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The Official Paracast Political Thread!

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One could answer every question with "google it". I've seen some very long posts in here so that sounds like a dodge to me. But whatever...
That's funny. If you pay attention, very few posters on this thread actually engage in dialog. Some do debate honestly, but it's mainly baiting for many.

Plus - and I tell you this in case you don't know - setting tasks ('homework') for targeted posters is a trolling technique.

Voter Suppression Is More Effective Than You Know
TEXT: Published on Feb 5, 2016: "Professor Zoltan Hajnal, Department of Political Science, University of California at San Diego (UCSD) joins Thom. Until recently - there's been no empirical research to show exactly how effectively voter ID laws actually work to suppress the vote - and how they disproportionately impact democratic voters. A new report out called 'Voter Identification Laws and the Suppression of Minority Votes' used data from the annual Cooperative Congressional Election Study to compare thats with strict voter ID laws to those that allow voters without a photo ID to cast a ballot. The authors found that strict voter ID laws disproportionately impact minority votes - and that Democratic turnout drops by an estimated 8.8 percentage points in general elections when strict photo identification is in place. And that means that the GOP tactics to make it harder for citizens to vote are working - and that's not just bad news for Democrats - it's bad news for our Democracy."
 
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You are living in a very strange world where facts don't apply. Look at how Ben Carson lied about his own accomplishments. You didn't know that?

You know Gene, it seems to me that you're the one standing there at the bottom of ol' mount kool-aid, looking up with your mouth agape. I dunno, maybe you're practicing up for next Tuesday. The facts are on the side of the truth each and every time, and just like every time when it comes to matters political, you choose to believe the liberal media rather than the facts that clearly support the truth. 6 Biggest Media Lies About Ben Carson


I welcome you to keep pretending right along with them Gene, cause Hillaryous is basically a twice baked criminal potato at this point, and everyone with half a brain KNOWS it and won't be voting for her. What has been called the Democrat party for the last 50+ years is currently in free fall FAILING HARD mode. Obozo and Hillaryous are going down and no amount of spin in the universe is going to change that at this point. Maybe madam bling can redecorate their soon to be occupied prison cell. She's been so good at spending our money on herself and her family. Obama Family Vacations Surpass $100 Million

Obozo's Big Top, where the sham and shame never ends. http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public...d-09265cfef49e/arizona-regulatory-wrap-up.pdf
 
You've been inundated with facts and figures. You've ignored all of them. Do I label that head in the sand, or are you so wedded to your belief system that you can't see beyond the alt-right bubble?
 
Kansas is still bleeding, thanks to tea party economics
Kansas is still bleeding, thanks to tea party economics
TEXT: "Give some credit to Sam Brownback, the far-right Republican governor of Kansas: He’s got tenacity. Confronted by an unbroken string of reports that his fiscal policies are leading his state to economic ruin, he hasn’t given an inch.

"We’ve been chronicling the tea party ruination of Brownback’s Kansas formore than two years, since soon after he enacted a slew of dramatic tax cuts in the conviction that they would unleash stupendous economic growth.

"The latest evidence to the contrary comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which has just released its monthly survey of economic indices for the 50 states.The survey compiles state-level statistics on nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing by production workers, the unemployment rate, and inflation-adjusted wages and salaries.

"Kansas ranked rock-bottom in the three-month change in these metrics from July through September, with a decline of 1.18%. Indeed, it was one of only eight states that showed any decline. The U.S. average gained 0.64%. Most of the other states with negative changes were oil-and-gas producers. Kansas is too, but that industry has been a tiny factor in its economy for years.

"How bad is the situation in Kansas? So bad that in August 2015, the Brownback administration stopped publishing a semi-annual report of the state’s economy online; henceforth, members of the public have to make a special request for the document. A spokesman for the governor said the step was taken because the reports had become the 'the subject of careless scrutiny' and were 'confusing.' That’s like saying that people might be confused by the setting sun into thinking that night is coming.

"Yael Abouhalkah, a Kansas City Star columnist who tracks the Brownback economy assiduously, got his hands on two recent reports anyway, for November 2015 and February 2016. He found them not confusing at all. They painted a 'doom and gloom scenario' in which the gross state product had declined from 2014 through 2015, and that growth in personal income, nonfarm employment and private industry wages all trailed the region and the country as a whole. Sales tax collections were up, but that’s because Brownback enacted two sales tax increases to compensate for his other tax cuts. The general effect was to burden the middle class and poor with costs that wealthier Kansans escape.

“ 'No wonder Gov. Sam Brownback … killed a quarterly report aimed at telling Kansans how his policies are affecting the state economy,' Abouhalkah observed.

