Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

HRC is not WJC. Bill has a way about him. People instinctively like him. Hillary, not so much.

Not so much, but not so bad either. HRC is not WJC. But she's pretty good. Those who sell her short, may be surprised. People like her now.

And maybe I'll have to reconsider her score. The bad aspects she has in her chart are the same as mine, after all.

If HC stumbles even a little, the opponents will be there in force. I'm still not convinced that she will be the anointed candidate.

If HC stumbles, I will probably be in despair, because it doesn't look like there's anyone else. Warren won't run unless it's clear that Hillary is actually backing out. It will take more than a little stumble for Hillary to back out. She went through a long campaign in 2008, and didn't stumble. Obama made more stumbles than she did.

Originally Posted by Kepi

I just wanted to point out that, generally it's not going to matter what generation the president is actually from as much as it will the general overall make up of people in government, both civil servants and elected officials.

The President of the United States has few unaccountable powers, and Congress can trim those as necessary. The generational type may color the behavior of the President, but such is personality.

People tend to look at, say, the Patriot Act as a Bush law. But it was introduced by a congressman from Wisconsin, went through a committee, and was passed by congress long before Bush had any say. And let's be clear here. This wasn't passed in a vacuum. It was only done because enough people threw a hissy fit about their own feelings of their security. If Gore had been in the White House, the Patriot Act would have been considered a Gore Law. But it wouldn't have changed the Patriot Act a bit.

Suppose that we had a different President in 2001... Richard Lugar, a conservative Republican... who got knowledge of plotting by al-Qaeda of something big -- this time with airliners. Tightening the security of airliners might have made 9/11 impossible. I can easily imagine the President misinterpreting the threat as one of al-Qaeda getting jetliners, loading them with explosives, and detonating them (the MO of al-Qaeda was to use heavy equipment to deal explosives to a target and then detonate the explosives in the heavy equipment). Maybe the President asks the people who know best what would happen if someone used a jetliner as a missile. But if one can't buy jetliners one could hijack them, which suggests that prevention of airline hijackings would be part of the safety measure.

September 11 is then just an insignificant day in history. There might be no Patriot Act. But I speak of a "Richard Lugar administration" that never happened.

And here's the critical point: there's no way that Xers would have passed this law. They'd have seen it for the public nuisance that it really is. I do think they would have done something, but prophets love drama, and when they succeed it's because drama is called for and when they fail it's because it's not and they're gonna do it anyway.

Generation X was then just turning 40.

If an Xer had been in the white house for 911, however, they'd have done almost exactly the same thing that Bush had, not necessarily because they wanted to, because the place was so jam packed full of Boomers pushing for high drama that he'd have gone adding with it.

My scenario has a Silent President -- someone whom I assume would have been curious enough to ask the right questions. But that has more to do with character and personality more than anything else.

Even though the right solution was a no drama, no fuss, swing in on a helicopter and shot him solution and even though all the post 9-11 drama actually prolonged the situation, there's no way that would have been acceptable to us as a whole circa 2001. Changing one particular piece in the puzzle would have done nothing. You would have to have had a large enough Nomad presence in the public sector and a small enough Boomer population size to let that fly and... under those conditions, that would have made the whole affair a 1T event anyway, and that makes sense because if something is going to happen "the way it should" it's going to happen in the 1T.

It may be mere coincidence that the jetliner crashes into the World Trade Center towers happened when George W. Bush was President and not when Bill Clinton was President. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were born in 1946.

Marco Rubio surging:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/m...polling-surge/

Remember that I predict he's the most likely alternative to Jeb Bush.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Marco Rubio surging:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/m...polling-surge/

Remember that I predict he's the most likely alternative to Jeb Bush.

Sheldon Adelson money. Rubio is a strong supporter of Netanyahu, as is Adelson.

It looks like Bernie Sanders is in. The inside scoop:

http://www.commondreams.org/news/201...dency-thursday

Will the American people fall for trickle-down economics YET AGAIN? As they did in 2014, 2010, 2004, 2000, 1994, 1980, etc.?

