Welcome… To Jurassic Party. pic.twitter.com/UVjFrDgWrY
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 31, 2015
… And those gentlemen can afford to buy the “best”. Looks like the lumbering meat-eaters of the midwestern resource-extraction industries have been out-evolved by the bicoastal predators of the tech-startup-based venture capitalists. The Koch brothers’ choice, Scott Walker, proved incapable of surviving in a wider environment than his home state; now the banksters have apparently decided upon a new, hip, shiny Apple to Jeb’s floundering Microsoft candidacy. Per the NYTimes, “Paul Singer, Influential Billionaire, Throws Support to Marco Rubio for President“:
One of the wealthiest and most influential Republican donors in the country is throwing his support to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a decision that could swing millions of dollars in contributions behind Mr. Rubio at a critical point in the Republican nominating battle.
The decision by the donor, Paul Singer, a billionaire New York investor, is a signal victory for Mr. Rubio in his battle with his rival Jeb Bush for the affections of major Republican patrons and the party’s business wing…
In a letter that Mr. Singer sent to dozens of other donors on Friday, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Singer described Mr. Rubio — who was elected to the Senate in the Tea Party wave but has been embraced by the party’s Washington elite — as the only candidate who can “navigate this complex primary process, and still be in a position to defeat” Hillary Rodham Clinton in a general election…
Key diff between Singer + many other mega donors you hear about: He doesn't just give money, he raises it–a lot. Which is what Rubio needs.
— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) October 31, 2015
… Mr. Singer, who gave more money to Republican candidates and causes last year than any donor in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, is courted by Republicans both for the depth of his own pockets and for his wide network of other conservative givers. He is known for his caution and careful vetting of candidates and, while passionately pro-Israel and a supporter of same-sex marriage, he is generally viewed as a donor who does not believe in litmus tests…
The battle for Mr. Singer’s support — which included months of behind-the-scenes lobbying by aides and appearances by candidates over the last year at dinners and breakfasts convened by Mr. Singer — underscores the growing clout of big donors in presidential elections, particularly this year, when “super PACs,” and the wealthy donors who finance them, have moved to the center of the race.
But Mr. Singer provides something that some other coveted Republican donors do not. Unlike Sheldon Adelson, a fellow Republican billionaire and Israel supporter, Mr. Singer is an assiduous and effective “bundler” for candidates: In the 2012 campaign, he raised more than $3 million to try to help elect Mitt Romney, the eventual Republican nominee. Many other donors, particular in the New York financial world, turn to Mr. Singer’s political advisers for strategic guidance on their own donations.And Mr. Rubio, who struggled to raise campaign cash over the summer and has relied heavily on outside groups to pay for advertisements promoting him, needs their help…
Paul Singer, the ‘key billionaire, gave $ to Swift Boaters (’04), Rudy G (’08), Mitt (’12) & Club for Growth (’13) https://t.co/CZg8aAOmz1
— lvdjgarcia (@lvdjgarcia) October 31, 2015
… In his letter to his donor network, Mr. Singer described Mr. Rubio as “the best explainer of conservatism in public life today, and one of the best communicators the modern Republican Party has seen. Marco Rubio can appeal to both the head and the heart.”
Of the roughly 1,200 people who raised money or hosted fund-raising events for Mr. Romney in 2012, according to a New York Times analysis, about two-thirds had yet to give a donation to any of the Republican candidates through the end of September, the most recent disclosures available from the Federal Election Commission…
.@marcorubio as 'best explainer of conservatism today' — Paul Singer's line to rich donors — is something I heard from voters aft debate
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) October 31, 2015
I get importance of decision, but speaks to our current pbs that one man's electoral choice merits such top billing. pic.twitter.com/8UXEfFXlAg
— Taniel (@Taniel) October 31, 2015
The hubbub over Paul Singer endorsement of Rubio is an inspiring manifestation of the American democratic commitment to 1 person, 1 vote
— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 31, 2015
BGinCHI
So the major shift in Big Money for the GOP is to the son of Hispanic immigrants so that the party can win the WH in order to shatter the dreams of Hispanic immigrants.
Botsplainer
First into a substance thread! Shall I whine about the appearance first, or should I whine about functionality? Choices, choices…
Elizabelle
Woo hoo. Kudos to Tommy et al.
Was jonesing for Balloon Juice yesterday. Amazed how frequently I hit the bookmark almost unconsciously.
Mustang Bobby
If by that he means Rubio can polish the GOP turds of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and patriarchy that more befits the staterooms of the Titanic, sure, give him a shot.
