I presume...

*LOL* Yep. I answered you in the latest comments section.

I presume that constitutes your confession that you DO switch your political allegiance based on campaign advertising, right?

That would indicate that some people do indeed BELONG in a "simple box". Perhaps you should try "getting out" (of your simple box) more.

You two women give the electronic media and political advertising in general, FAR too much credit. Never in my life have I ever once met a person who switched his political allegiance based on campaign advertising.

You simply need to get out more.

People cast their votes based on only two criteria, philosophical/ideological leanings, or their pocket book, and nobody ever gets persuaded to change his mind by political advertising.

"Only" two criteria? *LOL* You're a laugh riot, and you really do need to get out more. You also seem to prefer to communicate in terms like "every" and "all" and "nobody," where you lump groups of people into your little "simple" boxes, and to that I would like to inform you that if you continue this nonsensical BS in every post on these comment boards, we're all going to think your mind is simple, and nobody will take you seriously. :)

Bernie wanted to be an "outsider" while reaping "insider" benefits.

I know, right?! And Bernie sued the DNC when Bernie's staffers accessed data belonging to HRC's campaign. Can you imagine the whining of the Berners if HRC staffers had breached Bernie's data?

But unless someone shows what the DNC fucking DID to advantage HRC or disadvantage Bernie -- and Donna Brazile admits she found nothing -- the "rigging" allegation remains disproven. And continuing to throw it around stinks.

Yes, ma'am. I believe Brazile's book is much ado about nothing new. The irony here, of course, is there are many more instances of Donna Brazile actually doing the "rigging" in HRC's favor, and somebody lost their job at CNN and needed a new source of income -- but that's another debate (pun intended). :)

the primary elections weren't rigged, but based on CW's commentary the fundraising certainly was.

Not sure this FACT will ever be given the proper attention it deserves, but much of Bernie's "27 dollar" contributions didn't exactly come from American donors. And as I said many, many months ago:

Follow the money:

Russia ---> Cyprus/Wilbur Ross ---> Trump ---> RNC

http://www.chrisweigant.com/2017/06/15/senate-votes-to-take-power-away-from-trump/#comment-103002

Paul Manafort and his employee Tad Devine... the same Tad Devine who was the chief strategist of Bernie's campaign -- and their "friend" from the Ukraine/Russia, Viktor Yanukovych, could explain how that whole thing works.

Like Paula so very rightly noted: Bernie was "strangely unmoved" by Brazile's phone call. Of course Bernie was unmoved, unfazed, unimpressed with Brazile's "news." Bernie... not a Democrat... was working under the same DNC rules and signed the same agreements. The RNC has similar rules and similar agreements, but I digress.

Maybe Devine's buddy Manafort will have the decency to explain that whole money laundering thing and how vast sums of money from overseas are flooding into our elections of late. Regardless, as I have said on this board many times over: Some of them are going to prison. :)

And we would have gotten away with it, too; if it weren't for those meddling kids!

*LOL* My glasses! I can't see without my glasses!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXUqwuzcGeU

Charles Brown, Esq.! So good to "see" you Chuck!

It isn't that people don't admire your vision and idealism, but we don't live in an ideal world, nor do we even live in a world that ever was or ever will have a ghost of a chance to become ideal, so long as it's operated by humankind!

The theoretical conditions that you ramble on about such as "there has to be one candidate that goes along, etc." are conditions that have nothing to do with how One Demand works and have already been explained.

Feel free to paste from old posts -- or don't bother if you don't feel like it -- to describe how you would approach a group of 4 candidates running in a primary (we have 4 running on the Dem side for Governor next year) and pitch One Demand to each of them and then game out what happens when:

1. None agree
2. One agrees, three don't
3. Two agree, two don't
4. Three agree, one doesn't
4. All four agree

Separately, how, specifically do you reach the voters to inform them about One Demand?

Finally, how do you track the voters' actions to confirm they followed through?