For a few Xers here, Republican trickle-down libertarian economics is a matter of unquestioned and unquestionable religious faith, not to be discussed. But America waits for people of all generations to wake up and vote it out of power.

Here's a good statement about it. (from Sept.2013)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert...b_3644152.html

Paul Ryan is quoted in The New York Times as saying: "It's about time we cut some spending around here..." -- all so that he can cut taxes for the wealthy.

Only trouble is, most economists agree that it is precisely the elimination of critical government expenditures that threaten the economy's ability to create new jobs.

Since President Obama's stimulus program stopped the Great Recession and began to turn the economy around, there have been 40 straight months of private sector job growth -- and the creation of 7.2 million new jobs. But at the same time we have lost 600,000 public sector jobs.

Those losses in government jobs have resulted mainly from the GOP's demand for major, immediate spending cuts at the state and federal level. Just two years ago, the GOP held the entire economy hostage, demanding huge spending cuts as the price to allow the government to raise the debt ceiling and pay its bills. Those demands resulted in the "sequester" -- the meat cleaver cuts that the Federal Reserve estimates will cost 1.5 percent growth in our economy this year.

Now the GOP is at it again -- threatening to throw America into default if the Democrats don't agree to inflict more economic pain on their fellow citizens with even more draconian cuts, when the debt ceiling must be increased again this fall.

Republicans talk endlessly about "waste." But let's be clear that real waste is what happens when big chunks of the workforce sit idle, not producing goods and services. That creates waste that will never be recovered and it causes all of us to have a lower standard of living. The unemployment of our people -- and our plants, equipment and resources -- is the major threat to America's economic well-being, and that is exactly the result of Republican policies every time they are tried.

But this should not come as any surprise to anyone with even a modicum of memory. This is not the first time in recent history that the evidence has indisputably shown the bankruptcy of GOP economic policies. It was just five years ago this September that the same "trickle down" economic policies resulted in the greatest financial and economic collapse in 60 years.

When the Republicans passed the Bush tax cuts in 2003, they promised massive economic growth. The notion that cutting taxes for the rich would "lift all boats" turned out to be sheer fantasy. The Bush years were the first period in modern American economic history to experience zero private sector job growth -- zero.

And of course the Republican commitment to allowing Wall Street bankers and speculators to run wild ultimately resulted in the September, 2008 financial meltdown.

That commitment has not waned. The House GOP plans to cut $200 million from the budget of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) that would have been spent on investigations and enforcement actions against Wall Street. Note, by the way, that since the SEC is paid for by Wall Street, the $200 million will find its way directly into the pockets of the big Wall Street banks.

The lesson is simple. The evidence is in. If you believe the Republican notion that economic growth happens from the top down, I have some great swampland to sell you.

Economic growth happens from the middle out. It happens when everyday people have money in their pockets and can buy the products and services that cause companies to invest and hire.

Economic growth happens when everyone shares in the fruits of our economy -- not just the top 1 percent.

Economic growth happens when together - through our government -- we invest in the education and health care and infrastructure and research that provide the foundation for the entrepreneurial energy of the private sector.

The best days of America could certainly be ahead of us. And the greatest threats to that future are policies that seek to benefit the wealthy few instead of the vast majority of our people -- and the policy makers who are willing to threaten our entire economy if they do not get their way.

Originally Posted by playwrite

As I noted, it might not be actual bloodline.

Your enlarged amygdala could have come perhaps from contaminated food or water. Perhaps your mom travel through the South when she was pregnant with you?

Minnesota is generally progressive, but we have our share of nuts, mainly concentrated in the center of the state, mainly in Crazy-Ass Bachmann's district. This concentration is due to:

1. Lots of wealthy people with lake homes

2. A strong presence of the conservative Missouri Synod sect of Lutheranism and of socially conservative German Catholics.

3. Lots of small cities and exurbs full of people who are "White Bread Suburban Family" types suspicious of "Liberal Elites".

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I can honestly say that I don't know a single soul who wants HC in office. Now, I have a wide circle, and many would never vote for the Donkey Party, even if JC was the standard bearer. But of the ones who would, she simply doesn't resonate. That's not saying that they won't vote for her if the alternative is really bad, but they may not if the alternative is only slightly bad. Since I sit in a swing state, that's not a good position for the Dems. I'm not sure who would be a better choice this far out, but HC is a well known quantity. If she polls bad now, it's not likely to get better.

