Political Roundtable Part XII

[TGW]

I'll let you in on something, popper, since you're on the outside looking in, and I actually work in the defense space as a contractor.

The Obama Administration received an unprecedented number of FOIA requests and lawsuits since the inception of FOIA. The amount of requests went up exponentially under Obama than under Bush; take it for what you want, but the government simply could not handle the amount of requests they received. Not only that, but the department that handles those requests were downsized by 10% because of budgetary constraints. Also take into account that each request has to be paid for by the requester (if copies are requested) and reviewed by a lawyer before it's released.

So you do the math; smaller staff to handle an exponential increase in requests. Easy solution to the problem? Reject the requests. And FYI, the Obama administration complied with 91% of the requests that they deemed as "requestable," meaning that the requests were legal and/or complete, paid for by the requester, and the data was actually retrievable.

As for the EPA not being transparent...guess what, the EPA has never been transparent. They aren't even transparent amongst themselves. I worked on an RFP last year for interagency data exchange between the three major EPA sites. They don't even talk to each other, let alone share information with Joe Citizen asking for some random piece of data. They aren't equipped for it, and quite frankly the PMs who run the sites don't care to share the data. Again, you can blame Obama, which I think is quite hilarious, but Obama (nor any President for that matter) is going to waste time nor energy trying to force these agencies to be more compliant with FOIA requests. The President of the United States has much more important things to worry about.

In other words, not everything that happened under Obama was some conspiracy to subvert the people. I know you live in your right-wing echo-chamber, but turn off Fox News, close your Breitbart and Dredge Report window, and gain some perspective.

[dckingsfan]

Trump is to lying what Curry is to 3 pt shooting. Plenty of guys have shot 3s well before Curry but he leaves them all in the dust.

This made me laugh - Trump really does take it to a new level.

You laugh, then cry...

[dckingsfan]

As far as the press and transparency - I think Trump is just following in Obama's footsteps (but again, I think he will take it to a new level):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/obama-promised-transparency-but-his-administration-is-one-of-the-most-secretive/2016/05/24/5a46caba-21c1-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299_story.html?utm_term=.ef1bea7e6645

I think Trump will also follow Obama's footsteps on executive orders if the first few days are any indicator - I think he will take that to a new level as well.

Not liking either of these trends.

[TGW]

Trump is to lying what Curry is to 3 pt shooting. Plenty of guys have shot 3s well before Curry but he leaves them all in the dust.

[gtn130]

I was responding to TGW's post about transparency. Go back and read it please. I didn't write anything about the EPA. I posted an excerpt from a Forbes article that mentions it.

Oh, I didn't see you were sharing an article from The Heartland Institute

Popper, get a grip, man. You're sharing material from a global warming denial group that received at least $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998 but no longer discloses its funding sources. You're literally being conned by ExxonMobil shills into thinking global warming is a hoax. You're a sucker, bro.

[gtn130]

The Heartland Institute no longer discloses its funding sources, stating that it had ended its practice of donor transparency after experiencing the organized harassment of its donors.[115] According to its brochures, Heartland receives money from approximately 5,000 individuals and organizations, and no single corporate entity donates more than 5% of the operating budget,[116] although the figure for individual donors can be much higher, with a single anonymous donor providing $4.6 million in 2008, and $979,000 in 2011, accounting for 20% of Heartland's overall budget, according to reports of a leaked fundraising plan.[117] Heartland states that it does not accept government funds and does not conduct contract research for special-interest groups.[118]

In 2010, MediaTransparency said that Heartland received funding from politically conservative foundations such as the Castle Rock Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.[119] Between 2002 and 2010, Donors Trust, a nonprofit donor-advised fund, granted $13.5 million to the Heartland Institute.[120] In 2011, the Institute received $25,000 from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.[121] The Charles Koch Foundation states that the contribution was "$25,000 to the Heartland Institute in 2011 for research in healthcare, not climate change, and this was the first and only donation the Foundation made to the institute in more than a decade".[122]

Oil and gas companies have contributed to the Heartland Institute, including $736,500 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005.[107][123] Greenpeace reported that Heartland received almost $800,000 from ExxonMobil.[78] In 2008, ExxonMobil said that it would stop funding to groups skeptical of climate warming, including Heartland.[123][124][125] Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, argued that ExxonMobil was simply distancing itself from Heartland out of concern for its public image.[123]