Really don't want to harsh your buzz but I think you grossly underestimate your ability to accomplish the above, and grossly underestimate what it means not merely to enter an idea into public debate, but actually turn that debate into action, by enough people, to achieve your objectives.

As for the "not-voting" part of my previous comment, my point is that you can threaten to not-vote for candidates who don't cooperate but being able to convince them or others that they lost due to those non-votes would be hard to do. How would you do it? Your scenario has to meet a set of theoretical conditions to work. There has to be one candidate who goes along, a bunch that don't, then the one who goes along has to win and agree that he/she won coz of One Demand. If the One Demander loses, your argument is shot. If several people go along and one of them wins, you can't prove they won because of One Demand because now people had multiple criteria from which to choose. If people stay home because no one signed on no one cares about them and their reasons, they focus on the people who show up.

Uh huh. You have to fire up those people who don't normally participate in primaries and you have to prove you have that magical 15-20% on board who are going to vote the way you want them to for the reasons you want them to. Up front.

How you gonna do that?

Even after the fact, a failure to vote doesn't do shit because no one comes around later and asks people about why they didn't vote. And even if they did, so what? It's too late and good luck being persuasive next time. All you'll do is convince pols to focus more heavily on people they know DO vote, if you make any impression at all.

And you have to convince candidates you can deliver enough voters relative to their opponents who have not agreed to your terms.

So you are inserting yourself between candidates and voters in an attempt to bend them to your will and you think you can do this because, to you, the idea is so obviously good.

Like gun-control or Single Payer or scores of other obviously good ideas that struggle in the face of countervailing incentives.

You telling other people THEY have to risk their success to satisfy you isn't persuasive to them, methinks.

Your "incentive" won't beat the disincentives.

This was not a routine campaign. This was not a conventional wisdom campaign. Your old assumptions aren't helpful. They just keep you from taking a hard look at actual events. And it is always the easiest to discount things that you are, confessedly, ignorant about.

Did Donald Trump collude with the Russians? Did Wikileaks know they were acting as a Russian pawn? Did the Russian hacks do enough damage to steal the election from Hillary Clinton? Nobody knows. It’s possible we’ll never know. But we do know that Russian officials were behind all this, and that their goal was to weaponize a personal grudge and ensure that Clinton never became president of the United States. This should outrage you even if you support Trump. The fact that an awful lot of Republicans don’t seem to care is a grim harbinger of a decadent political system on the precipice of decline and collapse.

Regardless of how hard to try to rationalize Clinton's defeat, you're always gonna be stuck with the fact that the Dems nominated the only person out of 225 million Americans capable of losing to the ass hole in the oval office.

As you're aware, I think you WAY over-rate the "covert work" stuff. People vote their ideology or their pocketbook, not what they hear or especially not what they read on the social media stuff. The people who are dumb enough to believe the social media stuff are likely mostly non-voters anyway.

Many people assert that HRC losing to Blotus is ipso facto proof she was a weak candidate because Blotus was so clearly flawed. If they don't factor in the covert work being done to prop up Blotus, destroy his GOP rivals and create cracks on the left, they aren't telling the whole story. And therefore their prescriptions for future success will fail.

Re: basic income -- the idea threatens a host of western/American/"Christian" beliefs about "why we're here" and "who deserves what" as well as how economies work. If we were/are ever to actually have a national discussion about GBI, it would be interesting to say the least.

[57] Why can't the USA? Because a whole lot of money is spent to keep the USA from dealing with this problem. Personally I don't think the problem is unsolvable because of that (tons of # being spent to stop responsive action) -- but no solution if problem isn't clearly understood.

[63] One Demand: your solution is based on individuals choosing to take a risk in a situation where that choice could cause them to lose. The incentive, therefore, isn't there for the politician. And any solution to a serious problem that is entirely reliant on voluntary choice is doomed.