"The Kansas experience is important because the notion that dramatic tax cuts pay for themselves by spurring economic growth still unaccountably has an allure for conservative policymakers, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Brownback, who took office in 2010, promised that 'our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.' He was seconded by his tax advisor, the notorious Arthur Laffer, who forecast “enormous prosperity” for the state.

"The tax package Brownback enacted in 2012 cut the top personal income tax rates sharply. The rate on income under $30,000 was pared to 3% from 3.5%. Pass-through business income was made fully tax-exempt. The law increased the standard deduction, but also eliminated several tax credits that assisted the poor.

"In follow-on changes the next year, the top income tax rate was cut further. But other cuts were reversed, effectively raising taxes for the middle class and working class. In all, as was documented by the Washington-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the changes cut the taxes of the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2% and raised them for the poorest 20% by 1.3%.

"It should go without saying that far from paying for themselves, these cuts have blown a huge and growing hole in the state budget. Income tax collections are more than 22% below their pre-cut levels. Schools, universities and road repairs all have taken a hit in spending. As the chart below shows, the Kansas economy has lagged behind the U.S. and neighboring Missouri for years. We’ve added a line to show the progress of the economy of California, which has the reputation for being a spendthrift but has gotten its fiscal house in order by raising taxes. [see article for graph]

"Brownback and his Republican colleagues have responded by hammering the neediest residents of his state, enacting an outstandingly punitive and irrelevant package of welfare reforms, barring the spending of relief funds on movies, at swimming pools or on 'cruise ships,' as well as 'adult' clubs or stores. (But it’s OK to spend the money on guns.) The measure also placed a $25 daily limit on ATM withdrawals using the debit cards issued to recipients, which made the cards useless for major spending, such as paying the rent and exposed users to relentless ATM fees. The state’s motto evidently was, OK if the banks drain your funds, but don’t dare use the money at a swimming pool.

"Who’s to blame for this? The state’s voters are. While they already were feeling the pain, they reelected Brownback to a second term in 2014, at which point things got worse. Why? Maybe the electorate revels in the state’s role as a “laboratory for supply side nostrums,” as economist Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin called it recently. Some of those who voted for Brownback deserve what they’re getting. But they’re imposing the disaster on a lot of innocent people."
 
You've been inundated with facts and figures. You've ignored all of them. Do I label that head in the sand, or are you so wedded to your belief system that you can't see beyond the alt-right bubble?

ROTFLMAO!!! When precisely?

NO ONE, including yourself, has shown me a single fact or figure refuting ANYTHING that I have directly stated so far. If you have, simply link back to it. Editorial is not fact Gene, just like rhetoric is not fact. I link to every single fact and figure I reference. You see Gene, I'm not one of those people that just believes what he hears unlike those who take all their cues from the TV. Show me the money!
 
ROTFLMAO!!! When precisely?

NO ONE, including yourself, has shown me a single fact or figure refuting ANYTHING that I have directly stated so far. If you have, simply link back to it. Editorial is not fact Gene, just like rhetoric is not fact. I link to every single fact and figure I reference. You see Gene, I'm not one of those people that just believes what he hears unlike those who take all their cues from the TV. Show me the money!
Here's one:
https://www.princeton.edu/~mwatson/papers/DemRep_BlinderWatson_July2015.pdf

1. The stark facts 1.1 Gross domestic product growth and recessions For most of this paper, the data begin at the start of Harry Truman’s elected term and extend through the end of Barack Obama’s first term. This sample contains seven complete Democratic terms (Truman-2, Kennedy-Johnson, Johnson, Carter, Clinton-1, Clinton-2, and Obama-1) and nine complete Republican terms (Eisenhower-1, Eisenhower-2, Nixon, Nixon-Ford, Reagan-1, Reagan-2 , Bush I, Bush II-1, and Bush II-2), where the suffixes denote terms for two-term presidents. Sometimes different samples are used for specific purposes--as will be noted. During the 64 years that make up the core 16 terms, real GDP growth averaged 3.33% at an annual rate. But the average growth rates under Democratic and Republican presidents were starkly different: 4.33% and 2.54% respectively. This 1.79 percentage point gap (henceforth, the “D-R gap”) is astoundingly large relative to the sample mean.4, It implies that over a typical fouryear presidency the U.S. economy grew by 18.5% when the president was a Democrat, but only by 10.6% when he was a Republican. And since the standard deviations of quarterly growth rates are roughly equal (3.8% for Democrats, 3.9% for Republicans, annualized), Democratic presidents have presided over growth that was faster but not more volatile.

Here's another:
Salon38.1.png

And another:
Salon38.2.png

These 5 charts prove that the economy does better under Democratic presidents

You guys seem to care a lot about money. Which makes it really weird that you keep voting Republicans in and making less than you could have.