David Koch
Meh. $3 million isn’t a lot of money.
Look at ¿ Jeb ? he raised over $100 million for his Pac and he’s at 5% in the polls.
Amir Khalid
Marco Rubio’s anointment as the latest Billionaires’ Boy could turn out to be an inadvertent kiss of death. Especially if the party base has come to look upon the moneybags’
endorsementadoption of such candidates as a big negative. Has any pundit looked at that possibility?Baud
@David Koch:
He’ll make that back in tax cuts in the first year alone.
ETA: Testing edit function.
Amir Khalid
@David Koch:
If Jeb had had some of that hundred mill in his campaign, he wouldn’t be broke now. The Brinks trucks showed up to the wrong place.
Baud
@Baud:
So editing in mobile works, but it no longer takes you back to the main page automatically after you hit save.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Yup, it’s the PAC and not the campaign; and there’s ‘supposed’ to be no coordination between them.
Debbie(aussie)
Like the new digs :)
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: There’s a whole list of glitches that Tommy’s been told about. He was pretty tired towards the end and got some shut eye.
David Koch
Candidates who raised the most money and didn’t win the nomination:
1964: Nelson Rockefeller
1980: John Connolly
1996: Phil Gramm
2000: Bill Bradley
2004: Howard Dean
2008: Rudy Giuliani
2016: ¿ Jeb ?
Keith G
“Welcome… To Jurassic Party.”?
More like, welcome to the New Gilded Age. Vast sums of money of money are collected by the few and large portions of such funds are committed to the purchase of the type of governance that allows for even more money to be captured.
David Koch
Hilarious how he’s running from his “private sector” experience.
¿ Jeb ? is furious with CNBC for displayed this graphic.
raven
Looks ok to me but then I my work entails periodic technology changes and I know people will bitch and it will take time to get right. It is a little hard to see the editing icons.
Warren Terra
Singer is getting much too much of a free pass when he’ described merely as being a conservative billionaire. He is the world’s most famous Vulture Capitalist, which makes him practically cartoonishly evil. He’s also dedicated to the notion that Wall Street must be freed from all regulation, and he’s chockablock with nutty conspiracy theories about inflation.
For more see Paul Krugman and Greg Palast.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
Oh, I certainly hope so! — why else would I be publicizing it like this?
David Koch
Pretty large turnout for Trump in Virginia.
Doubt anyone would show up for Rubio (aside from fatcats)
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That wasn’t a knock on Tommy. That was me exercising my God-given red-blooded apple-pie eatin’ American right to bitch about things, as provided for by our U.S. Constitution.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Warren Terra: Everybody in the financial world thinks inflation is just around the corner, for the last 30 years.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Tommy’s aware of the editing buttons.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: And someday there will be mild inflation, and they’ll tell everyone how right they were.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I know, he was getting a bit sensitive towards the end of the evening. I know the feeling well, fatigue plays a big part.
Baud
@David Koch:
Funny. And I like the new popup window you get when you click on a link to an image.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m surprised it took him to the end of the evening. He should have taken a lesson from Cole’s book and been pre-angry.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: There should be mild inflation, around 4-6%; but that cuts into lender’s profits.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Heh, Tommy’s nicer than Cole.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Much better than sending you to the page as it used to.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Cool, the only thing I might add, and I don’t expect him to change it, is the use of the cursor in the tutorial. The tutorial is well done but I know from having done them that there is a tendency to point at an area and manipulate the cursor quickly. It’s a natural tendency but it’s is helpful if the producer can slow down there highlighting. Some programs such as Camtasia make a bullseye on clicks to amplify the action.
Elizabelle
@David Koch: Looking at that list, we would have been better off with Howard Dean in 2004. His supporters are probably a lot of the Bernie supporters now; there’s energy in them.
Have never been a John Kerry fan (good SoS and senator, but I find him stiff and boring, so imagine your average voter…)
BillinGlendaleCA
OT: I’ve hit the big time. My new weather station is now on Weather Underground.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: Well, you’d want inflation because peoples wages are increasing, which will come primarily from public investments, which a GOP Congress won’t do. I’m not sure I’m convinced by the arguments that the Fed should instigate inflation through monetary policy (although the devil is in the details).
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: There’s a tutorial? I’m a techie, I never RTFM.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Inflation also helps produce technical innovation, at least that’s what I was taught in my wayward youth studying the Dismal Science.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: “Redesign Info” vid on the homepage.
Baud
@Elizabelle: I still say that the person who wins the nomination is the best candidate in the general. Dean’s supporters couldn’t even get him to go deep into the primary, despite their enthusiasm.
