The compassion, empathy, generosity, and kindness towards those in need and the courage to defend democracy worldwide no longer exist in the GOP. These are the things that made America the greatest country in the world.
Charlie feel better… had Covid last month for the first time… If you don’t have a cool steam humidifier you should get one on Amazon it’ll be there tonight… I found that I was able to sleep comfortably only with Jurassic levels of moisture in the air. Just south of where it was set off my smoke alarms. it works… hang in there & get well soon!
Listening to you and Will this afternoon, I thought you might be interested that sometimes weather balloons are not just weather balloons. For some reason Lawn Chair Larry, a 1982 Darwin Award Honorable Mention (i.e., he survived), always stuck in my mind. You never know what the payload of that balloon could be...
I appreciate the people here who have pointed out that "Meatball Ron" is probably an ethnic slur, at least in Trump's mind. I hope people won't repeat it. My late father was about 10 years older than Trump, and although he himself would never use ethnic slurs, I remember when I was a child that he told me what the Italian area of St. Louis, now know as "The Hill" was called in his youth, and explained to my complete surprise that there had been a lot of prejudice against Italians at that time. On the pod today, Charlie (or maybe it was Will) talked about Trump having the mind of a 12-year-old. I think that is a little generous to him, but it's important also to remember WHEN he was 12, 1958. Based on everything else we have seen from him, there's no reason to think his views of Italian-Americans has come any further than his views on any other racial or ethnic group.
Thanks for writing about The Claremont Institute, Mr. Eastman’s home. Their descent from intellectualism to authoritarianism is nothing short of amazing.
Sorry, but I'm not going to run away from the word socialism just because it scares some people. Socialism and capitalism are economic perspectives that can and do work in concert with each other in very practical ways that enhance the stability of democratic societies. I'd prefer to remain in the conversation with the people who fear socialism in the hope that we can develop a common understanding of what the term means in actual practice.
As everybody went on and on about Hunter and a few thousand here and there, I kept asking doesn't anybody care about the 2 billion Jared got? There was never any doubt from that first "presidential" trip t**** was there to ingratiate himself to the Saudis and all that money.
I was not surprised to see this, just that it took so long. Let me know when the R's find information that Hunter weaseled a security clearance and got intelligence and briefings on matters that were outside his "portfolio", which he then most likely used to enrich himself (& the ramoras around him) beyond belief once he sashayed out the door of the White House.
Well somebody better start doing it, and while they are at it they need to be taught what fascism is as well. Both terms have been thrown back and forth so much that they have lost their meanings. A lot of this comes from the term "socialized" medicine and the relentless propaganda about lines and never getting treatment in Europe. I guarantee you ask any middle class European which health system they would rather have, they will choose what they have.
Over the past 150 years, every time some politician states that workers have the right to a livable wage, that unions can help with that, or that the government can provide some kind of financial support to help every citizen benefit from some necessary service, such as education, healthcare, childcare, or food and housing, the wealthy families and big corporations yell “socialism.” The wealthy families and big corporations do not approve of anything that would increase their taxes or cut into their profits. They have no regrets about living in a country in which some of their employees cannot afford their rent, or get healthcare. They usually favor that those people should go to war to protect our capitalist interests and need for energy resources, such as Vietnam and Iraq, and earlier wars with Spain and Mexico. Of course, slavery was an energy policy also, and we went to war over that. The Claremont Institute seems ready to go to war over that again.
There you went and did it. This uncovering of unprecedented graft, grift and corruption will now lead to another round of bogus Hunter investigations, trans bigotry and CRTmania. Distract, distract, distract.
Interesting column from Kerr. Was Ruy not available? (He is, of course, quoted.) It seems to me that to adopt the view that Dems must bash "socialism" like the GOP tacitly acknowledges that American voters are stupid, because they are against something they can't even define. Maybe the way Dems should frame it is "we are against the ownership by the state of the means of production."
The Dems should just say they are against socialism and for Social Security, Medicare, the ACA. Which is the truth.
In the Preamble to the Constitution the founding fathers specifically cited that one of its goals was to "promote the general welfare" which is what those things do.
What we really need is some implementing legislation to put teeth in the two Emoluments Clauses that we have. The Founders never imagined that we'd need that, because they never imagined that we'd ever elect a Trump.
