the Democratic platform is about protecting people.

Democrats get bribed away from that to be sure, but we're talking about a handful out of the caucus on any given issue. It's only the unanimous pro-corporate Republican bloc that makes their defections significant.

>> ^Throbbin:

What can Obama do about those by himself? He could go after the Democratic caucus a little more than he has been. I don't think I'm the only one who noticed that Obama's rhetorical prowess (or his willingness to use it) has substantially diminished since the election.
Regarding the oil gusher - he could've NOT allowed for the expansion of offshore oil drilling in the first place (remember that?). I know it wouldn't have prevented the current fiasco, but it would have shown some backbone. He could have appointed someone competent (and not an oil industry stooge) to oversee the issuing of drilling and safety permits (I know you know about those).
Your are right - Congress is where most of the substantive issues of the day are dealt with. But Obama has such enormous political capital that he could use to sway them on many issues, but chooses to play it safe for fear of losing the 2012 election. That's no way to lead.
I like the guy too. But I like him alot less since hearing about many of the things he has done (and more importantly, hasn't done) since taking office.

I agree with much of what you're saying here, but I think people often blame things that are a direct result of Congress's gridlock and corruption on Obama personally, simply because he hasn't been able to nullify it by his very presence.

Do I think Obama could have used his influence to make Health Care both more progressive and pass more quickly? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Do I think Obama needs to turn up the heat on his opposition, both within his own party, and across the aisle? Absolutely.

Do I blame Obama for failing to completely turn Congress into a rubber stamp for his policies? No.

Do I think Obama shouldn't have permitted offshore oil drilling? Yes and no -- if it would've guaranteed Republican votes for cloture on a cap & trade bill, hell yes. If it was just one of these "do this in good faith, and we'll think about maybe only calling you a socialist 10 times a day, instead of 20 times a day", no. From what I've read, that was part of a compromise that was somewhere between those two things.

I think the two main things Obama needs to answer for to his progressive base are his inaction on DADT (he could make it irrelevant unilaterally), and his continued use of Bush-era terrorism loopholes on civil liberties (which he could also make irrelevant unilaterally). I'm getting the sense that he doesn't want to fight either of these fights at all.

I think everything else he's done that I disagree with has been a difference over tactical choices, rather than an actual disagreement with a policy goal.

What can Obama do about those by himself? He could go after the Democratic caucus a little more than he has been. I don't think I'm the only one who noticed that Obama's rhetorical prowess (or his willingness to use it) has substantially diminished since the election.

Regarding the oil gusher - he could've NOT allowed for the expansion of offshore oil drilling in the first place (remember that?). I know it wouldn't have prevented the current fiasco, but it would have shown some backbone. He could have appointed someone competent (and not an oil industry stooge) to oversee the issuing of drilling and safety permits (I know you know about those).

Your are right - Congress is where most of the substantive issues of the day are dealt with. But Obama has such enormous political capital that he could use to sway them on many issues, but chooses to play it safe for fear of losing the 2012 election. That's no way to lead.

I like the guy too. But I like him alot less since hearing about many of the things he has done (and more importantly, hasn't done) since taking office.>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^Throbbin:
Either way, Obama still hasn't done anything really substantive on a variety of issues (Climate Change, Wall Street, that ENORMOUS FUCKING OIL GUSHER, military spending, Iraq, Executive Powers, etc.).
What can Obama do about any of those by himself, particularly the "ENORMOUS FUCKING OIL GUSHER"?
Much as I like the guy, it's not as if he can just swim down there and pinch off the pipe, superman-style.
That's really a list of things you're mad at Congress for failing to act on.
Hopefully your list will get one item shorter tomorrow -- they're holding a cloture vote on the Wall Street Reform package tomorrow (and all signs point to it passing with ease).

>> ^rougy:
>> ^NetRunner:
As for your lament about the two party system being broken, do you really think more parties would help? The likliest "new" parties would start on the extreme right (libertarian/tea party) or to the left of Democrats (green/progressive). Neither would be more likely to compromise, given that their entire existence would have come from their otherwise uncompromising ideological stances.

That's where you're dead wrong.
They would have to compromise more.
They would be forced to compromise precisely because there are more points of view being represented, not in spite of the fact.
The two-party system is the punchline of our already fucked up system of government.


