Political Roundtable Part IX

[Benjammin]

And we all thought the RNC was a dumpster fire, which it was. Strange days indeed...most peculiar momma.

Sent from my XT1575 using RealGM mobile app

[Ruzious]

OMFG!!! These fricking Sanders supporters are petulant children ruining things for everyone. Seriously, Fu__ck them ...and I voted for Bernie.

They've become the equivalent drag on the party that the Tea Party was for the Republicans.

[Induveca]

OMFG!!! These fricking Sanders supporters are petulant children ruining things for everyone. Seriously, Fu__ck them ...and I voted for Bernie.

Wow, not looking good for Clinton. Sanders supporters enraged over email scandal #2 (and rightfully so).

Opening Microsoft Outlook probably gives her an anxiety attack at this point.

[DCZards]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/757629561622306821[/tweet]

When Clinton is mentioned, the DNC attendees boo!

DNC attendees? Sanders' campaign chair, Jeff Weaver, said that most of those doing the "booing" at this meeting of Sanders' supporters weren't even delegates to the DNC.

Sanders' delegates were just on the convention floor leading the smooth passage of the Dem platform and convention rules, and speaking from the podium (like Ben Jealous) on the importance of electing Hillary president.

[Ruzious]

And really, any time Republicans want to say Haha to something stupid happening at the DNC, Dems can say Scott Baio was a featured speaker at the RNC. Scott... Chachi... Baio.

[Induveca]

And really, any time Republicans want to say Haha to something stupid happening at the DNC, Dems can say Scott Baio was a featured speaker at the RNC. Scott... Chachi... Baio.

I'm having a great time watching this honestly. How could both conventions *not* be total disasters with the two most toxic presidential nominees in US history? That being said, as bad as the Trumpfest was this DNC is painful thus far. The Sanders supporters aren't going anywhere this week.

I'll be interested to see the next batch of emails, as Wikileaks has been promised tens of thousands more. And let's not forget the wonderful Trump University trial. Both candidates are guaranteed to become more toxic. It's bizarre.

[DCZards]

dub post

[montestewart]

And really, any time Republicans want to say Haha to something stupid happening at the DNC, Dems can say Scott Baio was a featured speaker at the RNC. Scott... Chachi... Baio.

I'm having a great time watching this honestly. How could both conventions *not* be total disasters with the two most toxic presidential nominees in US history? That being said, as bad as the Trumpfest was this DNC is painful thus far. The Sanders supporters aren't going anywhere this week.

I'll be interested to see the next batch of emails, as Wikileaks has been promised tens of thousands more. And let's not forget the wonderful Trump University trial. Both candidates are guaranteed to become more toxic. It's bizarre.

[verbal8]

Michelle Obama gave a great speech. I think Clinton has a huge edge on Trump in terms of allies who can help energize her party.

[stevemcqueen1]

Yeah that was a really impressive speech. Better than the one Warren gave.

[closg00]

Michelle Obama gave a great speech. I think Clinton has a huge edge on Trump in terms of allies who can help energize her party.

Agreed, she gave and delivered the best speech tonight.

Bernie gave his stump speech and mixed-in some flattery of Hillary.

I missed Booker's speech.

[fishercob]

OMFG!!! These fricking Sanders supporters are petulant children ruining things for everyone. Seriously, Fu__ck them ...and I voted for Bernie.

Wow, not looking good for Clinton. Sanders supporters enraged over email scandal #2 (and rightfully so).

Opening Microsoft Outlook probably gives her an anxiety attack at this point.

Story on new Pew Research poll:

90 percent of unwavering Sanders supporters plan to vote for Clinton in November

I agree that the optics of vocal "Bernie or Busters" were not good at the beginning of the night. But with Bernie himself pushing hard for Clinton to defeat Trump, he's going to deliver a lot of voters.

[nate33]

OMFG!!! These fricking Sanders supporters are petulant children ruining things for everyone. Seriously, Fu__ck them ...and I voted for Bernie.