Humans are human. Thats why the notion of "checks and balances" is so important. Ideally you build incentives and constraints into systems in ways that keep any one individual or group from amassing too much power. But the constraints can't be limited to one person/group. They have to be distributed in multiple places. With respect to campaign finance, there needs to be positive incentives for politicians as well as constraints against abuses. Your solution offers a theoretical incentive -- "do the right thing!" -- built on an extremely limited and questionable track record -- as balanced against definite incentives for pols to raise as much $ as possible and limited constraints against them.

And if getting your idea to even be considered by individual politicians is reliant on grassroots pressure you're in an even weaker position in terms of convincing anyone than if there was a legal mechanism. The grassroots are really busy right now trying to save the republic as well as advancing a number of other causes.

However you can continue to scream into the wind if it makes you happy.

Doesn't your own last sentence drive home the fact that it ain't EVER gonna happen!???

Yes, sadly, apparently 27 dead in a small Baptist church in Texas, including the pastor's 14 year old daughter.

I still don't understand how thinking that having even more armed individuals with even more guns will help the situation.

Did you know that even in the old supposedly wild west, when you entered a town like Dodge City, you had to turn your gun over to the town Marshall for safe keeping, and could only collect it again when you were ready to leave town? In fact, the city passed an ordinance that guns could not be worn or carried north of the "deadline" which was the railroad tracks. The south side where "anything went" was however wide open.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people. But one person who can only kill 5 people with a knife, can kill 30 to 100 people with a gun, and can kill a million with a weapon of mass destruction. Yet no one argues we should allow just anyone to have a chemical bomb in their garage simply because they want and can afford one. Or that we would all only just be so much safer if everybody carried some deadly poisons around with them all the time everywhere they went. Other countries seem to have figured this out. Why can't the USA?

Another example would be the guaranteed basic income for everybody. Suppose someone does just want to live on that and not work a day in their life, so what? Why try to control them to do otherwise? Once you have provided them with the basics, the rest is really up to them. How is it really any business of yours? That would actually be the true conservative, Libertarian position. Once you have provided them with the ability to avoid starvation, sickness and death, what they actually do with it really is up to them.

Say you give an ongoing annuity, inheritance, allowance, whatever, to two siblings. One uses it to further their education and provide a safety net for themselves. The other gambles it away every year. That's up to them isn't it? At least you, as a society, have set an even playing field for everyone to really strive from their based on their own talents and ambitions.

Clinton had superdelegates before 2007 was out and had a commanding lead in Dec '07. Yet, the reason no one has jettisoned superdels is because they have never actually gone against the popular vote. By March, most were switching allegiances.

Obama took Clinton in '08, fair and square, even with every element of the establishment Dem party pulling for Clinton.

Sanders, on the other hand, seemed to get beat exactly the same way Clinton got beat in '08 (e.g. Nevada).

Again, Sanders is no novice. His loss is on him.

Sanders first ran for office in '72. He ran his first successful campaign in '80. He joined Congress in '91 (after the '90 election and before the Clintons came to DC).

Why does anyone believe that anything was "stolen" from him? He has been around long enough to know the "game." If he got beat (fewer votes, games being played), then that's on him. He's not a "naive" player who didn't know what this was.

You beat that horse every single chance you get. Most of us would agree that money is a corrupting influence in the political process. However, you need to play by the rules, as they exist. Only by winning (with existing rules) do you get to change the rules for the better.

I will admit, it's rare for a sitting politician to actually work to change the rules, but that doesn't change the reality of how it can or can't be done.

On that day, protesters organized by the two groups showed up on Travis Street in downtown Houston, a scene that appeared on its face to be a protest and a counterprotest. Interactions between the two groups eventually escalated into confrontation and verbal attacks.

Burr, the committee's chairman, unveiled the ads at a hearing Wednesday morning and said Russians managed to pit Texans against each other for the bargain price of $200.

