Both parties are poorly informed especially about foreign policy. They support one group and then another and another. From a distance they both make noise just for the at home electorate who has even less knowledge of the real situation and don't really care too much as long as they are getting richer. It mostly comes down to money and replacing the previous administration. The US has no friends in the Middle East unless they are being bribed like the Egyptian army. It is just like a big blundering elephant on drugs. Hopeless.
Because people are still under the illusion that a single person can actually accomplish something meaningful in a den of criminals. Silly.
I would say the US after 9/11 was more like a rhinoceros (maybe my favorite animal). It can't see well but it has acute hearing and its instinct is to charge first and ask questions later. Or not ask questions at all. It doesn't bluff and charges with the intent of making a big gash in the underside of whatever threat has come into range. A rhino shits with the force of a fire-hose. It has to be seen to be believed. If the US is an animal its a rhino.
To me it's that simple. Surely there is a correlation between credit cycles and political party cycles. Common sense says you only need to protect profit when you are profitable. The stock market rally is basically corporate fundraising. BD
Connecticut’s crucial lesson: Democrats can win when they listen to progressives Dannel Malloy waged a fiercely economic populist campaign against a tough opponent -- and he won LUKE BRINKER Amid this week’s disastrous Democratic drubbing, Connecticut emerged as one of the few bright spots for Democrats. Facing a formidable challenge from wealthy investor Tom Foley, whom he defeated by less than one percentage point in 2010, Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy secured another term, fending off Foley 51 to 48 percent. For Democrats seeking a way forward after Tuesday’s rout, Malloy’s victory is instructive: when Democrats build a record of progressive achievements — and run campaigns based on that record — they can win. Running against a multimillionaire opponent who paid only $673 in federal taxes in 2013, Malloy naturally lobbed plenty of populist rhetorical barbs at Foley. But Malloy also boasted something many Democrats who lost Tuesday night did not — an actual track record of economic populist accomplishments. Malloy could point to specific policies he’d signed into law — most notably, mandatory paid sick leave and the nation’s first-ever state-level minimum wage increase to $10.10 an hour — that benefited Connecticut families but would be jeopardized if Foley, who opposed those policies, won the governorship. Private Democratic polling showed that attacked Foley for his opposition to such economic security issues was an effective strategy, and Malloy went after Foley relentlessly for opposing paid sick days and the $10.10 minimum wage. A late-stage Malloy ad — aired as public polling indicated a tied race — put the issues at the very top. “On Tuesday, you future is on the ballot,” the ad’s narrator began. “What kind of state will Connecticut be? Tom Foley’s made his plans clear. No paid sick days for workers. No to raising the minimum wage.” When Malloy declared victory on election night, he spotlighted paid sick days and the minimum wage as defining issues that put his campaign over the top. Lindsay Farrell, Connecticut director of the Working Families Party, told Salon that the issues resonated with a broad swath of voters. “The core economic issues – such as the minimum wage increase and paid sick days – really drew a contrast between Malloy and Foley, partly because they are issues that really resonate with everybody,” Farrell said. “Everybody has a sense that everybody who works should be paid a decent wage and people who get sick shouldn’t have to choose between their health and losing their job or losing their pay.” But, Farrell noted, Malloy signed both paid sick leave and the minimum wage increase into law despite encountering opposition among more moderate Democrats in the state legislature, particularly on the former. “When we passed paid sick days, when we passed the minimum wage increase, it wasn’t easy,” she said. “We had a lot of opposition from more moderate Democrats. In Connecticut, there are strong Democratic majorities in both chambers, but you get a lot of opposition from moderate, corporate Democrats [bold mine]. So if they had won the day on those issues, we’d probably be preparing for Gov. Foley right now, because Malloy would have been without these strong economic justice issues to run a campaign on.” The lesson for Democrats? Progressive economic measures are “not just good policies,” Farrell said. “They’re good politics. Things that give people economic security and tackle economic inequality in this country are popular with voters,” she added. Results elsewhere bear this out. Bloomberg Politics’ Dave Weigel observes that while Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia barely survived after running a “radical centrist” campaign about the importance of slashing the national debt, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Al Franken cruised to a 10-point victory over his GOP opponent after a remarkably economic populist campaign. Earlier this year, most commentators — including this one — would have told you that of the two senators, Warner was almost certain to win by a larger margin. But as Weigel argues, “Franken proved that voters respond to direct arguments about their economic angst better than they respond to promises that Washington is going to Fix the Debt.” Will the rest of the Democratic Party take note?