Wow, not looking good for Clinton. Sanders supporters enraged over email scandal #2 (and rightfully so).

Opening Microsoft Outlook probably gives her an anxiety attack at this point.

Story on new Pew Research poll:

90 percent of unwavering Sanders supporters plan to vote for Clinton in November

I agree that the optics of vocal "Bernie or Busters" were not good at the beginning of the night. But with Bernie himself pushing hard for Clinton to defeat Trump, he's going to deliver a lot of voters.

I'm under no delusion that Bernie Bros will decide to vote en masse for Trump. But I do think their lack of enthusiasm will affect their turnout. They might show up to vote, but they're not going to be dragging their family and friends to the voting booth as well.

Also, the article doesn't indicate the timing of the poll, but I don't see how it could incorporate the DNC email scandal.

[nate33]

An elderly priest has been killed in a hostage situation in a church south of Rouen, Normandy, northern France this morning by Islamist attackers. His killers, who are understood to have been shot dead by French police. The martyred priest who according to reports was either beheaded or had his throat cut has been named locally as 86 year old Father Jacques Hamel.

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/07/26/knifemen-take-several-hostages-french-normandy-church/

[popper]

Sorry for the long post. This is such a good piece from the WSJ that I didn't want anyone to miss it.

• OPINION
• REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Obama’s Age of Discord

He has achieved most of his progressive agenda. So why is America so unhappy?

Updated July 25, 2016 8:26 p.m. ET

President Obama said in 2008 that he wanted to be the reverse Ronald Reagan, and in one sense he has been. As he takes the Democratic stage in Philadelphia Wednesday he can rightly claim to have fulfilled most of his major progressive policy goals. The difference is the results. After eight years of Reagan, the Cold War was on the way to ending and the U.S. economy had grown by the size of Germany. Mr. Obama is leaving to his successor a world of spreading disorder and a country as economically anxious and more politically polarized than he inherited.

Even opponents of Mr. Obama’s agenda have to admit that he has achieved most of what he campaigned on. With a Democratic supermajority in 2009-2010, he passed the largest stimulus spending bill in decades, pushed through ObamaCare, nationalized the student-loan industry, and turned the banks into public utilities answerable first to government.

Democrats resisted him on cap and trade and union card check, but he has since achieved by executive fiat most of what he wanted on climate change and labor organizing. As theBush tax rates expired in 2013, he insisted on and won a huge tax increase. His one major unfulfilled ambition is immigration reform, but that hangs on who nominates the next Supreme Court Justice.

On foreign policy, he has also largely fulfilled his goal of reducing America’s global commitments. He has struck deals with adversaries and distanced the U.S. from allies. Perhaps most important, by refusing to reform entitlements he has narrowed the budget room for future military spending. He has put defense spending on a path to 3% of GDP, and falling, down from 4.6% when he took office. He has Europeanized the U.S. defense budget.

Democrats will cheer all of this, yet they might stop to ask themselves why, amid so much progressive success, the country is so frustrated and miserable. When Reagan left office the U.S. mood was buoyant and Americans celebrated immigration as a point of national pride. The political turmoil of the 1970s had vanished.

As Mr. Obama leaves office, the national mood is more sour than at anytime since the 1960s. The polls say some two-thirds of the voters think the country is on the “wrong track,” and a majority say they expect their children to do less well financially than they did. This reflects the historically slow economic recovery and incomes that have only recently begun to return to where they were when the recession ended.

Mr. Obama will claim he inherited a recession (he did) and saved the U.S. from depression (doubtful), but his policies have been in place for eight years. His appointees run the Federal Reserve. He is the one who chose to block tax reform and pile regulatory costs on nearly every part of the U.S. economy.

The resulting economic anxiety that sometimes becomes anger is bipartisan. Sanders and Trump voters represent the mirror image of frustration with slow growth and stagnant incomes, even if they prefer different villains. The Sanders crowd blames inequality, big business and foreign trade. The Trumpians blame big government and business, immigration and foreign trade. Neither vindicates the results of Obamanomics.

