There are few times I've been so thrilled to be wrong.

[MannyGoldstein]

The Third Way is officially back on their heels... opportunity awaits. Danger, too.

But we can win this!

Regards,

First Way Manny

[Autumn]

1. Hell yeah Manny. It's been a great week.

Yes danger lurks, but we got this.

[MannyGoldstein]

3. :-)

[Benton D Struckcheon]

2. I've posted before that I consider the Fed chair insignificant,

so this is strictly a curiosity question: who would you consider, among the top contenders, to be the best: Yellen, Kohn, Ferguson, someone else? I can truly say I don't care, so this is just Sunday afternoon entertainment.

[MannyGoldstein]

4. Krugman or Stiglitz

You think that QE is insignificant? Why?

[n2doc]

6. Neither wants the job, so far as I know

Krugman has been explicit in not wanting to get into government.

I'm pretty sure it won't be Yellen, because that would be caving in to those who didn't allow Summers to get the job. Likely to be someone who doesn't have many enemies, so the confirmation will go relatively smoothly. At least until Ted Cruz demands that Obamacare be cancelled as a condition for the nominee to be voted on, that is....

[Benton D Struckcheon]

8. It would take a long time to explain,

but the purpose of that is to increase liquidity in the economy. There's actually a good argument it might even have the opposite effect.
Either way, old school Keynesians never considered monetary policy particularly effective. That's a Friedman thing. Fiscal policy is the thing. We're having a slow recovery not because of the Fed but because of the Congress and clueless Republican governors. The idea that government employment would decline when you're trying to get out of the biggest crisis since the Great Depression is too nutty for words. That's the crux of the problem, not anything else. Monetary policy does zip about that.

[MannyGoldstein]

9. Seems like QE is filling a crater for the 1%

But doing almost nothing for the 99%. But it's not my area of expertise, I could be wrong. Couldn't the Fed help by saving the bankers only if the bankers agree to behave?

As to Obama and Congess doing their best Hoover imitation during a depression - we agree, that's nuts.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

12. Yes, but for Fed sub FDIC.

The Fed can't even do the job of saving the bankers right. If it did, FDR wouldn't have needed to invent the FDIC. My opinion is that the Fed became obsolete once FDR invented the FDIC, and should have been folded into it by Glass-Steagall. I seem to be the only one on the planet who thinks that though.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

14. Actually, Galbraith thought so too, though he never said so explicitly.

As I say when this comes up, the book to read is Galbraith's Money: Whence it Came, Where it Went. Great book.

[Fumesucker]

5. You are playing the part exactly as you are supposed to

Obama already has your resistance to certain operational modes baked into his modeling assumptions, if liberals didn't squawk it would upset his predictive model.

[MannyGoldstein]

11. There is no more free will.

We are all just outputs of a predictive model.

Then I'm eating a pint of Ben & Jerry's tonight, I have no choice.

[Fumesucker]

13. It's not Krugman who's from Trantor, it's Obama

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/013354.html

[snooper2]

7. So you started a new thread so you don't have to reply to the old one?

Sly but not that sly! If you are playing one pocket 86% of your moves should be a safety.

[ProSense]

10. After Summers is in place at the Fed's helm, I think

After Summers is in place at the Fed's helm, I think
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023670171

Also, something about Abraham Lincoln and his generals!!!!

[Cryptoad]

18. Priceless PS, thx

Then from out of no where a blind man stood up in the crowd and scream as loud as he could : " I can see better than anybody!"

[MineralMan]

15. But there have been so many times

that you were wrong. How can you keep track?

[MannyGoldstein]

16. Gee, maybe you could list them here...nt

[MineralMan]

17. No need, Manny. Please proceed.

[MannyGoldstein]

21. Your attention is flattering

but confusing and fact-free.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

25. It took me 10 seconds searching to find you being wrong...

..it would take me all night to give you a more comprehensive list.

( And by the way, this is provably wrong about a simple matter of indisputable fact. It's not the typical gross distortions, hyperbole, and offensive characterizations attacking Democrats that you engage in. )

You stated in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023067737#post12

...that "There is no legal standard" for impeachment. This is a direct quote/

The legal standard is shown here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanours

Let me quote:

The constitutional convention adopted “high crimes and misdemeanors” with little discussion. Most of the framers knew the phrase well. Since 1386, the English parliament had used the term “high crimes and misdemeanors” to describe one of the grounds to impeach officials of the crown. Officials accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” were accused of offenses as varied as misappropriating government funds, appointing unfit subordinates, not prosecuting cases, not spending money allocated by Parliament, promoting themselves ahead of more deserving candidates, threatening a grand jury, disobeying an order from Parliament, arresting a man to keep him from running for Parliament, losing a ship by neglecting to moor it, helping “suppress petitions to the King to call a Parliament,” granting warrants without cause, and bribery. Some of these charges were crimes. Others were not. The one common denominator in all these accusations was that the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[MannyGoldstein]

28. You just checkmated yourself, Einstein

Your passage - and even more so, the rest of the Wikipedia article - says that there is NO specific requirement - just that "the official had somehow abused the power of his office and was unfit to serve".

Which is arbitrary. It's whatever Congress wants it to mean.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

36. Abusing Power of Office **IS** a 'legal standard', Manny

Clearly you don't understand this, but laws are written in such a way as to cover many different situations. If you invent a new way to steal from somebody, you don't get to stay your new way of stealing isn't covered because it isn't specifically mentioned in the statutes. There is still the legal standard that stealing is stealing. Similarly, there is still the legal standard that 'abusing the power of office' is 'abusing the power of office', NOT, as you'd argued originally, just because Congress doesn't like the President, he's the wrong political party, etc.

