Not an air guitar. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 4] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-08-2017 10:30 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsExcuse me I need everyone to see this picture of Danica Roem immediately pic.twitter.com/dMmLkXUqJp
— mike (@chunk_widebody) November 8, 2017
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 5] Author : erimir Date : 11-08-2017 07:58 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The special election in Utah to replace Jason Chaffetz was a win for the Republicans, as expected. However, this can still be counted as an improvement - the winner, John Curtis is more moderate than Chaffetz and didn't vote for Trump last year, although I'm sure he's a likely vote for tax cuts for the rich and other Republican BS it's pretty hard to be as much of a hack as Chaffetz. Anyway, Jason Chaffetz won by 47 pts last year, and Trump won it by 24, and Romney won it by 59 pts in 2012. Curtis only won by 30.5 pts. This is good news for Republicans, in that the candidate outperformed Trump. The bad news is he didn't do better by a huge amount and Trump was extremely unpopular for a Republican in Utah. This indicates that 2016 is closer to how Utah will vote than 2012 (although Romney as a Mormon outperformed a typical Republican), and Donald Trump was extremely unpopular for a Republican in Utah. But a result like this suggests Democrats might be able to pick up the weakest GOP seat in Utah next year. There had previously been a Democrat Jim Matheson from Salt Lake City for 14 years, but after the 2010 census the Republicans gerrymandered so that parts of Salt Lake City were split among all four of their districts. Even so, Matheson was able to win reelection in that district in 2012... It could also indicate a high likelihood of flipping seats at lower levels in Utah, I suppose. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 6] Author : The Man Date : 11-08-2017 08:31 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsBreitbart, 10/25: Gillespie has embraced Trump's message, is surging in the polls
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) November 8, 2017
Breitbart, 11/5: Gillespie is speaking our language!
Breitbart, 11/7 (AM): Gillespie win will be huge victory for Trump
Breitbart, 11/7 (PM): New phone, who dis? pic.twitter.com/ctYQKkjB5L
Not an air guitar. This story about her (from before the election) is also well worth reading: This Trans Metalhead Stepmom Is Making a Historic Run for Office in Virginia - Noisey (https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/ev4gep/this-trans-metalhead-stepmom-is-making-a-historic-run-for-office-in-virginia) Fucking badass. I may have more comments later, but overall it feels like we've emerged from a year in the Upside-Down. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 7] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-09-2017 08:53 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This tweet thread.Excuse me I need everyone to see this picture of Danica Roem immediately pic.twitter.com/dMmLkXUqJp
— mike (@chunk_widebody) November 8, 2017
234 replies and 21 likes at this point is an indication of how things are going. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 8] Author : erimir Date : 11-09-2017 09:41 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I think it's time Democrats put more resources into that Alabama Senate race... Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32 - The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html)After some turkey, family time, shopping and football...
— RepMattGaetz (@RepMattGaetz) November 8, 2017
Join me on Monday, November 27th for #OpenGaetz Day in Navarre! pic.twitter.com/UuZk0Q11cO
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 9] Author : erimir Date : 11-09-2017 10:44 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Jesus Christ. "Better a child rapist than a Democrat" Who the fuck says essentially that to a REPORTER? These defenses suggest that AL Republicans know these accusations are, at a minimum, highly credible... and maybe they suspect more will come out. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/01b3296817251fdf97294d04c3c0758f975ff94821fa1b15e3ce60c08def0148.png “There is nothing to see here,” [Republican] Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. “The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.” [...] “He’s clean as a hound’s tooth,” Ziegler claimed, before relying on Scripture to defend Moore. “Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.” “There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here,” Ziegler concluded. “Maybe just a little bit unusual.” Alabama state auditor defends Roy Moore against sexual allegations, invokes Mary and Joseph (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/alabama-state-auditor-defends-roy-moore-against-sexual-allegations-invokes-mary-and-joseph/article/2640217) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 10] Author : erimir Date : 11-09-2017 10:56 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DOOcHxnXUAAcRgL.jpg Oooooh this is a toughie -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 11] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-10-2017 09:48 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics It was just brought to my attention that Danika Roem was elected to represent: District 13 (http://thehungergames.wikia.com/wiki/District_13). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 12] Author : Stormlight Date : 11-10-2017 03:00 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Jesus Christ. "Better a child rapist than a Democrat" Who the fuck says essentially that to a REPORTER? These defenses suggest that AL Republicans know these accusations are, at a minimum, highly credible... and maybe they suspect more will come out. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/01b3296817251fdf97294d04c3c0758f975ff94821fa1b15e3ce60c08def0148.png “There is nothing to see here,” [Republican] Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. “The allegations are that a man in his early 30s dated teenage girls. Even the Washington Post report says that he never had sexual intercourse with any of the girls and never attempted sexual intercourse.” [...] “He’s clean as a hound’s tooth,” Ziegler claimed, before relying on Scripture to defend Moore. “Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler said choosing his words carefully before invoking Christ. “Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus.” “There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here,” Ziegler concluded. “Maybe just a little bit unusual.” Alabama state auditor defends Roy Moore against sexual allegations, invokes Mary and Joseph (http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/alabama-state-auditor-defends-roy-moore-against-sexual-allegations-invokes-mary-and-joseph/article/2640217) http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/100/602/e75.jpeg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 13] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 11-10-2017 05:42 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics lol Jim Zeigler. Why do stories like this always insist on getting to Lulztown via the What's the Big Deal About Child Rape Express? And what kind of dystopian horror show are we living that has Mitt "Borrow a Mill From Your Parents and Start a Business" Romney talking like a human (https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/928999549376528385)? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 14] Author : specious_reasons Date : 11-10-2017 07:46 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics lol Jim Zeigler. Why do stories like this always insist on getting to Lulztown via the What's the Big Deal About Child Rape Express? And what kind of dystopian horror show are we living that has Mitt "Borrow a Mill From Your Parents and Start a Business" Romney talking like a human (https://twitter.com/MittRomney/status/928999549376528385)? Mitt Romney is not half the monster of a lot of his colleagues are. I mean, I wouldn't want him to be President, but given a choice between him and the current administration or Roy Moore, he's the significantly lesser of two evils. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 15] Author : erimir Date : 11-10-2017 10:15 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Mitt Romney thinks the peasants should be peasants. But he doesn't think it's ok if the gentry rape the peasants. This is a real distinction. But it says more about how depraved his fellow Republicans are than about him being a moral paragon. Not defending or covering* for child molesters is a pretty low bar. *You know, like "IF it's true! I, of course, have no opinion on its truth after reading a meticulously sourced account with elements confirmed by official records and Moore's sketchy responses to questions about dating young girls and history of siding with men accused of raping underage girls in court cases. So I guess we'll just never know. Vote Roy Moore!" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 16] Author : erimir Date : 11-10-2017 10:17 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics There's a reason Roy Moore was avoiding giving interviews or debating Doug Jones before all of this. It's because he's an idiot.Next thing they'll be inventing a backstory in which the former Speaker of the House, a former coach supposedly emblematic of middle American values, actually had a history of molesting teenage boys. Oh, wait. 2/
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 9, 2017
HANNITY: Do you remember dating girls that young?
— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) November 10, 2017
MOORE: "Not generally, no"
This man is so stupid that he's making Sean Hannity look like a journalist despite Hannity's best efforts to shill for a child molester. See also this interview: Alabama Senate GOP frontrunner: Constitution was written to "foster Christianity" - Vox (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/26/16365774/judge-roy-moore-us-constitution) Roy Moore: There are communities under Sharia law right now in our country. Up in Illinois. Christian communities; I don’t know if they may be Muslim communities. But Sharia law is a little different from American law. It is founded on religious concepts. Jeff Stein: Which American communities are under Sharia law? When did they fall under Sharia law? Roy Moore: Well, there’s Sharia law, as I understand it, in Illinois, Indiana — up there. I don't know. Jeff Stein: That seems like an amazing claim for a Senate candidate to make. [...] Jeff Stein: I’d like to learn more about the communities in America you think are under Sharia law. Roy Moore: I was informed that there were. But if they’re not, it doesn’t matter. Sharia law incorporates Muslim law into the law. That’s not what we do. We do not punish people according to the Christian precepts of our faith — so there’s a difference. I’ll just say: I don’t know if there are. I understand that there are some. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 17] Author : Sock Puppet Date : 11-10-2017 11:02 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Monty Python - Expedition to Lake Pahoe - YouTube (http://youtu.be/3DlN4Sh06po?t=2m48s) Well hell and dammit. I can't get it to embed even removing the s and shit. Just click the thing like a goddamned refugee. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 18] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 11-10-2017 11:06 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics lol "Not generally" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 19] Author : lisarea Date : 11-11-2017 12:48 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Seriously with the Overton window, Jesus fuck. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 20] Author : JoeP Date : 11-11-2017 10:38 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Monty Python - Expedition to Lake Pahoe - YouTube (http://youtu.be/3DlN4Sh06po?t=2m48s) Well hell and dammit. I can't get it to embed even removing the s and shit. Just click the thing like a goddamned refugee. Monty Python - Expedition to Lake Pahoe - YouTube Sock would very much like for you to start viewing at offset 2m48s. Even if that breaks the imyoutubed code. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 21] Author : ChuckF Date : 11-12-2017 12:19 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Hi media, hello, yes. In no reality is a 32 year old adult undressing and groping a 14 year old child equivalent to "dating." Thank you for your attention, that is all. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 22] Author : erimir Date : 11-14-2017 05:44 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Ok, so sure, Roy Moore may have preyed on young girls. Molested them even. But is Doug Jones so much better? Here's a picture of Doug Jones in the act of assaulting an innocent child: http://static.metacritic.com/images/products/movies/4/fd484d74dc5fb56c6711ce8a8dd71b2f.jpg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 23] Author : BrotherMan Date : 11-14-2017 05:48 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics HEY YOU LEAVE SWEET AND KIND DOUG JONES, BODY ACTOR, OUT OF THIS! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 24] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-14-2017 08:17 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics When you've lost Ted Cruz (http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/360205-cruz-pulls-support-from-roy-moore-allegations-merit-criminal-prosecution-if) and Mitch McConnell (http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/mitch-mcconnell-roy-moore_us_5a09c540e4b0bc648a0caa60). Though McConnell didn't hand pick Moore anyway. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 25] Author : erimir Date : 11-16-2017 11:28 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Al Franken :sadcheer: Not sure what the cutoff is for "past conduct that requires resignation" but Senate Democrats have all (afaik) condemned the behavior. Nonetheless, we will hear both-sides and false equivalencies between attempted rape of teenage girls, pussy-grabbing* and what Franken's accused of. Nonetheless, Franken might have to go. We'll also see that personal conduct around these things is very important, but GOP opposition to laws that make sexual harassment, assault and rape harder to get away with is just a difference of opinion. *Actually, they'd prefer just not to talk about that at all -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 26] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-17-2017 10:36 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Thread about that Al Franken photo, lots of replies, I lack the technical skills to follow or verify. Very interesting. It's chaos. Be kind. on Twitter: "1 - Thread. About @SenFranken EXIF data - the stuff cameras stamp on the digital versions of files? It protects, among other things the co… https://t.co/QqtRNHHY5F" (https://twitter.com/DipswitchDan/status/931413204504334336) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 27] Author : erimir Date : 11-18-2017 12:33 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I'm certainly willing to wait for more evidence one way or the other. Al Franken might have to go, but the idea that he needed to resign immediately, that very day, I don't agree with for many cases (that would vary depending on how many accusers, how much evidence, seriousness of the violations, etc.). And I'd say the same for Republicans. But absent any good exculpatory evidence (such as contradictory witnesses) coming out, I'm not sure he should be staying on til 2020, particularly since it wouldn't even likely be giving up a seat. I will note that Franken has not admitted to the kiss nor did he concede that he was groping her in that picture. I can see why, if he thinks that's not true or that she's lying, he wouldn't want to outright deny it in the environment we have (in particular, not wanting to give ammunition to others, like Roy Moore and Trump) before having proof. That said, I'm skeptical that such proof will be forthcoming. While he can probably stick it out if no more allegations come, particularly given that Tweeden has accepted his apology and isn't calling for him to resign, but I'm not sure he should. There are men on both sides who are wary for personal reasons of establishing such a standard, which is probably why no Senate Republicans have called for his resignation either. What would be nice is if there were more Republican women who would be willing to hold their colleagues accountable. A bipartisan push by the women of Congress to purge the sexual harassers would be the most effective way to deal with it. Unfortunately, quite a few of the GOP women are as crazy partisan as the men and won't go after their men even if Democratic women are teaming up with them. (And to be honest, the gender ratios in the caucuses along with the GOP majorities make it probably inevitable that such a push would damage the GOP more than the Democrats even if we assume such behavior is equally prevalent among men in both parties. There are just more GOP men than Democratic men in Congress.) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 28] Author : specious_reasons Date : 11-18-2017 01:03 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Thread about that Al Franken photo, lots of replies, I lack the technical skills to follow or verify. Very interesting. It's chaos. Be kind. on Twitter: "1 - Thread. About @SenFranken EXIF data - the stuff cameras stamp on the digital versions of files? It protects, among other things the co… https://t.co/QqtRNHHY5F" (https://twitter.com/DipswitchDan/status/931413204504334336) The date/time stuff can be tricky. My DSLR camera (not professional grade) is not updated based on my timezone, unless I update it manually. That can mean that a photo at 5PM might not have actually been taken at 5PM. If the camera It's more likely that the date is correct or 1 day off (due to timezone issues). At a glance, the professional grade Nikon cameras do not look like they have a GPS feature which might make date/time settings automatically correct. It may have WiFi, so maybe it can auto set the date/time if connected to a network. So, more than likely, the pictures's date is more or less correct, and the time may be correct. The modified time is less certain, because some of that is OS/editing program dependent. I don't have all the info but it might just be when the photographer decided to collect all the photos and burn them to a disk. It's probable that photos of Franken's USO tour were archived as a result of his election. Those photos instantly become more historic, for a number of reasons. I suppose there could be a more nefarious plan, but I'm not willing to believe a single inappropriate photo was intentionally held on to until it could be revealed at the most damaging time. I suspect it's more likely that Tweeden remembered some inappropriate behavior from Al Franken, and went looking for proof. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 29] Author : erimir Date : 11-30-2017 06:53 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Roy Moore has bounced back a bit in the polls, and while it's still quite close (and some of the polls have wonky demographics, like >50% over 65 y/o), the polls favor him again. Meanwhile, Roy Moore contributed to a legal course arguing that women shouldn't run for office, Christians should never vote for a woman and the feminist problem started with the suffragettes, so I guess women shouldn't vote either. We might be seeing John Conyers and Al Franken resign, while Republicans seat and welcome the vote of a pedophile who assaults girls and thinks they don't deserve any political rights. Roy Moore co-authored course saying women shouldn't run for office (http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/11/study_co-authored_by_roy_moore.html) I wish a reporter would ask Alabama Governor Kay Ivey her thoughts on this on camera. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 30] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-30-2017 08:29 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I wish a reporter would ask Alabama Governor Kay Ivey her thoughts on this on camera. 10613 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 31] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-30-2017 08:34 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Bonus:Roy Moore says "I don't remember dating any girl without the permission of her mother"
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) November 10, 2017
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 32] Author : erimir Date : 12-01-2017 12:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Because 2017: Last night Roy Moore had an event where this pastor sang... and during the same event, Roy Moore blamed his accusations on an alliance of homosexuals and socialists. Meanwhile... that same pastor was convicted of trying to destroy evidence to cover up the fact that his son was a child molester who preyed on children in their Honduran orphanage. Pastor Who Sang For Roy Moore Has Federal Conviction For Blocking 2012 Child Molestation Probe Of His Son - Joe.My.God. (http://www.joemygod.com/2017/11/30/pastor-sang-roy-moore-2012-federal-conviction-blocking-child-molestation-probe-son/) OH, and in case you didn't read the whole article... That law course Roy Moore contributed to? That was done for an evangelical organization called Vision Forum, which was run by a man named Doug Phillips. Doug Phillips had to resign his position because he had conducted a long extramarital affair. One that the woman alleges began when she was 15 and was abusive in nature. (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/04/16/douglas_phillips_lawsuit_woman_alleges_sexual_mental_abuse_against_the_former.html) This reminds me of a certain someone! Coincidentally, Doug Phillips is also a great friend of the Duggars. Another family which covered up the sexual abuse of children by their son. We like to mock the Catholic Church over the child abuse scandal, but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out there's a higher percentage of sick fucks among these ultra-right-wing evangelical Christian shitheads. The decentralization might actually make it harder to uncover though. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 33] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 12-01-2017 08:47 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Interest piece: this is one of Meuller’s prosecutors. Taking Down Terrorists in Court | The New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/15/taking-down-terrorists-in-court) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 34] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 12-04-2017 07:16 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics "lol j/k about expelling Roy Moore from the Senate after he's elected." Sen. Mitch McConnell (https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/03/mcconnell-roy-moore-alabama-276554), Senate Majority Leader -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 35] Author : Watser? Date : 12-04-2017 08:16 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So basically they'll vote on whether rape is still illegal? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 36] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 12-06-2017 10:06 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Looks like it's going to be happy-trails-and-fare-thee-well for Al Franken come tomorrow (http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/06/politics/al-franken-democratic-senators-resign/index.html). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 37] Author : Watser? Date : 12-07-2017 12:44 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics La Resistance. It's like the French resistance but with Pétain joining in... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 38] Author : erimir Date : 12-13-2017 03:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Doug Jones wins the senate election. Being a child molester is too much, even in Alabama. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 39] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 12-13-2017 03:43 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsSounds great Roy - let me know when you get some Christian values and I’ll be there!