These frustrations also reflect an American politics that is increasingly divided by ideology, age, race, class and gender. This is in no small part the result of Mr. Obama’s governing strategy. When Democrats ran Congress with supermajorities, he settled for passing his agenda on partisan votes. He thus built no durable consensus for ObamaCare.

His strategy became even more partisan after Democrats lost Congress in 2010. Mr. Obama backed out of a budget deal with John Boehner in 2011 at the last minute because he wanted a bigger tax increase. To win re-election, he played the race card to mobilize minority voters and class warfare to demonize Mitt Romney. After his 2012 victory, he all but gave up working with Congress and has governed by regulatory decree, daring Republicans and the courts to stop him.

As for the world, U.S. retreat has produced the opposite of Reagan’s pax Americana. His premature departure from Iraq and abdication on Syria created a vacuum for Islamic State. A refugee crisis threatens Middle East stability and torments Europe with terror attacks on trains and family outings to view fireworks. Authoritarians in Iran, Russia and China are advancing to dominate their regions.

After Reagan, George H.W. Bush could cut defense spending and conduct a Cold War mopping up operation. After Mr. Obama, the next President will have to spend more on defense and rebuild U.S. credibility.

Mr. Obama won’t acknowledge it, but this is the reality that made it possible for Mr. Trump to give last week’s speech with its litany of U.S. decline. He couldn’t have done it if tens of millions of Americans didn’t believe it. Mr. Trump’s unique liabilities may still allow Hillary Clinton to win a third Obama term, but on all the evidence they won’t be happy about it.

[TGW]

Sorry for the long post. This is such a good piece from the WSJ that I didn't want anyone to miss it.

• OPINION
• REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Obama’s Age of Discord

He has achieved most of his progressive agenda. So why is America so unhappy?

Updated July 25, 2016 8:26 p.m. ET

President Obama said in 2008 that he wanted to be the reverse Ronald Reagan, and in one sense he has been. As he takes the Democratic stage in Philadelphia Wednesday he can rightly claim to have fulfilled most of his major progressive policy goals. The difference is the results. After eight years of Reagan, the Cold War was on the way to ending and the U.S. economy had grown by the size of Germany. Mr. Obama is leaving to his successor a world of spreading disorder and a country as economically anxious and more politically polarized than he inherited.

Even opponents of Mr. Obama’s agenda have to admit that he has achieved most of what he campaigned on. With a Democratic supermajority in 2009-2010, he passed the largest stimulus spending bill in decades, pushed through ObamaCare, nationalized the student-loan industry, and turned the banks into public utilities answerable first to government.

Democrats resisted him on cap and trade and union card check, but he has since achieved by executive fiat most of what he wanted on climate change and labor organizing. As theBush tax rates expired in 2013, he insisted on and won a huge tax increase. His one major unfulfilled ambition is immigration reform, but that hangs on who nominates the next Supreme Court Justice.

On foreign policy, he has also largely fulfilled his goal of reducing America’s global commitments. He has struck deals with adversaries and distanced the U.S. from allies. Perhaps most important, by refusing to reform entitlements he has narrowed the budget room for future military spending. He has put defense spending on a path to 3% of GDP, and falling, down from 4.6% when he took office. He has Europeanized the U.S. defense budget.

Democrats will cheer all of this, yet they might stop to ask themselves why, amid so much progressive success, the country is so frustrated and miserable. When Reagan left office the U.S. mood was buoyant and Americans celebrated immigration as a point of national pride. The political turmoil of the 1970s had vanished.

As Mr. Obama leaves office, the national mood is more sour than at anytime since the 1960s. The polls say some two-thirds of the voters think the country is on the “wrong track,” and a majority say they expect their children to do less well financially than they did. This reflects the historically slow economic recovery and incomes that have only recently begun to return to where they were when the recession ended.