You were flat out WRONG. And I was wrong in expecting a petulant extremist would actually admit it when caught out like this. But clearly you'll argue that 2 + 2 = 5 if you think it will help you 'win' an argument in your own mind.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[MannyGoldstein]

38. "there is still no consensus over what exactly these four little words mean"

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/1999/02/what_are_high_crimes_and_misdemeanors.html

[ConservativeDemocrat]

39. There is also no consensus on what "disturbing the peace" means...

...which is why we have trials over it, and courts to add to case-law.

However, the fact that the law is squishy, does not mean that there is no legal standard, any more than the fact that we're still arguing about specific situations under "unreasonable search and seizure" means there is no legal standard to the fourth amendment. To be specific about the post you made, at the bare minimum impeachment needs to be done for an actual "High crime" or "misdemeanor". Putting Chained-CPI on the bargaining table (essentially daring the GOP to actually touch the third-raid of Social Security) does not meet that legal standard.

I suppose you could argue that, since not every single legal situation is completely fleshed out, there is "no standard" for absolutely every aspect of the law. However, I think the vast majority of people would view that kind of argument as sophistry.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[MannyGoldstein]

40. Per Ben Franklin, impeachment is to prevent assasination

The first draft of the Constitution called out specific crimes which would cause removal from office. Franklin (and others) pushed to make it vague to cover any other situation where Congress was so angry at the President that they wanted him out. "high crimes and misdemeanors" was used to keep it vague but make it clear that the intent was that it should be something serious - but anything deemed "serious" by Congress will do.

As Gerald Ford said: “an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers [it] to be at a given moment in history”

Look at it another way - there are no checks nor balances in the impeachment proceeding. The judiciary is powerless to affect the outcome, IIRC.

[ConservativeDemocrat]

41. You're quoting Gerald Ford?

Ford's claim to fame was pardoning Nixon. Of course he was interested in delegitimizing impeachment, and the idea that "High crimes and Misdemeanors" meant actual crimes which Nixon could be prosecuted for.

And this is the main problem I have with the hard left. In order to defend the idea that Obama can be impeached for a political strategy you don't like, you're quoting a Republican who was trying to deflect from the clear criminal behavior of one of the most odious politicians in the last century, a Republican naturally.

The phraseology of High Crimes and Misdemeanors is not vague to the point that you can get around the fact that the legal standard requires some sort of criminal behavior that abuses the power of the office. Certainly, just as in the case of Jury-nullification (in which thousands of murders of blacks by whites in the antebellum south were summarily dismissed despite overwhelming evidence) the legislature can simply ignore the standard. But that isn't the same thing as saying one does not exist.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[MannyGoldstein]

42. And Ben Franklin.

Impeachment certainly doesn't require a criminal act. For example, one of the articles of impeachment for Andrew Johnson was for "Making three speeches with intent to show disrespect for the Congress among the citizens of the United States."

[ConservativeDemocrat]

43. There is a reason why Edmund G. Ross was listed in President Kennedy's book...

...Profiles in Courage. He opposed the politicized misuse of impeachment proceedings, despite enormous party pressure.

Again, misbehaving Congresses can, just like misbehaving juries and judges, violate legal standards, but that doesn't mean no legal standard exists.

Oh, and by the way, Franklin didn't come up with "High crimes and misdemeanors". He came up with the idea of impeachment as an alternative to assassination. But again, think about that. Assassination by rational actors isn't something done lightly, since it nearly always also means the death of the assassin. It it only done to stop tyranny. Not over some minor political quibble.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[trumad]

31. LOL

All this 3rd way stuff is to hard to follow for some.

[sendero]

23. Not nearly as many times..

.. as you have. But I'm sure you are blissfully unaware.

[whistler162]

19. Ah... the great Wrongway Goldstein!

[MNBrewer]

20. Sometimes it's nice to be proven wrong, I agree. Cheers!

[TomClash]

22. We will fight you on the beaches! nt

[deutsey]

24. We need to deliver a knockout blow

That will only come when we organize in the streets again. I wish I knew how to deliver the spark that would set that off.

[Oilwellian]

34. I'll happily join you again, deutsey

It was a pleasure marching with you the first time.

[deutsey]

35. Same here!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

26. Did somebody say danger?

[marble falls]

27. I don't think we've heard the whole story or the last of the problems. I'm with you ....

So far so good, but it ain't over yet.

[UTUSN]

29. I did my time with the CLINTONs (15yrs?), willingly will go WARREN any day of the week n/t

[blkmusclmachine]

30. .

.

[joshcryer]

32. TBH you're an extremely good predictor.

It's just that whatever you say generally one must assume it's not going to happen, in such a case the accuracy of your predictions is actually rather good.

[SidDithers]

33. +1...

Manny is the Jim Cramer of DU.

Sid

[Hydra]

37. I didn't think we'd reach this point either

But Third way spent years claiming to be the Not-Bushes...and then they went a little too far in their Bushco'ing.

Their miscalculation may well bring them down...but they've survived worse. We'll just have to see. I CAN say one thing with certainty- the stuff they peddle only appeals to the 1% and their lackeys, which is why the Syria approval numbers never went above 16%

Third way is officially less popular than Bush/Cheney Republicanism.

F A I L.