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) November 30, 2017
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 40] Author : erimir Date : 12-13-2017 03:44 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Also La Resistance. It's like the French resistance but with Pétain joining in...Whining about how other people are mean to you because they point out your both-sides idiocy... so you compare them to Nazi collaborators. (Meanwhile, who's constantly defending Assad and Putin? Not me :chin:) Fuck off, shithead. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 41] Author : SR71 Date : 12-13-2017 04:24 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics lol, I wonder if Roy Moore feels silly now, prancing around on a fucking horse this morning. What a buffoon. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 42] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 12-13-2017 05:21 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics lol, I wonder if Roy Moore feels silly now, prancing around on a fucking horse this morning. What a buffoon. Speaking of buffoons, watch this guy's face fall when he finds out that a Christian bible isn't required to swear in as an elected official. Jake Tapper fact checks Roy Moore spokesman - YouTube -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 43] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 12-13-2017 05:50 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsRoy Moore Retires From Politics To Spend More Quality Time With Someone's Kid https://t.co/4wFS8Vn11u pic.twitter.com/HrmZMAE1Nv
— The Onion (@TheOnion) December 13, 2017
:lol: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 44] Author : erimir Date : 12-13-2017 06:00 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Bless his heart. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 45] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 12-13-2017 07:42 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Seems a fit for this thread: Reported Chuck Schumer Sex Scandal Suit Is 'Completely False:' Ex-Staffer - NBC New York (https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Chuck-Schumer-Fake-Sex-Harassment-Scandal-New-York-City-463810263.html) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 46] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 12-14-2017 10:54 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics African Americans, and especially African American women, are trying to save this country from the stupidity of our inexhaustible white ignorance. It's time to center the concerns of non-white communities in the Democratic Party and not just ask them to vote, time and again, without those things being addressed. As I've also said repeatedly, fuck the white working class. Fuck them. . . . Democrats keep wanting to pretend that racist fucknuts can be appealed to based on class. It's a comforting lie that is proven to be bullshit time and again. Roy Moore got 68% of the white vote, and that motherfucker was a wretched candidate before it was revealed he finger-fucked a 14 year-old. This country doesn't belong exclusively to white people anymore. The Republicans are fighting a desperate battle to try to maintain that white dominance. They will lose. So no more fucking speeches about how we "understand" the pain of the white working class. It's up to the the white working class to fucking get that Democrats are the only ones who give a shit about their pain and economic hardship. And no more fucking articles about dumb fucks who are clinging to Donald Trump. They are dumb fucks. Let them drown in their stupidity for a few minutes before we throw them the life preserver. Random Observations on a Minor Miracle in Alabama (http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2017/12/random-observations-on-minor-miracle-in.html) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 47] Author : The Man Date : 12-19-2017 09:35 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The latest recount in Virginia's House of Delegates is now over. The Democrat is certified as having won the seat by *drumroll* one vote. This is not hyperbole; the final total is 11,608 votes for the Democrat to 11,607 for the Republican. Let no one tell you your vote doesn't matter. And thank God the last vote wasn't thrown away on some third-party purity wanker candidate. Democrats and Republicans now each control fifty seats. There are two other recounts still going, but due to the size of their respective margins, this total is unlikely to change. More here (https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/12/19/yes-virginia-there-is-a-voter-claus/), here (http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/12/vote-doesnt-matter-bother), and here (https://wonkette.com/627234/one-vote-aholes-one-vote). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 48] Author : Nullifidian Date : 12-22-2017 02:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics :powerwoot: Jury Acquits First Six J20 Defendants, Rebuking Government's Push for Collective Punishment (https://theintercept.com/2017/12/21/j20-trial-acquitted-inauguration-day-protest/?comments=1#comments) I've been watching this case unfold with an increasing sense of dread for months, but now the jury is back with a complete acquittal of the first six J20 protesters. It's not a complete victory because a) it never should have come this far in a country where the First Amendment is ostensibly still the law and b) there are nearly a couple hundred other people awaiting trial. However, the rebuke from the jury is going to substantially increase the likelihood that the rest of the cases will be pled down to misdemeanors or quietly dropped entirely. What worried me was that if the jury bought the government's arguments, then all political protest could be nullified by a few black-clad agents provocateur who would break a few windows while the police would kettle up and arrest the legitimate protesters, who would then be charged for being present while the government did all the vandalism. It may still happen, but it's less likely now that the government knows it can't count on a rubber stamp from the jury. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 49] Author : mickthinks Date : 01-02-2018 08:39 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Looks like it's going to be happy-trails-and-fare-thee-well for Al Franken come tomorrow (http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/06/politics/al-franken-democratic-senators-resign/index.html). This snagged from facebook a few minutes ago ... 10643 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 50] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-02-2018 10:47 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Misc:Cory Gardner is already recruiting Jones to switch parties pic.twitter.com/rQecr8ozw7
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) December 13, 2017
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 51] Author : erimir Date : 01-03-2018 01:17 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Orrin Hatch is retiring, thus making way for fresh new blood, 71 year old Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney will most likely be like McCain... a maverick voice who occasionally speaks out against Trump or gets in little twitter spats with him, votes with Trump >85% of the time, votes for every nutjob appointee, and votes to fuck the poor but gets praised as a moderate. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 52] Author : slimshady2357 Date : 01-03-2018 01:19 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsSo check out what happened when I commented on Gaetz Hillary post today. One of our locals running for 2020 County Commissioner District 1 seat decided to try to fat shame me. pic.twitter.com/qKUjcC1wu0
— Dawn Anton (@super_dawny) January 2, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 53] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-04-2018 07:17 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsThe Republicans pic.twitter.com/ZvVjGncU12
— JimmyT (@ElHenderz) 3 January 2018
Invest in guillotine futures today! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 54] Author : The Lone Ranger Date : 01-06-2018 09:04 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics From Jen Sorensen (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/2/1729056/-Cartoon-The-game?detail=emaildkre): https://images.dailykos.com/images/491021/story_image/thegame915.png?1514864855 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 55] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-06-2018 10:03 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Ruth Bader Ginsburg Isn't Going Anywhere, Fucker (https://theslot.jezebel.com/ruth-bader-ginsburg-isnt-going-anywhere-fucker-1821842242) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 56] Author : Watser? Date : 01-20-2018 11:24 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://scontent-amt2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/26805460_1685850884809047_2987590228010526882_n.jpg?oh=1f7affd1c730f416385e8712a43725aa&oe=5AE6CE8F -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 57] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-20-2018 11:33 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Credit to the artist is cool: https://thenib.com/should-darth-vader-have-warrentless-spying-powers -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 58] Author : Watser? Date : 01-20-2018 11:43 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Yeah, but you can't share them from there. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 59] Author : Dingfod Date : 01-21-2018 12:06 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Ruth Bader Ginsburg Isn't Going Anywhere, Fucker (https://theslot.jezebel.com/ruth-bader-ginsburg-isnt-going-anywhere-fucker-1821842242)Justice Sotomayor health scare. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-sotomayor/paramedics-called-to-treat-supreme-court-justice-sotomayor-idUSKBN1F82HO) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 60] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-21-2018 01:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Yeah, but you can't share them from there. I get that, but adding the link in isn't a big deal. Then again the signature's still on the work, unlike some situations where some jokers remove that. So. Eh. eta: I'm not trying to be a dick about it, I'm just of the position that it's an extra layer of excellence to add in a link back to the original source. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 61] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 02:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Also La Resistance. It's like the French resistance but with Pétain joining in...Whining about how other people are mean to you because they point out your both-sides idiocy... so you compare them to Nazi collaborators. (Meanwhile, who's constantly defending Assad and Putin? Not me :chin:) Fuck off, shithead. That's funny, you are such a fucking idiot you actually think that Assad and Putin are the bad guys in Syria. You are a complete idiot where US foreign policy is concerned. And prepared to blow up the entire world as long as it's done by the right people. You really, really are a complete and utter moral void. Aslo funny that you think it's me who brought up the Nazi comparison. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 62] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 02:56 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics you actually think that Assad and Putin are the bad guys in Syria.Thanks for confirming that you actually think of Assad and Putin as not being bad guys. I almost thought I was being too harsh, but you really do defend authoritarian thugs as long as they oppose the US. You are [...] prepared to blow up the entire world as long as it's done by the right people.[citation needed] Anyway, the most moral action is to vote for parties/candidates like Artikel 1, which has the following positive accomplishments in the Dutch government: . (That's the list.) Truly, the most moral actions are the ones with no positive consequences at all and which are centered on the way the action makes you personally feel. Aslo funny that you think it's me who brought up the Nazi comparison.You seem to attribute the name "the resistance" to me, for reasons that are mysterious. If you check the news, however, you will find thousands of uses of that name before I started this thread with an admittedly lame play on words. Perhaps you read the news? Nobody was talking about Nazis or Nazi collaborators here. So, yes, you are the one who came in and talked about Petain. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 63] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 03:09 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics you actually think that Assad and Putin are the bad guys in Syria.Thanks for confirming that you actually think of Assad and Putin as not being bad guys. Americans. There has to be a good guy and a bad guy, right? Well, if there has to be, YOU are the bad guys, no matter if YOU is Obama or Trump. But you are all bad guys to me, Assad and Putin are just not as bad as you. And I mean YOU, erimir. I almost thought I was being too harsh, but you really do defend authoritarian thugs as long as they oppose the US. You are [...] prepared to blow up the entire world as long as it's done by the right people.[citation needed] Not really, you have made it abundantlyt clear you support all of Killary's wars. Anyway, the most moral action is to vote for parties/candidates like Artikel 1, which has the following positive accomplishments in the Dutch government: . (That's the list.) [quote]Truly, the most moral actions are the ones with no positive consequences at all and which are centered on the way the action makes you personally feel. :yawn: Aslo funny that you think it's me who brought up the Nazi comparison. You seem to attribute the name "the resistance" to me, for reasons that are mysterious. If you check the news, though, you might find thousands of uses of that name before I started this thread with an admittedly lame play on words. Nobody was talking about Nazis or Nazi collaborators here. So, yes, you are the one who came in and talked about Petain. Your ego is the size of a small planet. No, you pathetic asshole, I didn't attribute the name to you, but it is a pathetically stupid and arrogant name. And yeah, it obviously refers to the French resistance against the Nazis. And yeah, it is fucking pathetic because there is no actual resistance, there's actual collaboration. And what the fuck do you expect when both parties are being held hostage by the same corporations and the same zionist and Saudi lobbies. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 64] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 03:14 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics you actually think that Assad and Putin are the bad guys in Syria.Thanks for confirming that you actually think of Assad and Putin as not being bad guys. Americans. There has to be a good guy and a bad guy, right?You are so bad at this. Where did I say that? But you are all bad guys to me, Assad and Putin are just not as bad as you.Well then it's strange that you are attacking me for being enough of an "idiot" to think that they're bad guys, considering you also think they're bad guys. I guess that makes you an idiot too, genius. And I mean YOU, erimir.Talk about unhinged. I haven't murdered any journalists, political dissidents or cracked down on LGBT rights like your buddy Putin, but I'm worse than him, apparently. Not really, you have made it abundantlyt clear you support all of Killary's wars.[citation needed] Truly, the most moral actions are the ones with no positive consequences at all and which are centered on the way the action makes you personally feel. :yawn:Perhaps if you weren't so bored by thinking through your actions, you wouldn't make such stupid ones. Your ego is the size of a small planet. No, you pathetic asshole, I didn't attribute the name to youYet you act like I was trying to bring up Nazis because I was using a term that was already well-established by people having nothing to do with me. Which is... still stupid. So... still... yes, you were the one who made it about Nazis in this thread. Just take the L dude, you can own the fact that you wanted to make a Nazi comparison. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 65] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 03:26 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Seriously? You don't read your own crap either? YOU are the one who called Assad and Putin 'bad guys'. So obviously you think there are 'good guys' as well, probably Trump because he is doing EXACTLY what Obama the Nobel Prize guy was doing. But whatever, I don't give a shit what you think anymore because it is very fucking obvious you haven't a clue about the US foreign policy, which is virtually unchanged since the last president. The only difference is that Trump manages to piss everyone off. W, Obama and Trump. Nobody will know the difference 50 years from now. And it's funny that you think someone who ACTUALLY opposes wars is 'unhinged' while you support assholes who think war is the bees knees. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 66] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-21-2018 03:30 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Democrat foreign policy: http://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/sniper-gif-1.gif Republican foreign policy: https://i.makeagif.com/media/7-24-2015/zTGBDl.gif Trump foreign policy: https://i.imgur.com/i6eVtmn.gif -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 67] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 03:31 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Exactly why I prefer Trump... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 68] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 03:34 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Seriously? You don't read your own crap either?God, you really are shit at this. Like, laughably awful. https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/mocking-spongebob.jpg?quality=100&w=650 "yOu dOn'T ReAd YoUr oWn cRaP EiTheR?" I guess I needed to keep embedding all the layers so you could keep track of who actually said what, since you apparently can't keep shit straight on your own. YOU are the one who called Assad and Putin 'bad guys'. Let's see... First: (Meanwhile, who's constantly defending Assad and Putin? Not me :chin:) Then: That's funny, you are such a fucking idiot you actually think that Assad and Putin are the bad guys in Syria.Emphasis mine. Would you like to try again? This time perhaps you would like to read your own crap before saying some new stupid shit? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 69] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 03:37 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So go fuck yourself asshole. I've been going out of your way, avoiding this fight. But you, no you can't let go, can you? You have to be 'the good guy', the resistance (:lol:). You think in order to win elections you have to be 'Republicans Light'. Don't come crying to me when you lose the next ones. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 70] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 03:42 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Wow, you are so fucking pathetic, it's really kinda sad. So yeah, keep believing you are the 'resistance' and the 'good guys' opposed to Trump who is basically just an extension of what Obama did, who was just doing the same thing W did. You are not fooling anyone outside of the US. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 71] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 03:43 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So go fuck yourself asshole.:lol: In other words, even you can't deny you just said some stupid shit. I've been going out of your way, avoiding this fight.Which is why you responded to a post from over a month ago in a thread that I started. Because you were avoiding this fight. But you, no you can't let go, can you?See above. You think in order to win elections you have to be 'Republicans Light'.[citation needed] You don't know shit and just make up shit. Don't come crying to me when you lose the next ones. I was crying so hard when Roy Moore won last month, and Republicans were elected governor in Virginia and New Jersey the month before that. The Democrats lost because they were running as "Republicans Light" :sadcheer: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 72] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 03:46 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Trump who is basically just an extension of what Obama did, who was just doing the same thing W did. You are not fooling anyone outside of the US. http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/06/11153140/PG_2017.06.26.US_Image-00-1.png (http://www.pewglobal.org/2017/06/26/u-s-image-suffers-as-publics-around-world-question-trumps-leadership/) :chin: Yes, you surely speak for the world on this. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 73] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 03:49 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I prefer Trump...Glad to see you finally admit it. Maybe soon you'll tell us that you would've voted for him too! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 74] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 01:41 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics You voted for Killary, so yeah... Moral high ground? You have none. And neither do the Democrats who just voted with Trump. Trump is a good distraction though, if he didn't exist the Democrats would have had to invent one to make themselves look 'good'. It's the only thing that could. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 75] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 01:46 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So anyway, back on ignore you go, I could do these 'discussions' by myself, you have nothing to add that is not humongously superficial. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 76] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 02:26 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Remember, Democrats are Awful Too (https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/19/remember-democrats-are-awful-too/) This is why a large segment of the anti-Trump “resistance,” perhaps the most anodyne political force ever to use that word, is, for all intents and purposes, a Democratic Party project, and why much of the rest either is or is about to be coopted into the Democratic fold. Good or bad (or very bad), this is inevitable. Democratic victories in 2018 are not quite as inevitable because Democrats have a knack for losing with winning hands. But this time around, even more than in 2016, they would have to outdo themselves not to take control of both the Senate and the House. Insofar as Democratic victories weaken the Republican Party, diminishing its hold over national and state institutions, then bring them on. A pox on them, though, insofar as they help build the Democratic Party in anything like its present form. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 77] Author : Kael Date : 01-21-2018 04:53 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Still trying to have it both ways... Dems and "Killary" (fucking stupid nickname, btw - especially from people who say definite actual murderers and aggressively dictatorial strongmen like Putin and Assad are better and/or not a problem at all, but hawkish neo-liberals get denigrating nicknames and uncompromising hatred...) can't be an improvement over Republicans, however marginal, and just as bad. Like, it literally can't be both, but that's what you keep saying. Criticize the Dems, and Clinton, all the live-long day, I'll join you for most of it, but this false equivalency crap is still crap no matter how you try to dress it up. Better is better, and I'll take better every god damn time, even if I hate the brute fact that I can't have something actually good. Have to change the electoral system and process more fundamentally for that, and I'm not going to hold my breath... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 78] Author : Watser? Date : 01-21-2018 05:40 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics For the US Trump is probably worse, for the world Trump is better because if exposes what was going on anyway. There is no major break with Obama's policies, but it's all done so clumsily and arrogant that most of it backfires. So it pretty much evens out. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 79] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 07:18 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics You voted for Killary, so yeah... Moral high ground? You have none. You could've just quoted me and reiterated that this is your position. Anyway, the most moral action is to vote for parties/candidates like Artikel 1, which has the following positive accomplishments in the Dutch government: . (That's the list.) Truly, the most moral actions are the ones with no positive consequences at all and which are centered on the way the action makes you personally feel. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 80] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 07:36 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics But this time around, even more than in 2016, they would have to outdo themselves not to take control of both the Senate and the House.It sure is strange how you always find idiotic and poorly-informed political analysis. Here's the basic math: Democrats have 26 seats up for election, including 5 in states that Trump won by 18 pts or more. Republicans have only 8 seats up (although chances are not trivial that McCain's seat will also go up), only one of which is in a state Clinton won, and only one other seat in a state Trump won by less than 9 pts. In other words, NV and AZ are the only obvious pickups, with several Democratic seats being obvious targets for the GOP. They have to pick up two seats, which means the two obvious pickups, without losing any of their own seats OR they have to win a much harder GOP-held seat to balance out any seat they lose, and they only have like two or three opportunities like that (TX and perhaps TN...). Which isn't to say that they can't do it. It is plausible that they hold every seat, or lose only one while picking up McCain's seat. But the idea that this is a gimme is stupid. Still trying to have it both ways... Dems and "Killary" (fucking stupid nickname, btw - especially from people who say definite actual murderers and aggressively dictatorial strongmen like Putin and Assad are better and/or not a problem at all, but hawkish neo-liberals get denigrating nicknames and uncompromising hatred...)The fact that Putin has had hitmen murder journalists and such doesn't mean he deserves the level of hate Hillary does. His murders are the lesser evil which he orders with great reluctance and a heavy heart, but knows it has to be done for the children of Syria, whereas Killary just enjoys the screams of children. For the US Trump is probably worse, for the world Trump is better because if exposes what was going on anyway. There is no major break with Obama's policies, but it's all done so clumsily and arrogant that most of it backfires. So it pretty much evens out.Trump Is Killing Record Numbers Of Civilians | HuffPost (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-is-killing-record-numbers-of-civilians_us_59f9cc1be4b0412aab840c87) It evened out great for the civilians who died because Trump ramped up bombing across the globe. So weird how deaths are just statistics that "pretty much even out" when you're using them to argue against Democrats, yet you can get worked up over any individual Palestinian, even if they're only thrown in prison. Me, I'm just so morally void and evil that I prefer the guy who kills fewer people. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 81] Author : erimir Date : 01-21-2018 07:48 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Also here's an intentional Nazi-era comparison for you: For Germany, Hitler is probably worse, but for the world Hitler is better because he is a buffoon who exposes what was going on anyway. There is no major break with SPD social fascist policies, but it's all done so clumsily and arrogantly that most of it backfires. It pretty much evens out. You voted for the social fascist party, so yeah... Moral high ground? You have none. This time you can say I brought it up. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 82] Author : Watser? Date : 01-22-2018 07:20 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Anyway that name is a fucking insult to everyone who fought the nazis in WWII. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 83] Author : erimir Date : 01-22-2018 07:33 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I'll be sure to notify the millions of random protesters that you find it insulting. I'll also notify all non-WW2 resistance movements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_movement#Post%E2%80%93World_War_II) and civil rights movements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance)* that they can't refer to themselves or their tactics as "resistance" because that word only ever can refer to WW2 resistance to Nazi occupation. *And protests considered part of "the resistance" (anti-Trump) can be considered civil rights protests in many instances. But perhaps you consider it insulting to compare the demonstrations against the Muslim ban to other civil rights protests? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 84] Author : But Date : 01-22-2018 07:39 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Also here's an intentional Nazi-era comparison for you: For Germany, Hitler is probably worse, but for the world Hitler is better because he is a buffoon who exposes what was going on anyway. There is no major break with SPD social fascist policies, but it's all done so clumsily and arrogantly that most of it backfires. It pretty much evens out. You voted for the social fascist party, so yeah... Moral high ground? You have none. This time you can say I brought it up. :rolleyes: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 85] Author : Watser? Date : 01-22-2018 08:43 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics And that's an even worse insult to everyone who fought nazis in WWII. That's the kind of arrogance that is so fucking typical for the Democrats. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 86] Author : But Date : 01-22-2018 09:44 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So let me get this straight, erimir is comparing comparing Trump to Clinton to comparing Hitler to the SPD. I rate that at 15 kilometagodwins. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 87] Author : erimir Date : 01-22-2018 10:37 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics It's interesting how worked up you two are getting over what you see as false equivalences :chin: And at any rate, the Communists probably would've conceded that the SPD was better than the fascists, but nevertheless they stood in the way of revolution. They also thought that the excesses of the fascists would lead the public to embrace their ideology. Instead it lead to them being murdered by the fascists. A lesson there being that relying on the excesses of the right-wing to work out to the favor of the left is a dangerous game. Watser seems to think that Trump's excesses will work out in favor of the causes he supports and that it will win people over to his side. Trump doesn't need to be Hitler for that to be a poor calculation. And I mean, Watser says he couldn't vote for either major US party without wanting to barf, and apparently his feelings extend to all of the parties capable of winning even one seat in the Netherlands, including GroenLinks (Green Left), the Socialist Party, DENK, the Labour Party and the animal rights party. I assume those parties are better than Trump, which by the transitive property of Obama=Trump, means they're also better than the Democrats. Yet he voted for Artikel 1, which couldn't even meet the 0.67% threshold for one seat, a result which was indicated by the polls. So what about Watser's behavior makes you think he would've advocated an alliance with the SPD if he had been a German in 1933*? I see no indication of that whatsoever in his rhetoric or behavior. And I'd remind you, in 1933, Hitler wasn't "Hitler" either. He had committed no genocide and many dismissed his bigotry as rhetoric to rile up the rubes. The time to ally to stop him was before the 1933 election. *A closer look at the timing of elections and laws makes 1933 a better year to make the comparison, I'll concede. I rate that at 15 kilometagodwins.Aside from the silliness of dismissing a comparison on the mere basis that it involves the Nazis (I don't need to say Trump is as bad as Hitler to compare Watser's political strategy to that of the KPD), which isn't even what Godwin's law is about - it merely predicts that a Nazi comparison will be made, and isn't meant to indicate anything about the validity of such a comparison - here's what Mike Godwin has to say about Trump and the current GOP:US in 2017 is more unequal than France in 1789!
— RoseAnn DeMoro (@RoseAnnDeMoro) December 31, 2017
����: Richest 1% own 39% of the wealth.
����: Before French Revolution, top 3% owned 35% of the land.
History repeats itself, we're in a 2nd Gilded Age. The stage is set for a progressive People's Movement. #ClassWar #NewYearsEve pic.twitter.com/8X2TLHg0Cq
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 88] Author : But Date : 01-22-2018 10:41 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics It's interesting how worked up you two are getting over what you see as false equivalences :chin: Yeah no shit, you got it too! :clap: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 89] Author : erimir Date : 01-22-2018 10:47 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics "Bush=Obama=Trump=Democrats=GOP" "YOU [erimir] are worse than Putin and Assad!" "How dare you compare Watser's view that Trump's excesses will cause a backlash and overall favorable outcome to the KPD's view that Hitler's excesses would lead them to power! How insulting!" :chin: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 90] Author : But Date : 01-22-2018 10:51 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics It's not "how dare you", it's just that it's some seriously dumb shit. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 91] Author : erimir Date : 01-22-2018 10:55 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics You seem to think that makes that better. I'm worse than Putin. That's orders of magnitude stupider shit. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 92] Author : The Man Date : 01-22-2018 11:09 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I'm not sure why the two of you (Waster? and But) have chosen this particular fight, but as a queer, disabled Jewish person - you know, a member of three separate groups Hitler rounded up into concentration camps and gave lethal doses of Zyklon-B - you're essentially trashing whatever remnants of respect I once had for you. Let's outline a number of ways your arguments are not merely stupid and ignorant but actually offensive. Rounding up people into camps and deporting them as ICE has been doing is in fact not merely ethnic cleansing but a full-on Gestapo tactic. Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns & Money (http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/author/erik-loomis) has been doing yeoman's work covering this issue that Pravda on the Hudson and the rest of our media seem to prefer to ignore. His pieces on immigration (and others', but the most recent post under the tag by anyone else is from July 12) can be found under the immigration tag (http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/tag/immigration) and cover this administration's deportation tactics in nightmarish detail. This presidency* seems determined to deport every single person of Muslim or Hispanic/Latinx origin that it can. I'm not sure why you've chosen this particular hill to die on, but it is personally offensive, and not merely because of my background. This administration has made it entirely clear that it would prefer for me not to have healthcare. I have "pre-existing conditions" (autism, depression, PTSD, and other factors), and if this administration got its way, I could have my premiums raised by factors of six or more, or even be entirely dropped from coverage. It is, in fact, largely because of the actions of the resistance (you know, the one you're, for whatever reason, attacking) that my premiums didn't spike astronomically this year. You are posting apologetics for this administration at a time when my mental health is at a nadir and I depend upon that healthcare even to be able to perform simple tasks such as writing. You are also posting apologetics for an administration that makes it perfectly plain where its sympathies lie: with actual Nazis. This despicable, illegitimate president*, when a violent group of Nazis was chanting "Jews will not replace us," said there were "By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you.