@BillinGlendaleCA: Congrats!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: The Fed’s not had a tight monetary policy in recent memory. Investors and lenders love tight money, higher interest rates.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: It’s all about hitting the right number and not letting it get out of control and volatile.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
As far as I’m concerned, we’re doing worse than we should be because the GOP has controlled the House since 2010. Government needed to do more, and they shut it all down.
MattF
Note Krugman’s take on Singer.
ETA: I see Warren Terra got there first.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Yup, you need to stimulate the economy both with fiscal and monetary policy.
Elizabelle
@David Koch: re Trump in Virginia: prepare to be aghast at the Virginia voters the WaPost’s Marc Fisher interviewed. Pretty much arch conservatives who don’t believe in social spending. And they think the country has gone to hell. Hmmmm.
Seeking America’s ‘lost’ greatness and finding Trump most appealing
These morons are not wrong about the past being easier, economically, for the American middle class. Where they go off the rails is not seeing how 30+ years of Republican ideology stole their opportunities.
‘Lost greatness’ goes right up there with “lost cause” and “moonlight and magnolias.”
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA:
The Fed target for inflation is 2%.
ps: just so Tommy isn’t disappointed, I hate the new design, which anyone who knows me will tell you, means he’s done pretty damn good. I’ll get used to it. In a year or 2.
Elizabelle
@MattF:
Jeebus. From Krugman re Paul Singer:
Guillotine, please. What a jackhole.
Satby
@raven: I would bitch less about it if we hadn’t been told weeks ago that this was running on a test server. Where everything mentioned as a glitch would have been immediately obvious.
Edited to add: why would we need an info video to read a blog? That’s the point where a redesign loses the plot.
Elizabelle
Did we learn who narrated the tutorial? Thinking it might not be Cole, since he wasn’t swearing at us.
I love the promised little circle at bottom right of a page that will take us up to the top. Cannot find it in real life.
Thanks to Tommy and all for their hard work.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Yea and I don’t like our huge windows that look down on the garden because they let too much moonlight in. Should we tear the addition down?
raven
@Elizabelle: There’s no way Cole did that.
raven
Let’s see how it does with a photo embed (I’m sure someone already did this). Here’s our one-of-a-kind pot rack!
eta It’s a little hard to tell it’s a link unless you put the cursor right on it.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
There’s a little grey square with a caret in the lower right. Click on that and you’ll go to the top of the page.
@raven:
Yes!
Elizabelle
@raven: Beautiful.
I like the photo embed feature.
Bill in Glendale: could you embed those 2 pics from yesterday morning (or before) I could not see? Think they may have been you as a kid in Halloween attire ….
Baud
Quick search of the redesign bug thread indicates that no one has blamed Obama.
It’s a brave new world.
mclaren
@Keith G:
New Gilded Age?
More like new unlimited-corporate-cash blows up the Republican Party. Everyone talks about money buying governance, but it didn’t buy the GOP the White House last election cycle. What it bought in 2012 was Newt Gingrich hanging as a zombie candidate in for months trashing the rest of the candidates. RMoney raised an ungodly amount of cash, and what did it buy him? A malfunctioning digital campaign network that crashed when they needed to turn out votes.
I don’t think anyone in the Republican party realizes just how much Citizens v. United has already disrupted the Republican party. And speaking of big bucks…what did Jeb’s giant war chest do for him? Did it even budge him above 5% in the polls?
I don’t think either Repubs or Demos realize quite yet that unlimited corporate cash is only useful in the absence of other mitigating factors. Back in 2000, big corporate cash made a huge difference because there weren’t a lot of real issues. In 2000, everyone was sitting fat ‘n happy. The big issue in that election was (fuck me, even I can hardly believe it)…how best to spend the boatload of money stacked up as the Federal surplus. The R’s wanted to spend it on tax cuts for billionaires and Pentagon buildup, the Demos wanted to spend it on social services.
Fast forward to today. We have real problems in America. And people know what they are. No amount of corporate cash can cover up the collapse of the middle class, whitewash America’s torture and kidnapping and endless unwinnable foreign wars, the conversion of the US of A into a garrison state under undeclared martial law, the muggers with badges running amok shooting innocent motorists in the face because they feel like it.
