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Common Dreams reports
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said [August 25] that the U.S. Senate will not vote on the 12-nation, corporate-friendly Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) this year, buoying progressive hopes that the trade deal will never come to fruition.
[...] McConnell told a Kentucky State Farm Bureau breakfast in Louisville that the agreement, "which has some serious flaws, will not be acted upon this year".
Common Dreams also reports
Germany's Vice Chancellor and Economic Minister said that the controversial Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has "de facto failed", admitting that negotiations between the U.S. and E.U. have completely stalled.
"Negotiations with the U.S. have de facto failed because, of course, as Europeans, we couldn't allow ourselves to submit to American demands", Sigmar Gabriel told the German news station ZDF [1][2] in an interview that will air at 7pm German time [August 28], according to Der Spiegel. [1]
"Everything has stalled", Gabriel said.
[1] In German [2] Content behind scripts
Reported by BBC, in English.
In 14 rounds of talks, the two sides had not agreed on a single common chapter out of 27 being discussed, Mr Gabriel said. "In my opinion the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it," said Mr Gabriel.
He suggested Washington was angry about a deal the EU struck with Canada, because it contained elements the US does not want to see in the TTIP.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Dr John on Monday August 29 2016, @01:15PM
Giant corporations really want these deals badly. It will be interesting to see what Obama does now that his pet corporate love fest projects are stalled. It will be up to the Clintons to try and resurrect them if they manage to get back into the White House again, after screwing things up so badly the first 8 years they were there. Still have no clue as to why anyone would want to reward those two extremely creepy people and give them ultimate power again so they can be ultimately corrupted once again.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Monday August 29 2016, @01:26PM
I suspect this is bait and switch. Announce "oh it has failed" . Convenient distractions from the pantomime election in the US, we know Hilary is pretending to not like it, and Trump probably doesn't know yet. And then one day we wake up and it has been signed "because $FUD".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:58PM
Trump promises to slap huge tariffs [reuters.com] on goods imported from China (45 percent) and Mexico (35 percent). So that's about the opposite of TTIP/TPP.
Unless he was being sarcastic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:51PM
If only republicans would stop being bigots. Not saying Trump is, but he's intentionally presenting an act attractive to bigots. Other people become bigots this year, or perhaps they always were but just hiding it under a congenial veneer.
It's a sad state of affairs. We've all been skillfully played by the MotU.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:05PM
Bigotry is at the core of their politics.
It goes back to when the Dixiecrats [wikipedia.org] all bailed out of the Donkey party during the Voting Right/Civil Rights era that sought to end Jim Crow.
(Harry Truman desegregated the military and Strom Thurmomd ran for president in 1948 as a segregationist.)
Next came Nixon's Southern Strategy. [wikipedia.org]
Reagan continued with this when he made his first speech as the GOP candidate at Philadelphia, Mississippi [wikipedia.org] (where civil rights workers Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner had been murdered; see also "Mississippi Burning").
Lee Atwater made a science of dogwhistle politics. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [wikiquote.org]
Now, Pachyderms didn't even have to say the actual words.
They could speak in code and all of them knew what racist attitudes were being expressed.
Again, racism is at the heart of the GOP.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @12:34AM
So according to you, one day they might not actually be racist, but because of code words that supposedly exist, and are counted by their political opponents according to some hidden conspiracy theory style list, they can always be painted as racists forever.
Because everything's a dog whistle. Protecting middle class jobs (from competition with brown people)? Protecting America (for white people)? Balancing the budget (by not paying money to/for brown people)? Opening the gates of commerce (to enrich white people at the expense of brown people)? Creating tariffs (to protect white people against brown people)?
Any political statement can be turned into a racist slur. I could do a five finger exercise and duplicate this for any party you care to name. So how about, instead of fabricating a fairy-tale to support mudslinging, you pay attention to substantive racism?