The Heartland Institute has also received funding and support from tobacco companies Philip Morris,[2]:234 Altria and Reynolds American, and pharmaceutical industry firms GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Eli Lilly.[117] State Farm Insurance, USAA and Diageo are former supporters.[126] The Independent reported that Heartland's receipt of donations from Exxon and Philip Morris indicates a "direct link...between anti-global warming sceptics funded by the oil industry and the opponents of the scientific evidence showing that passive smoking can damage people's health."[85] The Heartland Institutes opposes legislation on passive smoking as infringing on personal liberty and the rights of owners of bars and other establishments.[127]

As of 2006, the Walton Family Foundation had contributed approximately $300,000 to Heartland. The Institute published an op-ed in the Louisville Courier-Journal defending Wal-Mart against criticism over its treatment of workers. The Walton Family Foundation donations were not disclosed in the op-ed, and the editor of the Courier-Journal stated that he was unaware of the connection and would probably not have published the op-ed had he known of it.[128] The St. Petersburg Times described the Heartland Institute as "particularly energetic defending Wal-Mart."[128] Heartland has stated that its authors were not "paid to defend Wal-Mart" and did not receive funding from the corporation; it did not disclose the approximately $300,000 received from the Walton Family Foundation.[128]

In 2012, a large number of sponsors withdrew funding due to the leak of their climate change strategy and the controversy over their billboard campaign. The Institute lost an estimated $825,000, or one third of planned corporate fundraising for the year.[100]

This is where Popper gets his information from, ladies and gentlemen.

[popper]

I'll let you in on something, popper, since you're on the outside looking in, and I actually work in the defense space as a contractor.

The Obama Administration received an unprecedented number of FOIA requests and lawsuits since the inception of FOIA. The amount of requests went up exponentially under Obama than under Bush; take it for what you want, but the government simply could not handle the amount of requests they received. Not only that, but the department that handles those requests were downsized by 10% because of budgetary constraints. Also take into account that each request has to be paid for by the requester (if copies are requested) and reviewed by a lawyer before it's released.

So you do the math; smaller staff to handle an exponential increase in requests. Easy solution to the problem? Reject the requests. And FYI, the Obama administration complied with 91% of the requests that they deemed as "requestable," meaning that the requests were legal and/or complete, paid for by the requester, and the data was actually retrievable.

As for the EPA not being transparent...guess what, the EPA has never been transparent. They aren't even transparent amongst themselves. I worked on an RFP last year for interagency data exchange between the three major EPA sites. They don't even talk to each other, let alone share information with Joe Citizen asking for some random piece of data. They aren't equipped for it, and quite frankly the PMs who run the sites don't care to share the data. Again, you can blame Obama, which I think is quite hilarious, but Obama (nor any President for that matter) is going to waste time nor energy trying to force these agencies to be more compliant with FOIA requests. The President of the United States has much more important things to worry about.

In other words, not everything that happened under Obama was some conspiracy to subvert the people. I know you live in your right-wing echo-chamber, but turn off Fox News, close your Breitbart and Dredge Report window, and gain some perspective.

Ok. Your conclusions though are at odds with a whole host of non-right wing publications. Maybe you've already read them and disagree with their analysis. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press, Time Magazine, journalist associations, etc. Also I read the Huffington Post, The Washington Post, the New York Times and The Nation every day so not sure how that factors in to my right-wing echo chamber.

[TGW]

I'll let you in on something, popper, since you're on the outside looking in, and I actually work in the defense space as a contractor.

The Obama Administration received an unprecedented number of FOIA requests and lawsuits since the inception of FOIA. The amount of requests went up exponentially under Obama than under Bush; take it for what you want, but the government simply could not handle the amount of requests they received. Not only that, but the department that handles those requests were downsized by 10% because of budgetary constraints. Also take into account that each request has to be paid for by the requester (if copies are requested) and reviewed by a lawyer before it's released.

So you do the math; smaller staff to handle an exponential increase in requests. Easy solution to the problem? Reject the requests. And FYI, the Obama administration complied with 91% of the requests that they deemed as "requestable," meaning that the requests were legal and/or complete, paid for by the requester, and the data was actually retrievable.

