I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

we should definitely start thinking about who has supported the concept of walls over the last several thousand years and evaluate their christianity accordingly

I fully believe that Kristol is that stupid

i want a candidate who prioritizes "Sugar Walls"

Next thing you know, the Pope's going to accuse East Germans (communists) (the Berlin Wall) of not being Christian!

xp: but you hate Bill Clinton

What's next?! Pink Floyd (The Wall)?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV4QEM8u-ME

you know who hated Walls? Reagan.

Next thing you know, the Pope's going to accuse Steve Carell's wife (Nancy Walls) of not being Christian!

Belgium's Walloons: Christian or not? The world needs to know.

that Kristol tweet is real btw

xp

"WE MUST BUILD A WALLOGINA.JPEG"

off topic but i tried to do just that a few months ago (a new version, at least) and encountered all sorts of unexpected difficulties

omg i didn't see that the trump campaign said some of the 9/11 hijackers trained under jeb bush's watch in florida. so good.

off topic but i tried to do just that a few months ago (a new version, at least) and encountered all sorts of unexpected difficulties

I'd guess working with the models would be difficult

it's sad/funny to see some people (like, say, Lindsey Graham) conflating being a 9/11 truther with acknowledging that Bush lied/was wrong about invading Iraq, as if those things are at all related

xp

the original is no longer on the thread!
NSFW OR ANYTHING ELSE: the individual 'ginas of wallogina

it's realy sad, it was a wall of vaginas

don't you see?? it was about so much more than that.

Just catching up with the day's events. I'm anything but religious, but wow. There's literally no one left for Trump to pick a fight with except Reagan.

http://www.greatwallofvagina.co.uk/great-wall-vagina-panels

it was about a community

what does ilx think about the back-and-forth over whether bernie's plans are economically reasonable or not? it seems like there's a lot of noise that the savings on single payer healthcare are overstated (or v optimistic) and then i just read this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/02/18/the_sanders_campaign_is_living_in_an_economic_fantasy_world.html and i read this yesterday: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/21/1473088/-Sanders-and-his-170-Experts-A-Closer-Look

it does seem like somewhat relevant information, though maybe not necessarily a dealbreaker (esp if you don't think he'd be able to institute any of these plans anyway)

Willie D goes in on Ted Cruz:

Willie D told Golodryga that the Cruz camp did not alert the Geto Boys before using the song in the ad that is a parody of a scene from the 1999 Mike Judge movie “Office Space.” Willie D said: “I found out like everybody else. This guy didn’t have the common decency to just reach out and say, ‘Hey man, I know you don’t like me. I know I’m the scum of the earth, but please can I use your song?’”

Last week Cruz communications director Rick Tyler spoke to Golodryga and called the ad “creative.” Willie D’s response: “I think it’s blasphemy. Our fans and the fans of ‘Office Space,’ Mike Judge, they have an image of great art in their head and when he put that ad out, it pretty much blemished that image. Now it’s associated with some garbage.”

Willie D does not relate to Cruz’s family story either. He said, “I just don’t see how this guy could be emotional or empathetic towards anybody because I don’t believe he’s all the way human. I don’t even think the dude has a heart.” He continued, “I think he’s the Tin Man. I don’t think he has a heart. He’s a self-aggrandizing, insufferable douchebag.”

The hip-hop artist did not know much about Senator Cruz before the advertisement came out. Why? He said, “Nobody really pays attention to Ted Cruz.” He continued, “Even Donald Trump doesn’t like him. … That says a lot for Donald Trump, to say somebody doesn’t like somebody with all of the people who don’t like him. That says a lot. This guy is even less likeable than Donald Trump.”

Willie D’s message to Senator Cruz: “You owe us an apology. You owe our fans an apology. I want an apology, Ted.”

He concluded: “To say that we should be grateful for someone basically taking a dump on our music. That’s saying that imagine if somebody mugs you and then they told you, ‘Well, you should be happy that you got mugged.’ At least people know who you are now. That’s crazy.”