Social media was "weaponized" as they say, during the 2016 campaign. Some steps have been taken recently, such as the closing of twitter accounts, FB pages, reddit sub-groups, etc., found to be Russian frauds or white supremacist efforts. The Russian goal was general sowing of chaos, and destruction of democratic norms. They've been actively encouraging anti-everyone sentiments: anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, anti-BLM -- starting fights both between left and right, and left and left.

But we're really just starting to cope with this. It is unlike anything we've seen before in terms of the "how". The "what" -- propaganda, isn't new. But the stealthy "how" was new.

What about the extra cost we pay for sugar because the sugar industry has protections - they make a lot of their money from that particular rent - who owns that wealth? The sugar manufacturers, or the consumers who are foced to give up their wealth due to the rent?

Or how about the $1,800 extra we pay for new cars because the dealerships have a monopoly on selling cars?

As I've previously stated, my experience and observation is that people who vote cast their votes for political candidates almost exclusively based on either ideology or pocketbook issues.

I can't begin to explain why people who do not vote, do not vote. Perhaps you have a point, maybe some are dissuaded by lies spread on social media. I just couldn't say.

I'm just gonna hazard a guess here that we're using different definitions of 'wealth'. I probably should have mentioned that for purposes of the economic principles now under discussion, I'm using the term to mean the actual physical production of goods or services. I'm betting you are thinking of the accumulation of money. I realize that one can accumulate money without producing any goods or services, perhaps robbing banks, playing the stock market, shakedowns, and the like, but the laws and principles of economics don't play much of a role in that area.

While it is true that political advertising does not change someone's political affiliation, i.e. turn a liberal into a conservative or vice versa, it has been proven that it can either motivate or discourage someone as far as actually showing up at the polls. In other words, it can definitely have an impact on voter turnout. Otherwise, negative ads would not work so well, nor would political advertising be invested in so heavily. Your goal can be as much to turn people off as it can be to turn them on, or even frighten them, a la the Willie Horton ads etc. as either a positive or negative motivational tool.

That's sorta like a basic fact of life, right?

Not really, because you only quoted part of your statement:

it tends to originally belong to the people who produced it

Time to crack open an Economics book and understand rents.

Also, laddie boy, if you were studying economics long before I was born, we should be seeing your name in the Guinness Book of Records.

Keep in mind, political advertising on TV has a set of rules that have to be followed -- the "I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message" and "paid for AARP" stuff. But none of those rules applied to social media during the last campaign because the platforms are out there ahead of the rules. All kinds of stuff was spread without being identified. There were ads, but there were also bots -- fake people -- who were passing along the stuff being cooked up by Russian actors.

Additionally, execs from Facebook and Twitter were actually grilled recently by the House Intelligence Committee because the info they've gotten has been so worrisome.

This is a big problem that has to be dealt with, and Trump/GOP has no interest at this time in doing so because, till now, it's helped them win. Nothing, but nothing, could be better for the GOP than access to avenues where they can spread lies without pushback. Which leads us back to this whole Donna Brazile business -- whenever people are able to throw allegations out there without having to prove them, they win. It is easy to allege. It is harder to prove. If you never have to prove you get the benefit of the damage.

My econ courses were very likely long before you were born, but no, I don't specifically remembering "covering the subject of rents", but I doubt that whatever you have in mind will de-legitimize anything I've written about "wealth having to be produced before it can be distributed."

That's sorta like a basic fact of life, right?

I'm with CW on the no Facebook thing. Actually, there's a story there. I don't even own an iPhone, and I'm of the generation that frequently has to call the grandkids to get the computer up and running in the morning. Anyway I had no interest whatsoever in 'social media' interaction, until a couple yrs ago, when my local newspaper decided that they would only accept entries on their political blog if the blogger belonged to Facebook, so I had a grandkid set me up with a FB acct. I never posted a single entry to my FB page for all the time I had it, and then maybe 6 months ago, I used it get onto the Huffpost. I responded to some HP blogger who had an intense dislike to something I posted, to the effect that I considered her a moron, and the next time I tried to post, my acct came up "deactivated', which was fine by me.