(Score: 1) by boxfetish on Monday August 29 2016, @11:17PM
Not sarcasm, but rather faux populism. He doesn't give two shits about the working class. He will never impose a tarriff on a damn thing, nor will he speak out against any trade deals once elected (a long shot anyway).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 29 2016, @02:03PM
Trump probably is in favor of it, because it would make it easier for Donald Trump to make more money, and as far as I can tell that's one of the few things he really cares about.
I absolutely agree with you that Clinton will change her official public position on the TPP sometime between November 9 and January 20. She only pretended to be against it, really, to prevent Bernie Sanders from using that as a way of exposing her as a corporate tool. However, I wouldn't be surprised if the Obama administration took care of it in the lame duck session so that Clinton doesn't have to take the flak for signing it. After all, she'll be plenty busy dealing with all the congressional investigations that are sure to come her way.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:11PM
Trade agreements have to be approved by the US Senate, so Obama can't do bupkus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:45PM
Joseph Biden can vote if there would otherwise be a tie vote. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:21PM
We've been over this before. [soylentnews.org]
A *treaty* has to be approved by a supermajority in the Senate.
A trade agreement is clearly an arrangement between 2 or more countries and comes under the rule.
They've queered the rule, however, and are treating TPP as something else, requiring only a simple majority of both chambers.
The Constitution got shredded a long time ago.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday August 29 2016, @02:48PM
because it would make it easier for Donald Trump to make more money
If you mean him as a symbol of "rich dude" in general you're probably correct, but if you mean him as an actual individual dude, impoverishing the populace has never been a winning strategy for real estate developers.
A despotic world where a handful of people have all the money is what we came from and what we're headed rapidly toward, but specifically a real estate developer like Trump can't make money if only 10 people in the world have all the money and power and everyone else is dying in dirt huts. Not many deals to make with ten mansion/castle buyers in the world.
I guess a really simplistic way of looking at it, is globalization turned out great if you were already wealthy because now you're wealthy times ten and the general population is poorer, but if your thing was owning real estate in Detroit maybe globalization didn't turn out so well.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 29 2016, @05:42PM
Yeah, I'm sure a real estate developer is totally opposed to cheaper building materials.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:56PM
That's pretty much a wash. If it's more expensive for him, it's more expensive for all his competitors too.
The ones who would make out like bandits are any who have been stockpiling, either by holding actual stockpiles, or by building but not yet selling.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:01AM
There's a lot of Chinese billionaires driving up property values to insane levels around here (Greater Vancouver area) and I understand all up and down the west coast. Real estate developers are making out like bandits with the Provincial governments mantra that the only problem is we're not building fast enough.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Tuesday August 30 2016, @07:45AM
No, that's what Trump U is for. Prerequisite for the current course is having signed up for the follow-on course. The instructor is helpfully able to make it happen at the beginning of the first class. The instructor also has the loan application forms that you will need. Of course, you can't come to class until the loan has been approved and Trump U has received the money.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday August 30 2016, @03:48PM
Sounds like Scientology to me.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @10:53PM
Yeah, trump clearly only cares about money, what a tool, whereas Clinton, well! She cares about money AND power. That's so much more balanced.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:41PM
perhaps because USians (as a collective) are so in love with the 2 party system that they seem to lack the guts to try and change it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:42PM
The folks who own[1] Lamestream Media (including "Public" Broadcasting) are quite contented with only those 2 parties.
Most USAians get their "information" from Lamestream Media, specifically, TeeVee.
To change things, the sources of Joe Average's information will have to change.
With Joe (and his SO, Jane) working harder these days to make ends meet, I don't think you should expect them to do -more- work when they get home and actually -read- quality reporting of the day's events via the internet when they can just plop down in front of The Idiot Box and be entertained by Hollywood's/Madison Avenue's latest tripe.
[1] George Carlin recorded an excellent explanation of who owns everything in the Capitalist system and exactly how much -you- matter.