(PS I've also read the republican's spin that it's all due to dumb luck... which, when taken over a 65 year horizon is mathematically impossible. Republicans in general seem to be terrible with math and fight it with words. But here's the thing about math: it always wins.)
 
Since the faux email story broke clinton has sank in the polls. .now its trump by 1 I cant beleve it if trump becomes president we have the director of the FBI to thank J edger hoover would be proud!

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ROTFLMAO!!! When precisely?

NO ONE, including yourself, has shown me a single fact or figure refuting ANYTHING that I have directly stated so far. If you have, simply link back to it. Editorial is not fact Gene, just like rhetoric is not fact. I link to every single fact and figure I reference. You see Gene, I'm not one of those people that just believes what he hears unlike those who take all their cues from the TV. Show me the money!
Well, there are facts and figures all over the place here that show you are wrong. So it seems you aren't looking or reading anything. You're just blowing smoke.
 
Kansas is still bleeding, thanks to tea party economics
Kansas is still bleeding, thanks to tea party economics
TEXT: "Give some credit to Sam Brownback, the far-right Republican governor of Kansas: He’s got tenacity. Confronted by an unbroken string of reports that his fiscal policies are leading his state to economic ruin, he hasn’t given an inch.

"We’ve been chronicling the tea party ruination of Brownback’s Kansas formore than two years, since soon after he enacted a slew of dramatic tax cuts in the conviction that they would unleash stupendous economic growth.

"The latest evidence to the contrary comes from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which has just released its monthly survey of economic indices for the 50 states.The survey compiles state-level statistics on nonfarm payroll employment, average hours worked in manufacturing by production workers, the unemployment rate, and inflation-adjusted wages and salaries.

"Kansas ranked rock-bottom in the three-month change in these metrics from July through September, with a decline of 1.18%. Indeed, it was one of only eight states that showed any decline. The U.S. average gained 0.64%. Most of the other states with negative changes were oil-and-gas producers. Kansas is too, but that industry has been a tiny factor in its economy for years.

"How bad is the situation in Kansas? So bad that in August 2015, the Brownback administration stopped publishing a semi-annual report of the state’s economy online; henceforth, members of the public have to make a special request for the document. A spokesman for the governor said the step was taken because the reports had become the 'the subject of careless scrutiny' and were 'confusing.' That’s like saying that people might be confused by the setting sun into thinking that night is coming.

"Yael Abouhalkah, a Kansas City Star columnist who tracks the Brownback economy assiduously, got his hands on two recent reports anyway, for November 2015 and February 2016. He found them not confusing at all. They painted a 'doom and gloom scenario' in which the gross state product had declined from 2014 through 2015, and that growth in personal income, nonfarm employment and private industry wages all trailed the region and the country as a whole. Sales tax collections were up, but that’s because Brownback enacted two sales tax increases to compensate for his other tax cuts. The general effect was to burden the middle class and poor with costs that wealthier Kansans escape.

“ 'No wonder Gov. Sam Brownback … killed a quarterly report aimed at telling Kansans how his policies are affecting the state economy,' Abouhalkah observed.

"The Kansas experience is important because the notion that dramatic tax cuts pay for themselves by spurring economic growth still unaccountably has an allure for conservative policymakers, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Brownback, who took office in 2010, promised that 'our new pro-growth tax policy will be like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.' He was seconded by his tax advisor, the notorious Arthur Laffer, who forecast “enormous prosperity” for the state.

"The tax package Brownback enacted in 2012 cut the top personal income tax rates sharply. The rate on income under $30,000 was pared to 3% from 3.5%. Pass-through business income was made fully tax-exempt. The law increased the standard deduction, but also eliminated several tax credits that assisted the poor.

"In follow-on changes the next year, the top income tax rate was cut further. But other cuts were reversed, effectively raising taxes for the middle class and working class. In all, as was documented by the Washington-based Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the changes cut the taxes of the wealthiest 1% of Kansans by 2.2% and raised them for the poorest 20% by 1.3%.

"It should go without saying that far from paying for themselves, these cuts have blown a huge and growing hole in the state budget. Income tax collections are more than 22% below their pre-cut levels. Schools, universities and road repairs all have taken a hit in spending. As the chart below shows, the Kansas economy has lagged behind the U.S. and neighboring Missouri for years. We’ve added a line to show the progress of the economy of California, which has the reputation for being a spendthrift but has gotten its fiscal house in order by raising taxes. [see article for graph]

"Brownback and his Republican colleagues have responded by hammering the neediest residents of his state, enacting an outstandingly punitive and irrelevant package of welfare reforms, barring the spending of relief funds on movies, at swimming pools or on 'cruise ships,' as well as 'adult' clubs or stores. (But it’s OK to spend the money on guns.) The measure also placed a $25 daily limit on ATM withdrawals using the debit cards issued to recipients, which made the cards useless for major spending, such as paying the rent and exposed users to relentless ATM fees. The state’s motto evidently was, OK if the banks drain your funds, but don’t dare use the money at a swimming pool.