No amount of corporate cash is going to change the plain blunt fact that every single Republican policy suggested at the debates has been tried and HAS FAILED FOR THE LAST 35 YEARS. So pardon the fuck out of me if I don’t see unlimited corporate cash buying governance in this election cycle. It’s more likely to buy a landslide loss for Rubio or Jeb or whatever other brainless no-ideas Reagan-spouting empty-headed chickenhawk jerkoff the corporations try to sell us as their puppet in 2016.
raven
@Elizabelle: It’s the same as it was. The trick is having the photos somewhere that generates a URL. I like FLICKR because I can get a blind URL and just show one photo. Tommy uses a regular FLICKR URL when he posts a pic so you can see his entire account.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle:
I have a square that does it.
mclaren
“Seeking America’s lost greatness…”
Yeah, I can tell you when America lost its greatness. It was that fatal moment when these white guys came ashore from these giant boats with glass beads and feathers and offered to buy this island called Manhattan…
raven
No shit.
Elizabelle
@mclaren: I wonder if Citizens United is doing its worst at the state and local level.
The GOP presidential candidates are so off the rails that the average (not political junkie) voter has noticed. “Clown car” has made it into common usage.
But I’m thinking of the wall to wall ads for Corey Gardiner in Colorado, and all the negative advertising. Lots of money in Virginia. A fake issue about HOV lanes is generating a lot of poutrage here in Virginia; negative ads trying to take the Democrats out. Could make a difference in off year elections.
Very honestly, I don’t think states should have off year elections, for local govt or anything. It’s expensive and turns out less representative of the citizens’ will.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: And every one thought Slick Willie was slick
Satby
@Elizabelle: I agree. I think it also drives down voter participation because it seems like there’s elections every year.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: I’ll give it a try: 50 years ago.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Ding.
raven
You have got to hear Joe whine about debate formats. He actually said “I’m not whining”!!!
eta, Huh, pretty good. Joe just went down a list if the candidates who lied when asked questions.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
That link took me to the site. No pop up.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: No popup, I’m depressed.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I read at the Guardian that the plane had a ‘tail strike’ some years ago and had to undergo extensive repairs. Another Airbus of that type had the same and broke up midair some years back due to structural weaknesses that took a while to show up. It is a possibility.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly:
BillinGlendaleCA
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’ll try from Flickr: Popup Please.
Still no popup :P.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: Me too. Kind of embarrassing really. Had this happened some other weekend I wouldn’t have noticed until it was over. But the bastards I work for made me pull a night shift I didn’t want and I was tired and wanted my binkie.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: It works fine but if you go to the popup downward arrow and select “View All Sizes” then right click on the photo you will get a menu that includes “Open in a New Tab” you get a blind URL like this. Notice that it says “static” in the URL.
Another Holocene Human
@BillinGlendaleCA: I’m all in favor of a nice inflation rate, provided labor is not legally barred (as it is in the US–truth–can you go on strike today–just because?–bet not) from seeking their adjustment.
This is what happened in the US in the 70s. The screaming of the rentiers could be heard to the moon and back. And they got their revenge. Oh, they got their revenge.
(Note: I speak of labor keeping up with inflation. The inflation was not very nice inflation, it was kind of messy inflation, which I say had more to do with putting a war on a credit card–just look into what happens every time a country does this–than with the standard bullshit reasons that are given for why the inflation started.)
jamey
Was David Frum being facetious in that Tweet?
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Ok, let’s see.
There you go, thanks raven.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: THESE PEOPLE ARE SO STUPID STOP NEED BRAIN BLEACH STOP MADNESS ENCROACHING STOP
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Nice.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yea, I guess my mistake was saying that you could see the blind URL, this just shows the photo as a nice popup.
ETA That is interesting and I’m sure it it programmed that way but you actually get scroll arrows on the side of the photos and it lets you scroll through the other pics on the page.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Marco’s always been on the stroll…ever since he was in the Florida legislature…nice to know he’s secured himself a pimp.
BillinGlendaleCA
Joe needs to lay off the whine so early in the morning. It’s the sign of a serious problem.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Yeah, I read that too. It is just too early in the investigation to rule out anything.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: I have a square on my screen. I just tried it, it works.
I do find it annoying that when I post a comment I get taken to my comment but then for some mysterious reason my browser bounces me several posts above. I like going back to my comment so I can click on the link to the comment I responded to and back to where I left off.
eta: pretty seamless transition, though–I mean, last time BJ had some technical backend work I had to enter my info into FYWP anew on a daily basis
AxelFoley
*sit down with his feet up on the Ottoman, looking around*
I like what you’ve done to the place, Cole. Looks good.
BillinGlendaleCA
@rikyrah: More of a sugar daddy.
Baud
Yay, on the mobile site, the page doesn’t refresh all the way to the top anymore.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I think them ISIS fuckers put a stinger up it’s ass.