If you haven't heard that, you should check it out. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Monday August 29 2016, @02:04PM
the reason 'we want clintons' is the same as the last in recent memory: the other guy would be a much worse disaster.
this time, its trump we are talking about. never in the history of the US has there been a worse candidate. no sane mind would vote for such a lunatic. only those 'triggered' by his smooth talk (??) are, at all, swayed by his lies and bullshit.
clinton is no peach, but she's at least a professional. the other guy is a loose canon ready to make a bad situation 100x worse.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:09PM
Please. Clinton is a 'professional' alright, a professional criminal.
Even an idiot like Trump couldn't possibly be worse than giving that bloodthirsty harpy the presidency again.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:18PM
Can we please start agreeing that both Clinton and Trump are terrible and not vote for either? Vote 3rd party. Vote independent. Write in a better candidate. Write-in yourself. Write-in your dog. Anyone else is better than "the lesser of two evils".
(Score: 0, Troll) by TheGratefulNet on Monday August 29 2016, @02:24PM
write-in for president worked once. right?
oh wait, it NEVER WORKED. NEVER. not once.
what makes you think its even worth the effort?
if you are not voting for one of the 2 'chosen few' (barf!) then you might as well just stay home.
I don't like either one, but I'm under no false illusion that 3rd party candidates or write-ins will mean a single thing.
now, you want to have some power: have the write-in's matter in terms of quantity and have that higher quantity LOWER the power of the ones who do get in. ie, lets vote them to be less influential and powerful. wouldn't that be something!
but this is not the american way. our way is full of crap and the 'voting' is just an illusion that used to work but ceases to, at this point.
the elites get together, they decide on a vacation outing who gets it and that guy gets it. the rest is all a show.
so, write in your dog or your best friend. you are free to waste your time. and anyone else written in is a waste of time. its not like your vote matters anymore when you do this. no one says 'xyz got in but there was 20% who voted 'none of the above'. its not said and no one cares or even brings it up.
not sure why you think the way you do, but as you grow older you realize how utterly powerless you are in this world. the schemers makes the rules and vote their own people in. and... here... we.... GO!
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:34PM
That's exactly the kind of attitute that has prevented anyone else from ever having a chance. It's self-reinforcing, and the problem will never be solved until that stigma changes. Don't kid yourself, your single vote isn't going to change who wins in the 2 party battle either, so either way your vote is worthless by itself, no matter what, so why keep voting for the terrible choices? We need some change here, both in voting and in the stigma of worthless votes. That's the real battle.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday August 29 2016, @02:52PM
I think there's some value in quoting Eugene Debs here: "It is better to vote for what you want and not get it, than it is to vote for what you don't want and get it."
Getting to the point where the media talking heads have to at least be giving lip service to Gary Johnson and/or Jill Stein will at the very least expand the range of what's considered "mainstream" political thought rather than having all their ideas and their party's proposals relegated to the lunatic fringe a la Vermin Supreme. Of course, even better is electing third-party candidates in down-ballot and even local races, but that's less likely than a 10% showing from somebody for president.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:52PM
I changed my name to "None of the Above" and I'm running for president. My platform: I'm neither Donald nor Hillary.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 29 2016, @05:43PM
Can we please start agreeing that both Clinton and Trump are terrible and not vote for either?
No, I actually like Clinton.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Monday August 29 2016, @02:26PM
Trump is not just an idiot. He's a demagogue, a failed businessman, and a fascist. He has no real policies, only emotions, which means either that nobody knows what he would really do or that he would become a puppet to his handlers, either of which is exactly the opposite of what his followers actually want. His business ventures have all failed so badly that he would have more money now if he had invested his startup money in a passive index fund instead; every success he's ever had came after he got famous enough to leverage his fame into impossible-to-lose deals, every one of which (like Trump University) he used to manipulate quick cash out of people instead of building anything useful to anyone but himself. He is intensely nationalist to the point where, like classic fascists, he would redefine his national heritage to only include one homogeneous ethnic group and cast out all others. Trump is a sociopath who will do whatever it takes to see his name in bold letters at the top of the world. Trump could be America's Putin if elected, and something about having two Putins ruling the two best armed military powers of the world makes me want to build a fallout shelter on a remote pacific island.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday August 29 2016, @04:13PM
All this stuff about Trump sounds pretty accurate and of course very worrisome. But it's still questionable whether it's better or worse than Hillary.