— Mike Godwin (@sfmnemonic) August 14, 2017
very fine people" marching with them. When one of those Nazis ran over a nonviolent counterprotestor, this would-be dictator attributed her death to "violence on many sides", despite the fact that not one of the anti-Nazi counterprotestors harmed any human being in any meaningful fashion. This senile racist waited days before even giving an unequivocal condemnation of the Nazis' violence, which he almost immediately walked back in a television interview. This waste of flesh and oxygen is credibly documented to have slept with an actual collection of Hitler's speeches at his bedside. You are, in fact, throwing your lot in with a person who has made it perfectly clear that he is, at best, a Nazi sympatheiser, and at worst an actual Nazi, and you are attacking people who are doing actual, meaningful work in opposing him for using an analogy that is so ubiquitous in both popular culture and human history that it is literally the name of a trope at TV Tropes (tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaResistance). In essence, by attacking his opponents because you don't like their choice of imagery while refusing to engage with arguments about his actual flaws, you are also indirectly aligning yourselves with Nazis (in a Six Degrees of Nazi manner, admittedly, but I think that's - what - two degrees of separation?).
And frankly, it's not your place to decide whether a comparison is offensive to WWII veterans or Holocaust survivors. You know who is qualified to make that decision? WWII veterans, Holocaust survivors, and their descendants. The people that Hitler would have fed Zyklon-B. Roma. The disabled. Queer people. Jews. And so on. Most of these groups oppose Trump, some by margins of 4:1 or more. Trump's administration is so vile that it's causing former Republican warmongers of Jewish descent, such as Max Boot, Jennifer Rubin, David Frum, and Bill Kristol, to seemingly re-evaluate their entire conception of the world. Boot has written of his increasing awareness of privilege (http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/12/27/2017-was-the-year-i-learned-about-my-white-privilege/), to which he explicitly cites Trump's election as a pivotal contributing factor. Rubin, in her Washington Post column, has consistently been harshly criticising Republicans not merely on style and competency but on substance. And so on.
Beyond this, of course, lies the fact that Hitler didn't start out gassing everyone he didn't like with Zyklon-B. (Sneaky in-between poster erimir already pointed this out, but I'll leave it because deleting it might cause later parts of my post not to make sense.) While the concentration camps dated to fairly early in the regime, historians widely agree that the Holocaust did not begin in earnest until the 1940s. Because the date is usually pegged as 1941, this means there were eight years of Nazi tactics that did not actually extend to full-on genocide. I've been reading Richard Evans' The Coming of the Third Reich off and on, and while I must emphasise that conditions in this country are not as awful as conditions in 1933 Germany were (we don't have their hyperinflation or really any significant level of inflation at all, the business community seems less subservient to the administration on social issues, the civil service apart from ICE isn't as thoroughly shot through with authoritarians, our intelligentsia is nowhere near as right-wing as Germany's was, we have a much longer tradition of democratic norms, etc.), the tactics this administration is employing are worryingly familiar. Attacks on the press. Attacks on the actual notion of truth. Constant attempts to gaslight the public. The constant subversions of democratic norms. The constant praise for other authoritarian strongmen. And on and on.
Trump has deflected criticisms of Putin's murders of journalists with whataboutery (which is interesting, because you also haven't bothered addressing this issue and have also chosen to deflect the subject to attacks on other people). Trump has called Kim Jong Un "a pretty smart cookie". He has congratulated Tayyip Erdogan on his erosion of democratic norms in Turkey. He has refused to condemn Rodrigo Duterte for throwing people out of helicopters to their deaths. And so on.
(As an aside, it's definitely interesting how all the complaints about drones that were ubiquitous a few years ago have largely disappeared now that the black guy is no longer in office, even though the usage of drone strikes has risen substantially under his successor. I'm sure there's a benign explanation that doesn't involve racism.)
The idea that, under a Clinton administration, anyone would have to worry about keeping their healthcare is completely unsupported by evidence, particularly considering that she literally led the Democrats' push for universal healthcare in the 1990s. The idea that Clinton would full-throatedly support deporting people of Islamic and Hispanic/Latinx backgrounds is completely unsupported by evidence. The idea that she would be destabilising world peace with increasingly incoherent Twitter threats against Kim Jong Un is completely unsupported by evidence. The idea that she would continually threaten to rip up the Iran deal she had a substantial hand in laying the groundwork for is completely unsupported by evidence. The idea that she would have supported moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem is completely unsupported by evidence.
You may not like the Democrats. I'll be the first to acknowledge that they have plenty of failings. But, as others have indicated, they are better than the Republicans in every meaningful fashion. And better is as good as you can actually get in a country that is bound into a two-party system by its first-past-the-post elections - and because things can always get worse, and Trump is actively trying to make them worse in every conceivable fashion, better is still really fucking good overall.
Duverger's Law is all but ironclad in presidential FPTP systems. This is basic mathematics, and Noam Chomsky, an anarchist who is about as far left on every issue as you can get and who has been a consistent supporter of Palestine, understands this well enough that he has consistently advocated tactical voting for Democrats in any election where there is a meaningful race. This isn't because he particularly likes the Democrats. He has harshly criticised them, particularly on foreign policy, throughout his books. But when the only realistic choices in an election are a centrist (or even, if you feel the label applies better, a conservative) and an actual fascist, you choose the party that can defeat the fascist, no matter their flaws.
Even Louisiana voters, once upon a time, were capable of recognising this. When David Duke, erstwhile Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and current supporter of Donald Trump, was running for governor, his Democratic opponent, Edwin Edwards, was a convicted felon on several counts, including racketeering, extortion, money laundering, mail fraud, and wire fraud. Duke's opponents, correctly recognising that Edwards was the only realistic choice to defeat Duke, coined the slogan, "Vote for the crook - it's important." Edwards won in a 61%-39% landslide. There's a lesson here. (Moreover, in a 2011 poll, 30% of Louisiana respondents named Edwards the state's best governor since 1980, despite his corruption.)
The people who are actually oppressed in this country have far better things to do with their time than worry about someone using WWII imagery that tens of millions of others throughout history have also used. An awful lot of them are, in fact, active participants in resistance movements when they have time. You know. The same resistance movements you're attacking because they're using WWII imagery. These people are actively improving not only their own lives but others' as well - mine included. And what are you doing? Posting stupid bullshit on the Internet pretending to be offended because someone used the wrong symbol.
This presidency* has been almost universally horrible, but it has also certainly done a lot to clarify who my actual allies are, and none of them say they "prefer Trump". Feel free to take your whataboutism and fuck off and die in a fire with it.
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[Post 93]
Author : But
Date : 01-22-2018 11:20 PM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
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[Post 94]
Author : The Man
Date : 01-22-2018 11:40 PM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Ah, the fallacy of relative privation. "Trump hasn't actually used power he doesn't actually possess to stop the state from prosecuting others' murders; he's just refused to condemn his supporters' politically motivated murder and written it off as a product of 'violence on many sides', and endorsed other people who murder their political opponents, so he can't actually be a Nazi."
Also, FYI, the correct adjective form is "Democratic" for everyone who isn't a right-wing or Kremlin troll.
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[Post 95]
Author : Kael
Date : 01-22-2018 11:49 PM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
Oh, is that the line we're waiting for? Don't worry, everyone, it's all fine and he's no worse than the Democrats because he hasn't started literally murdering political opponents yet! Wait, that won't matter either, since exactly that behavior by not one but two other world leaders has been waved away because they happen to line up with a few bullet points of your foreign policy preferences...
BTW, that line is way too fucking late to start criticizing a President or his administration, or to admit that he just might be worse than the other option on the table.
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[Post 96]
Author : erimir
Date : 01-22-2018 11:50 PM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Beyond this, of course, lies the fact that Hitler didn't start out gassing everyone he didn't like with Zyklon-B. (Sneaky in-between poster erimir already pointed this out, but I'll leave it because deleting it might cause later parts of my post not to make sense.) While the concentration camps dated to fairly early in the regime, historians widely agree that the Holocaust did not begin in earnest until the 1940s. Because the date is usually pegged as 1941, this means there were eight years of Nazi tactics that did not actually extend to full-on genocide. I've been reading Richard Evans' The Coming of the Third Reich off and on, and while I must emphasise that conditions in this country are not as awful as conditions in 1933 Germany were (we don't have their hyperinflation or really any significant level of inflation at all, the business community seems less subservient to the administration on social issues, the civil service apart from ICE isn't as thoroughly shot through with authoritarians, our intelligentsia is nowhere near as right-wing as Germany's was, we have a much longer tradition of democratic norms, etc.), the tactics this administration is employing are worryingly familiar. Attacks on the press. Attacks on the actual notion of truth. Constant attempts to gaslight the public. The constant subversions of democratic norms. The constant praise for other authoritarian strongmen. And on and on.It also reminds me a bit of that line Ruth Bader Ginsburg used in her Shelby County (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_County_v._Holder) dissent, that "[t]hrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet."
The idea that "the resistance" (despite their incredibly tacky name, boohoo) is overheated and bad because Trump hasn't been doing things that are all that bad... is ignoring that part of the reason the GOP hasn't succeeded in doing some of the horrible things they'd like to do, and hasn't even tried to do some even worse things that elements in the party would like to do, is because of those protests and the pressure they and voters sympathetic to them have been putting on politicians in both parties, the attention they've been getting in the media, etc.
If the reaction to the firing of James Comey had been a giant shrug with Democrats adopting Watser's view that there's probably nothing there and even if there was, America is worse than Putin anyway, so who cares... What do you suppose Trump and the GOP would be doing at the FBI? I imagine that they'd be further along in trying to purge anyone who isn't a GOP party hack. After all, anyone they purge isn't worth defending anyway, so it's irrelevant if they're replaced with people who are even worse.
Duverger's Law is all but ironclad in presidential FPTP systems. This is basic mathematics, and Noam Chomsky, an anarchist who is about as far left on every issue as you can get and who has been a consistent supporter of Palestine, understands this well enough that he has consistently advocated tactical voting for Democrats in any election where there is a meaningful race. This isn't because he particularly likes the Democrats. He has harshly criticised them, particularly on foreign policy, throughout his books. But when the only realistic choices in an election are a centrist (or even, if you feel the label applies better, a conservative) and an actual fascist, you choose the party that can defeat the fascist, no matter their flaws. You could defend him by saying, he's a foreigner, it's understandable he doesn't know what he's talking about. But of course, as I pointed out, Watser can't even bring himself to make the far smaller compromise necessary to vote strategically in a proportional representation election.
The notion that someone who rejects every left-wing party in the Netherlands except for those with no hope of winning any seats has anywhere near a realistic handle on what's plausible in American politics is laughable. Yet he continually opines in the most idiotic way demonstrating little understanding of the American system or political dynamics. Hence why he could approvingly quote someone suggesting that the 2018 Senate map is trivial for Democrats to win... something he will not bother to defend because doing so might require him to actually learn how senate elections in the US work before spewing uninformed opinions. Anything that actually requires engaging with how elections actually work is something he will ignore, before repeating the same stupid ideas later.
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[Post 97]
Author : But
Date : 01-23-2018 12:02 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Ah, the fallacy of relative privation.
Followed by the fallacy of Shit I Didn't Actually Say or whatever the official name is.
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[Post 98]
Author : But
Date : 01-23-2018 12:05 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Oh, is that the line we're waiting for? Don't worry, everyone, it's all fine and he's no worse than the Democrats because he hasn't started literally murdering political opponents yet!
I'm sorry dude, but that's pretty much the standard when you want to compare someone to Hitler in 1933.
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[Post 99]
Author : The Man
Date : 01-23-2018 12:12 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Ah, the fallacy of relative privation.
Followed by the fallacy of Shit I Didn't Actually Say or whatever the official name is.
K, adding reductio ad absurdum to the list of Shit You Don't Actually Understand, then.
Oh, is that the line we're waiting for? Don't worry, everyone, it's all fine and he's no worse than the Democrats because he hasn't started literally murdering political opponents yet!
I'm sorry dude, but that's pretty much the standard when you want to compare someone to Hitler in 1933.
People have been murdered by Trump's minions - and I'm going to keep bringing up Heather Heyer until you acknowledge this. Trump doesn't actually possess the authority to keep the state from prosecuting them, because our constitution and democratic norms are substantially stabler than Germany's were in 1933's. A plausible argument can be made that, if he did possess that authority, he would have exercised it, particularly because he's repeatedly endorsed lynching black teenagers (the Central Park Five) for a crime they've been completely exonerated of. He still, AFAIK, hasn't even acknowledged their innocence or ever repudiated his argument to have them lynched.
This is basic U.S. civics, dude. Apart from pardons (which he can only issue for federal offences), the president does not possess any authority to intervene with the justice system, and in fact, if he even comments about an ongoing case, that can cause a mistrial (there was serious worry that Nixon's comments about Charles Manson would cause the latter to walk free, though fortunately, that didn't happen). The executive, legislative, and judicial branches are, at least in theory, separate things. The Republicans in the legislative branch have indicated they'll swallow just about anything up to polonium-210 from Trump, but he doesn't have control over the judiciary, particularly at a state level - for instance, as alluded to above, he cannot pardon anyone for state offences.
(To be fair, it's entirely possible that Trump may eventually attempt to deliberately throw the Heyer case with Nixon-like comments, but AFAIK it hasn't even gone to trial so far, so it's early days yet. And in any case, "saying prejudicial shit about a case" is still a completely different level of authority than "stopping it from going to trial at all.")
In short, you may wish to leave the discussion of U.S. politics to people who at least possess a rudimentary understanding of the structure of its government.
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[Post 100]
Author : erimir
Date : 01-23-2018 12:14 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Ah, the fallacy of relative privation.
Followed by the fallacy of Shit I Didn't Actually Say or whatever the official name is.Ah. So you naturally will be able to show where I Actually Said that Trump had refused to prosecute murderers who supported him.
Because apparently a comparison between Watser and the KPD necessitates that I think the situation is identical in all the particulars, including that Trump is just like Hitler, despite that being Shit I Didn't Actually Say, not even when I elaborated on the comparison.
Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?Putin has had political opponents and journalists murdered, and imprisoned human rights activists and sits by while one of his subordinates murders human rights activists and LGBT people.
Remind me, how am I worse than him? You seem to have no problem with that comparison. You jump in because I went too far, but passed right over that comparison, strangely enough.
It seems that I'm in for a lot of criticism (and be called a partisan hack) because I'll defend the Democrats as being better than Trump and the GOP, even though you can find plenty of instances of me criticizing Obama and other Democrats if you go through my posting history. But someone on your side warrants not a peep, not even a cover-your-ass to gesture at any form of objectivity to say "sure Watser's wrong too, but your comparison is still bad."
:chin:
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[Post 101]
Author : erimir
Date : 01-23-2018 12:30 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Trump's minimization of racist violence by his supporters began quite a bit earlier than Heather Heyer:
A Donald Trump-Inspired Hate Crime in Boston - The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/a-trump-inspired-hate-crime-in-boston/401906/)
From August 2015:
Police in Boston say that one of two brothers who allegedly beat a homeless Hispanic man cited Trump’s message on immigration as a motivation for their attack. "Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported"
[...]
"I think that would be a shame," he said, according to The Boston Herald, in reference to the report. He said he hadn’t heard about the incident but then defended his most ardent supporters as "passionate."
I will say, the people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country. They want this country to be great again. But they are very passionate. I will say that.
People who urinate on a man and beat him with a metal pole, putting him in the hospital, because he's Hispanic, they just have passionate love for their country.
Now Trump doesn't control the Boston DA's office. How sure is But that Trump would prosecute them to the full extent of the law if it were his personal decision?
Anyway, the real problem is that Democrats aren't measured enough in their rhetoric in pushing back at attempts to undermine the independence of the justice system.
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[Post 102]
Author : But
Date : 01-23-2018 12:35 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Remind me, how am I worse than him? You seem to have no problem with that comparison. You jump in because I went too far, but passed right over that comparison, strangely enough.
Am I supposed to read the whole thread, take notes, and write an essay about it?
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[Post 103]
Author : erimir
Date : 01-23-2018 12:37 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
It was mentioned after you got involved. And curiously, you still don't have anything to say about it.
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[Post 104]
Author : But
Date : 01-23-2018 12:40 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
How sure is But that Trump would prosecute them to the full extent of the law if it were his personal decision?
About as sure as that erimir would not start murdering people if he was sitting at Putin's desk.
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[Post 105]
Author : The Man
Date : 01-23-2018 12:51 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
How sure is But that Trump would prosecute them to the full extent of the law if it were his personal decision?
About as sure as that erimir would not start murdering people if he was sitting at Putin's desk.
:rolleye2:
If there's anything that's been a constant throughout erimir's posts on this message board, it's been his full-throated advocacy of murdering one's political opponents.
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[Post 106]
Author : specious_reasons
Date : 01-23-2018 01:12 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
Trump pardoned Arpaio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio):
I mean, we're not there quite yet, but Trump has already made prosecution of certain crimes at the federal level a gamble.
This is why the indictments from Mueller's investigation have state crimes associated with them - to make it harder for those people to avoid prosecution through pardons.
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[Post 107]
Author : But
Date : 01-23-2018 01:39 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
Trump pardoned Arpaio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio):
I mean, we're not there quite yet, but Trump has already made prosecution of certain crimes at the federal level a gamble.
This is why the indictments from Mueller's investigation have state crimes associated with them - to make it harder for those people to avoid prosecution through pardons.
Yes, that was just two months after the paramilitary arm of the GOP, I mean the NSDAP, arrested and tortured more than 500 political opponents in Washington, I mean Berlin. They had to mop up quite a lot of blood and remove body parts from the floor after interrogations.
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[Post 108]
Author : Watser?
Date : 01-23-2018 01:41 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
So what's this resistance? Are you hiding people who are going to be transported to death camps in your attics?
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[Post 109]
Author : The Man
Date : 01-23-2018 02:10 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
Trump pardoned Arpaio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio):
I mean, we're not there quite yet, but Trump has already made prosecution of certain crimes at the federal level a gamble.
This is why the indictments from Mueller's investigation have state crimes associated with them - to make it harder for those people to avoid prosecution through pardons.
Yes, that was just two months after the paramilitary arm of the GOP, I mean the NSDAP, arrested and tortured more than 500 political opponents in Washington, I mean Berlin. They had to mop up quite a lot of blood and remove body parts from the floor after interrogations.
You did read about how people literally were tortured and died in Arpaio's death camps, right? And about how the Gestapo, I mean ICE, actually has been rounding people up en masse and deporting them?
No. Of course you didn't.
Trump's actions don't have to be identical in every detail to the Nazis' in order to be legitimately comparable to them. Mike Godwin, he of the eponymous law, has explained this on several occasions. You've demonstrated little interest in listening to him, or to any of the people who are resisting Trump, for reasons that I can't entirely comprehend. Perhaps you're offended by a historical analogy to the extent that you've lost the ability to reason about it, or perhaps you've simply invested yourself so deeply in attacking Democrats that you've concluded the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Or perhaps there's something else; I can't tell.
In any case, you're demonstrating that nuance is lost on you. With that in mind, I can't say I'm surprised you're defending Trump. (And yes, "Trump isn't literally as bad as the Nazis in every specific detail, therefore people who are comparing him to the Nazis are more worthy of negative attention than the actual bad shit the Trump administration [or Putin, or Assad, or etc.] is doing every day" is in fact a defence of Trump [or Putin/Assad/etc.], whether you intend it as such or not.)
And it's certainly nice to see that you're still too cowardly to acknowledge Trump supporters' murder of Heather Heyer. Not that I expected anything else of you.
So what's this resistance? Are you hiding people who are going to be transported to death camps in your attics?
Most of what I said to But directly above also applies to you. In addition, you might as well have just posted "tl;dr", because it's clear you didn't actually read anything Kael or I have written. We literally already addressed this. You could at least provide us the courtesy of admitting that you didn't bother reading it.
In any case, congratulations; the two of you have successfully made this thread essentially useless for productive discussion. If I don't reply again (a distinct possibility), the likeliest explanation is that I'm convinced there's no point in engaging further. I really can't conceive of many ways it could have been made any more blatantly obvious that nothing I write is even being read by the people it's addressed to.
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[Post 110]
Author : erimir
Date : 01-23-2018 02:21 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Can't even come up with an original straw man :sadno:
Anyway, much easier than explaining why he prefers Trump, with reference to historical events showing the great success of "heighten the contradictions" strategies. I've pointed to one example of that strategy going catastrophically wrong.
Well, they say, Trump doesn't seem likely to be as catastrophically bad as Hitler, that's a ridiculous example... Therefore it's a good strategy this time? Good argument.
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[Post 111]
Author : specious_reasons
Date : 01-23-2018 02:21 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
Just remind me, how many Democrat politicians and party members have been tortured and beaten to death by Trump's minions, after which the state refused to prosecute?
Trump pardoned Arpaio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio):
I mean, we're not there quite yet, but Trump has already made prosecution of certain crimes at the federal level a gamble.
This is why the indictments from Mueller's investigation have state crimes associated with them - to make it harder for those people to avoid prosecution through pardons.
Yes, that was just two months after the paramilitary arm of the GOP, I mean the NSDAP, arrested and tortured more than 500 political opponents in Washington, I mean Berlin. They had to mop up quite a lot of blood and remove body parts from the floor after interrogations.
Like I said, we're not quite there yet, Arpaio only tortured and abused the unwanted illegal immigrants, rather than his political opponents. His political opponents he only investigated and attempted to drum up false charges.
Arpaio is one of the worst examples of right-wing authoritarianism in the USA, and he was pardoned. This is a warning sign.
But no, it's not that bad.
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[Post 112]
Author : But
Date : 01-23-2018 02:42 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
But no, it's not that bad.
:nope:
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[Post 113]
Author : fragment
Date : 01-23-2018 02:43 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
I don't want to get into the argument at hand, but I find the history being discussed interesting. So:
Instead it lead to them being murdered by the fascists.
The KDP had been violently suppressed and had leaders murdered by an SDP-led Government just 15 years before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacist_uprising). While the Nazis were clearly dangerous for the KDP, I'm not sure it would have been apparent at the time that the SDP wasn't.