Another Holocene Human
@rikyrah: That’s a hilarious image, rikyrah :D
Another Holocene Human
@BillinGlendaleCA: You’re forgetting the role of the voting public in this little drama.
Another Holocene Human
Need new car. If I buy one here it costs me at least $1000 extra. But I can’t get a Saturday off to to Orlando to go shopping. Yet my employers are not paying me $1000 extra when I come in on Saturday. I think I’m getting cheated here.
(I could call in, but I will get dinged, and I just haven’t hit that point yet.)
delk
Paul Singer is a massive supporter of Marriage Equality. I hope those ‘Rubio’ dollars have some caveats.
Great job on the site so far! I read and agreed with most of the comments and am looking forward to the fine tuning. Compared to some of recent redesigns that have rolled out at a few of my favorite sites, this has been a far better experience.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Holocene Human: Voters? That’s so 20th century.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: For what it’s worth, the Russians keep saying the insurgents in the Sinai don’t have anything that can reach 31,000 feet. If I was a betting man, I’m not but if I was, I’d have my money on an airport worker putting a bomb on the plane.
NotMax
@satby
Agreed. It wasn’t near ready for prime time yet.
Kind of puzzling that Chelsea Manning rates a listing in Categories yet Ed Snowden doesn’t.
Tommy, Minor style points: Changing the “and” in Science and Technology in the Categories to an ampersand (Science & Technology) would improve the balance of the look of the listed selections, as also would having all the text of each category centered. And repeating, both Immigration and Photo Blogging are not following the capitalization style of all the other categories.
magurakurin
wow. text at 100% is really really really tiny.
BillinGlendaleCA
@delk: He’s got Marriage Equality. Now it’s IGMFU.
Schlemazel
@raven:
Given what I have heard that does not seem likely. They were at 33,000 (too high for a stinger) and made a call for an emergency but said nothing about an explosion. The descended to about 28,000 and slowed way down. ITOH if we could get Bill’s buddys angry at iSIS maybe we could sit back and watch the fun unfold.
My one and only whine: I miss comment numbers, they made finding things much easier.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: Or ‘forgetting’ to tighten a few bolts.
magurakurin
@OzarkHillbilly: one thing that’s for damn sure….we’ll never get the truth about what happened from the Russians.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Ooo yea,
HinTN
Tommy, et al., the back function on my phone still doesn’t take me back to the comment I left when I followed a nym link from a reply. Still goes back to main page… Also, would like a skip to comment feature at the top vice reading all or scrolling down. The look is GOOD. Thanks
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Yeah, school uniforms were mighty funky way back when.
:)
magurakurin
@HinTN: that is the same for me, too. That was a handy feature before using the back button to go back where you were. Also, it seems that comments don’t have numbers anymore. That sucks.
Schlemazel
@magurakurin:
Oh I don’t know, I half expect a guy from a certain rainy West Coast city to descend at any moment and lay a little of Putins honest truth on us
EDIT: instead of “us” I should have said “all us nazi sympathizing fascist fools” I regret the oversight.
Another Holocene Human
@OzarkHillbilly: As long as we’re wildly speculating, why not the Chechens?
I don’t believe anything the Russian government or media says these days. Not after their “no logos” shock troops downed a commercial airliner in Ukraine.
NotMax
Thus far, the new format is an RtR-free zone.
Now that’s some impressive coding!
;)
MomSense
Anonymous has released some #opkkk names.
Whoa. Some elected officials are on the list.
Joel
@Amir Khalid: I think so, too. Especially with this endorsement being splashed in all the wrong places (e.g. NYT).
BillinGlendaleCA
@magurakurin: All of those things and more were mentioned to Tommy last night.
Schlemazel
@NotMax:
I expect its return as “Right to Rubio” any second.
I love that the site now updates a comment after editing, the old one took you back to your original comment without showing the changes. As a lousy typist who too often has additional changes to make I love that feature.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
Joe was too busy whining about all the moderators being liberals. Hell, he said all the media were liberals. GOP, WATB’s.
Schlemazel
@MomSense:
link?