My mom ('58 Boomer) adores HC.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Check out this amazing display of the increasing partisanship in the US House over the last 6 decades -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ided-congress/



It's relationship chart that draws a line between who voted with whom on bills.

As the article states - stunning

Interesting that the start of the polarization matches the start of the 3T.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Check out this amazing display of the increasing partisanship in the US House over the last 6 decades -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...ided-congress/



It's relationship chart that draws a line between who voted with whom on bills.

As the article states - stunning

It does look like a one cell creature that has split into two very different cells.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

So you are a fatalist at heart? That seems at odds with the entrepreneurial, build-a-business ethic.

The Calvinists would disagree.

Cut Social Security and Medicare so that trillions of dollars could be freed up to spend on infrastructure, industry, education and on a reformed and expanded military.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Cut Social Security and Medicare so that trillions of dollars could be freed up to spend on infrastructure, industry, education and on a reformed and expanded military.

You must be having a bad day Dick Cheney. I don't think that you meant the part about education, or were you talking about for profit private ''colleges''?

How Christie Aides Plotted to Make Traffic Problems
May 2, 2015 Taegan Goddard


The New York Times has an interesting look at how three allies of Gov. Chris Christie (R) sought to punish a mayor for not endorsing the governor in his re-election campaign.

“The fine-grained intricacies laid out in the legal papers show the three plotting like petulant and juvenile pranksters, using government resources, time and personnel to punish a public official whose sole offense was failing to endorse their political patron. The three were in constant contact, brazenly using government emails, their tone sometimes almost giddy. They even gave the increasingly desperate mayor of Fort Lee their own version of the silent treatment.”

“The charges reveal the step-by-step, carefully coordinated attention paid by the three associates of the governor to create the perfect traffic jam, a veritable town-size parking lot, one that in the end may have stymied Mr. Christie’s presidential ambitions.”

http://politicalwire.com/2015/05/02/...ffic-problems/

Count him out.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

You must be having a bad day Dick Cheney. I don't think that you meant the part about education, or were you talking about for profit private ''colleges''?

What those screaming about cutting social security and medicare have to remember, especially in regard to social security, is that you then will have to cut out the taxes for those programs too. These are pay as you go programs to which people are "entitled" because they have PAID for them. So, there won't be "trillions of dollars freed up to spend on infrastructure, industry, education and on a reformed and expanded military." There will just be trillions more in taxes to spend on these things.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

What those screaming about cutting social security and medicare have to remember, especially in regard to social security, is that you then will have to cut out the taxes for those programs too. These are pay as you go programs to which people are "entitled" because they have PAID for them. So, there won't be "trillions of dollars freed up to spend on infrastructure, industry, education and on a reformed and expanded military." There will just be trillions more in taxes to spend on these things.

He's just a troll anyway. I don't usually feed them, but that comeback was too easy to pass up. :

Originally Posted by herbal tee

He's just a troll anyway. I don't usually feed them, but that comeback was too easy to pass up. :

Sure. Of course, cynic hero himself is irrelevant; but his statement represents many Republicans and other conservatives who want to cut social security and medicare and think it will save us money.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Sure. Of course, cynic hero himself is irrelevant; but his statement represents many Republicans and other conservatives who want to cut social security and medicare and think it will save us money.

Yeah. If you get an electorate dumb enough to believe in a flat earth....

But I don't think that's going to happen. We jonesers are the group that would get cut first. IOW, ripped off the worst. But we are also the largest voting bloc currently. We ''conservative'' jonesers went left politically after Katrina. We helped elect Obama and though the Tea Party may be fronted by a lot of jonesers like Walker and Ryan, much of the TP's voter base is many of the silent and some first wave boomer seniors.
If we have a reason to ally with the Millies again it would be 2008 take two.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Yeah. If you get an electorate dumb enough to believe in a flat earth....