"Who’s to blame for this? The state’s voters are. While they already were feeling the pain, they reelected Brownback to a second term in 2014, at which point things got worse. Why? Maybe the electorate revels in the state’s role as a “laboratory for supply side nostrums,” as economist Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin called it recently. Some of those who voted for Brownback deserve what they’re getting. But they’re imposing the disaster on a lot of innocent people."


Precisely what's your point here? We all know that "figures don't lie, liars figure", right? Wrong. Anything can be made to appear as being anything, as long as it's spun in the direction that we want it to be. For instance, Tyger states that the economic mess in Kansas is all due to conservative economic policy. But in truth, what she's really attempting to influence readers with is the perception that liberal economics are superior to conservative economics.

Economists Aren’t As Nonpartisan As We Think

We failed to ask the real question: How long did it take to get Kansas in the economically TOTALED OUT condition that it most definitely WAS in long before Brownback arrived? However, in typical media programmed immediate gratification fashion, the lazy and deserved resound ever so loudly: "But we want our our welfare checks now!"

In fact before too long, everybody political is just another band wagon jumper: With Kansas In Crisis, GOPers Abandon Gov Brownback On Tax Cuts

See, I can play this game too. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs...sas-gov-brownbacks-tax-cuts-for-budget-issues

And, Brownback: Tax cuts not to blame for Kansas revenue shortfall

Where does it end? It doesn't providing we keep playing the game that is "professional politics" as usual.

This is precisely why the majority of the legitimate United States citizenry are going to vote for Trump. We are SICK TO DEATH of politicians and political game playing.

We simply want the REAL United States back, and unquestionably, we want the subsistence and the freeloading garbage gone. Both high ranking and low ranking garbage, is just garbage.

How Welfare Reform Failed
 
Here's one:
https://www.princeton.edu/~mwatson/papers/DemRep_BlinderWatson_July2015.pdf



Here's another:
Salon38.1.png

And another:
Salon38.2.png

These 5 charts prove that the economy does better under Democratic presidents

You guys seem to care a lot about money. Which makes it really weird that you keep voting Republicans in and making less than you could have.

(PS I've also read the republican's spin that it's all due to dumb luck... which, when taken over a 65 year horizon is mathematically impossible. Republicans in general seem to be terrible with math and fight it with words. But here's the thing about math: it always wins.)


Please quote me where I contended or stated otherwise contrary claims to what these graphs claim. Credit taking is ONLY meaningful when it's aligned with method, and justified by reason. Appearances do not equate to reason, nor method. So show me wherein, and specifically how, these economic high points in the USA's history were directly attributable to liberal policy. Otherwise, this is nothing more than a stawman.

You really want to play which president has cost the United States the most in debt, and the tax payers the most money?

National Debt has increased more under Obama than under Bush

How Much Did Obama Add to the Nation's Debt?

nominal%20debt_1.jpg
 
There is no love child. This is why it's impossible to have a sensible discussion on this subject.
With the track record of where Bill Clinton's penis has been, I'd say the odds are pretty favorable that he could in fact have a love child

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
 
No dispute. But it has never been proven. I just think dwelling on this is nonsense, considering that other politicians do the same or worse.

Besides, he is not running for President. He had his chance and did pretty well.
 
Please quote me where I contended or stated otherwise contrary claims to what these graphs claim. Credit taking is ONLY meaningful when it's aligned with method, and justified by reason. Appearances do not equate to reason, nor method. So show me wherein, and specifically how, these economic high points in the USA's history were directly attributable to liberal policy. Otherwise, this is nothing more than a stawman.

You really want to play which president has cost the United States the most in debt, and the tax payers the most money?

National Debt has increased more under Obama than under Bush

How Much Did Obama Add to the Nation's Debt?

nominal%20debt_1.jpg

You do know that borrowed dollars are the cheapest they've ever been in human history right now, right?

It literally makes sense to borrow every $ you can and plow it into future profits given the differential between inflation and lending costs.

If you're a government, that means infrastructure and education.

(However, if it were me, I'd cut your military spending by 80-90% or so)
 
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Of course, he will simply glide over anything negative, in not giving it a second glance, or, produce something entirely off the wall in his defense of Trump.

Although I'm somewhat accustomed to his continual ranting & raving after so many months, I feel as though having shared a small underground bunker with a surly honey badger after this long.
 
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