The Electoral College did not turn out as the Founders intended, true, but in fairness to them, they also never anticipated that the Electoral College would be subverted by the Prohibitionists in the Reapportionment Act of 1929 when, in order to permanently limit the influence of populous (and probably more anti-Prohibition) states by capping the number of seats in the House of Representatives, they hit the Electoral College with the same distortion. Take the cap off the House, and we do a lot to fix both, with no constitutional amendment required.
That's an excellent observation; I never thought about that. I keep meaning to sit down with some election datasets and experiment with different reforms to see if anything might have made a difference in certain close elections.
For example, as a *very* rough (but easily calculated) approximation of what you're talking about, we can imagine what would happen if we just removed the +2 spotting of electors each state gets because of the Senate (which would require a Constitutional amendment). While this would not have changed the outcome of the 2016 election, it would have altered the 2000 election, giving Al Gore a 225-211 Electoral College victory (and maybe then, who knows, we never get Trump 2016).
I keep planning on running some Excel sheets doing the same thing. My screen name here is my email address -- if you come up with anything please share, and I'll do the same.
I'm a whole lot less concerned about the two vote Senate spot, which was part of the Founders' basic federalism design, than I am with the effect of the 435 ceiling on an election like 2016. If the population of one House district were defined as always equal to the population of the least populous state, instead of 55 electoral votes in 2016, California would have had over 80. Now, Texas and Florida would also had had more, but so would've Illinois and New York.
It was never part of the Founders' plan for the Electoral Vote to diverge so far from the popular vote. It would have been particularly anathema to them that a state could LOSE House members and Electors simply because, although it had increased in population since the last Census, it had increased more slowly than other states. But we've come to accept that as a given since 1929.
Unfortunately the Founders thought that the EC would be educated, informed, honorable men. They were incredibly naive on that point. Thought as a nation, we have been extremely lucky.
There's a certain irony here in that, generally speaking, the Founders designed our system with full acknowledgement of human flaws, and to some extent, relying on them. For example, they expected the tendency toward institutional self-interest to prevent Congress and the Executive from getting too cozy. They were naive in hoping that political parties would not become strong enough institutions on their own to eclipse the formal institutions of government.
However, you're correct that in the end, they expected that honorable men committed to our ideals would make the right decisions on important matters – given an appropriately deliberate forum which would cool the passions of the masses. This, of course, is one of the fundamental principles of republican government. And in this case, they decided to further insulate the Executive from Congress by convening a separate body to decide, rather than having Congress decide as in a parliamentary system.
And here is where they made a crucial mistake: they left the process and criteria for choosing electors entirely to each state. And while practical and logistic concerns prevent our usual congressional representatives from being explicitly compelled by their state to vote one way or another on legislation, no such concerns exist when a body is being assembled upon demand explicitly for the purpose of deciding one question. The only guardrail left is at that point is lack of intra-party cohesion from state to state. Which you had, to some degree, before the age of instantaneous global mass communication.
I was once a member of one of the largest socialist organizations the nation has. They taught me discipline, gave me clothing with a cleaning allowance, full medical and dental, put me through several schools, taught me leadership skills, and had an elite job waiting for me when I graduated. That organization is called the US Navy and my billet was as nuclear mechanic on a fast attack submarine. Because this was back in the olden days we also minored in salty talk, carousing, and drink. Anchors away I say!
With all due respect perhaps you haven't truly understood just how words and meanings work. I have discovered many things we believe follow this paradox. A word and it's meanings are BOTH binary and a spectrum. For example alcohols who attend AA consider themselves sober while some of its members still drink coffee, tea, and sometimes even smoke tobacco. They consider themselves sober in the binary and consider it a sobriety break if they were to do something like consume cannabis while not a sobriety break while consuming the drugs nicotine and caffeine. Through this perspective I see the life and opportunity provided me by the service every bit as a form of socialism. In order to allow me the space to be the best sailor I could be the US Navy(the government) provided me with all my needs so I could focus on the task at hand. That is this old salt's perspective. Not looking to confront but to enlighten.
The compassion, empathy, generosity, and kindness towards those in need and the courage to defend democracy worldwide no longer exist in the GOP. These are the things that made America the greatest country in the world.
Charlie feel better… had Covid last month for the first time… If you don’t have a cool steam humidifier you should get one on Amazon it’ll be there tonight… I found that I was able to sleep comfortably only with Jurassic levels of moisture in the air. Just south of where it was set off my smoke alarms. it works… hang in there & get well soon!