Seriously, HowTF did we manage to get to this ridiculous point in our electoral process? All the other elections in my adult life have been bad too, but none were nearly as ridiculously bad choices as this one. My only hope is this election will be such an apocalyptic disaster that the government will finally be forced to revamp our election system (or better yet, scrap the Constitution and make a new one which implements a Parliamentary system like every other advanced western nation).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday August 29 2016, @05:23PM
(or better yet, scrap the Constitution and make a new one which implements a Parliamentary system like every other advanced western nation).
You read SN and can say this with a straight face?! I can only imagine how much authoritarian shit would inevitably find its way into the new version.
If politicians wrote the Constitution today, it would be a far different document.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 29 2016, @06:30PM
Are you arguing that parliamentary systems are bad, or that our current politicians would make the worst possible one? If the latter, you have a valid point. Maybe we should outsource the writing of our Constitution to another country, like Norway or Finland. They don't seem to have all the corruption problems we do.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 29 2016, @06:42PM
Yeah, the latter. The upside of parliamentary systems is they usually have more than 2 major parties, yes? I'd be game to try that out.
Not sure how germane it is, but the seventeenth amendment [wikipedia.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday August 29 2016, @10:24PM
Having more than 2 major parties is a big plus. That isn't the only upside of parliamentary systems: the executive is not chosen by the people, but rather by Parliament. This prevents long government shutdowns like we've had in the US where two major branches (exec and legislative) are at odds. Also, it forces people to do a better job choosing their legislators, instead of only focusing on one person (the President), since the people only get to vote for their representatives.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:33AM
At least here in Canada and I believe in many other Parliamentary systems, most people vote who they want to be Prime Minister, or in other words, by party. Most Canadians probably don't even know who their MP is. At the extreme, a few years back when the opposition parties got together and decided to overthrow the government (they outnumbered the ruling party), many (especially the government) called it undemocratic even though it is the way our system works, whichever group can get the votes together in Parliament to pass a budget, forms the government, with the most populous party given first try and if none can pass a budget, well there's another election. The people don't like too many elections and usually punish the party who won't compromise though the last government was very good at laying the blame on others.
We've also had a series of PMs, especially the last, who pictured themselves as more of a US President type rather then a Parliamentary leader and much power has concentrated into the PM Office with Parliament acting too often as a rubber stamp. Party discipline is very strong.
There are other advantages too our system, elections traditionally last 6 weeks rather then years like down there, though once again our previous government tried to change that with political attack ads happening all the time and the longest election in over a hundred years. It was an interesting election though as all 3 parties were in the lead at various times and it actually came down to strategic voting as the vast majority of Canadians wanted the previous government gone and were well aware that a fragmented vote could see them continue to remake Canada in their image. 33%+33%+34% party votes can see the 34% party being dictator for the next 4-5 years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @12:51AM
Hardly, the 66% can just call a no confidence vote (or local equivalent) and it's back to the polls for another try.
If the %34 were really as bad as dictators and not doing what the people wanted they would easily lose.
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday August 31 2016, @02:25AM
You're assuming that the 34%/66% is in seats, it can just as easy be in votes, with one party getting 34% of the vote and the other 66% of votes split between the other parties.
And a no-confidence vote doesn't always mean another election as sometimes the opposition gets a chance to form government, which was the plan the other year, except the PM prorogued Parliament before the vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @08:29AM
Yes, but if those 34% cant get at least some of the 66% to agree with their legislation, none of it will get anywhere.
Yes the 66% get a chance to form a government, thats the point. If they can agree on a platform that their voters will support good. If not voters still get to try again, but this time less people will vote for the uncompromising waste of time 34%.