So, there's very likely a chance that I'm selling FB short, like you said about CW, but I still think you guys are giving them, and everybody else in that business, FAR too much credit.

Did you ever cover the subject of rents in your economics courses C. R.? For somebody who wishes to lecture everybody from your perch as the self declared Weigentian expert in economics, there seems to be a gaping hole in your understanding.

There is a very big difference between obvious political ads and covert activity where what appears to be "regular people" are passing along stories, that appear to be approved by friends and acquaintances, etc. The seeding of social media was done very differently than political advertising. It was covert. It was very specifically targeted. Turns out Russian trolls actually got idiots to turn up at white supremacist rallies -- events CREATED by Russian trolls. Russian trolls caused Americans to DO things. Not just think things and yap online. That's serious. People most definitely WERE influenced by their efforts and all this is coming out now.

Furthermore, in the case of Trump, the free ride he got from major media -- and the consistent False-Equivalencies where crime after crime after crime by Trump were paired with Emailgate most defiinitely accomplished 2 things: that nothing Trump had done was really serious because none of it got the level of emphasis as Emailgate, and that the level of emphasis given to Emailgate cemented in the public's minds that THE EMAILS were something bad and HRC was guilty of something bad because of those emails.

CW doesn't do Facebook. I do. He has pretty much ignored stories about covert Russian interference there, possibly because he's unacquainted with the platform. It's going to turn into a bigger and bigger story and it should.

Don't know what that is, but inasmuch as nothing has ever induced me to switch political philosophy, I presume the answer is no.

And, therein lies the underlying problem with the current sad state of affairs that is the devolutionary nature of American political and media culture.

Something different is in order and long overdue.

I think a description of "up-wing" is also in order.

Again. :)

It's a term used by one of my favourite political analysts, William Bradley, and was derived from an idea that former Senator Gary Hart showed him to characterize political figures using a past-future spectrum instead of the usual right-wing/left-wing classification.

To paraphrase Bradley, this past-future spectrum naturally runs from the up end to the down end of the spectrum, with the futurist end characterized by new technology, creative utilizations of existing technology, and new structural forms to pursue enduring values and new visions.

The up-wing leader places a special emphasis on big think/think big future-oriented and enlightened policies in an effort to position a society on the global cutting edge, even in the midst of great challenges and crises that would paralyze a down-wing political leader.

Additionally, to quote Bradley, "big thinking, big ideas need not be about big items per se. In fact, some of the biggest thinking is about small things, or more accurately, how to bring smaller things into play to solve problems that big things might make worse."

This is a far superior method of characterizing political figures today than the outdated and tired left-wing/right wing labels because it identifies the candidate most capable of outlining a coherent vision for the future and of possessing the courage to carry it out.

Just so long as what's really important - beyond nasty politics - isn't being ignored.

People cast their votes based on only two criteria, philosophical/ideological leanings, or their pocket book, and nobody ever gets persuaded to change his mind by political advertising.

Russian operatives worked as hard at splitting the left as they did on promoting Trump. They succeeded whenever people believed their lies. And lots of people believed their lies because media wasn't fact-checking or providing context, it was simply amplifying. Some of this may be, in part, due to the fact that media was unaware -- at the time -- that interference was going on.

I posted often about the incredible crap I was seeing on FB, which lots of people didn't take seriously. But I spoke to people who didn't like HRC because of the crap they were reading on FB. Literally.

Now stuff about that is coming out: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/02/facebook-says-up-to-10m-people-saw-ads-bought-by-russian-agency

And Russian misinformation wasn't just on FB it was all over social media.

The point is, right here and now we have a breaking story that illustrates, in real time, just how Democrat-slandering works. Unless people begin to see through this sort of manipulation it will continue to be effective.