As for the EPA not being transparent...guess what, the EPA has never been transparent. They aren't even transparent amongst themselves. I worked on an RFP last year for interagency data exchange between the three major EPA sites. They don't even talk to each other, let alone share information with Joe Citizen asking for some random piece of data. They aren't equipped for it, and quite frankly the PMs who run the sites don't care to share the data. Again, you can blame Obama, which I think is quite hilarious, but Obama (nor any President for that matter) is going to waste time nor energy trying to force these agencies to be more compliant with FOIA requests. The President of the United States has much more important things to worry about.

In other words, not everything that happened under Obama was some conspiracy to subvert the people. I know you live in your right-wing echo-chamber, but turn off Fox News, close your Breitbart and Dredge Report window, and gain some perspective.

Ok. Your conclusions though are at odds with a whole host of non-right wing publications. Maybe you've already read them and disagree with their analysis. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press, Time Magazine, journalist associations, etc. Also I read the Huffington Post, The Washington Post, the New York Times and The Nation every day so not sure how that factors in to my right-wing echo chamber.

Yes you do read them, but I've seen you toss out any piece of news that doesn't confirm your bias, so the diversity of your news sources means nothing.

By the way, you want more transparency, then tell your people on your side of the spectrum to PAY FOR IT. Transparency costs money. You want a departmental-wide FOIA regulatory committee that's funded? PAY FOR IT.

[Ruzious]

Trump is to lying what Curry is to 3 pt shooting. Plenty of guys have shot 3s well before Curry but he leaves them all in the dust.

This made me laugh - Trump really does take it to a new level.

You laugh, then cry...

And a lot of them are so bold-faced that it's hard to even respond - especially when his henchmen and woman act like you're being a biased unpatriotic hack when you have the gall to respond to his lies.

[dobrojim]

Popper literally just looks past the data and doubles down on a few hot takes he's fond of lol

Remind you of anyone?


(couldn't resist stepping in from lurk mode on this)

/-> lurk

[popper]

I was responding to TGW's post about transparency. Go back and read it please. I didn't write anything about the EPA. I posted an excerpt from a Forbes article that mentions it.

Oh, I didn't see you were sharing an article from The Heartland Institute

Popper, get a grip, man. You're sharing material from a global warming denial group that received at least $676,500 from ExxonMobil since 1998 but no longer discloses its funding sources. You're literally being conned by ExxonMobil shills into thinking global warming is a hoax. You're a sucker, bro.

Research Fellows need to get funding gtn. Perhaps you prefer those that are funded by George Soros to those that are funded by Exxon Mobile. I prefer to read both and consider the substance of their research. Maybe you have a different approach.

[gtn130]

knew we could fit the George Soros meme in here somewhere

[gtn130]

So my thesis that Breitbart acolytes are extremely low-information remains undefeated.

[popper]

I'll let you in on something, popper, since you're on the outside looking in, and I actually work in the defense space as a contractor.

The Obama Administration received an unprecedented number of FOIA requests and lawsuits since the inception of FOIA. The amount of requests went up exponentially under Obama than under Bush; take it for what you want, but the government simply could not handle the amount of requests they received. Not only that, but the department that handles those requests were downsized by 10% because of budgetary constraints. Also take into account that each request has to be paid for by the requester (if copies are requested) and reviewed by a lawyer before it's released.

So you do the math; smaller staff to handle an exponential increase in requests. Easy solution to the problem? Reject the requests. And FYI, the Obama administration complied with 91% of the requests that they deemed as "requestable," meaning that the requests were legal and/or complete, paid for by the requester, and the data was actually retrievable.

As for the EPA not being transparent...guess what, the EPA has never been transparent. They aren't even transparent amongst themselves. I worked on an RFP last year for interagency data exchange between the three major EPA sites. They don't even talk to each other, let alone share information with Joe Citizen asking for some random piece of data. They aren't equipped for it, and quite frankly the PMs who run the sites don't care to share the data. Again, you can blame Obama, which I think is quite hilarious, but Obama (nor any President for that matter) is going to waste time nor energy trying to force these agencies to be more compliant with FOIA requests. The President of the United States has much more important things to worry about.

In other words, not everything that happened under Obama was some conspiracy to subvert the people. I know you live in your right-wing echo-chamber, but turn off Fox News, close your Breitbart and Dredge Report window, and gain some perspective.

