House Majority Leader Defeated In Primary 932
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in United States political history, the House Majority Leader has been defeated in his primary election. Long time Republican congressman and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated by 10 percentage points in the Virginia primary by Republican Tea Party challenger Dave Brat. This shocking defeat is likely to upset the political balance of power in the United States for years to come."
Hopefully this is a first of many (Score:3, Insightful)
This government is ineffective, and seems to be more about getting things for themselves than their constituents. They use the taxes we give them to spy on us and arm our police forces with tanks rather than give us nationalized healthcare. They take bribes from special interest groups. We need new blood in politics.
Be careful what you wish for. (Score:3)
At the risk of Godwinizing the discussion... that's probably what those who voted for the NSDAP party thought too, out with the Old Guard and in with the New Blood.
This guy may be "new blood", but he's still running on the ticket and with the approval of the Tea Party. Read his biography [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia, and be careful what you wish for.
Anti-incumbent sentiment is running extremely high (Score:5, Insightful)
The Tea Party may be taking all the credit for this, but the reality is is far more grim than any political insider is willing to admit: this has been the most unpopular Congress since the Do-Nothing Congress of 1947-49. [wikipedia.org]
And if anyone paid attention to history, what happened then is what will happen this time, too. The incumbents are in the crosshairs.
Re:Anti-incumbent sentiment is running extremely h (Score:5, Informative)
This Congress actually did less than the do-nothing Congress. Least productive in US history.
Re:Anti-incumbent sentiment is running extremely h (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming "being productive" is passing laws.
Doing nothing might be the best thing.
Re:Anti-incumbent sentiment is running extremely h (Score:5, Insightful)
Most incumbents get reelected even when Congress's approval ratings overall are low, however, because people's approval ratings of their own Congresspeople are almost always considerably higher. People generally think Congress sucks, but they usually blame it on everyone else's Representatives.
Re:Anti-incumbent sentiment is running extremely h (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason you see a 95% retention rate, even when anti-Congress sentiment is high is because:
"*MY* Congresscritter is doing good. It's all those other assholes that are the problem."
Re:Anti-incumbent sentiment is running extremely h (Score:4, Insightful)
This, but only because of rampant gerrymandering.
"Just find me enough people that like me, and call that my district. I don't care if they're spread out all over creation. [allthingsdemocrat.com] Just draw a line around everyone who voted for me last time, and call it done." [pjmedia.com]
Politicians have been, for years, systematically altering their districts so that their particular flavor of nutjob are all in the same district. Be it birthers, gun nuts, 9/11 conspiracy folks, or whatever. Pick your favorite flavor, wrangle up enough people, wherever they may be, and reelections will take care of themselves. We can sprinkle the sane/moderate people around so that their votes are barely heard. Certainly not enough to cause a ruckus
The real problem, however, is just now starting to surface. If you wrangle up enough staunch believers of any one type in a particular area, a crazier candidate will surface and take advantage of that. We no longer get anyone with a hint of "moderate" in a general election, because they get destroyed in the Primaries by someone even crazier than they are.
Tea (Score:3, Insightful)
Reports of the Tea Party's death are greatly exaggerated.
My only qualm is it's been hijacked well beyond its initial namesake cause of shrinking the bloated spending into almost every old Republican grievance.
Can't he still win (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can't he still win (Score:4, Informative)
No, he can't appear on the ballot after losing the primary. He'd have to be a write-in.
Re:Can't he still win (Score:5, Informative)
Oops, should have hit paste before posting:
"Mr. Cantor can't run as a third-party candidate. Virginia law forbids candidates who lose primary elections from appearing on the general election ballot. It is not immediately clear if he will mount a write-in campaign , as did Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) after losing a 2010 GOP Senate primary." — The Wall Street Journal
Re: (Score:3)
Questions... (Score:3)
Even that isn't entirely remote, if he plays his cards right. We had something similar happen in Alaska back in 2010 when the incumbent Lisa Murkowski lost the primary to the Tea Party favorite Joe Miller. She went on to win as a write-in candidate with something like a 40% margin, because it didn't take long for the more crazy extreme side of Joe Miller to show up and public opinion of him quickly flipped.
I'm not an American so just out of curiosity: What is a write-in candidate? ....and: Why is somebody who looses a primary election held by a political party banned by law from running as an independent? What ever ones opinion of sore losers may be, passing laws against them running as independents seems a bit anti-democratic to me. In my country we occasionally get a splinter candidate running as an independent. Usually this is after a disagreement in one of the mainstream parties where somebody is dissatis
Redistricting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Redistricting (Score:4, Interesting)
Republicans have ceased to be a 'conservative' party and instead become a RURAL party. In large part because government works much better in cities (easier to provide government services there), but also because of minority concentration.
This leaves the cities full (80%+) of liberals.
When it comes to gerrymandering, your best bet is to concentrate all your enemey in one district - anything over 60% is worthless to the party that has the majority - those 61+ % voters could have been moved to a district where you are in doubt.