A lesson there being that relying on the excesses of the right-wing to work out to the favor of the left is a dangerous game.
Internationally communism came out of WWII much stronger than it had been before 1933. Not that I'm in favour of Stalinist communism or following any kind of strategy that lets fascists have power, even temporarily, nor was the result a foregone conclusion. But it's an interesting outcome given the point you're making.
And I'd remind you, in 1933, Hitler wasn't "Hitler" either. He had committed no genocide and many dismissed his bigotry as rhetoric to rile up the rubes. The time to ally to stop him was before the 1933 election.
The 1933 election was too late. Hitler was already Chancellor. The KDP was de facto banned already following the Reichstag fire decree and the Nazis were able to form a majority with the DNVP. The KPD and SPD only got 30% of votes between them, and the proportional system meant that the vote splitting didn't matter. The time to unite against Nazis was before then.
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[Post 114]
Author : erimir
Date : 01-23-2018 03:58 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
I don't want to get into the argument at hand, but I find the history being discussed interesting. So:
Instead it lead to them being murdered by the fascists.
The KDP had been violently suppressed and had leaders murdered by an SDP-led Government just 15 years before (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacist_uprising). While the Nazis were clearly dangerous for the KDP, I'm not sure it would have been apparent at the time that the SDP wasn't.I wasn't aware of this event, although it still doesn't seem like there'd be much reason to conclude that Hitler was less dangerous other than by not taking his rhetoric seriously (which I do think is a fair comparison to the many people who thought Trump's racism was just a strategy to pander for votes, rather than indicative of how he'd govern - I think you should take those campaigning on racist/xenophobic/etc. bigotry at their word). In the context of the Russian Revolution a couple years prior, KDP folks advocating revolution and seizing buildings also would not seem to be simply benign political activity, although obviously I wouldn't like to support either those allied with the USSR nor those wanting to use violence against striking workers.
Nonetheless, Trotsky in 1932 seems to have been more prescient than Ernst Thälmann: "Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank... And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory"
I can see how, of course, at the time they didn't have the same historical examples we have now to consider. Such examples don't help very much, however, if they're seen as essentially singular, unique events, to which comparisons are automatically dismissed as histrionics regardless of the content of the comparison. Perhaps by referencing Godwin's Law without understanding it, as just a random example.
A lesson there being that relying on the excesses of the right-wing to work out to the favor of the left is a dangerous game.
Internationally communism came out of WWII much stronger than it had been before 1933. Not that I'm in favour of Stalinist communism or following any kind of strategy that lets fascists have power, even temporarily, nor was the result a foregone conclusion. But it's an interesting outcome given the point you're making.I suppose, but the SPD came out of WWII in a stronger position than those in the KPD did (even if we talk about the ideology as opposed to the actual members, a large number of whom were murdered by Hitler). And while I'd grant the existence of East Germany for a few decades, more moderate factions within Germany as represented by Merkel, seem to have been ultimately more successful than the Communists. Certainly a far-left utopia is not the final result. I don't think many 1930s and 40s Communists would be pleased with the developments in China and other places either, even if it is still Communist in name.
And anyway, like you, I don't find the USSR to have been much of a positive force anyway. Although I can see some arguments for it having some positive effects in the world. It's arguable, for example, that the political pressure created by the USSR on the US is partially responsible for the advances of the Civil Rights Movement during the Cold War. Jim Crow was a potent propaganda tool for the USSR (for good reason), which provided some motivation to US presidents to undermine it.
Not to mention that the USSR came out of those events as they did because of international warfare that killed tens of millions, including millions of their own citizens. I don't think Watser is suggesting that Trump is preferable because he'll go to war with Iran, which expands into a regional war, and out of the wreckage of millions of deaths, a more democratic Middle East with greater human rights and economic equality will arise.
If I were as charitable as Watser, of course, I would suggest that was exactly his hope - that Trump would nuke Iran and the millions of deaths would lead to a free Palestine or something stupid like that. Since you know, he's worse than Putin or whatever.
Regardless, the outcome doesn't much recommend heightening the contradictions as a strategy. Relying on the excesses of the right-wing to lead to good outcomes is rather risky and even if it did empower the Communists, it still imposed a heavy, heavy cost in exchange.
And I'd remind you, in 1933, Hitler wasn't "Hitler" either. He had committed no genocide and many dismissed his bigotry as rhetoric to rile up the rubes. The time to ally to stop him was before the 1933 election.
The 1933 election was too late. Hitler was already Chancellor. The KDP was de facto banned already following the Reichstag fire decree and the Nazis were able to form a majority with the DNVP. The KPD and SPD only got 30% of votes between them, and the proportional system meant that the vote splitting didn't matter. The time to unite against Nazis was before then.I suppose you're right.
Push the date back to 1932 and my critique doesn't change substantially though, I don't think.
Point being that being vigilant against the threat of Hitler in the early stages would've required responding to far less than genocide, suppression of opposition parties, and passage of oppressive anti-Semitic laws, etc.
And I wouldn't want to wait for him to have roving violent mobs attacking political opponents either before I recognized him as a serious threat.
And the even larger point is not that Trump is like Hitler (even if he were merely like Putin, that would still be a very bad thing), but that heighten the contradictions as a strategy (and that is the reason that Watser prefers Trump) can backfire rather spectacularly, and that false equivalences between the center-left and right-wing demagogues are dumb.
And of course, this all started because Watser came into this thread to compare me or Democrats or something to Nazi collaborators, on the basis that this thread was named based on the common term used in the media for the protests and energized left-wing/Democratic opposition to Trump and is, as The Man pointed out, a very common trope in Western media, despite there being no discussion of Nazis in the thread, and therefore I invited a comparison to Nazis wherein I'm the Nazi collaborator or something.
And then he called me worse than Putin and Assad.
Yet he and his But buddy are outraged that I would compare him and his "heighten the contradictions" "both sides are the same" bullshit to the KPD. Okay :rolleyes:
And I mean, it should be obvious that I wasn't totally precise in that comparison given that I was responding to that "you're worse than Putin" tantrum. I do stand by the point that expecting that empowering the right-wing over the center-left will redound to the far-left's benefit is idiotic and not supported by history. And I don't need to be saying that Trump is Hitler for the example of the KPD to be relevant to that point. Empowering the right-wing is most likely to benefit the right-wing, I know it seems too obvious an answer, but sometimes the counterintuitive idea is wrong.
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[Post 115]
Author : The Man
Date : 01-23-2018 09:16 AM
Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
So here, I'll try to salvage this thread.
I, too, immediately thought of a Batman villain when I saw Yertle McTurtle's tweet, though I'll admit that, due in large part to my age, it was Jim Carrey's Riddler. Who was doing the same shit the Joker was in TDK. And McTurtle is now. Though it's not like those are the only two examples in comic book film history - forcing heroes to choose between two hostages is pretty much an archetypal supervillain move. Fuck off, McTurtle, is I guess what I'm trying to say. You're literally acting like a fucking Batman villain. Bonus tweet correcting McTurtle's dishonest framing:Nice to see Mitch McConnell literally using the same strategy as the Joker at the end of “The Dark Knight.”https://t.co/Y4ysOQIEKP
— Full Frontal (@FullFrontalSamB) January 19, 2018
And one more pointing out his hypocrisy (not that hypocrisy actually means anything in the Age of Trump, and I've argued that hypocrisy arguments are overrated elsewhere);Revised ... pic.twitter.com/Zv7g5wKFxi
— MLP (@MLPSTA) January 20, 2018
— Full Frontal (@FullFrontalSamB) January 19, 2018-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 116] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-23-2018 06:44 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 117] Author : Watser? Date : 01-24-2018 03:26 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics For the record my point was never that Trump is not Hitler but that the Democrats are not 'the Resistance' but are collaborators. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 118] Author : erimir Date : 01-24-2018 05:33 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics :jerkoff: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 119] Author : erimir Date : 01-24-2018 05:48 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics In more important news:Putting CHIP on White (people) and DACA on Black (people) is a nice touch.
— Willy Lee (@advicepig) January 19, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 120] Author : The Lone Ranger Date : 01-24-2018 06:41 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics That's good, because given how thoroughly the Republicans have managed to gerrymander voting districts, Democrats frequently have to outperform Republicans by a large margin in order to have any hope of winning. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 121] Author : erimir Date : 01-24-2018 07:10 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Yeah, the quantitative election types seem to think that Democrats need to win the House popular vote by about 7 pts to be favored to win the House. They could win it with less, or fail to win it with more. There is some chance that Democrats will do better than that, of course. The special election results point to a stronger performance than that, and while the generic ballot is currently at about D+8 it has been fluctuating between D+7 and D+13 for the past 6 months, suggesting that D+7 is probably at the low end of what we'd expect in November... The decision this week on Pennsylvania gerrymandering (which, fortunately, does not rely on the US Constitution, which will make it unlikely that SCOTUS would step in) could reduce that by a little bit. Even flipping 2 or 3 seats as a result would have a non-trivial effect, given that it looks like a close outcome in the House is relatively likely. The PA GOP is going to try the hail Mary to get SCOTUS to intervene, based on the notion that the US Constitution empowers the state legislature, not the PA Supreme Court, to create districts. But the legislature is bound by the PA Constitution, which is arbitrated by the PA Supreme Court, so it doesn't seem likely to succeed. I'm sure Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas would be willing to say that state constitutions don't matter if it meant partisan gain for the GOP, despite all their states' rights BS, but I'm less sure that Kennedy or even Roberts would agree. Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered House map was just struck down — with huge implications for 2018 - Vox (https://www.vox.com/2018/1/22/16920636/pennsylvania-gerrymander-ruling-house) The Supreme Court is hearing some cases about partisan gerrymandering this session, but it seems that even if they rule favorably, it probably won't affect this year's elections (they'd have to issue the ruling quite soon, given that they seem reluctant to force redistricting with only a few months before elections). I'm cautiously optimistic about the ruling, but you can't totally rely on Kennedy... But it would be a political earthquake if Kennedy ruled that GOP gerrymanders had to be redone this year and lower the threshold for Democratic control significantly, I think. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 122] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-26-2018 12:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The kids seem alright. (https://medium.com/@jgeorge_89658/16-year-old-releases-app-to-fight-trump-f3f532debd3f) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 123] Author : The Man Date : 01-26-2018 10:32 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Fred Clark (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2018/01/23/russian-infiltration-various-religious-groups-lot/#GYJ4iirjD1my3f3e.99), whom I really should be reading more often, on infiltration of American evangelical groups by the Russkies. Thinking through the roster of major players on the religious right, it’s not hard to come up with a list of those who would be susceptible to such infiltration — or to come up with a list of those who would be eagerly receptive. Of course, “targeted” does not necessarily mean successfully targeted. But I don’t see a lot of religious right organizations displaying either the intellectual or the moral capacity to resist such targeting. Special counsel Robert Mueller runs a famously tight ship, ensuring that there are no leaks in his ongoing investigation, so if the leaders of some religious right group had, responsibly, contacted the FBI, reporting that they had been subjected to overtures from “Russians … pursuing relationships” in service of Putin’s political aims, then we likely won’t hear about it until Mueller’s ultimate findings are made public. But I have a hard time imagining that this is how any of those groups would have reacted. Their response to Russian overtures, I imagine, would likelier have been as enthusiastically incriminating as the sort of thing we’ve seen from Carter Page and Don Jr. We need to know the names of those “various religious groups” that were “targeted” and — perhaps — “infiltrated” by Russians representing “banker-slash-Duma member-slash-Mafia” interests. And we need to know how this influenced them. We could frame this in high-minded terms, arguing that Simpson’s vague assertions unfairly cast a shadow of doubt upon all conservative “religious groups,” and insisting that we require a list of tainted and compromised organizations so that all of the legitimate, untainted, un-infiltrated religious right organizations may be publicly exonerated. That’s also true. But mainly I just want to see the names. Who was targeted? Who took the bait? And what were the consequences of that? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 124] Author : Watser? Date : 01-28-2018 02:03 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Candidates Who Signed Up to Battle Donald Trump Must Get Past the Democratic Party First (https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/dccc-democratic-primaries-congress-progressives/) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 125] Author : Zehava Date : 01-28-2018 08:50 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Candidates Who Signed Up to Battle Donald Trump Must Get Past the Democratic Party First (https://theintercept.com/2018/01/23/dccc-democratic-primaries-congress-progressives/) Getting candidates actually elected is secondary to filling the coffers of the National Conventions (Democrat and Republican). The DNC today is hardly better than Tammany Hal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall)l under Boss Tweed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Tweed). The biggest difference is they are better at hiding the corruption and graft today than they were in the 1800's. The DNC doesn't want progressive candidates, it wants ones who can pull in big corporate donations. It wants candidates that will maintain the status quo. Candidates who, if elected, will kowtow to their corporate masters. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 126] Author : erimir Date : 01-29-2018 06:24 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The DNC isn't responsible for congressional elections. It's interesting how few people who claim that the DNC controls the outcomes of every primary demonstrate knowledge about the DSCC, DCCC, DLCC and DGA. And then there are state organizations (some of which are quite bad). In general, the Democratic Party is quite decentralized. At least the article Watser linked actually talks about the proper organization, the DCCC and Rahm Emanuel, who was the head of the DCCC a while back. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 127] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-29-2018 09:02 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Some historical background on that 'chain migration' thing. It's Family Immigration. No chains here. (https://www.hmalegal.com/blawg/familyimmigration) At the bottom of the blog post is a tweet thread where he discusses some law catch 22s. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 128] Author : erimir Date : 01-30-2018 10:20 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Thread:So far, in 2018, Democrats running in special state legislative elections have outperformed 2016 by an average of 23%. (In 2017, the average was a 10% overperformance across 70 state and congressional races.) This is a BFD. https://t.co/qSfxkNzxUU
— James Lambert (@hellofasandwich) January 24, 2018
Well, he's not Hitler, and they don't have mobs attacking people yet, so nothing to worry about :phew: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 129] Author : The Man Date : 02-14-2018 03:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I live in Sarasota County, which, up until tonight, had elected exactly one Democrat in the last couple of decades I've lived here (namely, the tax collector, Barbara Ford-Coates, who's been here since before I can remember - probably before I even moved here). Tonight we elected Democratic candidate Margaret Good to the state House of Representatives in a special election after the freshman incumbent unexpectedly retired. This wasn't the hugest shift we've seen in a special election recently, but it was still a twelve-point shift: Good won by seven percentage points; Trump had carried the district by five. Good was up against James Buchanan, son of the current U.S. representative Vern Buchanan, who has been in office since 2007. As a result, there was a fairly vast political machine backing the younger Buchanan in this race. I didn't follow the last few days that closely, but evidently there was a Trump-style rally on Sunday featuring a guest appearance from Corey Lewandowski and "lock her up"-style chants. I didn't see a single poll about this race, but Good's victory didn't surprise me, though I was mildly surprised that it was by as comfortable a margin as seven points. Evidently a poll a few days ago had Good up by three points, and it was clear to me that the Buchanan campaign was panicking. It was also clear that the headwinds were against them, even though I hadn't read a single news story about the election since the primary. I was actually somewhat surprised that I got a primary ballot in the mail when my parents, who are both registered Republicans, did not. (Both my parents voted for Good in the general despite their party registration - at this point I suspect they are only hanging on to their registration out of a probably futile hope that they can serve as a brake on the Republicans' worst excesses in primary elections. They certainly didn't vote for Trump either.) The fact that the Democrats had two people - both women, incidentally - running for a vacant seat, while the Republicans could only find the scion of the current U.S. rep, certainly struck me as curious. The second indicator was yard signs. I want to be clear: these aren't reliable evidence, particularly if you just look at them without context. In order to be able to read yard signs as an even remotely reliable indicator, you need to have familiarity with their distribution in past elections. If you see a lot of signs for a Democratic candidate in areas that didn't have them in the past, that's probably a good sign for the Democrat. But they have to be evenly distributed - if one house has twenty signs for the Democrat, that's almost completely irrelevant. It just means the Democrat had more signs printed. But if they're widely distributed in places where they weren't in previous elections, that's likely to be positively correlated with voter enthusiasm, possibly by a fairly substantial margin. Strong supporters of a candidate may be willing to put up yard signs; those who are too unenthusiastic to risk arguments with their neighbours almost certainly won't. This election cycle, I'm not exaggerating when I say I could probably count the number of Buchanan signs I saw on one hand. Good signs were everywhere. In previous elections, the signs were usually roughly evenly split between the parties. I saw more signs for the lolbert, Alison Foxall, than I did for Buchanan. (Foxall didn't get enough of the vote to serve as a spoiler - I think it must've been about 3%. Good, from my understanding, got around 52%.) When the lolbert has more yard signs than you, that's usually not a good...erm, I'm sorry. I can't think of a way to avoid this that doesn't sound more awkward than this disclaimer. Usually not a good sign. The third indicator was the last election combined with general trends. Trump won the district by 5% in 2016. Democrats have typically moved the needle at least 10 points in their direction. This time they moved it from -5% to +7%. That's perfectly in line with other special elections we've had. But the fourth indicator. My god, the fourth indicator. The fourth indicator was the fucking advertising. The fucking advertising was everywhere, and it was completely one-sided, and it was absolutely fucking awful. I'm just going to copy and paste this from a comment I posted to BJ/LGM because I can't bear to think of this a second time: ...the sheer desperation and ineptitude of Buchanan’s advertising. They blanketed everything, and they did so incessantly. I have an ad blocker on my computer, but there were ads for Buchanan here, on BJ, on YouTube videos for Colbert, Trevor Noah, The Opposition. Everywhere. Constantly. Seemingly half the videos I watched had the same damn ad. All shows/sites with largely liberal audiences, too. And it was awful. I never watched the whole thing, but it opened by name-dropping Rick Scott in a positive manner. I haven’t checked in the last couple of months, but the last time I saw, Gov. Voldemort’s approval rating was in the toilet. That seems like an enormous unforced error. They also referred to Good as a “Hillary Clinton clone”. Granted, I’m not exactly the middle of the road voter they aimed the ad at (something like that reads to me as a ringing endorsement), but… she’s hardly massively unpopular. They didn’t even open with an attack on Pelosi, whose approval rating is way lower. Amateur hour. And then they blanketed the ad so heavily that I’m sure it just pissed off people who were on the fence. It was always the exact same ad, too. Just terrible, shoddy work. The sheer amount of advertising read as a move of desperation to me. Like they had internal numbers that indicated they knew they were down in the polls, and they were panicking. By contrast, I didn’t see much advertising from Good. Some people might’ve read that as a sign of weakness, but it didn’t read that way to me. They emailed me to make sure I’d voted, and there were a couple of fundraising appeals, but it was a perfectly reasonable number. If I were apolitical, I could easily see myself voting for Good just on the basis of her campaign being so much less annoying. As it was I found myself grumbling out loud at my phone in annoyance at the YouTube ads at least five times. And I'll just close out with what I wrote there as well: Good ran a (pardon the pun) good campaign. I didn’t see any clear unforced errors. I could easily see her going places in the Florida Democratic Party. She’s certainly done Sarasota proud. For the first time in awhile, I have a political reason to feel proud of my hometown. This certainly bodes positively as a barometer for the future of Florida politics. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 130] Author : JoeP Date : 02-14-2018 08:55 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I was actually somewhat surprised that I got a primary ballot in the mail when my parents, who are both registered Republicans, did not. omg irregularities! Voter registration fraud! The Dems stole their ballot papers! The fact that the Democrats had two people - both women, incidentally - running for a vacant seat, while the Republicans could only find the scion of the current U.S. rep, certainly struck me as curious. or ... wait ... are you suggesting ... The fucking advertising was everywhere, and it was completely one-sided, and it was absolutely fucking awful. ... that the Repubs gave up? Have been hamstrung by sheer incompetence, their machinery deserted by anyone with sense? Actively did nothing useful, just spent money? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 131] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 02-14-2018 10:38 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I'll just put this here:This is the endgame. And it’s scary. Trump pretty clearly didn’t understand how things work when he first took office—was basically willing to appoint whomever the Federalist Society assured him was a competent lawyer—then fumed he couldn’t use DOJ as a hit squad. https://t.co/mX5mX4EWBo
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) January 30, 2018
this is my dream pic.twitter.com/Fd4g08hhCH
