Buttload of Faith: the 2016 Presidential Primary Thread (Pt 2)

anyhoo the tail end of hilz' op-ed goes

My comprehensive plan has already won praise from progressives like Sherrod Brown and Barney Frank. Here’s what it would do.

First, we need to further rein in major financial institutions. My plan proposes legislation that would impose a new risk fee on dozens of the biggest banks — those with more than $50 billion in assets — and other systemically important financial institutions to discourage the kind of hazardous behavior that could induce another crisis. I would also ensure that the federal government has — and is prepared to use — the authority and tools necessary to reorganize, downsize and ultimately break up any financial institution that is too large and risky to be managed effectively. No bank or financial firm should be too big to manage.

My plan would strengthen the Volcker Rule by closing the loopholes that still allow banks to make speculative gambles with taxpayer-backed deposits. And I would fight to reinstate the rules governing risky credit swaps and derivatives at taxpayer-backed banks, which were repealed during last year’s budget negotiations after a determined lobbying campaign by the banks.

My plan also goes beyond the biggest banks to include the whole financial sector. Some have urged the return of a Depression-era rule called Glass-Steagall, which separated traditional banking from investment banking. But many of the firms that contributed to the crash in 2008, like A.I.G. and Lehman Brothers, weren’t traditional banks, so Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have limited their reckless behavior. Nor would restoring Glass-Steagall help contain other parts of the “shadow banking” sector, including certain activities of hedge funds, investment banks and other non-bank institutions. My plan would strengthen oversight of these activities, too — increasing leverage and liquidity requirements for broker-dealers and imposing strict margin requirements on the kinds of short-term borrowing that also played a major role in spurring the financial crisis. We need to tackle excessive risk wherever it lurks, not just in the banks.

Second, I would appoint tough, independent regulators and ensure that both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are independently funded — as other critical regulators are now — so that they can do their jobs without political interference. I would seek to impose a tax on harmful high-frequency trading, which makes markets less stable and less fair. And we need to reform stock market rules to ensure equal access to information, increase transparency and minimize conflicts of interest.

Finally, executives need to be held more accountable. No one should be too big to jail. I would seek to extend the statute of limitations for major financial crimes to 10 years from five and enhance rewards for whistle-blowers. I would work to ensure that financial firms admit wrongdoing as part of settlements in instances of egregious misconduct, and increase transparency about the terms of settlement and the fines actually paid to the government. Fines should be more than just the cost of doing business to these companies — they should be an effective disincentive for illegal behavior.

And it shouldn’t just be shareholders and taxpayers who feel the pain when banks make bad decisions; executives should have skin in the game. When a firm pays a fine, I would make sure that the penalty cuts into executives’ bonuses, too. And I would fight to close the carried interest loophole that gives some fund managers billions of dollars in tax breaks: They should be taxed like every other citizen.

Republicans may have decided to forget about the financial crisis that caused so much devastation — but I haven’t. The proper role of Wall Street is to help Main Street grow and prosper. When our financial sector works the right way, it helps families buy their first homes, entrepreneurs start and grow small businesses and hardworking Americans save for retirement. Rather than pursuing the kind of high-stakes speculation that devastated our economy before, Wall Street should focus on building an economy that creates good-paying jobs, rising incomes and sound investments so that more families can achieve the security of a middle-class life.

xp yeah, me too.
i have to think this is trolling now, it's too completely insane.

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-banning-muslims-from-entering-u-s/?module=Notification&version=BreakingNews®ion=FixedTop&action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=55556649&pgtype=article

“Until we are able to determine and understand this problem and the dangerous threat it poses, our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump confirmed the authenticity of the statement. Asked what prompted it, Mr. Trump said, “death,” according to the spokeswoman.

well then we better ban high blood pressure too then Donald

font looks familiar

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVp3MbGUAAA2Hxr.jpg

Death is the name of his dog

a modest proposal

"My proposal would be so modest. You watch!"

'mohammed was a loser, there aren't even any good pictures of him'

grossness of any such proposal aside, how do you determine if someone is a muslim? the japanese internment camps were one of the worst missteps ever enacted, but it was based on someone being an immigrant or a descendant of an immigrant from a particular country, something that could theoretically be checked via records

other than "you're a muslim if you admit you're a muslim, or we SAY you're a muslim" how would this even work?

"i'm coming from saudi arabia and i'm an atheist" declaration seems like it'd be a way around any such ban, but...

yeah it is utterly useless.

surely we can devise some tests, let's get to work

1) ask them to face Mecca. If they face in the correct direction they are obviously not American.

plus the obvious next step is to round up muslims, because why would you stop letting muslims in if you're not going to do anything about the ones that are already in etc etc

what a gesticulating sack of crap

A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump confirmed the authenticity of the statement. Asked what prompted it, Mr. Trump said, “death,” according to the spokeswoman.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/donald-trumps-call-to-ban-muslim-immigrants/419298/

roundup of insta-reax

Rand Paul tried to introduce a bill preventing anyone from 33 countries including the UAE, Iran, Russia, Turkey, Kuwait, Indonesia and Nigeria from entering the U.S. last week so I'd imagine Trump's proposal would be an extension of that.