Re-litigating 2016 is a waste of time. But noticing when you're being manipulated into re-litigating, and how, 2016 is crucial.

While the last presidential election campaign keeps on keeping on while the state of all aspects of the planet tend ever more toward chaos, what becomes clearer with each passing day is that America is tearing itself apart and neither the Republicans nor the Democrats seem capable of doing anything about it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/bernie-sanders-camp-fix-was-against-clinton-n817501

The gist is Jeff Weaver says they were never offered a "side-deal", i.e. "the memo".

I have no trouble believing that but of course we need context. HRC team came on board and said "we'll bail you out". Sanders came on board later and said: ???

And after all the smoke has cleared away WHAT DID THE DNC DO THAT ADVANTAGED HRC AND DISADVANTAGED BERNIE?

How? How was the fundraising rigged? The Politico article puts some incendiary language out there, which CW was only to happy to repeat, but what are the actual specifics here?

Here's Kevin Drum's summary of events:

"- After 2012, President Obama basically left the Democratic National Committee broke.

- Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the DNC chair, did little to address this. Also, pretty much everyone agrees she was a crappy chair for a variety of other reasons.

- In mid-2015, Hillary Clinton set up a “joint fundraising agreement” with the DNC.

- The gist of the JFA was that Clinton would raise tons of money by asking rich donors for roughly $350,000 each in both 2015 and 2016. This is way above normal contribution limits, but it was legal because it bundled together donations to Clinton, the DNC, and 33 state parties. Clinton’s campaign would then split up the money and send it to the appropriate places.

- However, the money for the state parties was mostly routed immediately back to the DNC for things like building voter lists. That was the deal the states accepted when they signed onto the JFA. Depending on your outlook, this is either slightly shady or just a smart way for state parties to help finance things that will help them in the long run.

- Although states didn’t get much actual cash from the JFA during primary season, they did get it during the general election. So states did pretty well in the end.

- Bernie Sanders was also offered the opportunity to set up a JFA, but he decided to go the small-dollar route instead."

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/11/donna-brazile-and-the-latest-great-hillary-scandal/

Money is always persuasive, certainly. But in the end, you have to show how money HRC raised to save the DNC caused members of the DNC to do specific things that amount to "rigging" if you're going to throw that word around. Because its easy to allege things that are false if you never have to prove them. That's what the GOP does all day long -- it's character assassination. Make the accusation, stir up noise, never prove anything, move on to new accusation.

That is what has been done here. The bottom line is that a majority of Democrats preferred a Democrat to an Independent and the Independent thought that was unfair and so did his followers. Instead of dealing with a perfectly predictable tendency of human nature constructively, he chose to resent it and encouraged his followers to resent it.

Bernie wanted it both ways. He's spent his career trolling "parties" -- both GOP and Dem. But his policy preferences were more Dem than Repub so he voted along Dem lines. And he recognized 3rd Party candidates don't win so he "joined" the party purely to use it's structural assets. Which presented certain challenges since that party had its own candidate and party members were understandably biased in her favor. That's one of the advantages OF memberships in groups. Bernie wanted to be an "outsider" while reaping "insider" benefits.

But unless someone shows what the DNC fucking DID to advantage HRC or disadvantage Bernie -- and Donna Brazile admits she found nothing -- the "rigging" allegation remains disproven. And continuing to throw it around stinks.

the primary elections weren't rigged, but based on CW's commentary the fundraising certainly was. of course money doesn't necessarily equal votes, but let's not pretend it's unrelated.

JL

Supporters of "the other russian-backed candidate" have yet to explain how any of this influenced Dem voters to prefer Hillary in the primaries.

At least he was classy enough to do what most Hillary supporters did in 2008, and many of his supporters (egged on by the troll farms) failed to do - be gracious, and support the nominee in the General.

The concept of "a living wage" is simply an artificial social construct, having no relation whatsoever to the principles of economics. A person's income (in a competitive labor market), is the market value of whatever the person contributes to whatever it is the business produces, and has zero connection to the "cost of living".