You do realise that the 34% don't just get to 'form a government' because they got the biggest number, they still have to get a majority of the parliament to agree to let them for the government in the first place. They have to have confidence to lose in the first place, but once they step out of line it's game over for them. You can't get a 34% dictatorship, unless another 16% also want it and then it's not a dictatorship anymore but a democracy.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday September 01 2016, @12:15AM
Yes, if a party has less then 50+% of seats, they have to work with at least one other party to pass legislation and there is usually trade offs and things are good unless the party is very good at bullshitting the public so the public blames the other parties for calling a non-confidence vote.
There is still the problem where the party gets 51% of seats with 34% or less of the the votes.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:41AM
The Constitution was pretty well hated when it was first passed, being full of compromises and was expected to be replaced within a couple of decades. Unluckily the government, with the support of the people, just ignored the parts they didn't like rather then fixing it.
I'd imagine an attempted rewrite would have the same problems with a deadlock between the various factions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @09:23AM
Seriously, HowTF did we manage to get to this ridiculous point in our electoral process? All the other elections in my adult life have been bad too, but none were nearly as ridiculously bad choices as this one.
So, I take it you were not around for the Johnson/Goldwater Hobson's Choice? If it wasn't for that little girl picking petals off a daisy . . . . Hey, can we bring her back?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday August 29 2016, @05:16PM
We live in a TV nation. Trump makes for good TV. Putin also makes good TV. We need more TV.... Don't come in. I'm batin'.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Monday August 29 2016, @05:36PM
Recently I watched a very interesting Cracked video about Idiocracy, and how specifically it is not actually as dystopian as it seems. Sure, it's a world full of idiots, but the one thing most strikingly different from the real world is that they all know what they are. The guy takes an intelligence test, and the results of it place him in the white house because of his unusual intelligence. The president fears not for his own safety despite being black, holding public parties on the white house lawn. And when there is a better person to hold the office, he simply steps down. Sure, everything boils down to a reality show, but it's dumbed down to the point that nobody even cares what specific crazy plan the president has to fix the vague problems that nobody even understands. Can you imagine a world in which the Trump candidacy was more like an episode of the Kardashians? Where all we really had to know was that Jeb is a mess and forget about all this wall nonsense? And in this fairy tale land where we don't even pretend to have the solution to all the world's problems, everybody including Trump himself knows exactly how much of a total idiot Trump is and nobody expects him to take action beyond the reach of his actual intelligence. All in all, I'd take the Idiocracy version of Trump over the real one. I think a lot of us like to pretend that's what we're going to get.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:02PM
he would have more money now if he had invested his startup money in a passive index fund instead
Yup.
This is a guy who couldn't make money owning CASINOS.
He has declared bankruptcy FOUR times.
No bank will lend him money.
All he has to trade on (with suckers) is his name.
...and even businesses which have licensed his name (but in which Trump has no ownership stake) are failing.
This run for office is an attempt to strengthen his failing brand.
It has been reported|speculated that after he gets creamed, he will ally with the disgraced former chairman of Fox and get some kind of media thing going (another web-based something, quite likely).
.
...and if you would insert a paragraph break now and then into your otherwise excellent prose, my tired old eyes would thank you.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @12:56AM
Bankruptcy four time you say, and he's still rich?
He must be doing something right.
Seems like he knows how to play the system, and Republicans obviously. What is the US government if not the biggest system around?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:38PM
Please. Clinton is a 'professional' alright, a professional criminal.
Even an idiot like Trump couldn't possibly be worse than giving that bloodthirsty harpy the presidency again.
While I'm not in full agreement with your premise that Clinton is a professional criminal (I would say professional politician, which given our corrupt, money take all politics, should be criminal, but technically isn't because politicians control the laws.)
I have to disagree with your suggestion that a professional criminal is worse than an amateur. I would much rather be mugged by a professional criminal than the crazy guy who can't talk coherently, changes what he's saying mid sentence, all while waving his gun every which way. The first one will take your money. The second might just kill you accidentally, or on purpose, whether or not he gets your money.