It is a lot harder to justify gerrymandering a combination district that contains some of those inner city votes and also the outer rural votes - in part because the city voters can easily change districts without having to change jobs as well as home.
Don't cry for Eric... (Score:3)
I blame the internet (Score:3)
This looks like a secondary effect coming from an order-of-magnitude increase in interpersonal communication speed. Where in the past you might have to call an in-person meeting or conference call with many people, an individual can now communicate in a richer, distributed, asynchronous way with anyone who's marginally interested in considering your message.
With the communication landscape changed and resource access barrier lower, unless an incumbent uses their greater political and financial resources to improve their leverage in the new communication landscape, that area will be a more level playing field, and if you don't accommodate for that, the odds significantly change.
It seems like established institutions and scenarios that have a large part of their foundation on communication -- e.g., publishers, politicians, market pricing -- are going to see a lot more of these sorts of never-before-in-history kinds of disruptions. Things that don't depend on human-speed communication so much, such as hard sciences, construction, farming, will see changes, but maybe not quite as rug-pulled-out-from-under-you disruptively.
I went to college with Dave Brat (Score:5, Funny)
Dear God.
I used to know this guy. It took me a little while for it to register, but the goofy grin confirms it: this is the same doofus I went to college with. The college is a haven for Republican Calvinism (i.e. God chooses certain people to be successful), steeped in the worship of capitalism (God's invisible hand rewarding hard work). (The Amway/Blackwater dynasty are major donors.) I didn't know Dave well (sorry, no damaging stories to tell), but he was active in student government, and struck me as a classic empty suit: superficially charming with an upper-middle-class sense of entitlement. Not stupid, but not a deep thinker, the sort who doesn't question the values he was taught as a child... because they've always worked for him. (One of the key ways I differ from him.) I should've known he'd run for Congress someday.
I'm sorry.
Glad Canton lost out of spite (Score:3)
I'm glad Cantor lost, just out of spite. He ran the meanist, ugliest, lyingest, dirty campaign I've ever seen. Running attack ads left and right which were outright lying, just because he could because Bratt didn't have the money to run opposing ads. Cantor was known for not appearing at town halls, snubbing the VCDL and other local conservative groups, and generally treating his own constituents and elections as a nuisance - like a ruling class elite. Apparently, on the day of the election, Cantor was in Washington bragging about how he out-spend Bratt 50-1 in order to crush him to prevent future primary contestants.
Brat and Elizabeth Warren have in common .... (Score:3)
.... a review with praise in Common Dreams, a self-identified "Progressive" website, about the surprise winner in Virginia's Republican primary:
http://www.commondreams.org/vi... [commondreams.org]
"... Republican Dave Brat, a college economics professors who spoke about GOP hypocrisy and railed against Wall Street greed, unseated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary challenge.
âoeAll of the investment banks, up in New York and D.C., they should have gone to jail.â ... Thatâ(TM)s a common campaign slogan repeated by Dave Brat, the Virginia college professor ....
The national media is buzzing about Bratâ(TM)s victory, but for all of the wrong reasons...."
-----
The media will talk about anything except the real problem
Re:rumor is dems voted for him (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a safe republican district.
This is not unlike the reds that are elected from downtown SF. The real election is the primary.
Re:rumor is dems voted for him (Score:5, Informative)
It's a Republican district, but nowhere near as strongly as SF is a Democratic district. Cantor's district (VA 7th) is R+10, while downtown SF (CA 12th) is D+34. An example of a D+10 district is northwest Indiana (IN 1st).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
VA has an open primary. No signing up necessary.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bi... [state.va.us]
Re:rumor is dems voted for him (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure that's how McCain won the primaries. He was regularly booed at from the audience in his own rallies, especially when it came to amnesty or "path to citizenship" or whatever you want to call it. It makes me wonder if these types of primaries are a good idea or not. My state was thinking of doing away with letting undeclared voters pick a ballot on primary day and at the time I was against it, but I can certainly see now how it could be misused. Of course then it's a matter of changing your declared party well enough in advance and then switching it back. So I'm not sure changing it really solves anything.
Re: (Score:3)
Why should Duke or Kucinich not be allowed to be on the ballet?
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Allowing all citizens to vote no matter what their label is, isn't fair? Interesting.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:4, Informative)
Correct. Allowing outsiders to inject themselves as spoilers into an internal race isn't fair. This is why party registration and closed primaries make sense. That's at least ore fair than doing the entire nomination via convention and forgoing primaries all together.
I went to RMC ('06), so I've met Brat before. I've also done political work (07-08) and had many interactions with Cantor. Frankly, I think that Brat is a better person one-on-one, but that Cantor is probably better to have been the nominee and retained the seat. Frankly, I'm surprised by Brat's immigration stance -- he never seemed the type to me when I was in school, but I never took any of his classes. Pretty sure I remember him from College Republican meetings and don't recall that topic ever being addressed though.