When asked by The Hill whether that would include Muslim-American citizens currently abroad, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks replied over email: "Mr. Trump says, 'everyone.'"

has Trump even read the First Amendment

really wish my goddamn friend would stop posting OMIGOD THE HORROR posts on Facebook. That's what this imbecile wants.

*friends

yeah the blaring "BREAKING NEWS" stuff is really unnecessary. this is empty posturing from a windbag, it affects nothing

sorry alfred : (

let's grab a drink, j

This has to be the beginning of the end of Trump, right?

If I were a billionaire asshole, I'd worry I'd be so bored of life that I'd start saying the craziest shit, just to entertainment myself. Party of one.

Like, assuming Trump doesn't really want the job, he has to be wondering why he's been doing as well as he'd be doing. He's probably been praying to his favorite part of the Bible for some gaffe that finally lets him drop out, (bad) reputation intact. Like, if he's doing well and he drops out, he's a quitter. But if he starts faltering he can blame the media for distorting and ignoring The Truth.

That's his strategy so far: force the Mark Halperns to catch up to him.

This has to be the beginning of the end of Trump, right?

― you're breaking the NAP (DJP), Monday, December 7, 2015 4:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's what everyone said when he insulted john mccain! idk i think we need to buckle up and prepare for a really long period of this shit.

instead of announcing plans to, really this time, crush trump, the GOP pro class just needs to start cutting whatever deals to kick all of its single digit guys to the curb. but they probably won't

i guess i live in hope that NH and IA will how trump to be a paper tiger. the reminder that pat buchanan did well in NH isn't helping me with that.

I just can't see the GOP being at all sanguine with one of their frontrunners loudly and proudly advocating for turning the US into a blatantly fascist state.

The pro class, no, but, damn, read NRO comments today.

I will not be doing that

feel free to summarize for laffs tho!

xp: Why would I ever do that, though? NRO commenters have already shown that they despise my very existence through their commentary and I don't feel the need to satisfy their petulant desire for attention at the expense of my mental well-being.

like at this point you might as well say "check out the comments on St*rmfr*nt" and I'd have the same reaction

That's how you would write if if you tried to pronounce it with a mouthful of marshmallows.

Write it, sorry. Strmfrnt fluffy bunny.

I need to somehow find a way to block any mention of the inevitable polls following this shit.

I only mentioned it because a large chunk of the conservative base does agree with Trump; I'm not advocating injecting your system with a speedball made of heroin and cockroach spray.

Enh, 33% at last look. It's still a ridiculous number, but that means 2/3 of Republicans want someone else.

33% + the ~12-15% who still support Carson for some reason + ~3% who like Fiorina (who is just fucking insane) +, arguably, the ~15% or so that like Ted Cruz. Does anyone think Cruz is going to come out against Trump on banning Muslims from entering the country? Hell, I'm sure Cruz was just waiting for Trump to do it so he can follow his lead.

Point is, there's a lot more people than Trump's crew that are ALSO terrible fucking assholes, on both the candidate and voter side of the equation.

actually, the more i think about it, maybe this is a way for trump to attract more evangelical christians? it's a dog whistle. he says he's a christian and tries to mention the bible when he can, but i think his faith isn't convincing to midwestern evangelicals. but he can try to step around concerns about the sincerity of his christianity by, i don't know, doing things that increase the chances of the apocalypse. there was this poll where 23% of americans said Jesus Christ will "definitely" return to earth by the year 2050, while another 18% said he "probably" will. i feel like those kind of apocalyptic believers are more common than people realize, and that they would be receptive to Trump's awful islamophobia.

the idiot caucus really doing well in the primary season

does trump have any advisers with like, experience in a presidential campaign? this seems like a furious response to one poll showing him behind cruz in iowa rather than an astute political strategy

i'm not sure whether possibly being a ~loser~ or merely losing everyone's attention is worse to him, but with eight weeks till voting starts, he's at risk of running out of crazy gestures

not sure i buy into the notion that trump has an exhaustible supply of crazy

He should host a TV competition to run his campaign.

i read today a third of republicans in Iowa believe Islam should be outlawed in the US

turns out that poll is from September, wonder how much higher the number is today

why would you care about elections at all if Jesus is on the way?

he checks how you voted, kind of like santa

I'm not sure an advisor got anywhere near that statement, the sentence structure is pure "get outta the way, let me at the keyboard <puts on poker visor>".