Of course, my preference would not to be mugged in the first place. But according to the mass-media and both major parties, I don't have any other options.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @12:59AM
Ahh, the professional writes the laws..
And it just so happens, the new law allows them to just kill you and take all your stuff anyway.
I'll take my chances with the obvious incompetent I saw a mile off.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by EvilSS on Monday August 29 2016, @02:18PM
I am honestly starting to think the entire Trump campaign was a plot cooked up by the Clintons to get Hillary elected. It's the perfect plan. Get him to run, say crazy shit that will ignite the far-right (who happen to be the ones who vote in primaries), knowing that he will completely flop in the general election on the same platform and probably take out some congressional republicans in the process. It's the perfect plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:26PM
I thought this way back when there were still 10+ republicans still in the race. It makes perfect sense. In fact, I've seen a similar strategy locally in a sheriff race where the current sherrif is a former democrat who "converted" to republican during his term. As it's always hard for a newcomer to overcome an incumbent, so he has kept all other republicans from winning a primary. On the democratic primary there was only one person running as dem, thus not having to spend any money on campaigning. Of course the current sheriff won the republican primary, so the general election will be a democrat "republican" current sheriff vs a democrat "opponent", so it doesn't matter who wins, the dems win. It's a crock.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by migz on Monday August 29 2016, @02:34PM
If that is your belief then, the solution is to call their bluff. Go vote for Trump, and campaign for him. He would be a lame duck, since he will never muster a majority on any of his grand schemes.
Then punish them both in the next senate, and house votes, by flipping every gerrymandered seat. Vote for 3rd parties in your local elections, get accountable local government at least.
Take control, use your vote tactically.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @06:19PM
[Inigo Mode] You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
Gerrymandering is a method to make sure that minority voices get buried in the noise.
Unless you somehow managed to flip the majority in your electoral district, you're just pissing into the wind.
If you have a brilliant plan on how to accomplish *that* flip, now, THAT would be interesting.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @02:12AM
Gerrymandering is also very effective at burying majority voices by lumping them into a few, very safe districts for your opponents while giving your side slight advantages in many more districts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mky11UJb9AY [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday August 30 2016, @08:55AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @05:50AM
This time, its Clinton we are talking about. Never in the history of the US has there been a worse liked/trusted candidate. No sane mind would vote for such.
Until Trump came along that is.
(Score: 2) by schad on Monday August 29 2016, @02:24PM
The only problem I have with these trade deals is when they're not between "equals." Which, unfortunately, is usually the entire point of them.
If the stable, developed economies of the world -- US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, the Scandihoovians, Japan, etc. -- if they all want to get together and make a free-trade agreement, I'm fine with it. You don't save a lot of money by shifting production from one country to the other unless there's a true natural advantage (e.g. maple syrup is, and always will be, cheaper to produce in Canada). And I think we want countries to focus their efforts on producing things where they have a natural advantage, rather than wasting resources trying to grow rice in a desert (for example).
But please stop trying to include, on the same terms, unstable or developing countries/regions like Mexico, Eastern Europe, China, India, and arguably even "south Western Europe" (Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal). We can negotiate trade agreements with those countries, but the rules have got to be different.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday August 29 2016, @10:21PM
I live in one of these "equal" countries, a stable wealthy (by world standards) democracy.
Unfortunately, we have nothing to offer in these "negotiations" because we export milk and tourism.
Tourism's fine, we have a unique offering and people from around the world love to visit.
Dairy products are a real problem because our totally professional, unsubsidised farmers have to compete against US, Canadian and European dairy farmers who live off subsidies.
The Canadians were particularly difficult in the TPP negotiations, they didn't even try to negotiate, they are going to continue to subsidise dairy farmers, and they don't care.
Much like the Japanese rice farmers. It makes no economic sense to grow rice in Japan, but there is some nationalist argument for doing it, so they're going to continue to subsidise it.