Mr. Obama will claim he inherited a recession (he did) and saved the U.S. from depression (doubtful), but his policies have been in place for eight years. His appointees run the Federal Reserve. He is the one who chose to block tax reform and pile regulatory costs on nearly every part of the U.S. economy.

The resulting economic anxiety that sometimes becomes anger is bipartisan. Sanders and Trump voters represent the mirror image of frustration with slow growth and stagnant incomes, even if they prefer different villains. The Sanders crowd blames inequality, big business and foreign trade. The Trumpians blame big government and business, immigration and foreign trade. Neither vindicates the results of Obamanomics.

These frustrations also reflect an American politics that is increasingly divided by ideology, age, race, class and gender. This is in no small part the result of Mr. Obama’s governing strategy. When Democrats ran Congress with supermajorities, he settled for passing his agenda on partisan votes. He thus built no durable consensus for ObamaCare.

His strategy became even more partisan after Democrats lost Congress in 2010. Mr. Obama backed out of a budget deal with John Boehner in 2011 at the last minute because he wanted a bigger tax increase. To win re-election, he played the race card to mobilize minority voters and class warfare to demonize Mitt Romney. After his 2012 victory, he all but gave up working with Congress and has governed by regulatory decree, daring Republicans and the courts to stop him.

As for the world, U.S. retreat has produced the opposite of Reagan’s pax Americana. His premature departure from Iraq and abdication on Syria created a vacuum for Islamic State. A refugee crisis threatens Middle East stability and torments Europe with terror attacks on trains and family outings to view fireworks. Authoritarians in Iran, Russia and China are advancing to dominate their regions.

After Reagan, George H.W. Bush could cut defense spending and conduct a Cold War mopping up operation. After Mr. Obama, the next President will have to spend more on defense and rebuild U.S. credibility.

Mr. Obama won’t acknowledge it, but this is the reality that made it possible for Mr. Trump to give last week’s speech with its litany of U.S. decline. He couldn’t have done it if tens of millions of Americans didn’t believe it. Mr. Trump’s unique liabilities may still allow Hillary Clinton to win a third Obama term, but on all the evidence they won’t be happy about it.

I think this article is somewhat accurate, and intellectually dishonest.

First of all, you can't compare the mood of the country now versus the mood 30,40, or 50 years ago. It's a totally different era, with new challenges and new dangers globally. This president has faced greater challenge than most of the presidents before him, and whether you like what he did or not, the country is in a better spot than when he inherited it. Ultimately, that's how I would judge him...is this country better than when he took over? Only staunch conservatives would agree that it isn't.

Secondly, the article doesn't mention the other indicators of performance -- approval ratings, unemployment rate, etc. Obama is leaving office with a fairly high approval rating -- much higher than the president before him. The unemployment rate is down. Another democrat is probably going to take office because of him.

The article is completely biased in one direction, and therefore lacks credibility.

[Wizardspride]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/757790629527113728[/tweet]

[popper]

Thanks for the response TGW. I see things a little bit different. It doesn’t take any talent to spend money. Our very slow recovery is primarily due to $9.5 trillion in new debt plus $4 trillion added to the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. This $13.5 trillion of stimulus spending/debt is the burden future generations will have to pay so that the President can pretend that the economy is doing well. Divide $13.5 trillion by $60,000 per new job and one can see what fueled the recovery --debt.

If the polls are accurate, you are right that the President’s approval rating is just north of 50%. How does that reconcile with polls saying 70% think the country is headed in the wrong direction? I don’t know the answer but it seems odd.

I concede that comparing presidential performance in the past is difficult and ripe for debate.

I see:

massive debt
massive deficits as far as the eye can see
an open border with a flood of poor, undereducated illegal aliens (many of whom will receive welfare)
record lows in labor participation rates
a Middle East on fire
Europe on the brink of collapse
and our totalitarian adversaries in a much stronger position (Iran, Russia, China, N. Korea, ISIS, etc)
racial discord worse than 40 years ago

Obviously the President is not solely responsible for the chaos but he’s certainly part of the problem and that may help to explain the Sanders/Trump phenomena.