Is it wrong of me to pray there are no Dems on this list? – I am tired of hearing about Sen Byrd’s 1950s flirtation supposedly forgiving everything the GOP has done for the last 60 years
Baud
Whoa. Mobile site just reverted back to old format.
bemused
A Trump supporter said Trump is silly at times and sounds like a 4th grader and in next sentence she said Trump sounds like a regular guy. These people make my head hurt.
oth, a local paper with a wingnut editor puts up polls with red meat questions such as should Hillary be prosecuted for Benghazi, etc, which rightwingers reliably answer yes to in huge numbers. Most recent poll asked if you believe Trump could win the WH. I was surprised that more rightwingers have answered no. The wingnut editor of another local paper wrote that Trump is a loudmouth blowhard. Trump doesn’t seem to be that popular with area rightwingers but from their letters to ed and other local media comments, I’m not seeing them mention the names of any of the other Republican presidential candidates they would support either.
mistermix
@Baud: Yes, I set it back. You can scroll to the bottom to turn it off.
kindness
Aren’t these the same billionaires that just recently preferred Bush?
Thought so.
gogol's wife
So it’s back to having the text all on the side instead of in the middle where it’s more readable (and I clicked the “old blog” button). And the background is gray. So it’s for young people with smartphones instead of oldsters with computers who can’t read as easily any more. Guess I’ll read more books now.
MomSense
@Schlemazel:
So far no Dems but some high level Republican Senators.
Not sure about posting links but if you go to Twitter you can find them.
Baud
@mistermix:
Thanks.
Gimlet
http://www.politico.com/blogs/the-gavel/2015/11/paul-ryan-speaker-communication-staffers-215428#ixzz3qKrwfQnI
Speaker Paul Ryan has hired eight communications staffers as he builds what he promises to be a large-scale press shop to lead the GOP messaging operation.
Ryan (R-Wis.) has said he’ll spend a lot of time on television communicating the party’s message. He plans to hire upwards of a dozen communications hands.
Baud
@MomSense:
What list is this?
Sherparick
Well, Mr. Frum, was this not what the conservative movement all about, reestablishing the primacy of the rights of property and privilege by the elite in the American Republic? http://www.salon.com/2015/11/01/when_texas_fell_to_the_wingnuts_the_secret_history_of_the_southern_strategy_modern_conservatism_and_the_lone_star_state/
“… Goldwater empathized with the South because his own philosophy drew on the argument that the Constitution protected property rights and restricted democracy in order to preserve privilege. From John C. Calhoun and other slave-owning politicians of the antebellum Old South to their conservative disciples of the New South, the region emphasized the role of the Constitution in curbing federal power. Goldwater subscribed to Calhoun’s understanding of the Constitution as a restrictive document that protected property rights and sanctified the power of the states over the federal government. “Our right of property,” Goldwater said, “is probably our most sacred right….”
Peter Singer, besides supporting this general principle, also appreciates that Rubio’s proposals will make most of his income and wealth free of taxes, so he won’t even have to pay for all the lovely little wars around the world he wants his boy Rubio to start. Singer’s political contributions are not donations, they are investments. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/08/26/marco-rubio-eliminating-the-capital-gains-tax-will-help-bartenders-like-my-father/
Baud
@Gimlet:
Hopefully, he’ll talk more about the evils of Social Security.
Schlemazel
@MomSense:
Yeah, I set up a twitter account but never used it (get off my lawn!) I have forgotten the password so maybe I’ll wait until they make the news. I have to say though, given how irrelevant the organization has become and it’s nutball reputation I can’t imagine any pol joining even if they support the agenda.
Schlemazel
@Gimlet:
To quote Boy Blunder
“I have to catapult the propaganda”
BruceFromOhio
Support for a sane tax policy? Didn’t think so.
You can dress your pig up in lace, diamonds, and six-inch spikes, with its own chauffeured Lear jet, it’s still a Gaia-damned pig.
Gimlet
@Baud:
I’m sure he only wants to “fix it” so it won’t go broke in 2525.
NotMax
OT:
Moving in the right direction, one locale in India makes solar panels mandatory on multi-story buildings of four floors and above.
(For those unfamiliar with it, the elderly gentleman talking about the 16 bathrooms is using the Britishism for hot water heaters.)
Baud
@Gimlet:
The funny part is, if they did “fix,” good money says it goes broken even faster.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: I think them ISIS fuckers put a stinger up it’s ass.
I don’t think they can reach that high.
Another Holocene Human
@MomSense: Want to see if they’re going to be forced to deny it to the media.
raven
@Gin & Tonic: I don’t either.
raven
@gogol’s wife: Go see the chaplain and get your card punched.
Another Holocene Human
@BruceFromOhio: I thought Jesus was the deity who cursed a pig.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I thought they “fixed it” in 1983.
Another Holocene Human
@Gimlet: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Gin & Tonic
Funny, from RT.com front page:
How’d they follow that advice after MH17?