But I don't think that's going to happen. We jonesers are the group that would get cut first. IOW, ripped off the worst. But we are also the largest voting bloc currently. We ''conservative'' jonesers went left politically after Katrina. We helped elect Obama and though the Tea Party may be fronted by a lot of jonesers like Walker and Ryan, much of the TP's voter base is many of the silent and some first wave boomer seniors.
If we have a reason to ally with the Millies again it would be 2008 take two.

1. Yeah, I agree with left turn circa 2005.
Paul Ryan was born Jan, 29 2970 : core X
Scott Walker, likewise born November 2, 1967 : core X

The Joneser set is
Rand Paul : A real mishmash of positions. Pro T party, pro pot, hates the Patriot act and the Fed. Pro Life. 4th amendment restorationist, anti civil asset forfeiture.
Chris Chistie: Seems to be a "machine politician". Did an anti corruption campaign, but he later dished out favors only to his supporters or some such.
I love one of his lines - "Pot is a gateway drug". Uh, no. There is no such animal.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Sure. Of course, cynic hero himself is irrelevant; but his statement represents many Republicans and other conservatives who want to cut social security and medicare and think it will save us money.

I think you need to update your Axis of Evil list, because those sentiments are broadly held these days. The real villains here are the Chamber of Commerce, most of the Fortune 500 management teams, Billionaire financiers and speculators, and all the think tanks and business schools that back them with intellectual cover. Did I mention the banks and Wall Street?

In other words, you're fighting an aggregation of private interests using the tools of electoral politics. I'm not sure that model applies any more. The politicians are mostly weasels, and the few who aren't are unelectable to any office that might threaten the PTB.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I think you need to update your Axis of Evil list, because those sentiments are broadly held these days. The real villains here are the Chamber of Commerce, most of the Fortune 500 management teams, Billionaire financiers and speculators, and all the think tanks and business schools that back them with intellectual cover. Did I mention the banks and Wall Street?

In other words, you're fighting an aggregation of private interests using the tools of electoral politics. I'm not sure that model applies any more. The politicians are mostly weasels, and the few who aren't are unelectable to any office that might threaten the PTB.

The Corporate elite classes should be systematically purged and their assets parceled out among rising entrepreneurs and my proposed meritocratic elite. It is not merely the greed of the current elites that justify such a purge but also their status quo mindset that opposes any form of innovation and new thinking. Without such corporate drivel such as "citizens united" and "superpacs" there would be few obstacles inhibiting the establishment of a strong government and innovative domestic policies, economic policy, foreign policy and military policy would be freed from their current "status quo bias". The purge of the corporate elites would serve as a warning to future generations to never embrace internationalist or globalist policies or anything that compromises the interests and strength of the nation.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Cutting Medicare and social security would free up money that is currently being spent on pampering wealthy boomers and silents,

This is wrong on so many levels. First, the old vote in higher numbers than the young. Do you really think that short of a coup d' etat any president is going to cut existing pensioners. Ten years ago Dubya tried to leverage his re election victory as a chance to repackage the Social Security trust fund for the benefit of Wall Street. He had to drop the idea quickly.

Second as current pensioners are for all practical purposes off limits for cuts, that leaves ripping off the middle aged and the young. Do you really think that the FICA tax will be viable if people know that they will little or no return on their money?

so that said money can be spent on infrastructure, industry, education, social programs for the poor and on improving the military. The nation would be spending on its future once again.

Really?
This govt. build infastruture on a meaningful level?
And to build industry you would just be crating another corporate giveaway. And much like many states are discovering with so called development funds once the free money is gone the corporation also goes away to the next place with a tax giveaway package for them.

And social programs for the poor won't be big enough without Social Security for the simple reason that before Social Secrity the old were America's poorest demographic. All of the money sucked out of Social Security would just go back into proviing for those ''pampered silents and boomers'' you despise. Shell games never have a good ending for the person laying down the money.

And military build up? I won;t even go into the economics of that. I'll just note that we are such a fractured country that we can not put a half million Millies in the middle east Vietnam style. This culture settles for endless occupations that stress our all volunteer military while the rest of the country play with its Ipads/Ipods and other cheap Chinese built gizmos.
There will be no restoration, at least not the one that you want to see.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

This is wrong on so many levels. First, the old vote in higher numbers than the young. Do you really think that short of a coup d' etat any president is going to cut existing pensioners. Ten years ago Dubya tried to leverage his re election victory as a chance to repackage the Social Security trust fund for the benefit of Wall Street. He had to drop the idea quickly.