That sociology professor running against him can suck it though. I don't like that guy at all.
Re: (Score:3)
It's entirely possible that Brat doesn't personally have particularly strong anti-immigration opinions, and is just reading the populist winds correctly.
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It's also possible that he had a switch flipped in the last 8 years, too. A lot has happened during that time and people change.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Correct. Allowing outsiders to inject themselves as spoilers into an internal race isn't fair.
The Koch brothers (and others), many out-of-state- Super-PACs and their advertising campaigns would beg to differ with your opinion.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
So would George Soros and any number of rich progressives and socialists. You don't need to single out the Koch Brothers.
That said, my issue isn't with money in politics, it is with the demise of Federalism as a governing principle. As a Virginian (and now as a Marylander), I don't consider it any of my business who represents people in say, California. I would never give money to a race in a state in which I don't live in, and have never really bothered with a district other than my own either. I can't vote in California (although they probably wouldn't bother to stop me), and I don't need representation from California.
When I worked in the political world, I used to have that argument all the time -- people wondering why I refused to get mad at, say, Nanci Pelosi for doing what she does. It doesn't matter if I like her or not, so long as she accurately reflects the will of her constituents. If she doesn't, then that's a problem for them -- not me over here on the east coast.
However, I also have an issue with people using the tactic of injecting themselves into their opponents primary in order to try and cause them to choose the worst candidate rather than trying to select the best candidate that their party can themselves. It's that kind of bullshit tactic that leads to polarization and animosity. Unfortunately, it seems as if that's the type of thing you need to do in order to have your voice heard, because if enough people are doing it then being honest becomes a liability. (And that, right there, is what is wrong with America today).
Re:Democrats voted (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess the progressives and socialists are given a pass, because they advocate for equality and peace, while the cocks advocate for vagina inspections, religious govt, and shooting brown people.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize that George Soros was a major anti-Communist activist against the rule of the USSR and helped former quasi-occupied Communist sstates of the Warsaw Pact, like his home country, move towards liberal market democracies.
And Bill Gates? *Bill* *Gates*? A totalitarian Communist supporter? Really? REALLY? A hedge fund trader and a technology billionaires, now because they don't agree with some of the lunatic wingnuttery are now seriously considered to be a sniff away from Trotskyite madness? And people don't recognize how totally insane that thought is? And if some of the smartest leading hedge fund and capitalist technology billionaires are going for the (comparatively) *left* party then that may mean that the right-aligned party maybe could be hurtling into insane madness?
Do you know what a Communist actually acts like and what they do and want? Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro were socialist dictators.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
WHAT??!
Brat is actually the poster child for "getting the money out of politics." Cantor had him outspent 4 to 1. He was the little guy in this race.
From what I've heard about him, he's also very libertarian leaning. I think libertarian leaning Republicans have a bright future. I think the old guard and the social conservatives will have a hard time against them in the future as well.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Informative)
Cantor had him outspent 20 to 1
FTFY.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Informative)
From what I've heard about him, he's also very libertarian leaning. I think libertarian leaning Republicans have a bright future. I think the old guard and the social conservatives will have a hard time against them in the future as well.
Libertarian leaning my ass [davebratforcongress.com]!
"We Believe That faith in God, as recognized by our Founding Fathers is essential to the moral fiber of the Nation."
"I reject any proposal that grants amnesty and undermines the fundamental rule of law. Adding millions of workers to the labor market will force wages to fall and jobs to be lost. "
"Human life is sacred, as proclaimed by our founding documents, and I will always support laws that protect life. Our fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness precede the existence of government and come from God, the Author of Nature."
"Dave understands that the most important factor in our nation’s success is the strength of the family unit. As our congressman, Dave will protect the rights of the unborn and the sanctity of marriage, and will oppose any governmental intrusion upon the conscience of people of faith."
He's a typical social conservative nut whose only libertarianism is on economic issues (and even there he conveniently forgets about it when it comes to immigration). Exactly the type that exemplifies what Tea Party movement ended up being.
Re:He's not against immigration. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you give them amnesty, they become legal then. Legal is what the law defines to be legal, no more and no less. Yet he has problems with that - in fact, a decidedly non-libertarian objection:
"Adding millions of workers to the labor market will force wages to fall and jobs to be lost."
(hey, what happened to free market? or does that not apply to labor somehow?)
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Democrats voted (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because I live in California does not mean that I do not have a real and valid interest on who the people of Utah send to DC.
The question really isn't do you care what they do, the question is do you have any right to help them select the people that they send to congress to represent THEIR interests. To that, that answer is a clear and resounding NO, you do not.
If you believe you do, then you should realize that your system would allow every voter in the country to vote on every senate and house race, and the Senate would become a body representing only the most populous areas of the country and not every state as it was intended to do. And the House would be the same. The voters in less populous states would effectively be disenfranchised. That's great if you live in and have the same views as the majority of people in the larger states.