— Erin Brrr, sir (@erinscafe) February 13, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 132] Author : Watser? Date : 02-15-2018 02:50 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Resistance gets resisted by the Resistance... After Annie Rice's Victory, Democrats Weigh Punishing Her Supporters | News Blog (https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/02/14/after-annie-rices-victory-democrats-weigh-punishing-her-supporters) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 133] Author : mickthinks Date : 02-15-2018 04:07 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Resistance gets resisted by the Resistance... You are doing that thing with words that Orwell warned us about. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 134] Author : Watser? Date : 02-15-2018 04:08 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics You are making as much sense as usual, so that must be really, really deep thinking... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 135] Author : Zehava Date : 02-15-2018 04:14 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Yet after the committee chose not to let Rice's supporters speak at the meeting, she decided to run anyway. She mounted a challenge as an independent, gathering signatures to earn the right to enter the race. Sounds like Democracy worked in the case. So the establishment reacts in a distinctly undemocratic manner. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 136] Author : erimir Date : 02-15-2018 11:07 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So the scenario is that the St Louis City Democratic Party chose a candidate for a special election (in a normal election, there would be a primary), and one candidate, who was also on a Democratic Party committee, didn't get chosen and thus decided to run as an independent. Given the understanding I've seen Watser and others demonstrate of internal Democratic Party procedures, I feel that it's probably necessary to point out that the St Louis City Democratic Party has its own procedures and rules, and this rule change would only affect the city of St Louis, and Nancy Pelosi and the DNC and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and so on have literally nothing to do with any of this. The rule change they're considering is that if you are a member of a Democratic Party committee, you shouldn't run against a Democratic candidate in a general election. Doing so would be subject to censure and potentially removal, upon a vote of a two-thirds majority of the committee. The two-thirds requirement would presumably make it unlikely that such a step would be taken if the two candidates had gotten about half of the vote (the committee has 56 members so there is a bit of room between a 24 vote majority and a 38 vote supermajority). How many parties in any country allow you to remain a member of the party leadership while running a campaign against the party? Do you suppose Artikel 1 in the Netherlands would allow a member of one of its party committees to run against the Artikel 1 candidate somewhere without consequence? This rule change doesn't seem particularly harsh to me and it's a bit ridiculous to describe it as an "activist purge". In normal elections, which are the vast majority of elections, candidates will be chosen by primary voters and it's much harder to make the case that running against the choice of the Democratic Party primary voters is always kosher with being on a Democratic Party committee. On the other hand, it sounds like the party committee had a bad process for choosing the candidate. Given the result, it seems likely that a primary would've led to a victory for Rice and they should've taken that into account when choosing their candidate. Either way, it's pretty small potatoes. A city-level Democratic Party committee is changing the rules in a case that's mostly only relevant in special elections and only affects the 56 members of the committee and only when they run a campaign against an official Democratic Party candidate, and wouldn't stop more progressives from getting elected to that committee. But you know, "the resistance is resisting the resistance" and thus Nancy Pelosi has crushed the left flank of the party with her mighty establishment gavel or something. Also I would note that despite the attempt to fit the race into a certain narrative, I don't really see much in the way of explanation of the ideological stakes of Rice vs. Fehler. I guess we're just supposed to assume that because Fehler was supported by the committee that he was much more conservative, but other articles on the site mention him as part of the wave of young progressives getting involved in the St Louis Democratic Party in the past couple years. If you take out that aspect of the narrative, it seems even more inconsequential. Given that I'm pretty sure Watser doesn't read St Louis local news regularly, I'm also guessing the only reason he saw this is because he likes to go looking for this sort of thing (or he follows people who do), but this single case doesn't really tell us, well, anything about the overall trajectory of the party. Maybe we could look at something that collects information about local races and primaries across the country, rather than cherry picking? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 137] Author : The Man Date : 03-06-2018 07:17 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Mississippi senator Thad Cochrane is resigning, because unlike our president*, he possesses enough self-awareness to understand when he can't do a job any longer. This means that there will be two U.S. Senate seats up for grabs in Mississippi this November. It's my understanding that the election for Cochrane's seat will not list party affiliation for any candidate. To be honest, I don't understand the intricacies of how this primary is going to work, nor do I know the intricacies of Mississippi politics enough to speculate who the likely contenders for the seat will be. I'd do more research about this, but Kabletown has crapped out and I only have internet access right now through my phone, so I'll hold off until I know more. Honestly, I'll consider it a victory if we get the GOP to pour shitloads of money into a Senate race that would be safe for them if they weren't such treasonous assholes. That would mean they'd have less money to spend for other races, meaning that the opening up of this seat may well have just improved our odds of winning Senate seats in several other states. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 138] Author : erimir Date : 03-07-2018 07:49 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics They will be holding a "jungle primary", where all candidates run and the top two advance to a run-off, unless one candidate gets more than 50% of the vote. That first round will be held concurrently with the regular November election, so the runoff will be in December. Additionally, they won't be listing party affiliation. Seems unlikely we'd be able to win the seat, but there are three scenarios where it's possible: 1. The more likely scenario is that the GOP has a bad candidate advance in the runoff, and the Democrat is good enough to beat him. This is like the Roy Moore scenario, pre-molestation accusations. Moore was known for being an extremist even in Alabama. So the Alabama race was unusually close even before those revelations. Of course, if we're really lucky, the GOP candidate implodes the way that Moore did, which given that MS isn't as Republican-leaning as Alabama, would probably make a victory easier. The GOP already has a likely candidate that's being talked about as someone who could manage to lose to the Democrats. He's currently trying to primary the incumbent in the other seat. He maybe doesn't want to seem to eager to switch races, but honestly, the special election is a much better opportunity for him since his chances of advancing to the runoff would be pretty good while his chances of beating Wicker are much less so. 2. The much less likely scenario is that the GOP field is hopelessly fractured and Democrats have two decent candidates, and they both advance to the runoff. This is unlikely to happen as it requires pretty narrow ranges of vote splits, but this sort of thing does occasionally happen. We picked up a seat in the Georgia state legislature this way, one that might've been difficult to win in a Dem-GOP runoff. A high profile federal senate race is far less likely to have the same coordination issues from the GOP, but this is the party that fought over who would get to face Trump one-on-one until it was too late and Trump had already won. 3. The extremely unlikely scenario is that a Democrat wins the first round outright, getting 50+% of the vote. This is harder to pull off since even if one Republican implodes, the others will probably pick up the slack. We'd probably need a truly amazing candidate without any significant Democrat competitors, and/or a whole pack of Roy Moores. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 139] Author : Watser? Date : 03-07-2018 06:39 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Heroic resistance trying to out-rightwing the rightwing again. Schumer Denounced for 'Absolutely Disgusting' AIPAC Speech (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/03/07/schumer-denounced-absolutely-disgusting-aipac-speech) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 140] Author : erimir Date : 03-08-2018 01:35 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics It's strange that the Democrats didn't move the embassy to Jerusalem when they had the chance, given how they're more right-wing than the right-wing. And how Bibi certainly prefers the Republicans. So strange. It's not enough to point out that some Democrats did something bad, it has to be "the resistance" (i.e. the Democratic Party as a whole? the US left? Women's March participants?) is more right-wing than the right-wing. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 141] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 03-08-2018 06:01 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Someone get this guy a lolyer. Kris Kobach is Representing Himself in Voter Law Trial and Having All Sorts of Problems | Law & Crime (https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/kris-kobach-is-representing-himself-in-voter-law-case-and-having-all-sorts-of-problems/) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 142] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 03-12-2018 08:49 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Because all is not shit.😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/g8K9nhEsBS
— Erin Brrr, sir (@erinscafe) February 13, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 143] Author : Dingfod Date : 03-12-2018 03:17 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics ...............................I've got a bad feeling about this [year's election]. https://lumiere-a.akamaihd.net/v1/images/databank_tradefederation_01_169_4d5122ac.jpeg?region=0%2C0%2C1560%2C878&width=768 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 144] Author : erimir Date : 03-14-2018 06:38 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics In more evidence that Democrats are DOOOOOMED and how Watser is an expert at US politics and the path to victory is through adopting his policy preferences... Democrat Conor Lamb appears to have won the special election in Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district, pending a final count of the outstanding absentee ballots (not numerous) and a potential recount. Even if the Republican manages to win by the skin of his teeth, this is a district that Trump won by 20 pts and Mitt Romney won by 17 pts. This is basically consistent with the special election results so far (I mean, a Democrat won Alabama). It's unlikely the Democrats do as well in November as in these special elections for a few reasons. First of all, special elections are all open seats, and in November it will mostly be incumbents (although as more Republicans retire, the better it is for Democrats). And secondly, turnout variation can be more extreme in special elections. But based on history it's not going to be a huge decline, which is what the GOP would need. In other words, Democrats... Futurama - Doomed - YouTube -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 145] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 04-11-2018 09:13 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I did not see this coming. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-11/ex-speaker-john-boehner-joins-marijuana-firm-s-advisory-board) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 146] Author : Dingfod Date : 04-12-2018 02:38 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I did not see this coming. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-11/ex-speaker-john-boehner-joins-marijuana-firm-s-advisory-board)Boehner blows a blunt, Ryan bows out, Trump's lawyer needs a lawyer. Is there a glitch in the matrix? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 147] Author : specious_reasons Date : 04-12-2018 02:56 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I did not see this coming. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-11/ex-speaker-john-boehner-joins-marijuana-firm-s-advisory-board) I think that was probably the only way he could cope with the "Freedom" Caucus while he was Speaker. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 148] Author : But Date : 04-12-2018 03:10 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I did not see this coming. (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-11/ex-speaker-john-boehner-joins-marijuana-firm-s-advisory-board)Boehner blows a blunt, Ryan bows out, Trump's lawyer needs a lawyer. Is there a glitch in the matrix? A glitch? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 149] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 04-18-2018 01:29 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Daaaaaaaaaamn.My mom (who was a republican for 57 years) just got a donation request from the RNC and this is what she's sending back 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/CIww0cgY5H
— Jennifer Helinek (@InsertLitPun) March 11, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 150] Author : The Man Date : 05-07-2018 08:33 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Map of the voting relationships between Senators in the 113th Congress (2013-2015, though I think this probably only goes through November 2013 given when it was posted), which I thought might be interesting to people. There are a number of clear lessons from this; the two most notable are that, apart from Murkowski and Collins, there are no Republicans left who could even charitably be described as moderates, and that the gulf between the parties is much vaster than the gulf between any two Senators of the same party. (Space between senators in this map isn’t relevant; the number of lines between them is.) (From imgur (https://imgur.com/MbQvdaB). Whether you open it there or here, you may need to save it to your computer, or at least open it in a new tab, to view it at full size.) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 151] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-08-2018 03:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics A good spot for this here, although it could easily be philosophy or any other thing as well.Today I received a candidate questionnaire from @NRA. This is how I answered it. pic.twitter.com/5RFgmPwtFW
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) April 17, 2018
I've been reaching for how to describe what is 'privilege' for a long time. I think this just nails it: "Who’s allowed to make mistakes?" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 152] Author : The Man Date : 05-08-2018 06:50 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Greg Sargent on Trump’s likely impact on the upcoming congressional election and how Democrats have been dealing with him (https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/05/08/trump-is-a-disaster-and-thats-helping-democrats-but-not-how-you-think/?utm_term=.71ef484db4a7). The short version is that while Trump’s approval rating has risen slightly, it’s still historically awful for this point of his presidency, and his strong disapproval ratings are much higher than his strong approval ratings, which points to an enthusiasm gap. Meanwhile, Democrats largely have been winning local and Congressional races by focusing on issues, despite the press’ narrative that the Democrats are just talking about Trump. Sargent doesn’t really get into this, but while that may be the case at the national level, there isn’t one narrative that will win Congressional races. There are 435. Each district has its own political concerns, and candidates for each district will have to tailor their message to the district. As a result, you don’t have one consistent narrative between candidates from the same party throughout the country. That’s the entire reason Congressional districts even exist; different districts have different concerns, and the races naturally reflect that. This should be intuitively easy to understand, but political journalists mostly don’t understand policy (or, for that matter, politics) any better than they understand, say, technology, so this escapes an awful lot of reporting about Congress. Anyway, Sargent is worth reading, and he links to Nate Silver (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/president-trumps-approval-rating-has-been-steady-richard-nixons-once-was-too/) and Ron Brownstein (https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/08/politics/election-2018-republicans-democrats-taxes-health-care-aca/index.html) (NB: autoplay video in the latter), who are also worth reading. Sargent also points out, among other things, that insurance premium hikes are likely to occur shortly before the election date in November, and they are entirely the fault of Republicans’ sabotage of the ACA. Moreover, he links to Krugthulu (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/opinion/republicans-obamacare-health-care.html), who points out that it’s unlikely that Republicans can escape blame for this. Silver’s article also points out that just because a president’s approval ratings are relatively stable, that does not guarantee that they will continue to be so. Nixon is, of course, the most relevant case study here, and is explicitly cited in the headline, but Johnson and G.H.W. Bush also had catastrophic collapses in their approval ratings after relatively stable numbers in their first 500 days. Brownstein largely focuses on how the Democrats’ national message will largely focus on healthcare and taxes, linking the two together. While political journalism has mostly treated them as two separate issues, voters haven’t perceived them that way; they’ve seen both as emblematic of ways Washington isn’t looking out for the little guy. As a result, Democrats have largely been running on policy issues rather than character issues. I do have a couple of criticisms of Brownstein’s article: firstly, it presents the narrative that Hillary Clinton’s campaign focused on character issues at the expense of policy issues. While her advertising did largely focus on Trump’s character, she talked about policy throughout the campaign, and the media, including CNN (which published Brownstein’s article) refused to cover her policy discussion at all. Brownstein’s piece also focuses largely on the unemployment rate when discussing the economy, when of course other indicators like wages, workforce participation, and number of hours worked per week are equally important. Regardless, it’s worth reading. Krugthulu goes through the history of sabotage (listen all y’all it’s a sabotage, LISTEN ALL Y’ALL IT’S A SABOTAGE… sorry). The metaphor he uses is termites, which is an appropriate one. I won’t attempt to summarise. Go read him.While I was in Europe interviewers kept asking me how to define “privilege,” and I said that one way to look at it was who’s allowed to make mistakes. https://t.co/Lac475riWM
— Celeste Ng (@pronounced_ing) May 5, 2018
| I can’t stand it; I know you planned it I’ma set it straight, this Watergate | |
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 155] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-21-2018 03:39 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This Twitter meltdown is going to be awesome. (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/388531-clinton-to-be-honored-at-harvard-for-transformative-impact) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 156] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-21-2018 09:17 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics MAGAA statement from the family of @SenatorReid pic.twitter.com/7RT7vTW9BM
— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) May 14, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 157] Author : davidm Date : 05-21-2018 05:58 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics ... and the media, including CNN (which published Brownstein’s article) refused to cover her policy discussion at all. Wow ... just, wow. :unnope: Evidence? This place has become just as much of an echo chamber and hall of mirrors as any half-baked right-wing site, with nonsense like the above. Good luck in dislodging Trump in 2020, if you keep thinking like this. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 158] Author : erimir Date : 05-22-2018 02:30 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Let's not get carried away with hyperbole! One wouldn't want to look at this and say "They refused to cover Hillary's policies at all" rather than "they spent far more time on scandals for Clinton than for Trump, despite her scandals being far less significant and less substantiated, and her policies clearer, more detailed and less self-contradictory. The result was that Clinton coverage was dominated by scandals, especially one particular scandal of little relevance to governance, which made it seem highly significant, while Trump's was mostly based on policy and coverage of his scandals was diffuse, enabling him to be seen as the less corrupt and more honest candidate despite being, perhaps, the most corrupt and dishonest candidate ever." https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/files/2017/08/clintonscandals-1024x718.png No, we need measured takes that eschew hyperbole, like saying that the media and FBI/Comey played no role in Clinton's loss, and her loss by ~70,000 votes was solely due to her being "a shitty candidate." That's an appropriately nuanced claim. Let's not concern ourselves with pushing back on media bias or FBI ratfucking/GOP pseudoscandals. Those have no effect on anything, and Democrats should just sit back and let them do their thing. And also only the Democratic candidate has any effect on anything, because only Democrats have agency. So our primary concerns should be 1. not nominating Hillary Clinton again and 2. only nominating candidates that make davidm's thighs tingle. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 159] Author : The Man Date : 05-22-2018 03:59 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics ... and the media, including CNN (which published Brownstein’s article) refused to cover her policy discussion at all. Wow ... just, wow. :unnope: Evidence? This place has become just as much of an echo chamber and hall of mirrors as any half-baked right-wing site, with nonsense like the above. Good luck in dislodging Trump in 2020, if you keep thinking like this. Two points re: policy coverage: 1. Hyperbole - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbole), because you obviously need a refresher course in recognising it, or (more likely) you're being deliberately obtuse. 2. There are a number of studies going over how little coverage policy received; this great Vox piece (http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/15/13955108/fake-news-2016) links a few. Perhaps most startlingly, ABC, NBC, and CBS' primetime news gave three times more coverage to Clinton's email server than to all policy issues combined (IIRC, twenty-five minutes between the three networks). There's much more, but this work break is almost over. Re: Comey, I also think this is necessary reading: Let’s Talk About Bubbles and James Comey – Mother Jones (http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/04/lets-talk-about-bubbles-and-james-comey) I may address other issues at some point but I am absolutely dead from work most of the time (note to davidm: that is also hyperbole) so it may be awhile. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 160] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-23-2018 08:41 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Cry havok, and let slip the dogs of civic participation (https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/999043459016163328.html) Those who can vote, please keep all those nukes out of the hands of a fascist America. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 161] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-24-2018 09:23 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.” ― Augustine of Hippo -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 162] Author : The Man Date : 05-30-2018 03:48 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Rapist governor of Missouri resigns in disgrace; Roseanne Barr's heinous racism gets her crappy TV show cancelled. The fact that these occurred on the same day somehow seems significant. (Also, Merriam-Webster also chimed in to say that both "cancelled" and "canceled" are accepted spellings. That also seems significant, as though the dictionary was throwing shade at Roseanne Barr.) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 163] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-30-2018 07:27 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicstwo weeks ago today a white woman tried to call the police on about 8 black folks barbecuing. Today in that same spot this was the scene pic.twitter.com/ltxzZQe57h
— carvell (@carvellwallace) May 21, 2018
What about Bill Maher? After Roseanne Barr gets fired, conservatives cite joke comparing Trump to an ape https://t.co/3ssfUTnBnT pic.twitter.com/SLme4eTePJ
— Newsweek (@Newsweek) May 29, 2018
First they came for Roseanne and I was like "Hell yeah."
— The Failing New York Tim™ (@TimDuffy) May 29, 2018
Then they came for Bill Maher and I was like "Holy shit. Is it my birthday?"
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 164] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-30-2018 07:59 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsYou guys.
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 29, 2018
YOU GUYS.
Conservatives think they're going to avenge Roseanne and punish liberals by getting Bill Maher taken off the air.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Oh no. *flails arms limply* Please don't. *falls asleep on couch*
https://media.giphy.com/media/Xn7mOX7VQDDOw/200.gif -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 165] Author : The Man Date : 05-30-2018 08:06 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Even if Bill Maher weren’t… eh… shall we say, not universally loved among the left, he’d still be a horrible example for right-wingers’ argument because ABC already fired him. But beyond all that, reactionaries have demonstrated how poorly they understand the objections to Barr’s tweet in that, as awful as Maher can be, comparing Trump to an orangutan isn’t racist, so the two ‘jokes’ aren’t comparable. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 166] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-30-2018 06:07 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Rosanne blames Ambien. Sanofi's reply: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DedEikpXUAESNBJ?format=jpg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 167] Author : specious_reasons Date : 05-30-2018 07:32 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Rosanne blames Ambien. Sanofi's reply: :muttley: Rosanne is very sorry she let the racism out. If she hadn't been on Ambien, it would have remained barely concealed. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 168] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-30-2018 08:11 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://i.imgur.com/wAAXX21.jpg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 169] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 05-30-2018 11:10 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics What Happened to Jill Stein’s Recount Millions? (https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-happened-to-jill-steins-recount-millions?ref=home) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 170] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-01-2018 07:24 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Aww, Rosanne forgives the people who called her out. (https://people.com/tv/roseanne-barr-forgives-sara-gilbert-michael-fishman/) :lol: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 171] Author : Kevlar Date : 06-01-2018 07:38 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Yet another day in Wonderland: Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He's A Pedophile (https://www.yahoo.com/news/congressional-candidate-virginia-admits-pedophile-011921211.html) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 172] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-01-2018 09:46 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Today in Resistance we have an alliance between wind, solar, and *squints at Tweet* the oil industry.President @realDonaldTrump: NO. Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever.
— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) May 30, 2018
Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 173] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-03-2018 07:53 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsThis has got to be one for the record books. Oil industry joins with solar and wind industry to condemn Trump admin plan to prop up coal industry by forcing electric grid to buy coal power. Oil/wind/solar as allies? Fascinating times. pic.twitter.com/PmTRyw70SK
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) June 1, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 174] Author : erimir Date : 06-04-2018 11:38 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics One of the worst things about Bernie, IMO, is the people he surrounds himself with, and his spouse is no exception. Interestingly enough, that's also one of the worst things about Hillary :chin: Although she did purge a lot of the shit people for her 2016 run (like Mark Penn). The fact that I don't see Bernie purging some of his toxic surrogates is why I'm skeptical he'll do very well in 2020 if he runs. If his surrogate team for winning black votes in the South is still Nina Turner, Cornel West and Killer Mike... it's not going to go a whole lot better. A younger, fresher candidate who is running on a progressive platform but without Hillary's baggage is going to be appealing to a lot of Bernie's base and have a lot more allies who say a lot less stupid shit (and more candidates in general will siphon off the voters who voted for Bernie because they didn't like Hillary moreso than because they loved him, which was a non-negligible chunk of his support). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 175] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-06-2018 03:02 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsDays before primaries in California where a divided Dem coalition could cost us the House in November, Jane Sanders weighs in on unity. pic.twitter.com/HjbhvtVJdR
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 3, 2018
Read the replies. I think I have a crush. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 176] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-06-2018 07:31 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsToday, I voted in America for the first time. Felt better than yelling at the telly. #BeTheChange #vote #CaliforniaPrimary2018 @RepAdamSchiff @AmandaRenteria
— Minnie Driver (@driverminnie) June 5, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 177] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-08-2018 06:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Georgia county official takes oath of office on Malcolm X autobiography (http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/391245-georgia-county-commissioner-takes-oath-of-office-on-malcolm-x) https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Uk2Ov3qp4rU/hqdefault.jpg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 178] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-14-2018 06:20 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Canada Foreign Affairs Minister Diplomat of the Year (https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/06/13/chrystia-freeland-meets-powerful-us-senate-foreign-relations-committee-in-washington.html) She concludes with references to Reagan's Shining City on the Hill. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dfnh6MlW4AAtnBO.jpg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 179] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-14-2018 11:23 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsSeven years ago, a brave & composed 19-year old named Zach Wahls stood up in front of the Iowa legislature and delivered a speech about growing up with two mothers in a lesbian household.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 6, 2018
Tonight, Zach Wahls won his primary for an Iowa state house seat!https://t.co/ROZQqLGGci
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 180] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-16-2018 07:53 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I get a perverse pleasure out of reading this guy beating on people on Twitter. Thread enclosed but this is how it wound up:But my emails. https://t.co/G7TIWDEG0p
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 14, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 181] Author : The Man Date : 06-16-2018 09:01 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsThey say I should work hard to patiently illustrate how your moral judgments are fundamentally untenable. But it's useless. This was not a bad man. This was not a bad family. You're just a bad person. And I can't fix that.