[dckingsfan]

Ultimately, that's how I would judge him...is this country better than when he took over?

Okay, I'll bite. How?

With arguably our biggest problem, I would say that we aren't in a better place with our finances. We are still in an unsustainable place and he wasn't willing to even broach the subject. He wasn't willing to work with the opposition to get this done. His stimulus was largely ineffective (and politically motivated). The economy largely "took off" because of QE and the House Republicans fiscal sanity.

I wouldn't say we are in a better place in terms of our tax policy. We still give corporations a good reason to leave and we haven't addressed the carve outs for the rich.

I wouldn't say we aren't in a better place with our foreign policy. The half-in policy has created some huge problems for our allies in Europe.

I wouldn't say that we aren't in a better place with our healthcare system.

I wouldn't say we are in a better place with our race relations.

I have been pretty disappointed with him (and voted for him twice).

Some things I like but are really small things, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, more support for veterans, shut the worst polluting power plants, more hate crimes protections, stem cell research funding, wiped out the F-22 funding.

And the thing I have most liked about Obama is that he has behaved well. He has avoided scandal... I don't see that happening with the current two candidates.

[TGW]

Ultimately, that's how I would judge him...is this country better than when he took over?

Okay, I'll bite. How?

With arguably our biggest problem, I would say that we aren't in a better place with our finances. We are still in an unsustainable place and he wasn't willing to even broach the subject. He wasn't willing to work with the opposition to get this done. His stimulus was largely ineffective (and politically motivated). The economy largely "took off" because of QE and the House Republicans fiscal sanity.

I wouldn't say we are in a better place in terms of our tax policy. We still give corporations a good reason to leave and we haven't addressed the carve outs for the rich.

I wouldn't say we aren't in a better place with our foreign policy. The half-in policy has created some huge problems for our allies in Europe.

I wouldn't say that we aren't in a better place with our healthcare system.

I wouldn't say we are in a better place with our race relations.

I have been pretty disappointed with him (and voted for him twice).

Some things I like but are really small things, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, more support for veterans, shut the worst polluting power plants, more hate crimes protections, stem cell research funding, wiped out the F-22 funding.

And the thing I have most liked about Obama is that he has behaved well. He has avoided scandal... I don't see that happening with the current two candidates.

Two unfunded wars, the economy tanking at a rapid pace, unemployment skyrocketing...seems like history is being rewritten by conservatives. The country was taking a nosedive, and the stimulus saved us IMO. As a matter of fact, I believe (as well as many other ecnomoists) that the stimulus wasn't big enough.

The tax policy is crap. That I won't debate with you...you're right. The TPP is a horrible piece of legislation IMO.

Healthcare...I will wholeheartedly disagree. Although Obamacare was neutered completely from it's original inception, let's be clear. Obamacare is an offset of the REPUBLICAN plan from the 90's. If it was called Reagancare, or Bushcare, the Reps would be supporting it. And the system (or lack thereof) before Obamacare was completely unsustainable...there were millions of Americans without healthcare, and federal dollars was pouring to cover the expense. Obamacare, while far from perfect, at least is going in the right direction. Single payer is the ultimate goal, but both sides of the aisle avoid it because it would cost them billions in lobbyist funding.

Race relations...that's unfair to lump that in his lap. Race relations have never been good in this country, so to make that claim is simply not true. Plus, how do you measure "race relations"? I think many white people live in this mist where there were no race problems because people didn't bother complaining as vocally during the Clinton and Bush years as they do now. Well, it's always been bad...now with cell phones and social media, there are more public outcries than they did back in the 90's and early 2000's.

By no means do I think Obama is a great president, btw. He has MANY flops, and his foreign policy has been poor. With that being said, he is light years better than the disaster of a president before him. He had to mop up a lot of messes.