I understand your point, but that is the great thing about her so far. She doesn't get caught up fighting back. She's like teflon. It just slides right off and she skewers them. Maybe after a certain amount of time they might annoy her enough to slip up, but right now, they are giving her more spotlight than she could have dreamed of hoping to get herself.

Another illustration of why I love trevor Noah...

Yeah, but who else is going to work for Trump, especially at this point?

Under previous Republican administrations, there was at least a chance that we could get competent, if not a little bit flawed, people to fill roles like this, and they performed relatively sanely because they had eyes on and plans for their futures.

Under Trump, however, no one even remotely competent would consider signing up to serve. His only options are morally-bankrupt, short-sighted, and deeply flawed individuals who realize that this is the end of the road for their careers. They do this, there is no going back.

Years ago, my father was out of a job (he was a newspaper journalist and his paper went under) for over a year. During that time, someone asked him if he would ever consider writing for The National Enquirer or similar tabloid, and he said no, because "once you go there, no one will ever take you seriously as a journalist again."

That's who is willing to work for Trump, just the folks who are OK with never being taken seriously again. You sell your soul to DJT now, you lose all credibility going forward.

They can try that with Smith.  But Nepolitano was a very conservative jurist.  I disagree with him about 90% of the time.  So if they try to brush him off as a RINO-libtard they're just pissing into the wind. 

Elizabeth Warren in the latest Foreign Affairs :

Infrastructure projects to increase connectivity and expand opportunity across the United States. Educational and job-training policies to produce skilled workers, encourage entrepreneurship, and grow the talent base. Immigration policies to yield a more robust economy and a more diversified work force. Higher education to equip the coming generations for the future without crushing them with debt. High-quality, affordable health care to ensure security and productivity for every person. An economy that is fair and open to entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes. A progressive tax system that requires the wealthy to pay their fair share. A government that is not for sale to the highest bidder.


That strikes me as eminently reasonable.

So far, so good.

If you do the second point above, why do we need this one? Shouldn't the priority be on making sure that the homegrown folks who got the education and job-training that grew the talent base have jobs first? Or is the idea that we'll bring in people from other countries to drive down wages so already rich folks like Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos can get even richer?


I can go along with this...provided our public school system stops spending countless days and weeks getting kids ready for standardized testing as well as getting back to teaching kids HOW to think, not WHAT to think. My 10-year old freaks out every time I have a beer, because she was taught that "alcohol is a dangerous drug, and drugs are bad" and she doesn't want me to turn into an addict, and if I have to see any more blatant propaganda coming home as "accepted" or "settled" science, I'm going to scream.  Teach our kids to think critically and they will be better citizens, not mindless sheep that have their opinions fed to them while they are a captive audience.  


100% agree.

Not sure what this mean. First off, "fairness" is a matter of opinion, so what is "fair" to one person may not be "fair" to another.  Second off, if anyone wants to open a business in this country, they have the ability to do so, and it will succeed and fail on its own merits.  Provide a good or service that is wanted or needed, the business will survive, but open a snow-cone stand in Alaska or a hot chocolate stand in Death Valley, you're going to fail and rightfully so.  

As well, I'm sure she going to make sure that small businesses are treated fairly and aren't crushed out of existence by Amazon, or is it just Walmart that is bad in doing that because Bezos gives lots of money to the Democrats?

Lastly, I'm sure she'll push for tax breaks for small businesses to help them out just like the ones recently handed to Amazon in their recent pimping out of their HQ2 to whatever area(s) were most willing to sell out their residents to higher taxes, higher home prices, and infrastructure constraints in exchange for that sweet, sweet Amazon booty.


And she just lost me. This is meaningless pablum designed to stoke class envy and warfare, and who gets to decide what their "fair share" is anyway?  Also, what will be done with all of the extra money that is collected?  Bigger government with more departments and programs and employees?  No thanks.  I want less government, not an even bigger beast than we currently have.

If, and this is highly doubtful, she means that the tax rate for those down the scale will drop while keeping the federal government locked at its current size, I could get on board with this.  I know that is redistribution of wealth, which as a fiscal conservative I am supposed to be against, but at some point, you have to cut the little guy and gal a break.  Similarly, I'd be fine paying more in income tax at the state level if property taxes were reduced for everyone; the state could more evenly distribute the tax money to the school system, and it would mean I age and potentially make less money, my tax burden goes down and I could keep my house once it's paid off.  

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez recently suggested a 70% tax on income, naively (or intentionally) forgetting that the true 1%, the very tippy-top, the Donald Trumps and Warren Buffetts and Jeff Bezos and Koch Brothers of the world, don't actually earn a sizable "income" to make this matter, as the majority of their money comes from capital gains, which her proposal wouldn't even touch. This would affect the well-off (doctors making a couple $100K annually, athletes, lawyers, and the like, all people who go out and do a job) but not the real scourge, which is the folks who make more money simply by having money to begin with.