Thinking otherwise is simplistic and wrong.
The simplistic and wrong thinking is to believe that because the people elected to represent others can vote on matters that impact your life that you should get to vote on those representatives, too. They represent other people; you get to elect the ones who represent you. Having one national election for the Senate and House would result in a stultifying homogeneity of ideas in a place that should have a plethora of views available.
And before you say "but but but the Koch brothers...", you need to realize the difference between campaign contributions and actual voting. As human beings, the Koch brothers have the same free speech rights that you do, and if you feel that you have the right to comment on elections in other parts of the country, then they have those rights, too. What they (and you) do not have the right to do is vote in other states or districts, and voting is how people get elected.
The idea of "open primaries" is based in large part on this demonstrated lack of understanding of this "fairness", and in large part on the dishonesty of wanting to "help" the other political party select a "better" candidate. The truth of the latter is that such voters are either trying to select a candidate for the other party who is "in name only" and is really one of their own philosophically, or select an unelectable candidate so their party's offering will have no real opposition. Both are dishonest and both are why open primaries should be abolished.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Allowing outsiders to inject themselves as spoilers into an internal race isn't fair.
What isn't fair is taxpayers footing the bill for internal parties elections. Does the Libertarian party get to use the electorate? or the Tea Party? Why do the Democrats and Republicans get to?
Re: (Score:3)
Right.
They can vote in the actual election. But why should Joe the Democrat have any input at all into which candidate the Republican party chooses to run under their banner?
Should Republicans get to choose who the Green Party candidate should be too?
Re: (Score:3)
But why should Joe the Democrat have any input at all into which candidate the Republican party chooses to run under their banner?
Each State has its own rules about primary elections. [fairvote.org]
In some cases, the State gives each political party the power to decide who can vote in its primary.
Virginia law dictates open primaries, which is why Joe Democrat can vote in the Republican Primary.
 24.2-530. Who may vote in primary.
All persons qualified to vote, pursuant to ÂÂ 24.2-400 through 24.2-403, may vote at the primary. No person shall vote for the candidates of more than one party.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't complain. I just think its silly.
Run offs are also silly, why not just have people rank their choices in the first place and not bother wasting time with another run off election.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you for the perspective.
Here's what I'm seeing from the outside:
I'm no detective, but the footprints look pretty darn clear to me.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:4, Insightful)
"Alllowing democrats to vote in a republican primary - yeah, that's wrong."
Why? What if the Democrat likes the Republican candidate and intends on voting him in?
Again, why should a label prevent you from voting in any election as long as you are a citizen and meet the criteria for voting rights?
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah.. THIS!! I'm an Independent voter in Nevada, up until the middle of BushyJr's second term I was a life-long Republican.. The Republican party has gotten so FAR from its roots, I couldn't remain a "member"... Since I am no longer a Republican, I'm prohibited from voting for ANY candidate in our primary yesterday other than the non-partisan races, like Judge, Sheriff, etc.. This is a crock of SHIT, so I now do not vote in primary elections.. There were several Republican candidates for state and national office that I'd loved to have voted for, but the State of Nevada has seen fit to prohibit me from voting for them, unless I attach a label to my name.. I'M NOT A REPUBLICAN NOR A DEMOCRAT, I'M AN AMERICAN....
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Interesting)
this is so important because california's legislature is so horribly disfunctional, and because you need 2/3 vote to pass any bill that levies taxes, it means a minority can basically shut down regular operation.
btdubs this was just one of the reforms passed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who I think will be remembered as one of the best governors in CA history.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Informative)
this is so important because california's legislature is so horribly disfunctional, and because you need 2/3 vote to pass any bill that levies taxes, it means a minority can basically shut down regular operation.
btdubs this was just one of the reforms passed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who I think will be remembered as one of the best governors in CA history.
First, the legislature was so screwed up because it used to take a 2/3 majority to pass a budget, which meant the minority party could shut down the government if they threw a hissy fit. Since Prop 25 passed in 2010, we've had a Democratic majority in both houses and a Democratic governor and gridlock is gone. Balanced budget! Surplus! Arnold didn't support Prop 25. [ballotpedia.org]
Second, Arnold didn't "pass" anything regarding open primaries. Prop 14 [wikipedia.org] was a constitutional amendment that passed both houses of the legislature and then was approved by the voters. Arnold supported it but didn't pass it.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Voters end up with the exact same number of choices in the general election: two.
The party system itself is the issue there -- not open or closed primaries. The way to give more choices would be to do away with "primaries" and have every candidate on the general election ballot and have runoffs or a different method of voting (like a ranked system).
There are of course trade-offs for doing that.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I will be interested in seeing how brat does against the dem.
