OT: 2008 Elections

[wco81]

She had a double-digit lead in OH, TX and PA for awhile.

She's had good support from people with lower incomes through most of the primary season.

She hasn't played up populism as much.

But the reason she's gotten this support -- single mothers favor her too -- is that times were better in the '90s for lower-income people.

Bill Clinton did get the Earned Income Credit more broadly applied, adding about 15 million more Americans eligible for it.

At the same time, the Clintons hobnobbed and networked with a lot of rich people too.


That's just the way the game is played. Members of congress will stand out in front of a factory but will take money from the factory owners.

I don't excuse her for taking all the big money.

But you can't single her out because you need ridiculous amounts of money to campaign in this big country.

[Naples39]

I don't excuse her for taking all the big money.

But you can't single her out because you need ridiculous amounts of money to campaign in this big country.

Nobody is criticizing her for taking big money, they are criticizing her for taking big money and then saying she will fight big money. At least Edwards didn't take the money before he started making unrealistic promises about fighting ambiguously defined corporate wrongdoing.

[wco81]

Actually it would be funny if she or any other politician took big money and the screwed them over and went populist on them.

But more than likely, it'll be the reverse. She and others will take the big money while spouting populism and mostly serve the big donors, especially to build up for the second term, to line up lucrative speaking engagements after she's out of office.


If any politician screwed over big money, he or she would probably be killed.

[ProvoAnC]

this whole thing sickitates me...

[Naples39]

If any politician screwed over big money, he or she would probably be killed.

LOL. Thanks for the laugh. This thread needed some humor.

Even small tax increases can cost big corporations tens of millions of dollars easy. I guess I missed the part of history where evil entities like 'corporate america' assassinates democrat presidents.

Unless a candidate is accepting campaign funds from the Corleone crime family, that is a ridiculous statement.

[wco81]

Example of Pentagon being out of control.

http://www.slate.com/id/2184481/nav/tap3/

A tactical fighter designed for air-to-air combat is retrofitted with two air-to-ground smart bombs after the end of the Cold War. There is no air force in the world which poses a threat to American air supremacy.

But the Air Force keeps pushing for far more than the number which Gates would support.

They drag out the China canard, which they've been doing for over 40 years. China is a long ways from posing the kind of threat which would justify a huge fleet of F-22s:

it's probably not worth spending tens or hundreds of billions of dollars now for a program like the F-22, which its own sponsors admit might be needed in case a threat develops 20 years in the future.

In fact, 20 years from now, the F-22 is probably obsolete.

[dougb]

Example of Pentagon being out of control.

http://www.slate.com/id/2184481/nav/tap3/

A tactical fighter designed for air-to-air combat is retrofitted with two air-to-ground smart bombs after the end of the Cold War. There is no air force in the world which poses a threat to American air supremacy.

But the Air Force keeps pushing for far more than the number which Gates would support.

They drag out the China canard, which they've been doing for over 40 years. China is a long ways from posing the kind of threat which would justify a huge fleet of F-22s:

it's probably not worth spending tens or hundreds of billions of dollars now for a program like the F-22, which its own sponsors admit might be needed in case a threat develops 20 years in the future.

In fact, 20 years from now, the F-22 is probably obsolete.

You'd expect the military to want to maintain a high level of superiority. But I think a lot of it has to do with institutional inertia. There's a whole complex aimed at procurring, developing, purchasing, and deploying increasingly advanced weaponry.

Lots of civilian jobs depend on manufacturing the weaponry, military careers depend on seeing through the weaponry projects, and political careers depend on the employment brought in by the weapons projects.

Certainly there is hyping of the threats, and splitting up projects amongst a number of congressional districts to increase political support. But I still have the sense that there is a huge amount of inertia in the system.

Best wishes,

Doug

[XXXIV]

Example of Pentagon being out of control.

http://www.slate.com/id/2184481/nav/tap3/

A tactical fighter designed for air-to-air combat is retrofitted with two air-to-ground smart bombs after the end of the Cold War. There is no air force in the world which poses a threat to American air supremacy.