Here in New Zealand we view farms as businesses. They need to make a profit to survive.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday August 30 2016, @09:00AM
Farm subsidies are a tricky one, because they're bundled up in national security. A bunch of countries (the UK in particular) learned during the Second World War how important it is to be able to produce enough food that you can feed your own people. The farm subsidies don't exist to make the farms useful, they are there to keep them in existence and with skilled farmers so that they can quickly be made useful if it looks as if trade is going to be disrupted.
Note that a complete blockade scenario is not the only kind of threat. Significantly devaluing your currency (for example, as the result of 52% of your population voting to try to kill the economy in a referendum) will also make imports more expensive and can have a similar effect from the perspective of the poorer segments of the population.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:13AM
Yes farms are special, people need to eat. Banks are also special, if your banks fail you're screwed, and technology, and weapons, and research for new weapons, and resources - can't be allowed to run out of them, anything high tech - don't want those commie backdoors, medicines, also kitchen sinks, etc.
Is there anything that isn't vitally important should your country be blockaded or trade is otherwise disrupted?
All thats left is rich countries exploiting poorer countries to make useless widgets for the cheapest possible price while not allowing them to move up the value chain or actually compete with the already rich, because 'national security'.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday August 29 2016, @02:40PM
Well, for starters, I think it's at least reasonable to dispute the "screwing things up so badly" moniker for the Bill Clinton administration. Because on paper at least, Clinton got a lot of things right:
- Federal deficits went down, and we were actually running a budget surplus when Bill left office.
- Crime turned around in a big way. It's unclear exactly why, but it was about 20% lower when Bill left office.
- GDP growth was solid throughout his presidency.
- Minimum of military stupidity, especially when compared to his predecessors and successors. (Bill's biggest screw-ups: The attempted Somalia intervention, and the attack on the USS Cole.) He even had one strong success intervening in Bosnia.
- A couple of significant diplomatic successes: Ending the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and coming closer than any US president ever has of creating peace between the Israelis and Palestinians (it didn't last, of course).
- Effective counterterrorism policy: Al Qaida existed throughout his presidency, and didn't succeed in pulling a 9/11-scale event until after Bill left office. And it wasn't for lack of trying - they bombed the World Trade Center about a month into his first term.
- Unemployment fell nearly in half.
- There was a real push to introduce America to this new thingy called the "Internet". Yes, that was more Al Gore's doing than Bill Clinton's, but Bill definitely went along with it. Bill remains the only president with a photo-op of him and his VP stringing network cable.
- The percentage of Americans with college degrees increased 5%.
Now, Bill Clinton's administration certainly had its problems, but you can understand why someone might look at that performance and think that we could have done a lot worse. As for Bill not being able to keep his pants on, I'll just point out that he's far from the only president with that challenge, and some of them are known as the greats: Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, and Lyndon B Johnson were all known to have had affairs, and there were rumors at least about George Washington, Abraham Lincoln (with men!), Grover Cleveland, James Garfield, John Tyler, and George H.W. Bush.
I would have preferred someone else, but if it comes down to that kind of result and the kind of mess Donald Trump has made of absolutely everything he's ever gotten his hands on, I'll take Clinton 2.0.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 29 2016, @02:53PM
It's unclear exactly why
Yeah that is kinda a common theme of the Clinton presidency.
As a physics style thought experiment you could swap in Hillary or Al Gore or well, Jimmy Carter, and I'm not sure anything would have turned out different.
Or in all honesty swap in Bush the First.
I had to LOL at the % of college grads statistic, I don't think high school kids waited to decide what to do with their lives until they saw who was elected president. That's a result of immigration and real estate and taxation policy from quite literally a generation ago in the 70s which was baked into the cake when the parents were having sex resulting in those kids.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday August 29 2016, @03:30PM
No, but they did base their decision, in part, on the availability of scholarships and student loans, both of which were expanded significantly by the Clinton administration.