Ok. Your conclusions though are at odds with a whole host of non-right wing publications. Maybe you've already read them and disagree with their analysis. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press, Time Magazine, journalist associations, etc. Also I read the Huffington Post, The Washington Post, the New York Times and The Nation every day so not sure how that factors in to my right-wing echo chamber.

Yes you do read them, but I've seen you toss out any piece of news that doesn't confirm your bias, so the diversity of your news sources means nothing.

By the way, you want more transparency, then tell your people on your side of the spectrum to PAY FOR IT. Transparency costs money. You want a departmental-wide FOIA regulatory committee that's funded? PAY FOR IT.

That's not fair TGW. I've been highly critical of the Bush administration and R's in congress. And insofar as staffing levels that effect FOIA response I'm in complete agreement with you. From what I've read though that's not the complete story.

[AFM]

huffpo good brietbart bad

once again, gentlemen, MONUMENTAL ENT. IS MY ONLY SOURCE OF INFORMATION!

[popper]

So my thesis that Breitbart acolytes are extremely low-information remains undefeated.

Attacking and belittling those who hold a different view than yours gtn says something about you. I firmly believe that you can be better than that.

[bsilver]

Read today that Trump has scrapped the TPP. That supposedly is making China and unions happy, though I suppose Trump is really hoping union workers will continue to become non-union blue collar workers.
As a liberal, I continue to be confused about why free trade is supposed to be bad for US workers. On one hand it seems obvious that jobs leave the country to be performed by lower wage workers, so maybe jobs won't leave. But, if the jobs remain here prices will go up. That either leads to inflation if "demand" remain constant, or contraction of the economy if "demand" is reduced. Also, as the cost of US goods increases, our products become less attractive to other countries, and revenue declines. Further increasing the cost of US goods is the retaliation, in the form of tariffs, if we put in place protectionist policies to raise the price of imports.
And, there is also automation which will soon make any gains in US manufacturing jobs a short-term phenomenon.
So what exactly will be gained by protectionist policies? Anything, or is it just a last gasp attempt by politicians to delude US workers that help is around the corner?

[dckingsfan]

So my thesis that Breitbart acolytes are extremely low-information remains undefeated.

And you would agree that it is a small fraction of the Trump supporters? Or do you still want to lump all of them together

[montestewart]

Sorry for the clumsy post. I'm at the beach with a stupid iPad that's temperamental.

And the gloating begins. Me, I'm writing with the nub of a stolen pencil in the gloom of a dim lightbulb that is also my only source of heat, waiting for the Tuesday soup kitchen to open. But I make no apologies.

[dckingsfan]

Read today that Trump has scrapped the TPP. That supposedly is making China and unions happy, though I suppose Trump is really hoping union workers will continue to become non-union blue collar workers.
As a liberal, I continue to be confused about why free trade is supposed to be bad for US workers. On one hand it seems obvious that jobs leave the country to be performed by lower wage workers, so maybe jobs won't leave. But, if the jobs remain here prices will go up. That either leads to inflation if "demand" remain constant, or contraction of the economy if "demand" is reduced. Also, as the cost of US goods increases, our products become less attractive to other countries, and revenue declines. Further increasing the cost of US goods is the retaliation, in the form of tariffs, if we put in place protectionist policies to raise the price of imports.
And, there is also automation which will soon make any gains in US manufacturing jobs a short-term phenomenon.
So what exactly will be gained by protectionist policies? Anything, or is it just a last gasp attempt by politicians to delude US workers that help is around the corner?

I am a globalist - I think it has helped the US in terms of quality of life and lifted a billion worldwide out of poverty.

I will try (hard for me, I am an unapologetic globalist) to take the devil's advocate position.

The notion is that the agreements have been one-sided. That has resulted in a long-term trade deficit and the notion is it isn't fair to the US and specifically US workers (and even more so US factory workers, and yes, there are some good studies that agree with this notion).



It is interesting that union workers (that used to be the main bulwark against the Rs support of corporations), flocked to Trump and away from liberals - and has caused some cognitive dissonance among those same liberals.

So, the notion is that the protectionist policies would be more balance of trade policies.

I don't buy the later notion... but I will leave it at that.