Your Utopian idea of "giving everybody a basic minimum income, and letting businesses compete for those who want to work" is obviously predicated on the assumption not only that there will actually BE somebody who wants to work, but that there will be enough of them to provide the BMI for the others, and there is room for serious doubt as to the validity of that premise. (For what it's worth, I'd be one of the BMIers.)

You are absolutely correct about the insanity of our employer-provided health care delivery system, and the fact that it handicaps our domestic businesses in international competition.

It's not productive to get hung up on the redistribution thing.

Better to focus on what tax policies actually promote growth.

It occurs to me that I skipped over one of your points, namely the fact that in addition to the old fashioned "sweat-of-somebody's-brow" thing, wealth in the modern world can also be created by people's previously-produced wealth (what economists call 'capital', essentially people's savings.) And often this turns out to be previously produced NOT by the current person in question, but rather by one of his ancestors.

That reality tends to offend those of the liberal persuasion, and I would not seriously object to the concept of believing that such new wealth should perhaps be subject to a greater degree of re-distribution than the traditional 'sweat-of-the-brow' thing, but we should still be honest and face the fact thhat is IS 're-distribution, and not 'distribution'.

Your terminology (the standard terminology of the left) reveals why it is that you and your fellow liberals do not understand the laws and principles of the science of economics.

When discussing the subject of who earns what in our economy, you skip over 'production' and go straight to 'distribution'.

Before wealth can ever be distributed, it first has to be PRODUCED! And wealth is produced (in archaic biblical terms), "by the sweat of somebody's brow". Unfortunately, we've kinda gotten away from that old fashioned terminology because in the modern economy, the most productive people (those who produce by means of talent and skill, as opposed to physical effort), don't actually perspire during the process.

Nevertheless, it's still a fact of life that wealth has to be produced before it can be distributed, and by virtue of that fact, it tends to originally belong to the people who produced it.

Only now, at that point in the process, can it possibly be 'distributed', meaning that in reality, what we're actually describing is NOT 'distribution', but rather 'RE distribution', right?

Your are absolutely correct, our wealth is indeed "Created by everybody", but the problem is, it is not created by everybody EQUALLY, and that fact is in serious conflict with liberal ideology, so you guys devise terminology that enables you to avoid facing the reality of how the cold, cruel world actually functions.

Of COURSE as you say, a government as rich as ours can afford all sorts of goodies for everybody. Nobody, left or right, would ever dispute that, so the argument distills down NOT to "SHOULD we re-distribute, but rather just to 'HOW MUCH', or 'to what DEGREE' should we re-distribute, right?

great article, very informative on a number of fronts. making the wealthy wealthier has been at the top of the GOP agenda for as long as i've been alive, at least. brown's explanation really is the case, it's a shell game that sticks it to the middle and working classes every single time.

sad to read that the primary actually was rigged. not that bernie would necessarily have won, but it's unfortunate there wasn't a more level playing field.

minor grammar issue:

Court records from the indictments and the plea deal are being poured over

i think you meant "pored over" - as the other way would be somewhat messy.

http://grammarist.com/spelling/pore-over-pour-over/

Regarding the income tax 'reform' plan(s), the whole income tax system is simply a mechanism for transferring the fruits of the labors of the most productive to the least productive.

And we would have gotten away with it, too; if it weren't for those meddling kids!

"Regarding the income tax 'reform' plan(s), the whole income tax system is simply a mechanism for transferring the fruits of the labors of the most productive to the least productive."

The United States is the richest country in the history of the world. Last year our GNP was $18.6 trillion dollars. We owe just $6.2 trillion in debt to other countries, or roughly just 4 months of one year's GNP. The question of what the American government can afford is functionally meaningless. If any nation has ever been able to afford quality housing, education, health care, parks, museums ? anything ? the United States can.