How do federal/state jurisdictions work when it comes to education? Can free tuition be mandated at the federal level?

no

right now, with Trump's followers, he could say Reagan was a "cocksmoker" and many of them would just reply "tis true, he did smoke cocks!".

problem is his base "as-is" ain't gonna be enough to win a General Election, and some of his constituents might be doing the Seinfeld Exit after this.

for ex University of California - which, once upon a time, was totally free to California residents - is governed by the UC Board of Regents, who are appointed by the Governor of California. It is not connected to the federal government at all (beyond, I'm sure, receiving grants etc.)

xp

I have no real idea what Sanders means when he says "free tuition for everybody" - maybe he just means the federal government would literally pay for students' tuition? there's no legal way the federal government could compel a state to just absorb the cost of all of its public university students.

A little something we may all need in the near future:

http://tedcruzforamerica.com/

xpost to mordy on sanders economics -

i read the first one of those - not sure what we're left with at the end though. so the economy won't grow as much as this dude says it will, and the sanders people have been too rosy-eyed in touting his estimate, and that's irresponsible? i mean, i guess, but it's not quite the same as whether his plan is economically reasonable. it could still be a great plan, just not as great, right?

is the idea that sanders is counting on this absurd level of growth in order for taxes to pay for other things in his scheme, the way republicans insist that they can still pay for everything if you cut taxes, because of growth? but it can't be that, right, because these aren't sanders's numbers - they postdate the plan. anyway, is sanders really selling his plan in terms of how it will grow the economy? i know he says "we'll do X, we'll do Y, we'll bring back the middle class and we'll grow our economy," so, yeah, okay - - - but my understanding is that when a guy gets up and spends nearly all his time, every time, talking about the 1% and the 99%, the point is that the economy is already big enough and that the rigged game is in the distribution. "almost all of the new wealth is going to the top 1%" ---> so i'm going to do X Y and Z to keep that from happening. right? the whole problem he's critiquing is the bogus narrative where GDP growth, in a vacuum, means anything.

or is the idea just "he's making it sound like his plan will do more than it can" which is sort of like politics 101, no news here folks. apologies if i've missed something big though, i've been writing some big papers and moving shit around in scrivener for days and i think my addled brain is leading me to much worse ILX politics posts than usual.

i guess the federal government could issue blank-check pell grants or something, but it would also have to pressure schools into not raising tuitions accordingly and for which there is no clear or legal leverage

every time i look at slate there's at least two or three new articles calling sanders "delusional" about something

"Sanders Delusional: Claims the Wire is Better than the Sopranos"

for ex University of California - which, once upon a time, was totally free to California residents - is governed by the UC Board of Regents, who are appointed by the Governor of California. It is not connected to the federal government at all (beyond, I'm sure, receiving grants etc.)

xp

― Οὖτις, Thursday, 18 February 2016 17:12 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have no real idea what Sanders means when he says "free tuition for everybody" - maybe he just means the federal government would literally pay for students' tuition? there's no legal way the federal government could compel a state to just absorb the cost of all of its public university students.

This was sort of what I expected. It seems like a crazy thing to promise.

Watching the PBS debate, I found myself tending to agree with both Clinton's and Sanders's criticisms of each other.

re: Sanders's college plan - I agree that it's not well spelled out. My assumption (see this long rambling post) has always been something like, the federal government would be issuing block grants for tuition, paid for from this big new Wall Street tax fund, but with strings attached - like highway money. So maybe it would require that tuition be kept to a certain level, or that salaries for administrators are pegged to some standard, or whatever. And your state and board of regents could say, ehh, fuck this, you can keep your dirty money, we make our own decisions around here .... but only if it felt like facing the mass uprising of basically every parent in the state.