As for crime, the Clinton administration certainly tried some stuff, like introducing community policing, and providing funding for localities to hire more cops. The reason I say we're not sure if that helped is because we have no proven explanations of why crime started dropping in the early 1990's (theories range from more aggressive policing to abortion legalization 18 years earlier to lead levels to anti-drug propaganda in schools).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:59AM
It probably had to do with leaded gasoline being phased out starting in the 70s, so in the 90s you had teenagers and young adults growing up without lead poisoning.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:43PM
That is one of the ideas I specifically mentioned in my post. I'm a fan of what's commonly known as the lead-crime hypothesis, but definitive proof is very difficult for anything like this.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday August 30 2016, @09:06AM
Federal deficits went down, and we were actually running a budget surplus when Bill left office.
True, but only as a result of some quite dodgy book keeping. Clinton merged the social security budget with the general budget, allowing the SS surplus to be counted against the federal deficit. The long-term result of this was that there's now likely to be a significant shortfall in social security that will need to be made up from somewhere, but at least he got to claim an achievement that people are uncritically repeating almost two decades later.
Most of the rest was the effect of riding the wave of the dot-com boom. The budget benefitted from a more productive economy increasing tax revenues and most of the rest followed on from this. It's nice to blame Bush for everything after, but Clinton was the one that allowed the US economy to become overly reliant on an industry that was obviously in a bubble by the end of his term. Bush compounded it by trying to use a real-estate bubble to replace the dot-com collapse, but he was already too late. Clinton should have been taking tax revenue from the dot-com companies and funnelling it into subsidies to kick-start the next boom that would take over in the early 2000s. But then, what's his incentive to do this? He'd be out of office by then and could blame the failure of the economy on his successor...
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:36PM
This is all exactly as planned. There was no way these deals would be settled, yes or no, before the election. Too much chance of it actually having an affect on the results, after all. Let the little people think they have some say in this stuff, push of the deal until just after the election, and then pass it. By the time the next set of elections have come around, they'll have forgotten all about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @07:32PM
Because humanity as a whole hasn't caught on that their beliefs are manipulated wholesale. We need to incorporate some education on the matter... how to avoid being scammed, how to tell when you're being manipulated.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday August 29 2016, @11:08PM
Really?
I hate the Clintons. Bill let the banks loose to cause Great Depression II: The Fattening Of The Elites, and Hillary is a mother fucking Wallmart executive who still speaks glowingly of the Waltons and Walmart. Bitch probably wrote the handbooks on union busting for them. Then she fucked around with medical blowing smoke up our asses that she cared, only to take money from Big Pharma and become their apologist. I'm not moved by anything she is saying politically now when the history of her 20 years or so in politics is so strongly anti-worker and anti-American.
Ultimately corrupted? Dude, they're fucking there already. She entered the race a corrupt piece of shit.
All of that being said, people will vote for her because THEY DON'T WANT HITLER . I might vote for her depending on how close it is, not as a vote for her, but a vote against Hitler.
I'm of two thoughts of mind:
1) Let's have the whole fucker burn down, start a civil war, kill everyone at the top, and then recover our country.
2) Let's elect that bitch, lock her ass down to the Progressive platform, and stage huge marches and riots in every city the very moment she tries heading to center.
#1 has the potential for far more change, but also completely eliminating any goodwill we had with the world. Also, highly likely that will we be in wars and have greatly destabilized the rest of the world (NATO). Ludicrous as it sounds, we could be in war with Mexico. Or Canada. Who fucking knows.
#2 has the potential for safe change in a relatively stable environment, even allowing for the fact there might be mass unrest on the Republican side of things.
I can very easily see why someone may vote for the bitch. That fucking cunt even has a possibility of getting mine. Trump is a mentally unstable lying moron and I can't get around that. Not even with my deathwish fuel'd desire to see revolution in this country and real change that finally benefits the poor and the middle class, which covers the bulk of working class America.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.