Let's game this out. Say we have a horribly broken health care system. Democrats want a moderate/conservative reform that will mostly re-regulate the existing private system, with a public option. The Greens want single-payer. The Republicans and Libertarians would rather see the country burn than see government create new entitlements or regulations.

On a lark, let's say the partisan breakdown in the Senate is something like 10 Greens, 50 Democrats, 30 Republicans, and 10 Libertarians.

How would things be even the slightest bit more conducive to compromise? The Greens could join the right-wing caucus and defeat the bill, but that could happen now if people like Sanders, Feingold, or Brown jumped ship. We'd still have to find something that pleased them as well as the furthest-right person in the left-wing coalition.

Maybe if the right would only use the filibuster only in extreme cases (say, if we had 50 votes + Joe Biden for single payer), we'd be okay too.

The problem is the filibuster, and Senate rules generally. There used to be a bit of a gentleman's agreement in the Senate that filibusters were only to be used in extreme cases. That's a thing of the past now, and Republicans use it on everything.

Personally, I say we just eliminate the Senate entirely. The House seems a lot more functional (and representative) than the Senate.

Chicano caucus... it's just like the meetings you attend except without, you know, the white hoods and American flag lapel-pins and stuff.

So anyone who wants the laws enforced is a klansman? Hey if you want to see a real klansman, there's always taxocrat Robert KKK Byrd, "the conscience of the Senate."

Here's a message for you from the hoods at MEChA: "For the race, everything, for therealblankman and other guilty liberals, nothing."

Maybe your property should be seized and given to illegals. After all, since you don't mind them invading your country, shouldn't they also invade your home as well? Their welfare is your responsibility. Work hard now!

As you brought it up, please explain what you mean by white culture. Let's see if you can do a better job than your buddy.

Celebrating the Founding Fathers' genius instead of endlessly focusing on the flaws of their age, and whining about slavery and the genocide of Indians.

Celebrating the great thinkers of Europe and America instead of condemning and ignoring them because they're White.

Celebrating the free market and capitalism (White guy ideas) that bring more wealth to more people than government programs and communism.

Rejecting chip-on-shoulder diversity/multi-cult garbage that equates witch doctors with neurosurgeons.

Being proud of the American flag.

Speaking English. And if you're not from here but here to stay, learning English.


Open borders advocates are the ones setting the stage for anarchy in the name of "tolerance".

>> ^quantumushroom:
Murder? Unless she has solid evidence, Gilchrist should sue her smarmy ass for slander.
It's an unenviable position to demand government fulfill its legitimate functions, much more so than demanding free goodies like leftists do. Anyone in Gilchrist's position would be demonized by looney leftists, but since the a55hole5 in Congress (on both sides) won't support and defend the Constitution and enforce the law, what other option is there? Wait until America totally degrades into a corrupt craphole like Mexico? We're already approaching their level of government corruption with the fraudsident's crew.
In this racially-obsessed politically correct 21st century nightmare, Whites are not allowed to have a voice and celebrate their cultural triumphs at all, and so skinhead subnormals readily fill the void. What a shame.
"Chicano Caucus?" WTF is that bullsh;t?
Oh liberals. Always celebrating diversity...except of speech and thought.


Chicano caucus... it's just like the meetings you attend except without, you know, the white hoods and American flag lapel-pins and stuff.

Also, their catering is better.

Murder? Unless she has solid evidence, Gilchrist should sue her smarmy ass for slander.

It's an unenviable position to demand government fulfill its legitimate functions, much more so than demanding free goodies like leftists do. Anyone in Gilchrist's position would be demonized by looney leftists, but since the a55hole5 in Congress (on both sides) won't support and defend the Constitution and enforce the law, what other option is there? Wait until America totally degrades into a corrupt craphole like Mexico? We're already approaching their level of government corruption with the fraudsident's crew.

In this racially-obsessed politically correct 21st century nightmare, Whites are not allowed to have a voice and celebrate their cultural triumphs at all, and so skinhead subnormals readily fill the void. What a shame.

"Chicano Caucus?" WTF is that bullsh;t?

Oh liberals. Always celebrating diversity...except of speech and thought.