US Politics Thread |OT| THE DARKEST TIMELINE

[benjipwns]

I, Timothy Ray Murray, own properties in Perkins, OK and near Buffalo, Oklahoma. The previously stated land properties in or near those cities contain dwelling buildings made of brick and or stone. I am also a partial owner of oil, gases, and minerals rights of other Oklahoma land. Despite what President Obama said on television about slapping anyone that votes for Oil barons, I am sure that will not happen for voting for Timothy Ray Murray. (The President was joking. He knows that is illegal, and that no one should ever do that.)

I have lived most of my life in Oklahoma and I currently reside in Moore, Oklahoma.
I plan to relocate to Oklahoma’s 3rd District after honored to serve The People as their Representative.

Congress is likely wanting me to state that all my DNA used will not result in benefits to people I have never had relations with of a family nature.

[Joe Molotov]

His website looks like it has the makings of a Timecube: http://www.timothyraymurray.com/

[Phoenix Dark]

His website looks like it has the makings of a Timecube: http://www.timothyraymurray.com/

Guns, freedom, and Bubsy 3D.

[benjipwns]

Jonah Goldberg with a synthesis of conservative critique on Piketty: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/mr-pikettys-big-book-of-marxiness/

Mentions a Thomas Frank one that hits on some of the poor history: http://www.salon.com/2014/05/11/the_problem_with_thomas_piketty_capital_destroys_right_wing_lies_but_theres_one_solution_it_forgets/

[Mandark]

tooJonahGoldbergdidntread.gif

[benjipwns]

Anti-semite.

[Kara]

benji, I know we "political outliers who have to play chill at the Bore because the Bore is a chill space" brehs, but it's really hard for me to start reading an article whose title includes the word Marxiness.

[Van Cruncheon]

saw "jonah goldberg"; didn't read

edit: mandark beat me to it

[Phoenix Dark]

benji, I know we "political outliers who have to play chill at the Bore because the Bore is a chill space" brehs, but it's really hard for me to start reading an article whose title includes the word Marxiness.

you're a conservative? always good to see a Jew who has escaped the mental work camp of liberalism

[Kara]

I prefer to think of it as freeing myself from being the liberal szlachta's arendator on the Ukrainian plantation, but using plantation is problematic (Probably offensive. -Ed.) in an American context, and fucking nobody knows about the Khmelnytsky Uprising.

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I was one once. 

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When I was a child that'd never lived outside the Orange Curtain, or experienced anything but the comforts provided by living in a thoroughly petite bourgeoisie household. 

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[Mandark]

He's a commie or thereabouts.

[Kara]

Succinct, accurate, and on point as always, Tov. Mandark.  (I especially like the "or thereabouts".)

I remember after the last presidential election I was working in a very openly conservative CPA's office (which isn't uncommon) first thing the morning after and everyone else in the office was nastily bemoaning the previous night's result while I fastidiously maintained my apolitical public persona and just did my work but at some point in their group therapy someone made a quip at me to not mind their behavior if I was a Democrat and I almost started laughing uncontrollably. 

[Joe Molotov]

He's a commie or thereabouts.

There's definitely a touch of Marxiness to him.

[Phoenix Dark]

Succinct, accurate, and on point as always, Tov. Mandark.  (I especially like the "or thereabouts".)

I remember after the last presidential election I was working in a very openly conservative CPA's office (which isn't uncommon) first thing the morning after and everyone else in the office was nastily bemoaning the previous night's result while I fastidiously maintained my apolitical public persona and just did my work but at some point in their group therapy someone made a quip at me to not mind their behavior if I was a Democrat and I almost started laughing uncontrollably. 

what are your thoughts on

[Kara]

Esch brings that LF flavor from SA to the Bore. 

what are your thoughts on

I'll tell you what, he was not what we were promised by the Kenya People's Union. 

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I voted for him. 

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Because the Party told me to.

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J/K

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Though IIRC the CPUSA endorsed him.

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[Kara]

That spelling of America was popular with (some) posters at the LF subforum at Something Awful.

[Kara]

It was a no holds barred political forum, which basically meant it became a haven for that ilk.

Or so I'm told by its exiles I associate with. (I was just a YCS poster.)

[benjipwns]

AmeriKKKa is a long standing proper name for the world's most evil country. I don't even think Ice Cube was the originator, but came from the 1960/70's or something.

benji, I know we "political outliers who have to play chill at the Bore because the Bore is a chill space" brehs, but it's really hard for me to start reading an article whose title includes the word Marxiness.