But the Air Force keeps pushing for far more than the number which Gates would support.

They drag out the China canard, which they've been doing for over 40 years. China is a long ways from posing the kind of threat which would justify a huge fleet of F-22s:

it's probably not worth spending tens or hundreds of billions of dollars now for a program like the F-22, which its own sponsors admit might be needed in case a threat develops 20 years in the future.

In fact, 20 years from now, the F-22 is probably obsolete.

You'd expect the military to want to maintain a high level of superiority. But I think a lot of it has to do with institutional inertia. There's a whole complex aimed at procurring, developing, purchasing, and deploying increasingly advanced weaponry.

Lots of civilian jobs depend on manufacturing the weaponry, military careers depend on seeing through the weaponry projects, and political careers depend on the employment brought in by the weapons projects.

Certainly there is hyping of the threats, and splitting up projects amongst a number of congressional districts to increase political support. But I still have the sense that there is a huge amount of inertia in the system.

Best wishes,

Doug

I agree 100%...


Besides, the reason they have air supremacy is because they keep pushing it.

Military bashing is quite the fashion though isnt it?

[dougb]

I don't think it's military bashing for other people to point out that vastly more money is being spent than any rationale calculation of short to medium term threats would support. The interesting question is how much of it is due to the actions of individuals and parties and how much of it is due to the dynamics created by the system itself.

I do agree with WCO that Pentagon spending is out of control. I would imagine (perhaps mistakenly) that there are a lot of people in the military (and even within the Pentagon) who agree that there is spending going on in amounts and on projects that simply isn't justifiable. Institutions as large as the military are by their very nature difficult if not impossible to control even though most of the people within them may have the best of intentions. Sexy programs for missile defense and advanced fighters eat up huge amounts of funding, while funding has been inadequate to provide soldiers with basic protective equipment or decent rehabilitative care after their return home.

Eisenhower warned about the 'military-industrial complex' and I believe that he was warning about precisely the situation that has developed over the half-century since he issued that warning. China is just a public rationale that's provided in order to justify the spending on new technology. I believe that the spending would continue with or without China. There is no conceivable significant conventional or nuclear military threat to the United States in the short to medium term that forces the United States to continue its military buildup - it's pretty much entirely internally driven.

Best wishes,

Doug

[TheHiddenTrack]

Well if we didn't have thousands of nuclear bombs "they" might attack us. I'm sick of all these liberal socialists who think feeding the hungry is a better idea than making bombs.

[XXXIV]

Well if we didn't have thousands of nuclear bombs "they" might attack us. I'm sick of all these liberal socialists who think feeding the hungry is a better idea than making bombs.

Im tired of these extreme arguements from both sides...and they are extreme...not at all funny and pretty f***in stupid....

There should be a God damn way to keep up the military and take care of who needs being taken care of...but that well never happen as long as garbage sarcasm flows from bot extremes...

funny though dude...NOT!

[XXXIV]

I would imagine (perhaps mistakenly) that there are a lot of people in the military (and even within the Pentagon) who agree that there is spending going on in amounts and on projects that simply isn't justifiable. Institutions as large as the military are by their very nature difficult if not impossible to control even though most of the people within them may have the best of intentions. Sexy programs for missile defense and advanced fighters eat up huge amounts of funding, while funding has been inadequate to provide soldiers with basic protective equipment or decent rehabilitative care after their return home.

Well said....

[TheHiddenTrack]

Well if we didn't have thousands of nuclear bombs "they" might attack us. I'm sick of all these liberal socialists who think feeding the hungry is a better idea than making bombs.

There should be a God damn way to keep up the military and take care of who needs being taken care of...but that well never happen as long as garbage sarcasm flows from bot extremes...

funny though dude...NOT!

Oh I thought it was going to bring the house down, poor me. What I said was not extreme. America chooses to have homeless people. America's "defense" as it is so conveniently called, has been continually wasting money for decades. I'm not a pacifist but it should be a joke to anyone with eyes. Of course there are real threats and it's good that we have a military, but our leaders have rarely shown the ability to act rationally with this military.