Second as current pensioners are for all practical purposes off limits for cuts, that leaves ripping off the middle aged and the young. Do you really think that the FICA tax will be viable if people know that they will little or no return on their money?

Who said that the political class would be doing this willingly? They will be forced to do it practically at gunpoint. The New government would then dictate what the tax system would be.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Really?
This govt. build infastruture on a meaningful level?
And to build industry you would just be crating another corporate giveaway. And much like many states are discovering with so called development funds once the free money is gone the corporation also goes away to the next place with a tax giveaway package for them.

The government would in my scenario pass Laws to make what you describe here illegal. It would become a crime for a business to move its operations out of the country without government approval. Executives moving their main accounts overseas would also become illegal.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

And military build up? I won;t even go into the economics of that. I'll just note that we are such a fractured country that we can not put a half million Millies in the middle east Vietnam style. This culture settles for endless occupations that stress our all volunteer military while the rest of the country play with its Ipads/Ipods and other cheap Chinese built gizmos.
There will be no restoration, at least not the one that you want to see.

The new ideology that I've elaborated would provide the basis for a new nationalism and a national awakening of American consciousness. The military buildup would largely occur after the infrastructure buildup, except for the refurbishing of the nuclear arsenal which would begin practically from day one. However infrastructure repair and the systematic construction of industry would precede the majority of the military buildup.

Originally Posted by Cynic Hero '86

Who said that the political class would be doing this willingly? They will be forced to do it practically at gunpoint. The New government would then dictate what the tax system would be.

I rest my case.

The government would in my scenario pass Laws to make what you describe here illegal. It would become a crime for a business to move its operations out of the country without government approval. Executives moving their main accounts overseas would also become illegal.



The new ideology that I've elaborated would provide the basis for a new nationalism and a national awakening of American consciousness. The military buildup would largely occur after the infrastructure buildup, except for the refurbishing of the nuclear arsenal which would begin practically from day one. However infrastructure repair and the systematic construction of industry would precede the majority of the military buildup.

No additional comment needed here.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I think you need to update your Axis of Evil list, because those sentiments are broadly held these days. The real villains here are the Chamber of Commerce, most of the Fortune 500 management teams, Billionaire financiers and speculators, and all the think tanks and business schools that back them with intellectual cover. Did I mention the banks and Wall Street?

In other words, you're fighting an aggregation of private interests using the tools of electoral politics. I'm not sure that model applies any more. The politicians are mostly weasels, and the few who aren't are unelectable to any office that might threaten the PTB.

That seems to be true, because people who need a different system aren't voting when it counts-- in midterms and on the state level. And they aren't getting initiatives on the ballot to repeal gerrymandering where they can.

The politicians aren't at fault. They represent the people and the system. The people need to vote, and the system needs to be changed. It can be changed through citizen activism. Vote Republicans out. No, I don't need to expand my Axis of Evil list. It IS mostly them who are (or more exactly, who represent) the villains. Democrats support reform, even though they are forced to use the Republican system. Vote the GOP out. Then pressure the Democrats (don't just elect them and expect them to perform). The Democratic politicians don't all need to be Elizabeth or Bernie. They can be pressured, if the people want it. Repeal gerrymanding and Citizens United. Require, in other words, that politicians run for office, and also to depend on the people and not private big-money interests for their votes. Citizens need to wake up to the fact that we are in crisis, and we need to take action, or else just resign ourselves to life in a declining banana republic forever. It's our choice, in this 4T and ONLY in this 4T. It's the hour of decision.

Once Neptune enters Aries, it will be non-stop action. Understand that my predictions work. Watch my videos to verify this for yourself, and remember my predictions that I have made here. Look forward to it. Expect it. Prepare for it. It's coming. Not as soon as we might wish, but it's coming. Meanwhile, enjoy the breather. It's going to get hectic! Very hectic!