That's not the California system (Score:5, Informative)
There is a primary, and the top two candidates run in the general election. Therefore, if, hypothetically Democrats voted for a right-wing-nut in mass, the wing-nut and a Republican will be in the general election, not an outcome a Democrat would prefer.
In practice, when people have their actually favored candidate on the ballot and are able to vote for them, they do.
The primary purpose of the top-two election system is to change the nature of the candidates who decide to run and think they can win.
It's an approximation to ranked preference voting.
Re: (Score:3)
Either restrict primaries to voters registered in that party (i.e. exclude independents from primaries) or no restrictions for anyone.
And if you do the first, then pay for your own damn election, and stop using MY tax dollars to fund your internal popularity contest!
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope. Here's a direct quote from one of my conservative mailing lists.
"I'm with you; these moderate-to-left RINO old farts have to go."
Apparently he wasn't far enough right.
"Cantor opposes public funding of embryonic stem cell research and opposes elective abortion. He is rated 100% by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) and 0% by NARAL Pro-Choice America, indicating a pro-life voting record. He is also opposed to same-sex marriage, voting to Constitutionally define marriage as between a male and a female in 2006. In November 2007 he voted against prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation. He also supports making flag burning illegal. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) rated him 19% in 2006, indicating an anti-affirmative action voting record. He is opposed to gun control, voting to ban product misuse lawsuits on gun manufacturers in 2005, and he voted not to require gun registration and trigger-lock laws in the District of Columbia. He has a rating of "A" from the National Rifle Association (NRA).[32] On Nov. 2, 2010, Cantor told Wolf Blitzer of CNN that he would try to trim the federal deficit by reducing welfare."
And I hear this puts the former republican stronghold district in play for the democrats now. Plus a tremendous loss of seniority and political power for the republicans will be gone so spending in Virginia is likely to drop significantly.
I'm an independent with increasingly strong liberal tendencies since 2004. But I'm not sure if I'm really growing more liberal or if the republicans are simply moving rightward away from the middle.
Re:Democrats voted (Score:5, Insightful)
Thing is, just about all of those things you listed are so-called "wedge" issues that have very little bearing on most people, even if they deeply affect some consequential number of people. Remember that we are mostly talking about federal government here, which is supposed to be tackling things that make sense on a federal level:
- Public funding of stem cell research: While it might be promising, there aren't any real therapies as of yet and the republic will boldly march on in any event.
- Abortion: The republic will boldly march on.
- Same sex marriage: Almost completely inconsequential to the health of the republic.
- Discrimination based on sexual orientation: There is probably some meat to this one, as it is difficult to call yourself a democracy with a repressed minority.
- Flag Burning: This would probably have zero practical impact on free speech.
- Affirmative action (well, technically use of quotas): another inflammatory issue, but probably some meat to it as we do need to decide what criteria needs to be met to measure the success and need for these programs.
- Gun control: 30,000 traffic deaths per year shows that society can function perfectly well with a similar number of gun deaths.
Notably absent from your list are things like:
- Debt, government spending, taxes, budget, etc.
- Domestic spying
- Foreign policy
- Military policy
- The role of federal vs state government
- Using the federal government to alter people's behaviors.
And on those issues, I bet he looks surprisingly similar to his Democratic colleagues. Even on wedge issues, I'd bet he's not far off. For instance, I'd wager that for every politician you can find who supports curtailing free speech by restricting flag burning, I can find another who would like to ban hate speech. I'd argue those people are both the same kind of politician, even if they have different motives.
Re: (Score:3)
Here's the part I like about Brat.
Brat: âoeI will fight to end crony capitalist programs that benefit the rich and powerful.â
It looks like he ran as an anti-corporate conservative and on cantor being pro-immigration. I didn't see much about the other items you suggested (tho they are good points-- I just don't see Brat using them in the race).
Interesting analysis here:
http://www.commondreams.org/vi... [commondreams.org]
Either get rid of the primaries. (Score:3)
Or make them like an episode of American Ninja and have them run an obstacle course. Now THAT would be worth funding by the taxpayers.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
With the Snowden leaks, the NSA issues still roaming around, with the Supreme Court looking at Aereo, do you think that anything that affects national politics does NOT hit technology?
Re:hahaha! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Republican voting base has gone full bat shit, the party won't last much longer now.
The current GOP is worthless anyhow. No one on the right likes it: they don't serve a financially conservative agenda at all, the don't serve the socially conservative agenda beyond lip-service, and the anti-illegal-immigration feeling on the right is far stronger than the GOP seems to realize.
A new party is needed, as this one is done. If the so-con portion represents a new generation who not racist and rabidly anti-gay (eject the Boomer so-cons) then it has a future again. We'll see.
Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Insightful)
and the anti-illegal-immigration feeling on the right is far stronger than the GOP seems to realize.