We're just playing? 

The "Marxiness" comes from in his argument of trying to come up with a way to describe Piketty's refusal to step over the line into Marxism and claiming he's not one while, in Goldberg's view, repeating basically the same argument only more poorly than Marx did.

I thought it a nice companion piece to the earlier Galbraith one in plucking away the hype feathers and putting their fingers often right on why I was so underwhelmed and bored when I actually read the thing. Namely, in my case, Galbraith put into words the confusion I was having with Piketty's lacking definition of capital, and Goldberg hits on the incongruity in switching back and forth between it being a historical work and data analysis while doing neither justice and messing with standards as this happens.

I think Goldberg's a lousy regular columnist but when he does long form work he's pretty good at synthesis and the type research necessary for that. Here he's not just yelling that Piketty is a Marxist like most of his conservative columnist brethren. Liberal Fascism fell apart when he started trying to integrate Whole Foods, modern political squabbles and defend the War on Terror/Bush into it. (Also the fact that he read way too much Hitler, too little Mussolini pre-Rome and no Sorel at all that I remember.)

But it's coo, I don't expect everybody to read anything I post, let alone everything. Though it will be on the test during me and Angry Fork's purges.

[Kara]

Thanks for the synopsis but I did read the first 2 parts of the article, actually. I really need to get an excise tax project done tonight so I had to stop there doe.

Needless to say I disagree with some of what I read (in terms of Marx). When I finish the whole thing, if it's sometime soon, I'll make a more substantial post about that.

And nice fast one at the end there buddy, Trots can't even plan something on Meetup, let alone a good old fashioned purge.

[benjipwns]

Most conservatives never read Marx outside of the Manifesto which is pretty useless. Goldberg's probably read Das Kapital though which puts him one up on most. They usually are arguing against Marxist-Leninism if anything.

Buckley's probably the last NRO writer to have read Bakunin.

[Joe Molotov]

http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/06/25/coulter-growing-interest-soccer-sign-nations-moral-decay/11372137/

Thanks, Obama!

[benjipwns]

I bet that Beltway Liberal Boehner is going to let Obama get away with this whole Soccer thing instead of setting up a House investigation.

Next thing you know, we'll be calling it football too.

[Mandark]

Skimmed it.  "Synthesis" seems like a polite way to describe what seems to have none of Goldberg's thoughts and could have just as easily been a link roundup on a blog.  Not that I'm complaining; I'd much rather hear Martin Feldstein's objections than Goldberg's.

Piketty is shockingly unconcerned with the fact (which he acknowledges) that one of the driving forces of U.S. income inequality is rising global equality.

Oh lordy.


edit: I mean, I understand why Piketty's book is an Avengers Assemble moment for the free market defense squad.  But if you're going to subject his claims to that level of scrutiny/skepticism, then you can't very well turn around and accept something like "third world accumulation of wealth is directly and causally linked to growing domestic inequality in developed countries" as an article of faith.

[benjipwns]

They tried to cover this up with the Mississippi election fraud but some aren't going to let the administration get away with it:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/27/sources-us-letting-benghazi-suspects-off-hook-recent-arrest-small-potatoes/

Despite President Obama's promise to stay focused on hunting down those responsible for the 2012 Benghazi attack -- and despite a recent arrest touted as a major takedown -- sources say little has been done to nab the other suspects.

According to multiple sources on the ground, including some with direct knowledge of the operations to identify and hunt the Benghazi suspects, intelligence that could have been acted upon at times has been ignored or put on hold. Further, they say, the recent capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala -- now on a ship bound for the U.S., expected to arrive this weekend -- was an easy one.

"He was low-hanging fruit," one source told Fox News. "We could have picked him up months and months ago and there was no change, or urgency to do this now."

...

The four groups on the "target list" include Ansar al-Sharia, with the top target being the "Emir of Ansar al Sharia," Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu. He was a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years and at the time was classified by analysts at the prison as "a probable member of Al Qaeda." Despite this significant threat to American security and allies, bin Qumu was released as part of an amnesty for militants in 2008. Sources told Fox News that intelligence has shown his involvement in the attacks, and actionable intelligence has for some reason been ignored.

In this same group, but at the bottom of the list, is Khattala.

Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the Benghazi attack also question why more of the investigation hasn't been centered on the Libyan landlord of the American facilities in Benghazi, Mohammad al-Bishari. Some in the region that night insist that al-Bishari "knows a lot more than he is letting on" and "is a key connection to everyone else that night" -- and should be at the very least intensely questioned about what he may know about the attack. Al-Bishari is also said to have bought a new hotel in Benghazi.

When contacted by Fox News, al-Bishari asserted his innocence and said that the United States still owes him money for the damage done to both the consulate and the annex the night of the Benghazi attack.

...

As Fox News previously reported last fall, American Special Forces on multiple occasions weren't allowed to go after harder and more important targets, even though they had multiple chances and opportunities to do so over the course of 16 months. The team, which was officially assigned around Tripoli to train Libyan Special Forces, was also tasked with finding the Libyan suspects responsible for the Benghazi attack. While a U.S. official told Fox News that the operators in question were not specifically tasked with finding the Libyan suspects responsible for the Benghazi attack, a source in the region countered the claims, saying "it's partly a cover."

...

"Ansar al-Sharia is saturating the whole region of eastern Libya with money, training and personnel. They are now the biggest organization in town," one intelligence source said.   

"[Khattala] is the actionable guy and the target, but the [Al Qaeda] network is much larger. He is tied to terrorists throughout the region by our guys on the ground. Overall he is small potatoes to the larger Al Qaeda and terrorist network in the region," said another intelligence officer.

Another disastrous lack of leadership by the cut-and-run-in-chief.

[Joe Molotov]

Another disastrous lack of leadership by the cut-and-run-in-chief.

Obama's war on small business owners knows no bounds.

[benjipwns]

I actually started reading Bakunin. Wonder why he was in none of my previous curriculum.  I guess kapitalist educational institutions fear workers owning their labor (Image removed from quote.)

Why does Piketty reject the more romantic path of the classic Marxist? You know—“Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win”—that kind of thing?

One answer to this question explains not only Piketty’s thinking but the response to his work as well: Piketty is a member of the ruling class. Piketty’s way puts Piketty and his friends in charge of everything. A one-time adviser to the Socialist politician Ségolène Royal, a star academic and a columnist for Libération, Piketty is a quintessential member of what the economist Joseph Schumpeter identified as the “new class.” Schumpeter’s prediction of capitalism’s demise hinged on his brilliant insight that capitalism breeds anti-capitalist intellectuals. Educators, bureaucrats, lawyers, technocrats, journalists, and artists, often the children of successful capitalists, always raised in the material affluence of capitalism, would organize to form a class whose collective interest lay in seizing economic decisions from the free market. As Deirdre McCloskey writes: “Schumpeter believed that capitalism was raising up its own grave diggers—not in the proletariat, as Marx had expected, but in the sons of daughters of the bourgeoisie itself. Lenin’s father, after all, was a high-ranking educational official, and Lenin himself a lawyer. It wasn’t the children of auto workers who pulled up the paving stones on the Left Bank in 1968.”

...

A full-throated endorsement of classic leftist radicalism would set a torch to Piketty’s own tower of privilege. The State, guided by experts, informed by data, must be empowered to decide how the Rawlsian difference principle is applied to society. Piketty’s assurance that inequality “inevitably” leads to violence amounts to an implied threat: “Let us distribute resources as we think best, or the masses will bring the fire next time.” Once again the vanguard of the proletariat takes the most surprising form: bureaucrats (the true “rentiers” of the 21st century!).

[Mandark]

I imagine low-income leftists would just get hit with that smarmy Jefferson "voting themselves money" quote.

Presumably there's some band of income in which it's acceptable to question The Market, though I'm not sure just how much we'd be talking about.

[benjipwns]

Presumably there's some band of income in which it's acceptable to question The Market, though I'm not sure just how much we'd be talking about.

What a silly theory, it's never acceptable.

[Kara]

Most conservatives never read Marx outside of the Manifesto which is pretty useless. Goldberg's probably read Das Kapital though which puts him one up on most. They usually are arguing against Marxist-Leninism if anything.

Well it was the only variant of Marxism that made them shake in fear longer than the duration of a popular uprising that was mercilessly crushed.

Gonna try reading this article now since my Dota stack is MIA.

[Kara]

Tangent: I raided the library of one of my parents recently and found a biography of Lenin published by Progress (one of the official English language publishing houses of the USSR). Shit's going to be a comedy goldmine, can't wait to read it.