"...putting lipstick on the Trumpian wildebeest". I think you meant to say the Trumpian warthog.
By all means, MAGAtollahs, storm the nation's cockpit. You be al-Qaeda and we'll be Delta. Guess who wins?
Charlie,
Listening to you and Will this afternoon, I thought you might be interested that sometimes weather balloons are not just weather balloons. For some reason Lawn Chair Larry, a 1982 Darwin Award Honorable Mention (i.e., he survived), always stuck in my mind. You never know what the payload of that balloon could be...
https://darwinawards.com/stupid/stupid1998-11.html
I appreciate the people here who have pointed out that "Meatball Ron" is probably an ethnic slur, at least in Trump's mind. I hope people won't repeat it. My late father was about 10 years older than Trump, and although he himself would never use ethnic slurs, I remember when I was a child that he told me what the Italian area of St. Louis, now know as "The Hill" was called in his youth, and explained to my complete surprise that there had been a lot of prejudice against Italians at that time. On the pod today, Charlie (or maybe it was Will) talked about Trump having the mind of a 12-year-old. I think that is a little generous to him, but it's important also to remember WHEN he was 12, 1958. Based on everything else we have seen from him, there's no reason to think his views of Italian-Americans has come any further than his views on any other racial or ethnic group.
Thanks for writing about The Claremont Institute, Mr. Eastman’s home. Their descent from intellectualism to authoritarianism is nothing short of amazing.
Sorry, but I'm not going to run away from the word socialism just because it scares some people. Socialism and capitalism are economic perspectives that can and do work in concert with each other in very practical ways that enhance the stability of democratic societies. I'd prefer to remain in the conversation with the people who fear socialism in the hope that we can develop a common understanding of what the term means in actual practice.
As everybody went on and on about Hunter and a few thousand here and there, I kept asking doesn't anybody care about the 2 billion Jared got? There was never any doubt from that first "presidential" trip t**** was there to ingratiate himself to the Saudis and all that money.
I was not surprised to see this, just that it took so long. Let me know when the R's find information that Hunter weaseled a security clearance and got intelligence and briefings on matters that were outside his "portfolio", which he then most likely used to enrich himself (& the ramoras around him) beyond belief once he sashayed out the door of the White House.
Democratic politicians do not have the 30 minutes necessary to enlighten each and every voter about what socialism is and isn’t.
Well somebody better start doing it, and while they are at it they need to be taught what fascism is as well. Both terms have been thrown back and forth so much that they have lost their meanings. A lot of this comes from the term "socialized" medicine and the relentless propaganda about lines and never getting treatment in Europe. I guarantee you ask any middle class European which health system they would rather have, they will choose what they have.
It's not just the Europeans. My DIL is South Korean and they have a much better universal coverage health system as well.
Over the past 150 years, every time some politician states that workers have the right to a livable wage, that unions can help with that, or that the government can provide some kind of financial support to help every citizen benefit from some necessary service, such as education, healthcare, childcare, or food and housing, the wealthy families and big corporations yell “socialism.” The wealthy families and big corporations do not approve of anything that would increase their taxes or cut into their profits. They have no regrets about living in a country in which some of their employees cannot afford their rent, or get healthcare. They usually favor that those people should go to war to protect our capitalist interests and need for energy resources, such as Vietnam and Iraq, and earlier wars with Spain and Mexico. Of course, slavery was an energy policy also, and we went to war over that. The Claremont Institute seems ready to go to war over that again.
There you went and did it. This uncovering of unprecedented graft, grift and corruption will now lead to another round of bogus Hunter investigations, trans bigotry and CRTmania. Distract, distract, distract.
Interesting column from Kerr. Was Ruy not available? (He is, of course, quoted.) It seems to me that to adopt the view that Dems must bash "socialism" like the GOP tacitly acknowledges that American voters are stupid, because they are against something they can't even define. Maybe the way Dems should frame it is "we are against the ownership by the state of the means of production."
The Dems should just say they are against socialism and for Social Security, Medicare, the ACA. Which is the truth.
In the Preamble to the Constitution the founding fathers specifically cited that one of its goals was to "promote the general welfare" which is what those things do.
That's not socialism.
They're just NOW realizing that sending Jarred, Trump’s son-in-law, home with a 2 billion check was fishy?
Remind me again how it is that Trump hasn't repeatedly violated the Emoluments Clause?
Because I think we might need a new Emoluments Clause.