If you look at polling that sentiment is shared in the center and center-left. Opposition to immigration is one of the few truly bipartisan things in the American electorate. The political establishment doesn't acknowledge it because big business wants cheap labor and Democrats think Hispanics are always going to vote for them. You can see similar trends in any developed country, fly over to one of the better developed EU countries and ask John Q. Public how he really feels about immigration. It's not popular even when it comes from other EU members (migration from Eastern Europe into Western Europe or the Nordic States), and $deity help you if you're one of the poor bastards coming there from Africa or the Middle East.
Another issue with a broad consensus in the electorate that's soundly ignored by the political establishment is non-interventionism. People are sick of interventionism, be they left, right, or center. The establishment ignores the electorate on this issue because of a combination of perceived economic interest, bureaucratic inertia in the national security apparatus, and entangling alliances set up after WW2 specifically to prevent an American retrenchment.
Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Insightful)
I really think the GOP has a strong future if it can become the "pro-capitalism, anti-big-corp" party. The Left thinks that's impossible, so that ground is unoccupied (ha!) today. Get the focus back to trust-busting and local monopoly breaking and consumer rights, and leave the Left wondering what just happened to them. But the current guys are too entrenched with the current sources of funding, not realizing they're stuck in an ever-diminishing local maximum.
Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Interesting)
Romney hinted at this in one of the Presidential debates, with a line about too big to fail that was predictably ignored by the mainstream media. George Will picked up on it [washingtonpost.com] in one of his op-eds. Will has written extensively on the subject of crony capitalism, with a focus on the unholy alliance of business and regulators. Will speaks for the intellectual wing of the GOP, such as it is, so it's not as though they aren't aware of this problem.
Romney was probably the wrong person to try and make this argument, though it would have been refreshing to see him try. I can't recall him saying anything on the matter other than the throw away line about too big to fail, which is a pity, because it's an issue he could have made headway on.
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Well, Romney had the problem of being seen as exactly the wrong sort of crony capitalist. I don't think it was true, but I also don't think he had a chance on that issue. I'd love to see a GOP candidate who was a wealthy small business owner instead of a wealthy corporate head next time around. Someone to deliver a message of "pro-business, pro-capitalism, but the current system is fucked".
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Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really... They are not going nuts...
What's going on is the Tea Party is apparently dragging the republican party to the right of center (politically). Some folks think that this is a good thing, some don't. But I don't think you can make the case that this is a symbol of the party self destructing or going crazy. What is going on though is the party is being forced to recognize that it's base is not happy with it's leadership and that the Tea Party's conservative message has at least some resonance with the base. From my perspective, it is a good thing when a party's leadership represents it's members.
Now, it remains to be seen if this movement to the right translates into more votes and more success in elections or not. I have my theories on that... But the most telling fact one needs to consider is how the other party and the talking heads reporting are becoming apathetic about this. Remember back in May when they declared the Tea Party dead? Now, when it's obvious they where wrong, they are in a panic for some reason? Right....
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The simple fact is that Eric Cantor signed on to support immigration reform and that killed his career. Dead. It sent a message to the Republicans that just because their corporate masters want open boarders doesn't mean the voters do.
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Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Insightful)
OK. Just remember that at this point your opinion is not objective, but subjective. The elections are what really matter, and THAT is the real objective measure of the Tea Party's success or failure....
BTW, I consider anybody who uses the "teabagger" name a dishonest broker and liberal robot. If you start by trying to offend your opponent (and make no mistake, this term is intended to offend) you really must have nothing better to say than the standard liberal talking points, which I find boring on top of being offensive. You could at least try to be clever or somehow unique, other wise, I don't have the time for boring offensive leftist ideologues.
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"BTW, I consider anybody who uses the "teabagger" name a dishonest broker and liberal robot. If you start by trying to offend your opponent (and make no mistake, this term is intended to offend) you really must have nothing better to say"
I'm gonna let you chew on that statement for a while...
Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Interesting)
Republican voting base has gone full bat shit, the party won't last much longer now.
The Tea Party may be trying to spin this into a "win" (since they've been soundly defeated elsewhere this primary season) but at the end of the day this really comes down to Politics 101. Mr. Cantor was more interested in running the House than he was in providing consistent services. Drill past the national media's obsession with the Tea Party and/or immigration for a moment and look at the local media in his district. Read some of the complaints about him that have nothing whatsoever to do with ideology. Then ask yourself how frequently incumbent Legislators manage to lose primary elections, particularly ones in a leadership role that give them all manner of opportunity to funnel pork (err, I mean "investment") to the folks back home.
All politics are local. The Tea Party didn't win this. Mr. Cantor lost it. The funny/sad (depends on your perspective I guess) thing is he probably didn't see it coming until the first returns started coming in. This is what happens when you've held elective office long enough to treat elections like mere formalities.
Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hahaha! (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, NASA says that 9 of the last 10 years have been the hottest on record
Who has her fingers in her ears now?