[benjipwns]

It'd probably be cool to have different editions of the same book published over the years of the Soviet Union. There must be a collection like that somewhere. 1946 Edition of Stalin biography, basically Superman: Red Son. 1956 Edition, grows up kicking puppies and drowning kittens.

[Dickie Dee]

Tangent: I raided the library of one of my parents recently and found a biography of Lenin published by Progress (one of the official English language publishing houses of the USSR). Shit's going to be a comedy goldmine, can't wait to read it.

It'd be great if it is filled with Dear Leader-esque facts like he shot a 40 under par or that he never had to shit

[benjipwns]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/06/28/controversy-grows-over-prosecution-of-alleged-benghazi-attack-mastermind/

“I have serious concerns that conducting a rushed interrogation onboard a ship and then turning Abu Khatallah over to our civilian courts risks losing critical intelligence that could lead us to other terrorists or prevent future attacks,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, said in a statement Saturday. "I've asked the Defense and Justice Departments for an update on his status-including whether he has been told he has the right to remain silent."

Shortly after the White House announced Abu Khatallah’s capture on July 17, Republicans like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio began to criticize President Barack Obama’s administration because they believed the alleged terrorist should go through a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay instead of being tried in a federal court.

“If they bring him to the United States, they're going to Mirandize this guy and it would be a mistake for the ages to read this guy his Miranda rights,” said South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham.

...

Earlier this month, Rep. Peter King of New York expressed other concerns to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer – chiefly, that U.S. authorities aren’t doing enough to maximize the amount of information they get from Abu Khatallah.

"Before he's turned over to civilian authorities, the FBI and all of our intelligence agencies, CIA and others, should interrogate him as long as they have to,” said King, a member of the Homeland Security Committee and Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. “I'm not that concerned about a criminal conviction. We're going to get that ultimately. It's important we get as much intelligence out of him as possible. Both what happened, who planned it, how it happened."

[Great Rumbler]

[Kara]

So I read that thing Benji posted by that writer who I guess has a rep but I ain't never heard of him about Piketty having a bad case of the Marxiness and I really don't want to look like a dweeb talking about it in too much detail but...

There's already a word for Marxiness (Marxian) and using the former is like some surreal attempt at reverse slur reclamation since I guess the author is some sort of conservative flunky given Mandark and Drinky's reaction to seeing him linked?

Also the author keeps ascribing diamat to Marx when it's a product of concurrent and later thinkers (in particular in the USSR), but as Benji said, conservatives like to wrestle with Marxism-Leninism instead of Marxism so we'll just chalk that flub up to that.

Referencing the title of a famous economics book with your own economics book hardly seems like grounds for being diagnosed with the Marxiness, too. I recently reread an old college textbook on the history of the modern Middle East and it was essentially Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism in terms of economic analysis (which I didn't notice when I first read it as a college student ) and even I wouldn't diagnose its author with a bad case of the Marxiness because of that. Or even a minor one, for that matter.

Marx's original sin of capitalism isn't "infinite accumulation" (income inequality), it's surplus value, and Piketty isn't at all concerned with that original sin as best I can tell. You can argue that talking about income inequality is a manifestation of Marx's original sin in coded language, but keep in mind that the Marxist definition of socialism is "to each according to [their] [work]," which implies an inequality of outcome.

As for non things...

-Personal home sales are taxable capital gains, they just often come out to capital losses for tax purposes because homeowners get XBOX HUEG exemptions in the calculation of capital gain/loss on personal home sales (currently $ 250,000 per person, up to $ 500,000 for a married couple).

-The rise of pass-through entity income appearing on individual returns isn't distorting, it creates a more accurate picture of economic wealth. Private, closely held C corporations are legal fictions and treating them as distinct from their owners in discussions like this is the actual distortion. Piketty probably should have gone back and tried to approximate pass-through income from the days when pass-through entities weren't commonplace, but AFAIK he has no background in taxation and it might not have even occurred to him.

-America does not have "relatively few" households that go hungry "because capitalism has failed them." 14.5% are food insecure, and 5.7% experience very low food security. That 36% of households served by Feeding America had at least one working adult in them sure seems like a failure of capitalism to ensure people don't go hungry to me.

Anyways @ writing all that, look at what you made me do Benji.