What we really need is some implementing legislation to put teeth in the two Emoluments Clauses that we have. The Founders never imagined that we'd need that, because they never imagined that we'd ever elect a Trump.
Now we know.
Of course, the Electoral College will prevent that!
The Electoral College did not turn out as the Founders intended, true, but in fairness to them, they also never anticipated that the Electoral College would be subverted by the Prohibitionists in the Reapportionment Act of 1929 when, in order to permanently limit the influence of populous (and probably more anti-Prohibition) states by capping the number of seats in the House of Representatives, they hit the Electoral College with the same distortion. Take the cap off the House, and we do a lot to fix both, with no constitutional amendment required.
That's an excellent observation; I never thought about that. I keep meaning to sit down with some election datasets and experiment with different reforms to see if anything might have made a difference in certain close elections.
For example, as a *very* rough (but easily calculated) approximation of what you're talking about, we can imagine what would happen if we just removed the +2 spotting of electors each state gets because of the Senate (which would require a Constitutional amendment). While this would not have changed the outcome of the 2016 election, it would have altered the 2000 election, giving Al Gore a 225-211 Electoral College victory (and maybe then, who knows, we never get Trump 2016).
I keep planning on running some Excel sheets doing the same thing. My screen name here is my email address -- if you come up with anything please share, and I'll do the same.
I'm a whole lot less concerned about the two vote Senate spot, which was part of the Founders' basic federalism design, than I am with the effect of the 435 ceiling on an election like 2016. If the population of one House district were defined as always equal to the population of the least populous state, instead of 55 electoral votes in 2016, California would have had over 80. Now, Texas and Florida would also had had more, but so would've Illinois and New York.
It was never part of the Founders' plan for the Electoral Vote to diverge so far from the popular vote. It would have been particularly anathema to them that a state could LOSE House members and Electors simply because, although it had increased in population since the last Census, it had increased more slowly than other states. But we've come to accept that as a given since 1929.
Your last sentence, completely agree.
Unfortunately the Founders thought that the EC would be educated, informed, honorable men. They were incredibly naive on that point. Thought as a nation, we have been extremely lucky.
There's a certain irony here in that, generally speaking, the Founders designed our system with full acknowledgement of human flaws, and to some extent, relying on them. For example, they expected the tendency toward institutional self-interest to prevent Congress and the Executive from getting too cozy. They were naive in hoping that political parties would not become strong enough institutions on their own to eclipse the formal institutions of government.
However, you're correct that in the end, they expected that honorable men committed to our ideals would make the right decisions on important matters – given an appropriately deliberate forum which would cool the passions of the masses. This, of course, is one of the fundamental principles of republican government. And in this case, they decided to further insulate the Executive from Congress by convening a separate body to decide, rather than having Congress decide as in a parliamentary system.
And here is where they made a crucial mistake: they left the process and criteria for choosing electors entirely to each state. And while practical and logistic concerns prevent our usual congressional representatives from being explicitly compelled by their state to vote one way or another on legislation, no such concerns exist when a body is being assembled upon demand explicitly for the purpose of deciding one question. The only guardrail left is at that point is lack of intra-party cohesion from state to state. Which you had, to some degree, before the age of instantaneous global mass communication.
And so here we are. 😒
I was once a member of one of the largest socialist organizations the nation has. They taught me discipline, gave me clothing with a cleaning allowance, full medical and dental, put me through several schools, taught me leadership skills, and had an elite job waiting for me when I graduated. That organization is called the US Navy and my billet was as nuclear mechanic on a fast attack submarine. Because this was back in the olden days we also minored in salty talk, carousing, and drink. Anchors away I say!
Military service is not socialism. It's military service. Words have meanings.
With all due respect perhaps you haven't truly understood just how words and meanings work. I have discovered many things we believe follow this paradox. A word and it's meanings are BOTH binary and a spectrum. For example alcohols who attend AA consider themselves sober while some of its members still drink coffee, tea, and sometimes even smoke tobacco. They consider themselves sober in the binary and consider it a sobriety break if they were to do something like consume cannabis while not a sobriety break while consuming the drugs nicotine and caffeine. Through this perspective I see the life and opportunity provided me by the service every bit as a form of socialism. In order to allow me the space to be the best sailor I could be the US Navy(the government) provided me with all my needs so I could focus on the task at hand. That is this old salt's perspective. Not looking to confront but to enlighten.