And, hey, Tommy, if you’re reading, I know you’ve heard this a lot, but blockquotes shouldn’t be in a font 50% larger than body text. This makes no sense. And white on white for the formatting buttons on top od the commenting box is not a useful combination.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
I’ve always heard that was a good fix, at least in terms of the stability of the fund.
NotMax
@Gimlet
“Going broke” has always been a wild exaggeration. If sensible changes and tweaks are not implemented, would be more like inflow being reduced to support paying out benefits at the rate of roughly 75% rather than 100%. That’s far from desirable, but also far from going broke.
Baud
@Another Holocene Human:
Even asking the question would be liberal media bias.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Fewer members of the workforce after the recession, stagnated wages and Boomers drawing benefits drained the fund.
Gimlet
How do we find out about a newly posted topic?
beltane
Singer is only a “no litmus test” kind of donor because he is an Israel-firster neocon who cares little about other issues. Like many other neoconservatives, he’d be quite accepting of an abortionplex being built inside of every high school in the US just as long as we bombed Iran. He is donating to Rubio because that is the candidate whom he feels would be most obedient towards Netanyahu-end of story.
Iowa Old Lady
Friend of mine was in a local Mexican restaurant last week, one run by Mexicans, and the owner and workers were talking about how much they wanted Rubio because he would fix immigration. She protested that a Democrat would be better, and they said Obama hadn’t helped them. That was a little sobering.
Gimlet
Shaking the money tree.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/paul-ryan-tax-reform-house-speaker-215405#ixzz3qL18rUkY
Paul Ryan’s rise to House speaker is fanning hopes that a once-in-a-generation tax overhaul might be on the horizon.
The Wisconsin Republican who claimed the gavel last week is one of Congress’ preeminent tax experts, an ardent advocate of rewriting the code with lots of ideas on how to do it. Over the years, he’s gone further than most lawmakers in pushing politically fraught changes that have gone nowhere, such as wiping out a major tax break for employer-provided health plans and making it harder for the wealthy to claim the hugely popular mortgage-interest deduction.
Sweeping tax change won’t happen this year, supporters say, with lawmakers still staring at a stack of unfinished business — or next year, when the 2016 election will loom even larger. But they say it’s suddenly a lot more likely in the early years of the next presidency, especially if the Republicans win the White House.
The sort of ambitious reform Ryan has in mind, which would be the first since 1986, promises to cut both individual and corporate tax rates in exchange for junking scores of credits, deductions and other special provisions. Any rewrite would be hugely controversial, with an array of powerful interest groups sure to line up to defend their favorite provisions.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady:
Not really much different in attitide from many white Americans.
Keith G
@mclaren: (My italics)
But it has, Madge, it has.
Governance is more than just the the person sitting behind the Resolute desk. Bought governance includes Summers, Geithner, and hundreds of other regulatory bureaucrats who know if they shape their decision-making just right, their next job will set them up for life.
It includes Congress folk who have learned that stopping action can be multiple times more powerful than passing legislation.
It definitely includes state governments, who on average are less righteous than a common third-world brothel.
At least the first US Gilded Age left behind a bit of industrial infrastructure as a bit of a balm for the wounds it caused.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Gimlet: There will be a gray bar with an arrow on the right side, like you should be able to see on the left side.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Baud:
You say that as a joke, but the way the accounting works, it could be read that way. E.g. any increased tax revenue for the Social Security Trust Fund (since it gets spent and doesn’t sit in a vault somewhere) gets put on the books as part of the national debt.
“OMG! The debt is too big!! We gotta cut Social Security!!11”
Bruce Webb at AngryBear has done many good posts on this over the years.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@Iowa Old Lady: I don’t think I’d have much appetite for that Mexican food anymore.
Satby
@Baud: I love the classics! It did for me too.
Seriously, I embrace change most times, but I was a tech manager so I have a high bar for rollouts I guess.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gimlet:
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…… gasp…… wheeze….. What’ya tring to do, kill me?
Satby
@mistermix: can I keep it dad?
Ajabu
OT update: I’ve been on the road since Saturday on my cross country trek to prove that a rapidly aging musician can still survive a week of constant travel. I’m driving a small building (apparently) with PENSKE written on the side & towing my car. I’m currently in Oklahoma & woke up to very heavy ground fog so I’ll be delayed in starting to drive today. I don’t do fog. I can barely do sunshine on a long drive.
Keep me in your thoughts, guys.
Baud
@Ajabu:
Keep on truckin,’ A. Almost there.