[Human Snorenado]

Jonah Goldberg wrote a book titled "Liberal Fascism" and was serious about it, which is really all you need to know.

[Kara]

[Jonah] Goldberg writes that there was more to fascism than bigotry and genocide, and argues that those characteristics were not so much a feature of Italian fascism, but rather of German Nazism, which was allegedly forced upon the Italian fascists "after the Nazis had invaded northern Italy and created a puppet government in Salò."[3]

I know it has a different name in a different language, but spazio vitale is lebensraum. 

[Great Rumbler]

Well, unions didn't get totally obliterated by this SCOTUS, so there's that.

[Phoenix Dark]

“Did America owe something to the slaves whose labor had been stolen?” D'Souza writes in the book, according to Fund. The answer is yes, but “that debt ... is best discharged through memory, because the slaves are dead and their descendants are better off as a consequence of their ancestors being hauled from Africa to America.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dinesh-dsouza-african-americans


get your boy, Esch.

[Brehvolution]

I have some genuine hate for that mofo.

[Brehvolution]

Karakand, what do you find to be the average effective corporate tax rate in your experience?

[Phoenix Dark]

Karakand, what do you find to be the average effective corporate tax rate in your experience?

brb popping popcorn

[Joe Molotov]

“Did America owe something to the slaves whose labor had been stolen?” D'Souza writes in the book, according to Fund. The answer is yes, but “that debt ... is best discharged through memory, because the slaves are dead and their descendants are better off as a consequence of their ancestors being hauled from Africa to America.”

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dinesh-dsouza-african-americans
(Image removed from quote.)

get your boy, Esch.

Ain't he in jail, yet?

[Joe Molotov]

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/katrina-vanden-heuvel-bill-kristol-join-iraq-army-24355736

If you had a chance to punch Bill Kristol in the face, would you take it? y/n

[Brehvolution]

Y

[huckleberry]

How about that Supreme Court.

[Great Rumbler]

How about that Supreme Court.

Oliver Wendel Holmes is spinning in his grave.

[ToxicAdam]

Hey, I'm just thrilled I will still have a store open that will sell giant wood letters and plastic flowers at an affordable price.

[Dickie Dee]

Jeebus

Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports.

[ZephyrFate]

PLAN B IS LIKE AN ABORTION PILL


oh wait

no it isn't

good job scotus

[Joe Molotov]

Life begins whenever SCROTUS (in a 5-4 split) says it does.

[ZephyrFate]

i can't wait for this to snowball. first this, then gay rights, then minority rights, all under the guise of religious freedom.

[Great Rumbler]

[Phoenix Dark]

and that was a conservative Iowan crowd

[brob]

Gotta give props tho. Giving corporations personhood was a pretty clever long-con to get around the separation of church and state.

Also, daps for still covering vasectomies and viagra. No man left behind.

[Positive Touch]

i'm so glad we've embraced the newest civil rights movement: fair and equal treatment of multinational corporations

[Brehvolution]

...with religious liberties.

[Phoenix Dark]

Instead of sentient robots/Skynet we get sentient corporations


fuck this gay present

[Joe Molotov]

Instead of sentient robots/Skynet we get sentient corporations


fuck this gay present

I know, man. Of all the near-future, cyberpunk tropes to come true... Do we have cybernetic limbs, cybernetic brains, flying cars, sentient AIs, flying cars controlled by sentient AIs, are we jacked in a 3D virtual cybermatrix, doing sweet hacker shit? No, we just got megacorps and eroded civil liberties. Thanks, Obama!

[Kara]

Karakand, what do you find to be the average effective corporate tax rate in your experience?

I can't disclose a lot of specifics, I hope you understand.

What I can tell you is that closely held C corporations rarely pay corporate income tax beyond California's minimum (franchise) tax (which is $ 800.00) unless they are spectacularly successful (as in millions of dollars of profit) because the owner(s) pay themselves a huge bonus at the end of the year if there's any net taxable income or fund themselves lavish pension plans to avoid double taxation. There's also fucking bullshit like the 15 / 20 year (!!!) net-operating loss carryforward and accelerated depreciation.

DISC's are also en vogue in my experience, these are hilariously fake legal entities that allow corporations that export to extract income from the core C corporation and pay it as dividends to its shareholders and dividend income is taxed very generously at the individual level compared to wage income.

Pass-through entities pay no federal income tax, it's one of the reasons why they're extremely popular.