[XXXIV]

Well if we didn't have thousands of nuclear bombs "they" might attack us. I'm sick of all these liberal socialists who think feeding the hungry is a better idea than making bombs.

There should be a God damn way to keep up the military and take care of who needs being taken care of...but that well never happen as long as garbage sarcasm flows from bot extremes...

funny though dude...NOT!

I'm not a pacifist but it should be a joke to anyone with eyes. .

Govt wastes in everything it gets involved in.

I dont see the joke.

[JackB1]

Well if we didn't have thousands of nuclear bombs "they" might attack us. I'm sick of all these liberal socialists who think feeding the hungry is a better idea than making bombs.

You wouldn't feel that way of YOU were one of the hungry.

[webdanzer]

Well if we didn't have thousands of nuclear bombs "they" might attack us. I'm sick of all these liberal socialists who think feeding the hungry is a better idea than making bombs.

You wouldn't feel that way of YOU were one of the hungry.

Better check the batteries in your sarcasm detector, Jack.

[JackB1]

She had a double-digit lead in OH, TX and PA for awhile.

Hillary's lead in Texas is down to just 5%. If Obama can win Texas, while Hillary wins Ohio that would be huge for Obama and might give him a big enough lead going into the convention.

[FatPitcher]

Feeding hungry people is covered just fine by private charities, so that's a straw man. Of course there is waste in defense spending, just like there is waste in all government programs.

And of course if military readiness is not adequate when there's actually a war to fight, we can always blame the SecDef instead of a decade of spending cuts. If we or one of our allies gets hit by an ICBM, we can pretend that we never advocated cutting missile defense programs; we just wanted to be "smarter" about deciding where the money went.

[wco81]

If we spend hundreds of billions on missile defense and we get hit by hundreds of missiles, then what?

Lets try to develop systems to intercept bullets, shall we? Should be about as effective.

[Brando70]

The problem is, any time there is an element of fear, military waste goes through the roof. It happened a lot during the Cold War, and we threw billions at ill-advised weapons development programs and unscrupulous contractors gouging the military because of a lack of oversight. With today's security climate, it's pretty easy to exploit real concerns for spending we don't need or that could be diverted to more appropriate programs.

There's nothing unpatriotic about asking for oversight and accountability from the military.

[XXXIV]

There's nothing unpatriotic about asking for oversight and accountability from the military.

I dont think anyone said there was...

My problem is with the purely politically motivated self serving mud slinging ...It accomplishes nothing and is counter productive.

[pk500]

The problem is, any time there is an element of fear, military waste goes through the roof. It happened a lot during the Cold War, and we threw billions at ill-advised weapons development programs and unscrupulous contractors gouging the military because of a lack of oversight.

Ah, the memories of Star Wars:



Take care,
PK

[XXXIV]

The problem is, any time there is an element of fear, military waste goes through the roof. It happened a lot during the Cold War, and we threw billions at ill-advised weapons development programs and unscrupulous contractors gouging the military because of a lack of oversight.

Ah, the memories of Star Wars:



Take care,
PK

Ahh Reagan's fantasy...Now that, I think, most of us would agree would have been some serious waste if it had come to fruition ...

Though...

Star wars is still around...In a new incarnation, under a different name and a different focus.

Speaking of govt waste and stars...what about NASA...Now there is a budget Id like to see slashed into little tiny pieces.

[wco81]

There's no debate this year about the Pentagon budget.

There's some discussion about the money being spent in Iraq when we're having fiscal issues.

But no real examination of the $595 billion request or how much it's grown in the past few years from around $400 billion or less.

"Peace dividend" is not an option now, because China might one day have a modern military or Islamic terrorists are a greater existential threat than the Eastern Bloc was with its nuclear arsenal and the Warsaw Pact.

[XXXIV]

"Peace dividend" is not an option now, because China might one day have a modern military or Islamic terrorists are a greater existential threat than the Eastern Bloc was with its nuclear arsenal and the Warsaw Pact.

Dont forget about Russia...They have reinstated their long range bomber missions back to cold war levels...Cant blame em though as the US never stopped .