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Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, science is never settled and is also always highly political, in spite of most scientists fooling themselves that it is "the search for the Truth". But dude, honestly, just stop it. I really can't believe how nay-sayers with half a brain can keep it up - there is a MASSIVE pro-oil/gas/coal lobby that tries to sow the seeds of doubt. What do the 98% of scientists that maintain AGW is real have to gain? It's not like there is some secret society of super-rich Gaia Illuminati that is trying to brain-wash the world into... spending less by using less. Sure, some are benefiting - some are even financing pro-AGW studies - but it is NOTHING like what is happening in the other direction. And still there are only 2% that hold on to the "it's not happening" or "it's not because of what humans are doing" line.
Politics and self-interest are everywhere and in everything. But if you are going to posit a major global conspiracy then it at least has to be realistic - a government/group-of-super-rich would have great interest in hiding an alien visitation to keep the tech for themselves but "use energy more efficiently, spread generation around the globe using various different technologies that don't upset the current atmospheric balance" is hardly something that qualifies as something of interest for some nefarious group of super-villains...
Re:hahaha! (Score:4, Informative)
I've got a son graduating high school next year. According to the climate scientists, there has been no increase in global temperatures during his entire lifetime.
Who's got their fingers in their ears? Maybe the one's saying "The science is settled!!!!". Hint: Science is never settled.
You have that backwards. Any person that has been born after 1978 has never seen the year-over-year global temperature DECREASE during their lifetime: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201301-201312.png -- it has increased every year. The levels of atmospheric CO2 hasn't decreased since we began recording it in 1959 (after the International Geophysical Year, which sparked a concerted effort to make systematic global measurements of a wide range of phenomenon, including atmospheric composition). In 1959, the CO2 concentration inout atmosphere was about 315 ppm, today it's about 400 ppm (just a bit under 30%; see http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/global.html).
The science on the subject is "settled" in that both CO2 levels and global temperatures are rising - it's an objective and verifiable measurement of a physical phenomenon; as are related measurements of ice sheet thickness, sea-level rise, marine salinity, and marine pH. Those are all very simple data points that are not contended even by those paid to deny climate change for political reasons. It is also settled in that there are no publications in scientific journals that refute the conclusion that there's a rapid warming of global climate and the connection to CO2 (check your local university library) - all of that has unanimous consensus.
There were a few articles early on (late 80's and early 90's) that questioned anthropogenic (man-made) causes for the increases, but the authors of all of those papers have since identified issues in their work and joined the consensus that the causes are largely anthropogenic and compounded by other physical phenomenon.
The only areas of disagreement today, scientifically, are on the models used to predict the effects. We've seen that many models have under-estimated the rate of change by not properly accounting for albedo changes, methane releases from warming tundra, and glacial shifts. We also know that the rate of change in sea level rises is somewhat under-estimated. However, the most difficult things to predict with any accuracy are the effects on food and water availability.
I think that policy makers are slowly adjusting their rhetoric as well. Policy makers no longer deny global warming outright and rarely make claims based on science on the record. Rhetoric has shifted to the perceived economic cost of remediation and the possibility that remediation efforts might be unsuccessful versus a sense that we to respond quickly and decisively to avoid the risk of a catastrophic outcome, whatever the cost may be.
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Curry isn't the only one to suggest flaws in established climate models. IPCC vice chair Francis Zwiers, director of the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium at the University of Victoria in Canada, co-wrote a paper published in this month's Nature Climate Change that said climate models had "significantly" overestimated global warming over the last 20 years — and especially for the last 15 years, which coincides with the onset of the hiatus.
good enough for ya???
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Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Informative)
“One Hundred Authors Against Einstein was (a short book) published in 1931 [which said the Theory of Relativity is wrong]. When asked to comment on this denunciation of relativity by so many scientists, Einstein replied that to defeat relativity one did not need the word of 100 scientists, just one fact.”
Same applies here.
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Re:hahaha! (Score:5, Informative)
Too bad you don't have any facts on your side, then, isn't it?
You people are as bad as the creationists with your science denial. There's overwhelming evidence that the earth is warming, that it's caused by mankind, and that it's going to be really bad for us in another one or two hundred years. It's so overwhelming that 97% of climate scientists agree with that.
And then you like to point out irrelevant local phenomena as "evidence" against this, like the antarctic sea ice extent increasing this year while ignoring the actual volume of it, ignoring arctic sea ice, ignoring greenland ice melt. Or you like to point to 1998 as being a very hot year and saying "look, we've only had a couple of years hotter than that" while ignoring the trend lines, as if one year of temperature means everything.
Which is why you're as bad as the creationists. You think your tiny little facts, like an incorrectly dated fossil, or some scientific misconduct around one hominid fossil, disproves an enormous body of evidence. You've got your head in the sand and you seem to like it there.
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Amnesty (Score:5, Funny)
I totally agree.
They came over from another country and then rewrote the laws so they could stay. That's just illegal no matter how you think of it.
It's really time the Europeans go back to Europe.
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2 Things: 90--100 million non-working adults & lowest labor force % in 45 years.