Triumph of the Wrong NOV. 6, 2014 The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet midterms to men of understanding. Or as I put it on the eveof another Republican Party sweep, politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth. Still, it’s not often that a party that is so wrong about so much does as well as Republicans did on Tuesday. I’ll talk in a bit about some of the reasons that may have happened. But it’s important, first, to point out that the midterm results are no reason to think better of the Republican position on major issues. I suspect that some pundits will shade their analysis to reflect the new balance of power — for example, by once again pretending that Representative Paul Ryan’s budget proposals are good-faith attempts to put America’s fiscal house in order, rather than exercises in deception and double-talk. But Republican policy proposals deserve more critical scrutiny, not less, now that the party has more ability to impose its agenda. So now is a good time to remember just how wrong the new rulers of Congress have been about, well, everything. First, there’s economic policy. According to conservative dogma, which denounces any regulation of the sacred pursuit of profit, the financial crisis of 2008 — brought on by runaway financial institutions — shouldn’t have been possible. But Republicans chose not to rethink their views even slightly. They invented an imaginary history in which the government was somehow responsible for the irresponsibility of private lenders, while fighting any and all policies that might limit the damage. In 2009, when an ailing economy desperately needed aid, John Boehner, soon to become the speaker of the House, declared: “It’s time for government to tighten their belts.” So here we are, with years of experience to examine, and the lessons of that experience couldn’t be clearer. Predictions that deficit spending would lead to soaring interest rates, that easy money would lead to runaway inflation and debase the dollar, have been wrong again and again. Governments that did what Mr. Boehner urged, slashing spending in the face of depressed economies, have presided over Depression-level economic slumps. And the attempts of Republican governors to prove that cutting taxes on the wealthyis a magic growth elixir have failed with flying colors. In short, the story of conservative economics these past six years and more has been one of intellectual debacle — made worse by the striking inability of many on the right to admit error under any circumstances. Then there’s health reform, where Republicans were very clear about what was supposed to happen: minimal enrollments, more people losing insurance than gaining it, soaring costs. Reality, so far, has begged to differ, delivering above-predicted sign-ups, a sharp drop in the number of Americans without health insurance, premiums well below expectations, and a sharp slowdown in overall health spending. And we shouldn’t forget the most important wrongness of all, on climate change. (bold mine) As late as 2008, some Republicans were willing to admit that the problem is real, and even advocate serious policies to limit emissions — Senator John McCain proposed a cap-and-trade system similar to Democratic proposals. But these days the party is dominated by climate denialists, and to some extent by conspiracy theorists who insist that the whole issue is a hoax concocted by a cabal of left-wing scientists. Now these people will be in a position to block action for years to come, quite possibly pushing us past the point of no return. But if Republicans have been so completely wrong about everything, why did voters give them such a big victory? Part of the answer is that leading Republicans managed to mask their true positions. Perhaps most notably, Senator Mitch McConnell, the incoming majority leader, managed to convey the completely false impression that Kentucky could retain its impressive gains in health coverage even if Obamacare were repealed. But the biggest secret of the Republican triumph surely lies in the discovery that obstructionism bordering on sabotage is a winning political strategy. From Day 1 of the Obama administration, Mr. McConnell and his colleagues have done everything they could to undermine effective policy, in particular blocking every effort to do the obvious thing — boost infrastructure spending — in a time of low interest rates and high unemployment. This was, it turned out, bad for America but good for Republicans. Most voters don’t know much about policy details, nor do they understand the legislative process. So all they saw was that the man in the White House wasn’t delivering prosperity — and they punished his party. Will things change now that the G.O.P. can’t so easily evade responsibility? I guess we’ll find out. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/07/o...n-region&WT.nav=c-column-top-span-region&_r=0