Our country’s wealth is created by everybody. It’s not created by rich people. Sometimes rich people receive their wealth in the form of inheritances. Sometimes they siphon them from other people through the daily operations of commerce. Sometimes Washington decides to hand them more. Increasingly, a lot of the very rich become wealthier without doing anything productive at all. They become richer simply because they own stock that only increases in value because the taxes on that particular business has been cut by government, and not because of anything particularly innovative that that company has done.

There is no economic law that governs how the $19 trillion we produce each year must be distributed. There are however questions of justice, social prestige and most especially political power, in saying just how that wealth is distributed. You can, in fact, skew the tax code so that it will ensure that more and more of the nation’s wealth goes to the people who already have most of it. That is a political choice, not an economic one. Shoveling unearned benefits to people who just happen to own or inherit financial assets is not good for growth, productivity or anything else.

She leaves out the language about "impartiality" that concludes the Memo, and everything about Bernie's JFA. Thus she is able to do a perfect "innuendo hitjob" -- she discovers no evidence of any specific thing that HRC's campaign did that hurt Bernie via the DNC, but the agreement makes it sound possible. Since no one can prove a negative: how can HRC prove she didn't do anything? -- and no has proved a positive, why it just lays there, looking bad.

All this in the big shitstorm article. Maybe those things are addressed in the book, which would change the implications (and perhaps improve Brazile's credibility). But the Politico piece was written to create the impression of a definite, irrefutable smoking gun. And all the usual suspects swallowed it.

And all the usual suspects (like me) were suspicious. And Berniers will continue to scream they were robbed and we'll think you're a bunch of crybabies and Trump/GOP laughs.

Regarding Donna Brazille's book, she just confirms what everybody already knew resulting from the hacked emails.

Regarding the income tax 'reform' plan(s), the whole income tax system is simply a mechanism for transferring the fruits of the labors of the most productive to the least productive. Of course, that is the only possible means by which government could perform the functions we ask of it, so all we're doing is arguing over how to tweak the details.

One of the many interesting notes is that while Hillary was accused of not sending money raised to the states, the reality was that the DNC was not allowed to release it until commencement of the General Election Campaign, which was delayed because Bernie refused to concede. As soon as he did the money went out. And lots and lots of it went out.

Other notes of interest? The 2015 JFA HRC signed was the same as the one signed a few months later by Bernie, and neither contained the conditions that made up the essence of the supposed smoking gun. BUT! there was a memo that laid out a bunch of conditions in the 2015 JFA which ALSO concluded with statements to the effect that nothing was to interfere with the impartiality of the DNC and that similar agreements could be offered to other candidates.

Note: HRC raised a fucking ton of money for the DNC and 32 states that signed on to the JFA; Bernie signed a JFA, raised no $ for DNC and little to none for states.

The Politico article was noticeably sketchy about dates. That was the first thing people began reacting to (at least those of us who aren't invested in the "we were robbed!" story). As the day wore on Brazile felt compelled to tweet that nothing she alleged had actually impacted the outcomes of the primaries -- wasn't that nice of her?

While Berniers are busy cleaning up all the splooge they ejaculated yesterday, most of the non-rightwing media has conceded Brazile's accusations are wildly misleading-to-outright-dishonest. Since she's busy appearing on Tucker Carlson tonight, I personally have to wonder what the hell she's doing. I am not aware of her appearing on CNN or MSNBC, let alone ABC, NBC or CBS. (I could be wrong - but I haven't seen it.) FOX is, of course, friendly to Dem-haters. Someone speculated she's looking for a concern-troll spot at FOX since she lost her job on CNN. Which is sad. But she released this shitstorm a week before elections, guaranteeing a kick-up of the primary wars, and she released it through Politico, an outlet that has always made a point of going after HRC. She could well have been motivated by the simple desire to generate interest in her book, but if she gave a damn about the Dems or the country she could have at least waited until after next Tuesday.

Here's a link, more follow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Victory_Fund