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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I still dont think the new hampsire and stuff places matter at all
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Because the media hyped the shit out of him and talked about him nonstop, (in part because of the different dynamic he brought, and in part because they desperately need the primary and the general election to be seemingly a "too close to call" horse race so people will pay attention to them. I mean, in both of Obama's election they had tons of info pointing out that Obama was going to win handily and tried to play it as "too close to call" in order to drive up ratings) and nobody would calm down and listen to the people who've been through all this shit before.
edited 3rd Feb '16 8:01:54 AM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |If it comes down to Rubio vs. Clinton after all, the hype is going to have looked really stupid in hindsight.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Huh. Trump might have less odious policy positions, save on immigration, but that doesn't mean he'd make a good President. He'd make a mockery of our political system. I'm not sure that one can make a case that releasing a bull in a china shop is less destructive than deliberately planting a bomb inside it.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
MythBusters once tested the bull in a china shop thing and found the bull was much more careful than one would expect.
How do you guys think our government could better manage our water or other resources?
Someone I know, who has experience working for the government, thinks certain departments have grown too large or are unnecessary, like the Depart. Of Ag. or the Depart. Of Ed. I don't necessarily agree with them but I wanted ur thoughts
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The problems with management do not usually occur in those giant agencies. Rather, they occur in specific places and times when someone has been allowed to make unaccountable decisions due to cronyism or special interests.
For example, the Flint crisis was caused by an irresponsible (some might even say malicious) decision by an emergency manager appointed to the city by Gov. Snyder. That manager had the legal authority, thanks to a Michigan law, to override the decisions of the city's elected leaders and the mandate to save money regardless of the consequences.
People who make blanket statements like "big government agencies need to be removed" are rarely capable of giving concrete data to support them. The biggest disasters tend to happen when oversight is removed from the process, usually because of anti-government, anti-regulatory ideology.
edited 3rd Feb '16 9:20:28 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Some interesting news: thanks to deregulation and refusing to sign onto international agreements
, the US is rapidly becoming
dirty the world's largest tax haven
.
Sources are a Bloomberg News article, a 60 Minutes expose, (almost a half hour video, complete with bits where reporters pose as a prospective client in a way that should raise MASSIVE red flags, as they claim to be representing an African figure requiring absolute privacy and talking about wanting to buy things like a house, yacht, plane, etc.) and an NPR audio story/interview running about 45 minutes including with a journalist who has been tracking the progression of this development since the 80s. When you have time, I highly recommend taking time to review these long stories.
Congressional hearing on Flint Michigan crisis going on live
.
Speaking of Flint, many cities in both Pennsylvania
and New Jersey
are also caught in a lead level crisis, higher even than the lead levels of Flint. In the case of New Jersey at least, it's partially due to yet another example of Christie being penny wise and pound foolish, and refusing to fund decontamination efforts and using it as an accounting trick to take money from those funds and put it into the state's general fund, rather than having to manage a budget wisely.
I don't have specific thoughts in terms of concrete ways to manage these things, but as a general retort to the too big government argument, I'd reply that the US already has the smallest government in the 1st World and yet by hiring out to private outsiders it hasn't solved any problems or has actively made them much worse. (See Flint, as mentioned earlier.)
Also point out that both funding the governmental departments and changing their culture is possible, if you don't have about 45% of the country actively looking to sabotage and underfund them at every turn, which results in better performance and management. Since many conservatives idolize the 50s, also remind them that the government was much, much larger and in direct control of many more things then, and yet that was their Golden Age and ask why the government was able to function so much better then. It's always good to give some food for thought.
edited 3rd Feb '16 9:26:17 AM by TheWanderer
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |Regulatory capture is an issue for agencies, to be sure. That's a legitimate concern, but it can happen in a bureaucracy of any size.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Alternative Analysis
by health economist Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University finds a substantially higher cost, which would leave Sanders’s plan $14 trillion short. The plan would also increase the top tax rate beyond the point where most economists believe it could continue generating more revenue and thus could result in even larger deficits as a result of slowed economic growth.
Source: Richard Mayhew from Balloon Juice
(He's a fairly respectable insurance and healthcare wonk, cited off and on by Brad De Long)
However, it should be noted the CRFB is heavily inclined to being centrist budget hawks who think Austerity is a pretty tight idea, apparently.
Counter Analysis why Thorpe's analysis is bunk.
(Huff Post's article is by Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler: Professors of health policy and management at the City University of New York School of Public Health and lecturers in medicine at Harvard Medical School)
edited 3rd Feb '16 10:20:34 AM by PotatoesRock
This is the first election I've ever paid this much attention to so pardon and please correct me if I'm talking out of my ass due to ignorance, but:
Trump isn't out of the game. Cruz won Iowa but only by a single delegate. Cruz has 8 where Trump and Rubio have 7 each. It looks to me like it's currently neck-and-neck.
EDIT: Also, if I understand correctly, the three break down as such:
- Trump fails the all-important "Not Being Donald Trump" criteria for a reasonable candidate.
- Cruz somehow also fails the "Not Being Donald Trump" criteria.
- Rubio wants to start a war with everyone.
Is that right?
edited 3rd Feb '16 10:37:40 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Rubio is the Republican equivalent of a NASCAR driver. His suit's out for the highest bidder. Pay him enough money and he'll ask how high you'll want him to jump.
Cruz is pretty much an idealogical purist and a religious screwball. Who has managed to paint all of his colleagues as corrupt members of the Establishment. Understandably, a large section of the Republican leadership want to see him spontaneously combust.
edited 3rd Feb '16 10:43:27 AM by PotatoesRock
Is that not the case with most politicians?
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

The delicious popcorn will be tempered with the bitter knowledge that Trump's failure will be Cruz' victory, unless he has a Huckabee-style flameout.
edited 3rd Feb '16 7:52:04 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"