PurpleGirl
@Baud: Yesterday I watched a rebroadcast of a documentary on the “Black Blizzrds” of the Midwest drought crisis of the late 1920s and 1930s. It was a good refresher of what the federal government can do when it has innovative programs and thinkers… of course, in this case it was FDR. And he was fighting a Republican Congress which didn’t want to DO things even then. So the ancestors of today’s recalcitrant idiots were saved by the Democrats and a leader (FDR) they still want to excoriate as evil.
PurpleGirl
@Elizabelle: In my lower right hand corner I see a grey square with a white arrow point in it.
Satby
@Ajabu: Glad you checked in! Stay safe, that’s the main thing. Be sure to let us know you got to your destination safely.
Yeah, I’m a mom.
Iowa Old Lady
@Ajabu: So are you halfway there? So far, so good!
Lee
It is a nice little day dream that having the major swift-boater back his campaign would sink Rubio’s chances.
Satby
Poop. Mobile went back to the new way.
PurpleGirl
@raven: One of my guilty pleasures is watching TV shows about plane crashes (currently in love with the Smithsonian Channel’s Air Disasters). These investigations typically take close to a year and will often involve reviewing similar past crashes. For the Russians to claim it doesn’t involve structure issues or pilot error at this point is disingenuous. And a past repair that wasn’t correctly done is a distinct possibility.
Elizabelle
@Ajabu: Safe travels, dude.
Fog is a no go. Glad you have a little extra time for rest, coffee, and websurfing. Wish I could be out there driving the west with you.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Baud:
“Thanks, Obama” was displayed across the bottom of Tunch’s picture, but it was cropped out on my phone. (Yet another small bugatelle.)
Steeplejack (phone)
@jamey:
Yes. He is sort of a semi-reformed, or semi-recovering, Republican now.
Anonymous At Work
This type of thing will/could lead to Trump having a great line at a debate. “Why are you up here? You’re so far in the pocket of X, Y, and Z, I shouldn’t waste my time debating a loser like you but go after the real candidates, the people behind you.”
Basically, who is the dog and who is the tail?
Hal
@David Koch: Phil Gramm?! I completely forgot about him. I remember Bill Bradley making a brief splash. Gore should have picked him for vp. Or did Bradley say/do something stupid I can’t recall?
WereBear
@Ajabu: I am thinking about you! Fog is a definite no-go.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
Meh. They’re just throwing more good money after bad on another loser, ’cause they don’t have a single winner in the field. Too bad they have so much of it that throwing millions away doesn’t even hurt. It would be nice if it hurt, if only just a little.
Anoniminous
@Ajabu:
Fog is definitely a signal to eat a late breakfast. There’s a dense fog advisory across middle Oklahoma but it should be lifting by mid to late morning.
Mandalay
@Warren Terra: Everything you say is true, and he is shameless about going after poor nations as a strong-arm debt collector. On the other hand, it is hard to sympathize with his current victim, Argentina, which has been telling the world that they will honor their debts at their discretion, and have repeatedly reneged on their own agreements. Fuck Singer, but fuck the government of Argentina as well. It’s hard to decide which side deserves to lose most.
Mandalay
@Anonymous At Work:
That ain’t ever gonna happen.
Trump can humiliate Rubio, and and safely kick the shit out of him for amusement, but he goes after Singer at his peril. Trump is not going to endanger his bank balance.
Another Holocene Human
@Iowa Old Lady: Read: Rubio promised to make our sole proprietor taxes even lower.
Rubio was in the Senate and made an immigration reform proposal and it went over like a lead balloon. Obama has demonstrably done more than Rubio, who went into hiding after the Tea Party gave him a piece of their diseased minds.
Another Holocene Human
@Ajabu: Be safe, and don’t push yourself. Stupid risks are for 20 year olds.
The Other Chuck
@Schlemazel:
Was more than a flirtation, he was a Grand Dragon/Wizard/Cyclops/Half-Troll/Half-Halfling or something. He also profusely apologized and spent a great deal of his career making amends. The GOP lives in the past, or whatever decade is most convenient for them at any time.
David Koch
@Hal: Bradley was a good guy, but a little boring.
He picked Lieberman because he was behind by double digits and he needed to make a big splash by breaking a barrier. And it’ worked. He went from being down by as much as 18 pts to winning the popular vote (and Florida if the Supreme Court allowed a full recount).
Chris T.
I think this thread is dead, but re Frum’s semi-sarcastic comment about “one person, one vote”… it’s pretty clear that the Republicans, at least, believe in “one dollar, one vote” instead.
Tehanu
Too bright; font too small; too much white space; why the hell do those buttons not show what they are unless you mouse over them? Hate sans serif. Hate text on one side and not in the middle. Didn’t need a redesign, it was fine the way it was.