Re:He picked the wrong moment to support amnesty (Score:5, Insightful)
The surge of people we're getting at the border right now are only showing up because they think they'll get amnesty. Its a related concept.
Really the sick thing is the whole immigration problem is driven by a shadow economy of cheap labor.
People say "oh I want these people to get US citizenship" but if they have it will they work for below minimum wage under currently illegal health standards with no insurance or legal rights?
Probably not. And the corporate interests that are pushing for amnesty are very strange in this regard as well because again if they actually get amnesty they're not going to show up for work. They're going to go get EBT cards and welfare because it pays better then those terrible jobs. Which is why most americans don't do those jobs. We're paid more to do nothing then we are to do that stuff.
By all means argue against the welfare state if that's what gets you going but the point is that the whole immigration issue is irrational.
Our society cannot survive open borders. We can't afford it. And if we did that all the cheap labor the companies think they're going to get would suddenly be gone because they'd just sit in subsidized apartments laughing about when they got up at 3 in the morning to go to work.
And that doesn't address how the whole thing depresses the wages of actual citizens or causes all sorts of other distortions of our economy.
The whole thing is sick.
The first thing that needs to happen is that hiring illegal immigrants needs to be something that is ACTUALLY illegal. As in few do it because you go to jail or suffer huge crippling fines.
Do that and most of the illegal immigration stops immediately without having to do anything at the border.
A really effective mean to police the thing would be to offer people a bounty for catching it. Say 10 to 50 percent of collected fines. So if you're fining companies 10 thousand dollars per illegal employee... and some of these operations employ thousands... you'll be looking at 10 thousand times thousands. Who wouldn't turn that in?
It would police itself. Sure, you'd get witch hunts and false positives etc. But I'm not saying you show up with SWAT teams either. Just a federal official with a camera, notebook, and badge. He goes in, sees what is going on, makes some notes, takes some pictures, and then goes back to the office to process the paper work. Nothing aggressive needed. You don't even go after the illegals directly. You go after their employers.
If they can't find work here they won't come. Just that simple.
Re:He picked the wrong moment to support amnesty (Score:5, Interesting)
The moment you kick the immigrants out, you see cases like these ones [time.com], where billions of dollars of produce were left to rot in the fields because all the immigrants who would have picked them were driven out by tough anti-immigrant laws.
The US agricultural economy -- and a lot of the service economy -- is built on a steady influx of sub-minimum-wage labor, and only survives because of undocumented immigrants. Take it away, and large swaths of the economy collapse.
Re:He picked the wrong moment to support amnesty (Score:5, Insightful)
It also depresses automation that we would have put in place ages ago and of course removed labor that was traditionally done by teenagers.
My father worked in a California fruit boxing warehouse for a few summers. Not because he was poor but because kids were expected to get summer jobs back then.
We did just fine before the rampant illegal immigration. Those that think we can't survive without it either suffer from an unforgivable lack of imagination or are spinning tales.
Re:He picked the wrong moment to support amnesty (Score:5, Interesting)
My ancestors came over to the US as 16 and 19-year-old brothers with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a wish to own their own farm. A century later and we're a family of doctors, lawyers, educators, and software developers. They spoke no English - now I speak no Russian or German. They formed their own ethnic enclave with others like them out in the midwest, but my generation has become mobile and we've fully scattered and integrated across the country. Why did my teenage ancestors deserve that chance, but these kids don't?
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Re:He picked the wrong moment to support amnesty (Score:5, Insightful)
Because being a US citizen has benefits that are paid for by the US economy where as being a citizen of Mexico or Honduras or Guatemala has few benefits and Americans can't enjoy them even if they try to go through the legal process.
Riddle me this... which country do you think its easier to become a citizen in... The United States or Mexico?
Do you know what you have to go through to become a citizen in either? Compare them. The US has pretty much the loosest immigration policy in the Americas. I don't think there's any other country in the America's that even close... north or south America.
And yet as loose as our policies are it is we that are called the racists and monsters for having a policy more humane and inclusive and permissive then any other in in the Americas.
Explain the logic on that.
You want open immigration? Fine... no really... we'll do that. But understand this, if you do that and leave the welfare system intact the country will go broke very quickly.
The welfare state and open immigration are exclusive concepts. You cannot do both at the same time. The simple math on that should be obvious to anyone that thinks about it.
Re:He picked the wrong moment to support amnesty (Score:5, Insightful)
True, though Reagan was promised border enforcement in return for that. The deal as understood at the time was "I'll give you amnesty now as a one time deal and in return we fix the system"...
Reagan delivered his end and then fixes promised never happened.
Its something republicans are still extremely bitter about and one of the reasons they're not respective to the same idea all over again. We're being told "just give us amnesty now and we'll fix the border after"... well... one bitten twice shy.
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Major leadership shakeups in one of the major American political parties isn't "news for nerds"? It's not "stuff that matters"?