For private school (and, I figure, graduate school at public institutions), he proposes cutting student loan interest rates and eliminating all interest on federal loans. As previously noted, even a compromise halfway version of any of those proposals would do a hell of a lot of good, but it's probably the one plank in his platform that seems the easiest to pass despite what would no doubt be desperate Wall Street lobbying, unless Republicans take up Hillary's tendentious "but Donald Trump's kids could go to school on your plan" line.

hmm, that post i linked is not the one i was thinking of. sorry about that. well, you get the idea.

oh here we go: a clown car full of millionaires: the 2016 presidential primary thread

also sanders's plan in very slightly more detail: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/download/collegeforallsummary/?inline=file

Today, total tuition at public colleges and universities amounts to about $70 billion per year. Under the College for All Act, the federal government would cover 67% of this cost, while the states would be responsible for the remaining 33% of the cost. To qualify for federal funding, states must meet a number of requirements designed to protect students, ensure quality, and reduce ballooning costs. States will need to maintain spending on their higher education systems, on academic instruction, and on need-based financial aid. In addition, colleges and universities must reduce their reliance on low-paid adjunct faculty. States would be able to use funding to increase academic opportunities for students, hire new faculty, and provide professional development opportunities for professors. No funding under this program may be used to fund administrator salaries, merit-based financial aid, or the construction of non-academic buildings like stadiums and student centers.

And your state and board of regents could say, ehh, fuck this, you can keep your dirty money, we make our own decisions around here

I can't conceive of any state's public higher education institutions agreeing to this - what benefit is it to them if the money comes from the feds or from the students' themselves? Costs at UC are insane, they would never agree to sacrificing autonomy just so students don't have to foot a bill, especially students that come from out of state and whose parents aren't CA voters.

xxp

presidential campaign promises (as stated) that never come to fruition: half? 80% 90% They're theatrical signifiers, not literal criteria.

maybe i am crazy/naive but i feel like the political pressure on state governors to get their regents to take the money would be enormous. any sitting governor who doesn't take the deal, however they hem and haw about applications and keeping our schools independent, would be painting a target on themselves for the next election. i mean you could not be handed an easier issue to run on: governor bozo turned away thirty bajillion dollars that would have sent YOUR KIDS to college TUITION FREE. of course i can imagine situations where that doesn't win, and the kinds of arguments the governors would use, but it doesn't seem like an open and shut "nope" to me.

yeah, it makes no difference to the board, sure, but that's like saying hospital administrators see no difference whether the money comes from patients or from free health care. that doesn't mean free health care doesn't have a powerful constituency lobbying for "take the money!" once it's available to be claimed! (which also doesn't mean there are not opposing forces, obviously!)

("applications"? i have no idea what word i meant to put there.)

The 1% aren't the only ones getting screwed this election season

http://berniesingles.com

Also, the very existence of the program would weaken many of the boards' arguments against its attached strings. If the schools in all the neighboring states have caps on administrative salaries or whatever other tuition-ballooning expenses, it gets harder to say "we NEED to pay the president $1.5 million a year or we'll lose them!" Plus a lot of the stuff the board would be defending would be stuff everybody hates anyway, like really outrageous ratios of administration to faculty. I think "we'll lose our autonomy" will ring pretty weak in those circumstances, up against your kid being saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. But again, I may be naive or crazy.

but states would be on the hook for 33% of the tuition as well - where's that gonna come from, state taxes? "Now MY taxes are sending some kid from New Jersey to Berkeley? Fuck that!" I don't think it's an open and shut case at all. Could easily be sold as just increasing costs for everybody across the board.

xp

I mean UC tuition is insane - some kid from a state with shittier schools could conceivably get into UC and not pay a dime, while no one from CA goes to their state's shitty schools, and CA taxpayers end up footing the bill.

the Lobster works WILLIAMSBURG

http://gawker.com/i-watched-bill-clinton-not-play-the-saxophone-at-a-bowl-1759877462

idk this is all so hypothetical Morbz otm this plan has no chance of passage etc.

The 1% aren't the only ones getting screwed this election season

http://berniesingles.com

― mookieproof, Thursday, February 18, 2016 5:45 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

loooool

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