Sounds great, but I bet she's thinking just of the Koch Brothers and the like but not George Soros or any of the big dollar Democrat donors who buy just as much influence within the government as the Republican donors do, because they're "altruistic" and not "evil".

Some of this makes perfect sense and is stuff I can get on board with (infrastructure, education, health care), but a good bit of it is the same mindless drivel that the Democrats trot out every four years to get their base all ginned up and frothy.

Warren was careful here: she advocates immigration policies that would be good for the economy without giving any specifics (more immigration? Less immigration? Targeted immigration? In any case, her point is very probably not immigration policies based on ethnic origin or religious affiliation).

An economy-friendly immigration policy should (a) welcome enough immigrants to compensate for the current falling birth rate, and (b) recruit the best and brightest that the world has to offer. I'm sure that there is some calculation in there to also provide cheap labour for American businesses, and that is certainly a point that must be discussed between industry leaders, union representatives and elected officials; but immigrants willing to work for lower pay do not only help push wages down (a bad thing); they also help consumers get goods for less money (a good thing). It's not a black or white issue, but a dynamic equilibrium that must be pushed this way or that depending on the circumstances.




I agree wholeheartedly, although I believe that the main issue is not that we don't teach kids how to think (although that IS a problem); it is that ideology creeps so easily into the curriculum. I'm in my mid fifties now and have seen three generations of kids go through the school system (including my own generation), and I have seen how school textbooks have been adding more and more "relevant" social commentaries in between grammar rules and history lessons. I'm not talking about how textbooks should reflect the normal evolution of a society, but how they can include trendy and unfounded ideas like your beer example or about how the First Nations and the European colonists were really great friends all along. (I swear, in my kids' history books, most of the important conflicts in our North American history have been completely removed, apparently because we don't want to focus on "the negative").

But coming back to Warren's argument: I think that she's mostly talking about student debt, here. And I agree with her: students should not end up with so much debt after their studies. First because it's economically difficult for them, and second because it drives up the salaries of people who must then pay those debts (all those doctors and lawyers and engineers), in an increasing spiral of societal cost.

College education was not always so expensive. It's worth looking at what happened, and what can be done to circumvent, alleviate or eliminate the problem.




Good question, and whenever politicians suggest to change things in the way money moves one must ask the question cui bono? Although in American politics I view the Democratic party as superior (morally and politically) to Donald Trump's version of the Republican party, I have no illusion about its being addicted to special interest groups' money.

That being said, I agree that the government probably can do something about all the businesses being crushed by the new giants like Amazon. Not in the sense that we must preserve the old way of doing things (businesses learning to adapt to new realities is one of the key points of the free market) but in the sense that the playing field should be equal. For example, here in Canada we are still having shouting matches about whether Amazon and Netflix should collect federal and provincial taxes on their goods and services... and I can understand how a small business owner who does not have the clout of an Amazon when it comes to low prices reacts when finding out that Amazon does not even collect taxes, lowering its prices even more!




Yes, I can understand that: I am also in favour of as little government as possible. However, I am definitely in favour of a progressive taxation system that helps redistribute wealth in such a way that society becomes richer as a whole. Mind you, I'm not advocating sending checks to every low-earner in the country, paid for by the taxes of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates! But I believe that a system of diminishing returns where every extra thousand dollars you make is taxed a bit more, and where that money is dumped into few but effective government programs, would help create a more just and stable society, with lower crime, lower poverty and higher general happiness.

Lowering taxes for the rich (starting under Reagan) has not brought equal economic development. Oh, sure, it helped many people become gazillionaires; but the middle class has seen its buying power drop and drop, and the difference in income between the richest and the poorest is increasing. Many don't see that as a problem, because wages as a whole have increased; but we are witnessing the birth of a new aristocracy, one not based on birth nor even necessarily on personal merit, but rather based on huge fortunes inherited from enterprising forebears. Even overlooking the dubious moral aspect of the situation (because I don't think morality has much to do with economics when it comes to "does it work or not" issues), this is a recipe for growing resentment from the disenfranchised part of the population that still has to work for a living, and that never seems to make ends meet. This leads to social unrest, criminality, and is not to be desired.

Then again, Low Taxes vs High Taxes is a debate that distinguished economists have held for a very long time, and I am in no position to do more than give a dilettante's opinion.



Yeah... That's a bit disingenuous coming from a leader of any of the big parties.

Perhaps she could give more weight to her statement by suggesting a system similar to what we have here in Quebec: only individuals can give money to political parties, there is a very low cap on contributions, it is strictly forbidden for lobbies or companies to channel money through phony individual contributions, and partisan spending is strictly controlled. So it is forbidden, during an election period, for Union ABC to have negative ads against candidate XYZ, or for The Concerned Citizens of Chibougameau to invite voters to boycott the Neil Gaiman party. "Wait, what about freedom of speech?" some might say; well, you can still contribute to your candidate,s campaign... by volunteering, by shouting from a soapbox, by going door to door... but not by buying a five million dollars spot during a hockey game broadcast.