— Respectable Lawyer (@RespectableLaw) June 10, 2018
I still think Twitter is awful overall (despite some very excellent content, much of which gets reposted here), but I really have to credit her for playing the long game here. She had to have known she could only tweet this once; tweeting it a second time would just mute the impact. And if I’d been her, I wouldn’t have been able to restrain myself from tweeting these three words the second I saw this headline: 10763 (click to embiggen; if it’s illegible on your screen, the relevant headline reads “Pence used personal email in office”) But she held off. It was a gamble, because it was entirely possible that no more influential person to the outcome of 2016 was going to turn out to be a hypocrite on this issue. It certainly wasn’t going to be Trump – he’s a hypocrite on almost every issue, but he doesn’t use email and had never held elected office before 2017, so he wasn’t going to have a history of using a private email server for government business. And apart from the President, it’s hard to think of a more highly ranked figure than the Vice President. But she held off. It must’ve required nerves of vibranium, but she held off. Without official confirmation from the woman herself, I can’t know for sure that she knew Comey was such a sanctimonious twit that he’d inevitably be revealed as a colossal hypocrite on this issue, but now I suspect she had his number exactly. She must have known it was just a matter of time before a story like this came out. Once again, she turns out to have had impeccable judgement. And once again, the scriptwriter turns out to be completely incapable of subtlety when writing characters like Comey. Between turns like this and the use of Dennis Rodman as a figure of diplomacy, I don’t know how that jackass remains employed; plot twists like this frankly stretch the viewer’s suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. I have to comfort myself using logic and jokes like this right now because, apart from things like Manafort being sent to jail and Cohen probably flipping, there’s precious little in the news right now to comfort me. It’s stuff like this, and works of art, and precious little else. I’d barely played video games in five years, and lately they’re among the few things that relax me. It is to weep. ETA: Oh, huh. 4,500 posts. I don’t notice these milestones all that often. Cool. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 182] Author : JoeP Date : 06-16-2018 10:47 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I still think Twitter is awful overall (despite some very excellent content, much of which gets reposted here) :yup: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 183] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-16-2018 06:37 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics All six top-tier gubernatorial candidates say Trump tariffs could harm Tennessee - Tennessean (https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/tn-elections/2018/06/14/all-six-top-tier-gubernatorial-candidates-say-trump-tariffs-could-harm-tennessee/695731002/) Two democrats, four republicans if I read that right. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 184] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-21-2018 08:58 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://puu.sh/AJdxO/c330914ac2.png 10772 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 185] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-25-2018 07:42 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsBut my emails. https://t.co/G7TIWDEG0p
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 14, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 186] Author : The Man Date : 06-27-2018 07:30 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This isn't actually news; I'm just hoping to get some traction on a #RepealThe22ndAmendment campaign, because seriously.My dad was tortured by the Gestapo for 4 days and thrown in a concentration camp for being in the Norwegian Resistance. Growing up, he would tell me things he learned in the Resistance. I thought, I'm never going to need this stuff. Here's some things of those things #Thread
— Tor Ekeland (@TorEkelandPC) June 24, 2018
Unfortunately, I doubt he could ever be persuaded to run again. He already cleaned up white people's mess once; I doubt even he has the grace and patience to do it again. But what the fuck did those of us who actually voted for Democrats do to deserve, well, this? I'm so fucking tired of living in the shitty timeline. ETA: also, too.Silence is complicity pic.twitter.com/30xXcDHb5d
— CursingPolitics (@CursingPolitics) June 23, 2018
I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING but seriously. #RepealThe22ndAmendment -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 187] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-27-2018 07:54 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics 22ndAmendment Hi from a place whose executive is a hereditary monarchy and a high value on peace, order, and (arguably) good government. That aside, you've now a SCOTUS actively assisting in voter suppression with a side order of plausible deniability. Be careful what you wish for. https://i.imgur.com/2XdoATB.jpg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 188] Author : The Man Date : 06-28-2018 12:09 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Well, true, especially now that Kennedy is retiring. I just want Obama back :sadcheer: At least we still have Rep. Lewis, my choice for greatest living American. Too bad there isn't much chance of him running for president.1. I’ve never tweeted before but today felt like a good day to start.
— Gary Lee (@whoisgarylee) January 13, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 189] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-28-2018 01:04 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Good trouble. Necessary trouble. I like that. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 190] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-28-2018 08:59 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics When There Are No Rules and the Game Is Rigged, You Have No Choice But to Fight Dirty (Part 1) (http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2018/06/when-there-are-no-rules-and-game-is.html) Chess is a helluva game. It's meant to imitate war, of course, but in a civilized fashion. The best strategies are born of an instinct to think far ahead about the ripple effect of a single move. Your decision on whether to move your pawn one or two spaces initially can decide the entire thing. It takes patience, concentration, and planning. Of course, there's one way to make sure you always win your chess game. That's to walk up to the table, slap the pieces to the floor, pick up the board and beat your opponent bloody with it, set the pieces on fire and shove them up your opponent's ass, and, if necessary, slam the table itself down on your opponent until they resign from the game. This is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 191] Author : mickthinks Date : 06-28-2018 11:13 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics :hmmm: As I understand it, that's the kind of counsel of despair that Putin has instructed his troll farms to promulgate. Just saying ... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 192] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-28-2018 06:26 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsDo not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. #goodtrouble
— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) June 27, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 193] Author : The Man Date : 06-28-2018 08:48 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This quote from our greatest president is probably too long to fit in my signature, so I'll drop it here. As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. Plus ça change... ETA: also, this (not from the same writing AFAIK) It is not needed, nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life. Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless. Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. It is important to remember that the first Republican president was basically a socialist. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 194] Author : erimir Date : 06-29-2018 12:55 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I also like this quote from Lincoln: These natural and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only; cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly — done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated — we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Douglas's new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that Slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State Constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected of all taint of opposition to Slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 195] Author : erimir Date : 06-30-2018 04:52 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Interestingly enough, last night Jon Stewart used the same Lincoln quote in his rant against Trump on Colbert's show. But anyway, I came here to say that Kirsten Gillibrand has announced her support for abolishing ICE and "start[ing] over, reimagin[ing] it, and build[ing] something that actually works". She is doing a good job of going for my 2020 primary vote. Meanwhile...So, my fellow ppl of good heart, I'm asking ya:
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 27, 2018
No matter how much it may seem to you that civility and leading with love and going high are the right answers, don't talk over the people yelling that the risk is too great, the costs too high and the urgency too severe for that.
The evidence that, actually, Bernie Sanders isn't really that great at politics has only been getting stronger over time... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 196] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 06-30-2018 05:42 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Ladies and Gentlemen, the King of the Netherlands:.@SenSanders declines to join call for abolishing ICE on #CNNSOTU https://t.co/iGVpguNsmd
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 24, 2018
No, not really. (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-king-tell-trump-hague/) :lol: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 197] Author : JoeP Date : 06-30-2018 09:23 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics :shakesnopes: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 198] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 07-01-2018 09:33 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsDear mister Trump. You see this beautiful building? It’s the International Court of Justice in Our residency The Hague, the Netherlands. It’s waiting for you. It might take a while. But it’s waiting … pic.twitter.com/KTKpvmRgj3
— ZM Willem-Alexander♔ (@WiIIemAlexander) June 19, 2018
He's 17. And dealing with self appointed cops, of course:2018 for me so far
— Alan Vargas (@TheAlanvargas) July 1, 2018
I co-organized a march.
I joined a political campaign.
I ran into ted lieu at ca dem convention.
I walked out of class in protest for the first time. pic.twitter.com/vK8zUovO0O
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 199] Author : mickthinks Date : 07-07-2018 01:49 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Abolish Ice: A new demand from the left is risky for Democrats - BBC News (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44687935) https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/D868/production/_102300455_tv047840808.jpg And so the battle to define the debate in the weeks and months leading up to pivotal elections, which will determine which party controls the US Congress and the governorships of a handful of key states, is fully underway. Opinion polls indicate that the American public, by and large, does not support the idea of doing away with Ice, although they also don't like many of the president's immigration policies. In the coming debate, Mr Trump will have the White House megaphone. The multitude of voices on the left will have passion and energy. It could help them carry the day - or it could tear their party apart. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 200] Author : erimir Date : 07-07-2018 06:41 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I think the idea behind Abolish ICE (for Democratic politicians, anyway) would be popular. ICE is only 15 years old, and we used to organize immigration enforcement differently. People don't think we had open borders in the 90s, and "Abolish ICE" could simply mean going back to the organization from the 90s. Although the notion that open borders is ridiculous and no nation would ever do that is ahistorical. The US used to have essentially open borders in the 1700s and 1800s. Of course, that was partly because they wanted white Europeans to come so that they could colonize settle areas still controlled by Native Americans the unpeopled West. Maybe it doesn't make sense to return to that, but still, people who basically worship the Founding Fathers don't want to return to the Founding Fathers' immigration system. In fact, I'd say we should probably abolish the Department of Homeland Security. Its functions properly belong to the Depts of Defense*, Justice, etc. The failure to integrate intelligence across departments and thus to recognize and prevent the 9/11 plot doesn't necessitate the DHS. For one, it was largely an excuse for the Bush administration's failure to take the warnings they did receive seriously. Warnings reached the White House, it wasn't the case that there was no recognition of what was going on. And beyond that, information sharing and such doesn't really require putting, essentially, all the xenophobic agencies in one department. And then they split up positive and negative aspects of immigration into separate agencies. ICE doesn't include people who work with immigrants in a positive way, which I'm sure is part of why it's full of xenophobic stormtroopers now (and you've heard of very, very few whistleblowers or resignations from within ICE in the face of Trump's horrific policies). I mean, to address the intelligence failure, one could suppose that we could have some department that would gather intelligence from disparate departments in one central agency. I dunno what we'd call that though. Apparently DHS's creation was also used to strip union rights from almost 200,000 federal employees, and I'm quite sure that was a motivation as well. But yeah, the basic idea would be to reorganize ICE - probably, at a minimum, to return to something more like INS (Immigration and Naturalization Services), which was the department that ICE, CBP (Customs and Border Control) and USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) were created out of. *I mean, if we're using that Orwellian terminology, how in the hell does a defensive department not secure the homeland? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 201] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 07-08-2018 11:48 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics On populists. Thrad.The women who asked about my legal status today. pic.twitter.com/Rt5oT4zbxR
— Alan Vargas (@TheAlanvargas) June 29, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 202] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 07-18-2018 07:51 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsThis is called a "straw man" argument. It misrepresents a topic to confuse and distract on purpose. From an atty, it's a dishonest form of debate.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) July 8, 2018
The first 15 candidates Trump beat were Repubs in the Repub primaries.
The only Democrat Trump faced beat him by 3 mil. votes.
1/ pic.twitter.com/6tMCv0rELq
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 203] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 07-20-2018 10:21 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Different. Watch fiery Dems chanting 'USA! USA! USA!' as Republicans vote down election cybersecurity grants (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/7/19/1781921/-Watch-fiery-Dems-chanting-USA-USA-USA-as-Republicans-vote-down-election-cybersecurity-bill) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 204] Author : Kevlar Date : 07-30-2018 09:30 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So... the Koch's are starting to back away from the monster they helped create? Koch network says it isn't backing GOP candidate in key Senate race - CNNPolitics (https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/30/politics/koch-brothers-north-dakota-kevin-cramer/index.html) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 205] Author : Sock Puppet Date : 07-31-2018 12:34 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Funny how the Kochs have kept their distance from Trump, supposedly due to "principles." *snort* I suppose the simplest explanation is that they can't control him effectively, but given that they've kept said distance since before the election, a paranoid person might suspect they've known for awhile that he was already purchased property. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 206] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 07-31-2018 07:54 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This particular resistance has some of the strangest heroes. Don’t Vote For Virginia Congressional Hopeful Denber Wiggleman Because He Is Full Of Hate, Not Because Bigfoot Makes Him Hard (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G2R54T7/) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 207] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 07-31-2018 08:53 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Major pro trade ad buy anti-trump thing paid for by *squints at article* Koch Industries. Koch network takes on Trump’s tariffs with six-figure ad buy as billionaire admits tensions could boil over (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/29/koch-network-takes-on-trumps-tariffs-with-six-figure-ad-buy.html) Trade Not Aid - YouTube -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 208] Author : slimshady2357 Date : 08-04-2018 10:30 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsThis morning in Lower Manhattan someone put a life sized, fake Putin on the Wall Street Bull and covered it with dildos. pic.twitter.com/6txPn35INp
— RustyBertrand (@RustyBertrand) July 17, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 209] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 08-08-2018 10:53 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Here's one thing: Rashida Tlaib, With Primary Win, Is Poised to Become First Muslim Woman in Congress (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/us/politics/rashida-tlaib-congress-muslim.html) And another: Ohio Special Election Results: 12th Congressional District (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/07/us/elections/results-ohio-special-house-election-district-12.html) If Kiddie Concentration Camps aren't enough to get voters to the polls, not sure what to say. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 210] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 08-28-2018 04:54 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Here's the letter I sent to the DNC today, after receiving their fund-raising "survey". To the Democratic National Committee: I won’t ever send you money, and it is unlikely I will support most of your national candidates. Here’s why: Your strategy of focusing on what your rich donors want while shitting on actual working people, women, and minorities is clear. Your party is more than happy to continue the War on Terror. Your party leaders voted for the Iraq war. Your party leaders voted for the AUMF. Your party leaders said single payer is, “off the table.” Your party leaders suppressed progressive voices to rig the candidacy process. Your party leaders support Apartheid Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and vote to fund Israel over and over. Your party leaders have no vision, and mostly work to gather votes on the premise that the other party is worse. Your party leaders offer “compromise” at every opportunity, even (especially) when Obama was elected into office and had a majority in the House and Senate. Your party leaders are only too happy to throw civil rights under the bus when you are in power; it only matters as a talking point when you’re not in power- window dressing in the same way the RNC claims to be, “fiscally conservative.” Your party leaders punish whistleblowers and were only too happy to deport millions more people during Obama’s term than Bush’s term. Your party leaders still think Bill Clinton’s centrist strategy is a win, instead of a cautionary tale on how to become a center-right party and allow the entire discussion to be moved to the right. The Republican platform under Nixon and Eisenhower was more progressive than you are today. Your party leaders were only too happy to institute “welfare reform”, and were a hair’s breadth from privatizing Social Security. Your party leaders rewarded banks for being, “too big to fail,” then refused to hold them accountable or regulate the industry. Your party leaders refused to prosecute torturers, or even call it torture. Your party will let Guantanamo stay open. Your party leaders were just fine killing people with drones- including civilians- women and children, including wedding parties, funerals, first responders; including US citizens. Your party will continue to fund the military without question, continue to support a massive prison state, continue the War on Drugs. Your party leaders are just furthering the interests of Neo-liberal global markets and capitalism, and give no fucks about people. You don’t stand for the working class, you don’t stand for people of color or immigrants, you don’t stand for LGBTQ communities, you will wring your hands and let the right take away abortion rights. You don’t stand for anything but the status quo. I’ll vote for someone who represents me, much further to the left. Goodbye, dinosaurs. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 211] Author : JoeP Date : 08-28-2018 06:27 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I’ll vote for someone who represents me, much further to the centre. :fixed: At least as the terms right, centre and left apply in Yuurp. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 212] Author : erimir Date : 08-28-2018 09:28 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I also recently rejected a DNC request for money. I wrote Dear Democratic National Committee: -Please do not make any attempts to try to win me over. You should instead focus your efforts on persuadable voters, even if that means that you will look to more moderate swing voters instead of me. -I require that you alienate more voters than you'd win before I will support you. -If you previously did bad things, I will not take yes for an answer if you subsequently adopt policies closer to my preferences. -In fact, I will not support you unless most long-time members resign en masse, throwing away all incumbency advantages and making it impossible to win control of Congress. -I require that certain approaches be prioritized even if they are politically very difficult, and I will consider any efforts to make me understand the variety of approaches used in other countries to be neoliberalism. -Healthcare is only affordable in the UK, Canada and Taiwan. Healthcare in countries without full single payer, like Germany, France and Japan, is only affordable to a small minority. -Even though not a single Democrat defected on Social Security when Bush tried to privatize it, I think you are a hair's breadth away from privatizing it. I know that secretly Nancy Pelosi longs to destroy Social Security, and blocking Bush's efforts and campaigning on the notion that Trump's GOP wants to gut Medicare and Social Security are just parts of her 11-dimensional long game to do so. -I don't know very much about Nixon or Eisenhower. I do know that Rehnquist and other Nixon appointees surely reflect a more progressive presidency than Obama or Clinton with their appointments of Sotomayor and Ginsburg. -While I consider your efforts to placate me to be mere lip service, it is impossible that Nixon or Eisenhower may have offered lip service to New Deal ideals because they thought it was politically necessary coming off a 20-year run of Democratic presidential success and facing Democratic majorities in Congress. -I also don't know what your presidential hopefuls are saying about criminal justice, drug policy, healthcare, job guarantees, immigration, or a number of other issues. I assume it is all bad. -I am upset that you are not standing up for marginalized communities or women enough. I stand up for them by saying that Trump and the GOP aren't that bad compared to you and considering it not worth the effort to try to end their control. Indeed, Eisenhower and Nixon's platform on those issues was more progressive than yours. -I will blame you for the Supreme Court ending Roe v Wade, since you have a strong 49 vote majority to block any anti-abortion judge. The GOP having the White House, majorities in both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court doesn't mean it's not primarily your fault. That the four Democratic-appointed justices on the Supreme Court consistently vote in favor of reproductive rights and your last presidential candidate campaigned on defending Roe v Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment and partial birth abortion bans is no defense. I am convinced that they will see the error of their ways and do what is necessary to win me over. Which is resigning. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 213] Author : fragment Date : 08-28-2018 10:57 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Y'know erimir, I get your frustrations with purist leftists who won't hold their noses and vote, but I find you commentary on this stuff to be increasingly in bad faith. To pick just one example, to describe France as not having single payer healthcare just doesn't seem to match a bit of cursory internet research. e.g. French Health: Overview of health system in France (https://www.french-property.com/guides/france/public-services/health/system-overview/) Health care in France is funded by a dual system of health insurance comprising: A State controlled health insurance social security system, called l’assurance maladie and; A separate voluntary health insurance system called assurance complémentaire provided through mutual organisations and private insurers. Whilst the social security system picks up most of your health costs, you will need to take out voluntary health insurance to cover those medical costs that will not be picked up by the State, although it is not compulsory to do so. We will review voluntary ('top-up') insurance in later pages but, for now, we just consider the State funded part of the system. Accordingly, in order to obtain access to the health service in France, and obtain reimbursement of costs, you need to be registered with l’assurance maladie. Historically, l’assurance maladie comprised a number of private or mutual insurance bodies who collected insurance premiums from their clients, which were then used to pay for the costs of health care. They developed after the Second World War as a series of mutual schemes between employers and employees, and the present arrangements still bear the hallmarks of this approach. Although the insurance funds continue to be ostensibly ‘private’ organisations they now operate under the supervision of the government, who have ultimate financial responsibility. Accordingly, the funds are now effectively a branch of the state social security system. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 214] Author : But Date : 08-29-2018 12:48 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Oh yeah, it's erimir's award-winning sarcasm again. :yawn: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 215] Author : erimir Date : 08-29-2018 01:04 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics France doesn't have a full single payer system, which is what I said, and which is accurate. Health care in France - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_France) "Approximately 77% of health expenditures are covered by government funded agencies." "85% of French people benefit from complementary private health insurance." In other words, 23% of costs are covered by non-government payers, and the majority of French people have some level of private health insurance. The French system has much more extensive public health expenditures than the US, sure, but since the government is not the sole source of payments (a "single payer", if you will) it is not technically single payer. Germany has a multi-payer system with 130 "sickness funds" as well as private insurance. Japan uses employer-based insurance for most of the population. Privately-run funds which are so heavily-regulated that they might as well be government agencies... is still not technically single payer. And it is not what has been proposed by single payer advocates in the US, as far as I know. Many of them seem to want the satisfaction of reducing Blue Cross/Blue Shield to rubble. We could basically turn companies like BCBS and Aetna into funds like they use in France or Germany using the framework already provided by the ACA - requiring even more comprehensive coverage, lower co-pay and deductibles, instead of the current medical loss ratio requirements, the amount of profit they are allowed to make could be gradually lowered until they are forced to be non-profits. This is not what people mean when they say they want single payer, as far as I know. (Primarily because, you know... it isn't single payer.) Anyway, all three countries have far better healthcare systems than the US. I would take the German or Japanese system over the American system with little hesitation, and the French system is one of the best in the world (but again, technically still not single payer). Viewing it as a horrible betrayal to think that we should have some hybrid, with some public payer elements like Medicaid and some private but highly-regulated insurers, is ridiculous and ignores the significant issues that might come with selling single payer to the American people, some of which would be due to the large disruptions it would cause to the current system and/or high price tag that would come with trying to minimize those disruptions. Doctors are very well-compensated in the US compared to other countries, yet they are not unpopular for this. A single payer system would be fought by doctors and hospitals pointing out how Democrats want to cut their compensation severely. There are approaches that would not require so directly confronting the doctors' lobby. The route I would favor as politically more feasible, for example, would involve further expanding Medicaid, lowering the eligibility age for Medicare, increasing subsidies for the ACA exchanges and offering the ability for both individuals and businesses to buy into Medicaid (it would probably be called "Medicare", since that program is more popular, but Medicaid actually offers more comprehensive coverage and is a better basis for a public option). Most people would end up on public insurance in this scenario. But this wouldn't be "single payer", therefore it would be a betrayal, I suppose. But anyway, if you're going to make the fucking phrase "single payer" your litmus test, you should probably know what it means and know that it is not synonymous with universal, comprehensive, affordable healthcare. You should also probably have some idea of how other systems arrived at the point they did, and consider whether pursuing an ideal outcome with a lower chance of success to be worth giving up the chance for a messier model with more parts, but with a higher chance of success. And if you don't consider the distinction between the French system and "single payer" to be notable, then could the approach I suggested also be considered "single payer"? If so, what's the point of getting so hung up on that label? If what you really mean is "universal healthcare" you should just use that term. But if you used that term... you might have to acknowledge that the Democratic Party hasn't said that "universal healthcare" is "off the table". In fact, the Democratic Party platform says the universal healthcare is their goal, and that the Democratic Party believes that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. In fact, I'm not quite sure where the idea is that the Party has said even "single payer" is off the table, I know Hillary Clinton dismissed the notion that it would ever happen in the US. But you know, she's not running for president again, she is not the only party leader, and that still doesn't amount to a commitment to opposing single payer. I would also note that plans with the label "Medicare For All" have been endorsed by a large portion of the likely Democratic presidential primary contenders. Aside from Sanders, of course, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren all signed onto the Senate Medicare For All bill in 2017. The earlier House bill has over 120 cosponsors in that body. "Medicare For All" is, of course, vague and could be plausibly applied to a plan based around a public option, rather than single payer. But either way, this seems like a pretty good turn of events for team universal healthcare. But meh, not enough to get me to try to kick out the deranged Trump GOP, right? Millions of people getting health insurance isn't that much better than millions of people losing health insurance, they're basically to the right of Nixon. That's the good faith argument, as opposed to the bad faith argument being made by me which is that single payer has a specific meaning and France's system doesn't fit that specific definition. (Never mind what I said about countries other than France, which have systems significantly less similar to single payer and still have much better systems than the US.) Oh yeah, it's erimir's award-winning sarcasm again. Sorry you can't actually come up with any good arguments and must limit yourself to evidence-free bitterness :shrug: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 216] Author : But Date : 08-29-2018 01:13 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics In fact, the Democratic Party platform says the universal healthcare is their goal, and that the Democratic Party believes that healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. :aww: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 217] Author : But Date : 08-29-2018 01:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Sorry you can't actually come up with any good arguments You first. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 218] Author : fragment Date : 08-29-2018 02:22 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics France doesn't have a full single payer system, which is what I said, and which is accurate. This is exactly the sort of hair-splitting that is why you are arguing in bad faith. Do you really think that when chunks referred to single-payer he only meant a system in which nobody has the option of private healthcare, rather than one in which a single-funded system is adequate and available to all? By the "technically single payer" definition you are using a country would have to literally ban private healthcare providers and insurance in order to qualify. Of course, chunks actual criticism was of Democrat politicians who rule single-payer as being off the table, which you chose to misinterpret as "Healthcare is only affordable in the UK, Canada and Taiwan." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 219] Author : erimir Date : 08-29-2018 02:53 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics France doesn't have a full single payer system, which is what I said, and which is accurate. This is exactly the sort of hair-splitting that is why you are arguing in bad faith. Do you really think that when chunks referred to single-payer he only meant a system in which nobody has the option of private healthcare, rather than one in which a single-funded system is adequate and available to all? By the "technically single payer" definition you are using a country would have to literally ban private healthcare providers and insurance in order to qualify. Of course, chunks actual criticism was of Democrat politicians who rule single-payer as being off the table, which you chose to misinterpret as "Healthcare is only affordable in the UK, Canada and Taiwan."If you think a quarter of spending is a trivial deviation from 100%, then perhaps that is a valid argument. I don't know that it's obvious that it shouldn't count. But chunks's statement offers nowhere near enough information to know what he means when he says "single payer". And either way, other countries I mentioned are further from a single payer system than France. And because single payer has a technical meaning, which others may be using, are we to assume that every Democrat that chunks is complaining about is using it to refer to the range of systems that you are assuming chunks is referring to? Which systems are "basically" single payer, and what are the details of those and how do they differ from proposals supported by large numbers of Democratic politicians? The problem is that the broader you consider it, the criticism is also less valid, since if you expand it enough, it will encompass plans being proposed by Democrats. I think I've more than adequately explained my views on this and why I think chunks' complaints about Democrats on that are misguided, and focusing on the term "single payer" as it applies or doesn't to France, rather than addressing my overall point, doesn't strike me as being more in good faith than my more detailed explanation of my position. And if you think it's an oversimplification to the point of bad faith (my more detailed explanations notwithstanding) for me to say France does not have single payer, how can you view chunks' statements as good faith? Or how is it good faith to focus on that single statement to the exclusion of, well, everything else in there? Or is suggesting there be any precision in statements the "bad faith" move while overly broad generalizations are not? And if he wasn't being precise in talking about "single payer", is it good faith to glide right past the many Congressional Democrats including presidential hopefuls who support "Medicare for All"? So when he says "a hair's breadth" from privatizing Social Security, that's good faith? Or that they "refused to regulate" the financial industry despite the passage of Dodd-Frank and the creation of the CFPB? Well, if chunks thinks it's inadequate, it's still good faith to imply they did nothing. Comparisons to Nixon that are clearly not based off actually reviewing Nixon's record, well, that's good faith too. Considering the party that controls neither House of Congress, nor the SCOTUS nor the White House responsible for the impending overturn of Roe v Wade, well, that's just based off a good faith reading of the Constitution and how power in those bodies works. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 220] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 08-29-2018 09:00 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Please do not make any attempts to try to win me over. You should instead focus your efforts on persuadable voters, even if that means that you will look to more moderate swing voters instead of me. Or conversely, don't reward bad behavior by agreeing to be a captive base. LGBTQ voters and Latinx voters in the Obama administration only gained the barest of ground during the Obama administration because they organized and threatened to withhold their votes, not through accepting the status quo and waiting for the fail party to compromise their rights away. -I require that you alienate more voters than you'd win before I will support you.Your opinion is noted; but how's that "big tent" approach working, exactly? How much further right should the Democratic Party move, in your opinion, to capture that "moderate, swing voter," rather than act to help the people they claim to represent? -If you previously did bad things, I will not take yes for an answer if you subsequently adopt policies closer to my preferences.Which of those bad things are you referring to here, that the DNC-backed party leaders have made an about-face on, exactly? -In fact, I will not support you unless most long-time members resign en masse, throwing away all incumbency advantages and making it impossible to win control of Congress.Seems like a stretch. How about, I will not support you if you don't actually represent me? I know, I know- how blind and foolish- how's that captive base strategy working? -I require that certain approaches be prioritized even if they are politically very difficult,Could you point out the "difficult" political positions you mention here? and I will consider any efforts to make me understand the variety of approaches used in other countries to be neoliberalism.Please, tell me about the approaches used in other countries, and let me know which are, in your opinion, an aspect of neoliberal globalization, and which are not. -Healthcare is only affordable in the UK, Canada and Taiwan. Healthcare in countries without full single payer, like Germany, France and Japan, is only affordable to a small minority.Is this an argument I made, or you made? I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a defense of the DNC- if so, it is confusing. Hey, remember when Obama pushed through a health care plan written by The Heritage Foundation? -Even though not a single Democrat defected on Social Security when Bush tried to privatize it, I think you are a hair's breadth away from privatizing it. Wrong Presidential terms. How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security (https://www.counterpunch.org/2004/10/30/how-monica-lewinsky-saved-social-security/) Though I will agree, maybe Obama wasn't going for privatization as much as just gutting social safety nets. Obama to Push for Wider Deal With G.O.P. on Deficit Cuts (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/us/politics/07fiscal.html) The president’s renewed efforts follow what knowledgeable officials said was an overture from Mr. Boehner, who met secretly with Mr. Obama last weekend, to consider as much as $1 trillion in unspecified new revenues as part of an overhaul of tax laws in exchange for an agreement that made substantial spending cuts, including in such social programs as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security — programs that had been off the table. I know that secretly Nancy Pelosi longs to destroy Social Security, and blocking Bush's efforts and campaigning on the notion that Trump's GOP wants to gut Medicare and Social Security are just parts of her 11-dimensional long game to do so.This is what they rally around when not in power, in the same way the RNC calls for fiscal conservancy when not in power, and does the opposite when in office. -I don't know very much about Nixon or Eisenhower. I do know that Rehnquist and other Nixon appointees surely reflect a more progressive presidency than Obama or Clinton with their appointments of Sotomayor and Ginsburg.Note that I said the RNC platform under these presidencies was more progressive than the DNC today. Did I discuss SCOTUS appointees? Politifact: (https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/oct/28/facebook-posts/viral-meme-says-1956-republican-platform-was-prett/) The meme, created by the group Occupy Democrats, summarized a few planks from the 1956 Republican Party platform... ...>snip<... 1. Provide federal assistance to low-income communities; 2. Protect Social Security; 3. Provide asylum for refugees; 4. Extend minimum wage; 5. Improve unemployment benefit system so it covers more people; 6. Strengthen labor laws so workers can more easily join a union; 7. Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of sex. ...>snip<... We located a copy of the official party platform from 1956, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was running (successfully, as it turned out) for his second term as president. All told, the meme is generally accurate in portraying these seven elements of the 1956 platform, with some caveats. -While I consider your efforts to placate me to be mere lip service, it is impossible that Nixon or Eisenhower may have offered lip service to New Deal ideals because they thought it was politically necessary coming off a 20-year run of Democratic presidential success and facing Democratic majorities in Congress.Wow. I said all that? -I also don't know what your presidential hopefuls are saying about criminal justice, drug policy, healthcare, job guarantees, immigration, or a number of other issues. I assume it is all bad.I know what they say when not in a position to effect change, versus what they actually do while in power; which is very little unless forced FROM THE LEFT. -I am upset that you are not standing up for marginalized communities or women enough. I stand up for them by saying that Trump and the GOP aren't that bad compared to you and considering it not worth the effort to try to end their control. This is really the crux of your false argument in my opinion. Not toeing the line to stand behind the DNC is heresy and equivalent to supporting Trump and the GOP? I disagree entirely. A DNC that cannot handle any criticism from the left is a weak-ass party that has lost its bearing and demands obedience, rather than service. Fuck that noise, and fuck you. -I will blame you for the Supreme Court ending Roe v Wade, since you have a strong 49 vote majority to block any anti-abortion judge. The GOP having the White House, majorities in both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court doesn't mean it's not primarily your fault. That the four Democratic-appointed justices on the Supreme Court consistently vote in favor of reproductive rights and your last presidential candidate campaigned on defending Roe v Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment and partial birth abortion bans is no defense. I will absolutely blame the DNC, Clinton's centrist strategy, and the ability of Democrats on the national level to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Instead of shutting down the Congress, instead of fighting against the SCOTUS nominees with any level of spine, instead of taking to the streets, instead of rallying their supposed base while in power or out, they try incremental bullshit, and surprise- they get almost no advances. Vice: (https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/yw5j9x/where-have-all-the-pro-life-democrats-gone) In 2009, 64 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives very nearly torpedoed the legislation that would soon become the Affordable Care Act because they wanted more restrictions on abortion. How many of those pieces of shit do you think the DNC fund-raised for, and supported? I am convinced that they will see the error of their ways and do what is necessary to win me over. Which is resigning. I wish, erimir. Instead I think that without pressure from the left, the center-right DNC will not represent its supposed base. I think that a corrupt and captured DNC should not be rewarded for bad-faith actions. I think that a DNC that can't handle criticism from the left should go home and work on their garden, Netflix and chill, and let someone else oppose the RNC, because that's a tired baby that needs a nap. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 221] Author : erimir Date : 08-29-2018 10:56 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Or conversely, don't reward bad behavior by agreeing to be a captive base.This theory seems to rely on the Democrats being the only party with agency. Like you're just punishing and denying toys to the Democratic pols who displeased you, and they'll try harder next time. But the Republicans have agency and will be doing stuff the whole time. Most importantly, every time you allow the Republicans to gain power, they will use that power to entrench themselves. For example:Great meme, have to share pic.twitter.com/YYZlWsUPg5
— Citizen Halo 🇫🇮🐦 (@haloefekti) 3 August 2018
Even if I grant that throwing a left-wing tantrum by sitting out the election will get Democrats to move left... it only works if the next election takes place under the same rules. Does it help much if you have convinced the Democrats that they would need to move left to improve their electoral chances under the old electorate and districts, if the Republicans use voter suppression to create a more right-wing electorate and gerrymandering to create a more right-wing median district? LGBTQ voters and Latinx voters in the Obama administration only gained the barest of ground during the Obama administration because they organized and threatened to withhold their votes, not through accepting the status quo and waiting for the fail party to compromise their rights away.I don't recall the big LGBT push to sit out elections, and unlike you, I was gay the whole time Obama was president. LGBT activists have done a lot more than threaten to let Republicans take office by not voting for Democrats. Much less seen anything that suggests that was anything like their most effective tactic. Your opinion is noted; but how's that "big tent" approach working, exactly? How much further right should the Democratic Party move, in your opinion, to capture that "moderate, swing voter," rather than act to help the people they claim to represent?Wow, I said all that? I don't recall saying that the Democrats should move right. I also don't think they have been moving right for at least the past decade. I have quite a lot of posts about politics on this board, and I don't think you'll find many instances of me advocating Democrats move right on anything. It's possible to be on the left and still think you are misinformed and have bad ideas about politics. -I require that certain approaches be prioritized even if they are politically very difficult,Could you point out the "difficult" political positions you mention here? [...] Please, tell me about the approaches used in other countries, and let me know which are, in your opinion, an aspect of neoliberal globalization, and which are not.I was talking about single payer, which I already elaborated on. The approaches used in many other countries (like Japan, Germany, the Netherlands) are not single payer. Technically not even France is. Nor would advocating those systems in the US be neoliberalism. The reference to that was of course a rhetorical flair. I wasn't directly quoting you for a reason. Hey, remember when Obama pushed through a health care plan written by The Heritage Foundation?No, I don't remember that imaginary event, because it didn't happen. And saying that it did just reveals that you have no fucking clue what was in the Heritage plan. It is understandable, since most people didn't and don't. The Heritage plan differs from the ACA in the following, not at all trivial, ways: -it did not expand Medicaid, instead it gutted it -the ACA had significant coverage requirements, the Heritage plan only required bare bones catastrophic coverage -the ACA did not change Medicare significantly, while the Heritage plan replaced it with a voucher system -the Heritage plan ended tax benefits for employer-provided insurance, which would probably lead to the end of employer-based insurance, while the ACA was designed to keep most of that intact But yes, they both had a "mandate", so therefore Obama was pushing through a Heritage healthcare plan. Wrong Presidential terms.Yeah, I don't make my political decisions on the basis of what Congress "almost" did 20+ years ago. Most of those people aren't around anymore. Though I will agree, maybe Obama wasn't going for privatization as much as just gutting social safety nets. Obama to Push for Wider Deal With G.O.P. on Deficit Cuts (https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/us/politics/07fiscal.html) The president’s renewed efforts follow what knowledgeable officials said was an overture from Mr. Boehner, who met secretly with Mr. Obama last weekend, to consider as much as $1 trillion in unspecified new revenues as part of an overhaul of tax laws in exchange for an agreement that made substantial spending cuts, including in such social programs as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security — programs that had been off the table.That was mostly political posturing to demonstrate GOP hypocrisy. There was no way that the GOP would agree to $1 trillion in new revenues. Do you suppose that Democrats might ever insincerely pander to "the center"? Is that theoretically possible? Either way, Obama is not in office anymore and he could not have passed any such plan without any Democratic support in Congress. Do you have the receipts on how they would've voted for it? I know that secretly Nancy Pelosi longs to destroy Social Security, and blocking Bush's efforts and campaigning on the notion that Trump's GOP wants to gut Medicare and Social Security are just parts of her 11-dimensional long game to do so.This is what they rally around when not in power, in the same way the RNC calls for fiscal conservancy when not in power, and does the opposite when in office.If they do the opposite when in power, how come under Obama they expanded Medicaid and didn't, in fact, cut Social Security or Medicare? -I don't know very much about Nixon or Eisenhower. I do know that Rehnquist and other Nixon appointees surely reflect a more progressive presidency than Obama or Clinton with their appointments of Sotomayor and Ginsburg.Note that I said the RNC platform under these presidencies was more progressive than the DNC today. Did I discuss SCOTUS appointees?No, but you should have, because they are a pretty good indicator of a president's ideology. Particularly in the past, they were subject to less constraints as Congress generally rubber-stamped most nominees. Nixon was not a liberal, because no liberal would have nominated Rehnquist when a Democratic Senate would have confirmed a solidly liberal nominee any day he wanted. The myth that Nixon was the last liberal president is harmful and leads to stupid opinions about modern politics. Politifact: (https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/oct/28/facebook-posts/viral-meme-says-1956-republican-platform-was-prett/) The meme, created by the group Occupy Democrats, summarized a few planks from the 1956 Republican Party platform... ...>snip<... 1. Provide federal assistance to low-income communities; 2. Protect Social Security; 3. Provide asylum for refugees; 4. Extend minimum wage; 5. Improve unemployment benefit system so it covers more people; 6. Strengthen labor laws so workers can more easily join a union; 7. Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of sex. ...>snip<... We located a copy of the official party platform from 1956, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was running (successfully, as it turned out) for his second term as president. All told, the meme is generally accurate in portraying these seven elements of the 1956 platform, with some caveats.Are those 7 bits meant to show that this is more progressive than the current Democratic platform? Because I don't think it does. -While I consider your efforts to placate me to be mere lip service, it is impossible that Nixon or Eisenhower may have offered lip service to New Deal ideals because they thought it was politically necessary coming off a 20-year run of Democratic presidential success and facing Democratic majorities in Congress.Wow. I said all that?Well, you do seem to believe GOP gestures towards the center more than Democratic rhetoric in support of, say, protecting Social Security... Otherwise what's the relevance of the Eisenhower GOP platform? -I also don't know what your presidential hopefuls are saying about criminal justice, drug policy, healthcare, job guarantees, immigration, or a number of other issues. I assume it is all bad.I know what they say when not in a position to effect change, versus what they actually do while in power; which is very little unless forced FROM THE LEFT.So you'll only support them if they are already in power? -I am upset that you are not standing up for marginalized communities or women enough. I stand up for them by saying that Trump and the GOP aren't that bad compared to you and considering it not worth the effort to try to end their control. This is really the crux of your false argument in my opinion. Not toeing the line to stand behind the DNC is heresy and equivalent to supporting Trump and the GOP? I disagree entirely. A DNC that cannot handle any criticism from the left is a weak-ass party that has lost its bearing and demands obedience, rather than service.I'm pretty sure I wrote "not considering it worth the effort to try to end their control" and not "supporting Trump". I think the former is a straightforward description of what you're saying. I also don't consider your misinformed beliefs about Nixon or the Heritage plan to be valid bases for criticism. Which is why I was criticizing them, rather than saying that the DNC must be supported in all things. Fuck that noise, and fuck you.Perhaps you should Netflix and chill instead of posting ill-informed screeds, if you're too weak-ass to handle any criticism. -I will blame you for the Supreme Court ending Roe v Wade, since you have a strong 49 vote majority to block any anti-abortion judge. The GOP having the White House, majorities in both Houses of Congress and the Supreme Court doesn't mean it's not primarily your fault. That the four Democratic-appointed justices on the Supreme Court consistently vote in favor of reproductive rights and your last presidential candidate campaigned on defending Roe v Wade and repealing the Hyde Amendment and partial birth abortion bans is no defense. I will absolutely blame the DNC, Clinton's centrist strategy, and the ability of Democrats on the national level to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.Again, more theories that require only Democrats to have agency. Republicans and voters have no agency here. Instead of shutting down the Congress,How do you propose they do that? Explain to me how they get to "shut down" the Senate with 49 votes. And in fact, how it would even be (small-d) democratic for them to be able to do so. The filibuster is bullshit and always has been. The Republicans eliminated it, because you only need 51 votes to eliminate it. So how do they shut it down with fewer votes? instead of fighting against the SCOTUS nominees with any level of spine, instead of taking to the streets,Oh bullshit, like you wouldn't call them taking to the streets an attempt to "co-opt" grassroots protests and make it about themselves. Either way, there have been protests against Kavanaugh, and many Democrats have endorsed those protests. instead of rallying their supposed base while in power or out,"Rallying the base" doesn't mean anything. It is not a concrete action, it's just saying "in order to succeed, they should succeed." What should they do to rally the base, and what is the evidence that it would work? It's not like you would give a shit what they tell you to do about Kavanaugh, is it? In 2009, 64 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives very nearly torpedoed the legislation that would soon become the Affordable Care Act because they wanted more restrictions on abortion. How many of those pieces of shit do you think the DNC fund-raised for, and supported?The DNC fundraises for the DNC, and during non-presidential years, transfers much of that money to other Democratic organizations, like the DSCC, DCCC and DLCC. The DNC plays no role in recruiting House candidates. Aside from fundraising and some PR role (the head of the DNC goes on the news sometimes), their primary purpose is organizing the presidential debates, determining the presidential nomination rules and writing the Democratic national platform. I'm not sure they do fundraisers for specific candidates at all. Anyway, those Democrats are nearly all gone from the Congress. It's pretty fucking rich that you're quoting from an article literally titled "Where have all the pro-life Democrats gone?" that's about how Democrats are moving left on abortion... when you're arguing that they're not left enough on abortion. I think that a corrupt and captured DNC should not be rewarded for bad-faith actions.I think I don't really care that much about whether the DNC is "rewarded". I care more about what happens in the country than I do about punishing politicians that I dislike. And speaking of weak-ass parties and politicians, I didn't touch it earlier, but if you think the DNC scheduling a couple debates out of nine on Saturdays and sending some bitchy emails in April (after he got blown the fuck out on Super Tuesday and on March 15) cost Bernie Sanders the primary and rigged it, he must've been the weakest fucking candidate ever. I assume this is what you mean by DNC corruption. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 222] Author : mickthinks Date : 08-29-2018 12:17 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I can see a multitude of weaknesses in that restatement of your position, chunks; too many for me to contemplate tackling them all right now. Maybe later ... For now I'll take one from the top and one from the bottom ... LGBTQ voters and Latinx voters in the Obama administration only gained the barest of ground during the Obama administration because they organized and threatened to withhold their votes ... I don't know how accurate this is, but supposing it is entirely true (ie. that the good things gained by LGBTQ and Latinx under Obama were so small that they were almost not worth having), it seems to me that it leaves out two important considerations; firstly, that Obama was elected and then concessions were demanded from his administration; secondly, that the cost to LGBTQ and Latinx of not electing Clinton is not the apparently negligible concessions that her administration might have made in response to their demands, but the real harms being done to their people under Trump* I think that a DNC that can't handle criticism from the left should go home and work on their garden, Netflix and chill, and let someone else oppose the RNC ... Okay I get that, and if the DNC couldn't handle criticism you'd have a brilliant point. But who is suggesting that the DNC can't handle criticism? Not erimir, certainly, and that in itself makes a strawman out of the point you are trying to make. What I take erimir to be saying, and of course he is right, is that the DNC can't handle too many people not voting for them[/I]. * for example Trump administration dismantles LGBT-friendly policies - POLITICO (https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/19/trump-lgbt-rights-discrimination-353774) and Trump’s executive order ending immigrant family separation doesn’t address getting current child detainees back to their parents – Latina Lista: News from the Latinx perspective (http://latinalista.com/palabrafinal/immigration/trumps-executive-order-ending-immigrant-family-separation-doesnt-address-getting-current-child-detainees-back-to-their-parents) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 223] Author : SR71 Date : 08-29-2018 03:34 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Is this (https://www.alternet.org/what-political-revolution-all-about-historic-upset-progressive-andrew-gillum-florida) instructive or merely a fluke? Despite being massively outspent by his centrist millionaire opponents and lacking support from the Democratic establishment, progressive Andrew Gillum rode grassroots enthusiasm for his unabashedly left-wing agenda of Medicare for All and bold criminal justice reform to a shocking and historic upset victory Tuesday night in Florida's gubernatorial primary. While Gillum—who is currently the mayor of Tallahassee—lacked the institutional backing and immense personal wealth of his Democratic opponents, he overcame this cash deficit with a massive surge in voter turnout, which was attributed to his unwavering embrace of popular policies like Medicare for All and raising the minimum wage. "My opponents have spent, together, over $90 million in this race. We have spent four [million]," Gillum told supporters at an event on Saturday. "Money doesn’t vote. People do." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 224] Author : Kael Date : 08-29-2018 06:32 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics It's an important lesson, sure – I have a friend who's really cynical about politics, and one of the things I keep trying to point out to them is that we are not (yet) at the stage of fraudulent elections. How people actually vote still matters, the money controls the messaging not the votes. So seeing an upswell in these sorts of candidates coming out of the dumpster-fire of 2016 is encouraging, but it remains to be seen how these more genuinely-left-leaning Dems do in the general election. That said, I strongly agree with Erimir on several points, especially the way this narrative of "DNC is now to the right of Nixon/Eisenhower" is used. It paints things as though Democrats just woke up one morning and were like "hey let's all be more conservative!" The whole country moved to the right since Eisenhower and Nixon, especially on economic issues, and it didn't do it overnight. Reaganaughts and Neo-Cons, and most recently actual white supremacists again, worked long and hard to move the center to where it is now, and we're not going to move it back by planting our feet where we want it to be and insisting it come all the way back over right now or so help us! The Left in the US seems to have the same problem over and over: we elect a few promising people at the national level then dust off our hands and walk away. Meanwhile activists for all sorts of conservative issues stay on message and on target, and work State and local too for every scrap they can get. And then when we see how much more ground they've gained than we have, we throw a tantrum and threaten to take our ball and go home, which only ends up ceding more ground. It's going to happen again if we don't knock it off. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 225] Author : But Date : 08-29-2018 07:08 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Is this (https://www.alternet.org/what-political-revolution-all-about-historic-upset-progressive-andrew-gillum-florida) instructive or merely a fluke? Despite being massively outspent by his centrist millionaire opponents and lacking support from the Democratic establishment, progressive Andrew Gillum rode grassroots enthusiasm for his unabashedly left-wing agenda of Medicare for All and bold criminal justice reform to a shocking and historic upset victory Tuesday night in Florida's gubernatorial primary.While Gillum—who is currently the mayor of Tallahassee—lacked the institutional backing and immense personal wealth of his Democratic opponents, he overcame this cash deficit with a massive surge in voter turnout, which was attributed to his unwavering embrace of popular policies like Medicare for All and raising the minimum wage. "My opponents have spent, together, over $90 million in this race. We have spent four [million]," Gillum told supporters at an event on Saturday. "Money doesn’t vote. People do." Another round of the massive ass whooping the Democrat corporate whores are getting right now. It's pretty unlikely it would have happened without a Trump victory. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 226] Author : erimir Date : 08-29-2018 08:06 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I think there are multiple things going on there. First of all, it was a divided field and so it's unclear what would happen in one on one matchups. Keep in mind, Bernie lost by like a 2-1 margin in Florida in 2016, and Gillum (my phone wants to write Gollum) won with about a third. Second, black voters are a large percentage of Florida primary voters. I imagine his coalition was fairly different from Bernie's as a result, since Bernie did very poorly with black, especially Southern black, voters. But Gillum's economic message played a role too. Being the only non-millionaire mattered. My Florida friend said at one of the debates, Greene (who did quite poorly) basically argued that he should be nominated since he could self-fund, which sounds kinda like "elect me, I'm rich". Not a great message today given how it echoes Trump. Also one of the larger polling misses... Although it was fairly accurate for all the other candidates... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 227] Author : The Man Date : 08-29-2018 11:26 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Meanwhile, meet Gillum's opponent: In Trump's America, Republicans Say the Quiet Parts Loud - Lawyers, Guns & Money (http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/08/trumps-america-republicans-say-quiet-parts-loud) (For those not able/in the mood to click the link, the Republican nominee referred to Gillum - who, did we note, is African-American - with the phrase "monkey this up".) Stay classy, Florida Man. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 228] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 08-29-2018 11:28 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Democratic Party leadership, Chuck Schumer, today: Why Are Democrats Poised to Let 7 Trump-Nominated Judges Slide to Confirmation? (https://splinternews.com/why-are-democrats-poised-to-let-7-trump-nominated-judge-1828666151) Since he took office, Trump has appointed more federal appeals court judges than former Presidents Obama and Bush had at the same point in their administrations combined. As the Pew Research Center noted earlier this year, Trump had trailed his predecessors in appointing district court judges until today, when Senator Chuck Schumer helpfully struck a deal with the Republicans to confirm seven district court judges, plus four other federal appointees. Oops! The center-right party of the people is doing everything they can- it's just complicated, and a difficult time politically: I mean there's a Senate building to get named after the guy who voted against Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and openly referred to all Vietnamese- including those allied to the US during the Vietnam war- as "gooks." Party leaders Schumer and Pelosi this June, who are undeserving of criticism at this perilous time: 'Schumer and Pelosi Have to Go': Democratic Leaders Under Fire for Urging 'Civility' in Face of Trump's Vicious Agenda (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/26/schumer-and-pelosi-have-go-democratic-leaders-under-fire-urging-civility-face-trumps) Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) didn't issue a single word of public criticism of their fellow Democrats for voting to deregulate Wall Street and hand President Donald Trump immense spying powers, but on Monday the Democratic Party heads lectured their colleagues and grassroots activists on the need for "civility" in the face of Trump's vicious attacks on immigrant families, the poor, and the planet. Democratic values, again on display this June: Sticking With Bob Menendez Was Stupid, Pointless, and Damaging (https://splinternews.com/sticking-with-bob-menendez-was-stupid-pointless-and-d-1826650768) Congrats to the Democratic Party for ceding the moral authority to make corruption a campaign issue, all to protect one mediocre incumbent from a deep blue state. Senator Robert Menendez, who not along ago was a hung jury away from a federal corruption conviction, won his primary election Tuesday, after the New Jersey Democratic machine, with an assist from national Democratic Party leaders, cleared the field for him. Wait until they get the Democratic Party back into power- VOTE FOR THEM! Insert here any bullshit you like about the number of seats, and the process, and political realities, and the perfect being the enemy of the good. Hillary Clinton, who is NOT A NEOLIBERAL, FURTHERING CAPITALISM'S INTERESTS IN CLIENT STATES: DONALD TRUMP PRAISES DICTATORS, BUT HILLARY CLINTON BEFRIENDS THEM (https://theintercept.com/2016/07/14/donald-trump-praises-dictators-but-hillary-clinton-befriends-them/) Clinton has described former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and his wife as “friends of my family.” Mubarak ruled Egypt under a perpetual “state of emergency” rule that involved disappearing and torturing dissidents, police killings, and persecution of LGBT people. The U.S. gave Mubarak $1.3 billion in military aid per year, and when Arab Spring protests threatened his grip on power, Clinton warned the administration not to “push a longtime partner out the door,” according to her book Hard Choices. After Arab Spring protests unseated Mubarak and led to democratic elections, the Egyptian military, led by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, staged a coup. El-Sisi suspended the country’s 2012 Constitution, appointed officials from the former dictatorship, and moved to silence opposition. Sisi traveled to the U.S. in 2014 and met with Clinton and her husband, posing for a photo. The Obama administration last year lifted a hold on the transfer of weapons and cash to el-Sisi’s government. Meanwhile, repression in Egypt continues to escalate. By the government’s own admission, it has imprisoned more than 34,000 people – and sentenced huge numbers to die. Amnesty International released a report Tuesday documenting forced disappearances and torture by the el-Sisi regime, including one account of a 14-year-old who was kidnapped by government forces and raped repeatedly with a wooden stick to extract a confession. El-Sisi continues to receive $1.3 billion in military aid each year from the Obama administration. Egypt is far from the only military dictatorship that Clinton has supported. During her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton approved tens of billions of dollars of weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia – including fighter jets now being used to bomb Yemen. Clinton played a central role in legitimizing a 2009 military coup in Honduras, and once called Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad a “reformer.” And in return for approving arms deals to gulf state monarchies, Clinton accepted tens of millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation. If only she had not been robbed of the opportunity to lead! Then I am sure she would do the right thing, and understand- it is politically difficult to not openly defend and praise murderous regimes, let alone arm and fund them. Barack Obama, doing the right thing, and definitely not because of pressure from the LGBTQ community, far to the left of him (except maybe Andrew Sullivan): How Obama Became the Gay-Rights President (https://newrepublic.com/article/119801/obamas-gay-rights-record-how-he-became-lgbt-president) In the course of this conversation, he happened to mention Stonewall. “Well, what’s Stonewall?” Obama asked. On your side! “What I believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Obama told the moderator. “What I believe, in my faith, is that a man and a woman, when they get married, are performing something before God, and it’s not simply the two persons who are meeting.” After the debate, the co-chair of LGBT for Obama, Lauren Verdich, called Obama on his cell phone. “How can you do this?” she asked him. “You have to understand that I’m a Christian,” he responded. “This community is expecting you to stand beside them,” she answered. But Obama made it clear to Verdich that he’d be sticking with his position. Why didn't Verdich understand that it was inappropriate to criticize this rising star? Because the Democratic Leadership and DNC are looking out for them, and the other party is so much worse... He invited Rick Warren, the evangelical megachurch pastor from Southern California, to give the invocation at his inauguration. Warren had been an outspoken supporter of Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that had brought marriage for gay couples to an immediate halt just two months earlier, crushing the spirit of the gay community in California and nationwide. Warren’s prominent position at the inauguration felt like a slap in the face. I'm glad the LGBTQ community made sure everyone knew that this was not the time for division in the ranks, and that the Democratic Party leadership, squarely in power at the time, was looking out for their interests. They were here, and queer, and keeping a lid on it, according to eremir, who knows, because: he was gay the whole time. Then, in June 11, 2009, the administration weighed in for the first time on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the law that barred the federal government from recognizing the marriages of same-sex couples performed in a state like Massachusetts. The Justice Department issued a memo to dismiss a lawsuit challenging DOMA. The lengthy document made an elaborate case that DOMA was fully constitutional and “entirely rational,” a “cautiously limited response to society’s still-evolving understanding of the institution of marriage.” It argued that DOMA doesn’t “distinguish among persons of different sexual orientations” but instead “limits federal benefits to those who have entered into the traditional form of marriage.” It seemed like an argument the religious right used to use: that “homosexuals” weren’t being barred from marrying. They could marry someone of the opposite sex just like anyone else. I was astonished and outraged at the words of the administration that had promised to be a “fierce ally” to LGBT people. The pushback from gay leaders, bloggers, and organizations was fast and furious. WHAT? HOW DARE THEY! eremir, you wait as long as you like for the Democratic Party Leadership to deliver unto the voters. Will the next mainstream center-right Democratic candidate for President make the normal play of filling their cabinet with libertarian economists and Goldman-Sachs executives if they win? Will they show how they are serious by killing brown people overseas, with the added bonus of drawing attention away from their domestic issues? Will they gut another level of the Social Safety net, give the military more money, sell more arms to Saudi Arabia, continue to fund Apartheid Israel, because they would not wish to be criticized by the right? Buh-Buh-Buh whattabout the RIGHT???!!!!Whattabout Trump! Whattabout anything, literally anything, that glosses over the failures of the party? Like many Clinton apologists, you lost your fucking mind after the election. I'm putting you on ignore, because your point of view is rampant, and stupid, and I have lost interest in endless debates; we'll talk past each other, and I no longer care what center-right status-quo fools believe. As we've alluded to in the past, the DNC and you hardly care what I think, especially living in a state with only 4 million population that is entirely unlikely to ever influence the outcome of a presidential election, which is of course an extra cynical part of the DNC survey/money beg. I'm also not beholden to tell you how to solve the issue of blocking Kavanaugh- your exasperation that I dare criticize without offering to solve the epic problems of the Democratic Party at the national level is noted, but not my fucking job- but self-immolation of every center-right democrat millionaire senator on the floor of the senate would be a nice start; even better if they hugged it out with the Republicans simultaneously, about how much they respect John McCain. I will enjoy watching the Democratic Leadership shit their pants every time an M4A and Abolish ICE candidate wins. WHY WON'T THEY KISS THE RING? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 229] Author : erimir Date : 08-29-2018 11:57 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Just a quick note that chunks has no interest in defending his ignorance on healthcare. You clearly didn't know shit about the Heritage plan, but you knew it proved how bad the Democrats were. Also the Democrats sure shit their pants over Kirsten Gillibrand supporting Medicare For All, I remember that definitely happening... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 230] Author : SR71 Date : 08-30-2018 04:13 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This has been a great discussion, guys. Both of you make some excellent points. I can't make up my mind which of you is more nearly "right". I liked Kael's description of where we are, what we do, why we need to see how and why we fail. The Venn diagram of voter interests of the opposition has a greater area of union than ours, and as Kael points out, that's by design. I don't know if it's possible to replicate that for ourselves. I'm certainly not the first to observe that out voter interests are as diverse as our voters. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 231] Author : erimir Date : 08-30-2018 04:17 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Democratic Party leadership, Chuck Schumer, today: Why Are Democrats Poised to Let 7 Trump-Nominated Judges Slide to Confirmation? (https://splinternews.com/why-are-democrats-poised-to-let-7-trump-nominated-judge-1828666151) Since he took office, Trump has appointed more federal appeals court judges than former Presidents Obama and Bush had at the same point in their administrations combined. As the Pew Research Center noted earlier this year, Trump had trailed his predecessors in appointing district court judges until today, when Senator Chuck Schumer helpfully struck a deal with the Republicans to confirm seven district court judges, plus four other federal appointees. Oops! The center-right party of the people is doing everything they can- it's just complicated, and a difficult time politically: I mean there's a Senate building to get named after [McCain]Yeah, I'm pretty sure the deal wasn't over renaming a building. It seems the deal was to get some Obama-era nominations confirmed, I'm unclear on what the exact aspects of the deal are or if there's anything more to it. At best, Schumer did a shit job of explaining what the deal was, assuming he got something worthwhile. It's debatable whether that was worth it. (Hated neoliberal) Harry Reid's former chief of staff thinks it wasn't. But as I pointed out before... they only have 49 votes. They can't stop those judges forever, they can only slow them down. So the tradeoff is not "no Trump judges" vs. "seven Trump judges", it's about time frames. You seem to think they can stop whatever they want, when they can't. For the simple reason that 51 > 49. So the concession made should be viewed as more about when those guys get confirmed, not whether they do. At any rate, the Democrats will definitely learn how to stop judges with fewer votes when they have 45 seats in the Senate, so we should definitely not vote for any Democrats running for Senate. Party leaders Schumer and Pelosi this June, who are undeserving of criticism at this perilous time: 'Schumer and Pelosi Have to Go': Democratic Leaders Under Fire for Urging 'Civility' in Face of Trump's Vicious Agenda (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/06/26/schumer-and-pelosi-have-go-democratic-leaders-under-fire-urging-civility-face-trumps)Hmm, nope, I didn't say that. I disagree with their stance here. I also disagreed with Bernie Sanders here: Bernie Sanders: Sarah Sanders has the right to 'go into a restaurant and have dinner' (http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/394449-bernie-sanders-sarah-sanders-has-the-right-to-go-into-a-restaurant-and-have) I guess even Sanders is center-right now. Democratic values, again on display this June: Sticking With Bob Menendez Was Stupid, Pointless, and Damaging (https://splinternews.com/sticking-with-bob-menendez-was-stupid-pointless-and-d-1826650768) [...] Wait until they get the Democratic Party back into power- VOTE FOR THEM!I agree, Menendez should've retired. Menendez was endorsed by the governor and the other Democrats in the NJ delegation, who then won the large majority of votes in the primary. Phil Murphy should not have endorsed. If he could've been convinced to drop out, they should have done it. Insert here any bullshit you like about the number of seats,Wherein the statements that 51>49 and that the Constitution only requires a majority equal "bullshit". I'm sorry that you're too dumb to understand that yes, the senate only Constitutionally requires a majority and that even if you replaced every Democrat with a Bernie Sanders who yelled and thundered about how awful the GOP was... they would still pass things with 51 votes. Barack Obama, doing the right thing, and definitely not because of pressure from the LGBTQ community, far to the left of him I never said that gay rights activists didn't exert any pressure. What I said is that they didn't achieve their goal through third-party wank voting. They used a bunch of other, more effective tactics. Because the Democratic Leadership and DNC are looking out for them, and the other party is so much worse... He invited Rick Warren, the evangelical megachurch pastor from Southern California, to give the invocation at his inauguration. Warren had been an outspoken supporter of Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that had brought marriage for gay couples to an immediate halt just two months earlier, crushing the spirit of the gay community in California and nationwide. Warren’s prominent position at the inauguration felt like a slap in the face.I remember and disapproved. But yes, the other party was so much fucking worse. Maybe it didn't mean as much to you as a straight man, but the Bush years with the GOP constantly campaigning on homophobia was sure as fuck worse than Obama throwing a symbolic bone to the Christ-humpers. It sure as shit didn't stop me from voting for Obama over Romney. according to eremir, who knows, because: he was gay the whole time.Yeah, tell me all about how the Bush years were basically as good as the Obama years, "fucksmediocrities". You were far more sensitive to the homophobia than me, I'm sure. Then, in June 11, 2009, the administration weighed in for the first time on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) [...] WHAT? HOW DARE THEY!And then nothing ever happened with that again. I remember this was the only thing that happened. Obama's justices definitely weren't a part of ruling those laws unconstitutional and his solicitor general definitely didn't argue in favor of that outcome. If only McCain or Romney had been in there instead, it would've been so much better. Will they gut another level of the Social Safety netI guess Obama expanding the social safety net never happened. It seems to me that millions more have Medicaid than before but it must be an illusion. Like many Clinton apologists, you lost your fucking mind after the election.Whereas you're coming off very stable here. And you know, are still sticking with idiocies like "Obamacare is the Heritage plan!!!" I lost my mind because I know what the Heritage plan actually was and how to decide which number is bigger. Ok. I no longer care what center-right status-quo fools believe.lol you're a fucking idiot. You don't know shit, you think that anyone who disagrees with you is a right-winger because you are a special fucking snowflake, one of the only men of principle. You're an ignorant pompous twit. But hey, heighten those contradictions, not like those contradictions will fall on you as much as those marginalized communities you're supposedly standing up for. I'm also not beholden to tell you how to solve the issue of blocking Kavanaugh- your exasperation that I dare criticize without offering to solve the epic problems of the Democratic Party at the national level is noted, but not my fucking job-This is a cop out to avoid explaining how the fuck you make 49 be greater than 51. Just saying "that's not my job" allows you to continue blaming everything on the party you clearly hate far more than the actual fucking Nazis who want to push forced birth on women and deport every Mexican. You don't even need to fucking know all the details of Senate procedure to know that 51 IS FUCKING GREATER THAN 49. All those rules you think that the Democrats can exploit? They can be undone with 51 votes. Every Republican in the Senate is a piece of shit who will vote for all of these shithead nominees. There is no procedural way to make 49>51. The only way is for Democrats to try to slow down his confirmation as much as possible, for the public to put pressure on the few Republicans who might flip, through public protest and phone calls and all that, and Democrats and journalists trying to uncover damaging information about Kavanaugh, and even then there's no guarantee it'll work. If Susan Collins would rather confirm that piece of shit than get reelected, there's nothing much you can really do about it. There is nothing you can do if they're willing to lose elections to get what they want. (But even then, they know that Kavanaugh will rule voter suppression efforts constitutional, so they could have more wiggle room than it seems.) Maybe the Democrats could be doing a better job, I dunno. But if you think there's just "one neat trick" they could do to get everything they want with fewer votes, it's because you're a fucking idiot, not because you have principles and care about things and no Democratic politician does. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 232] Author : SR71 Date : 08-30-2018 04:27 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The Menendez thing is fucking egregious. I really feel like voting his opponent out of spite, but of course, that's not a grown up option, is it? Also, chunks is no idiot. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 233] Author : Kael Date : 08-30-2018 04:45 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics How many interviews with Trump voters have we heard someone say something along the lines of "I don't like X about Trump, but he's getting Y done..."? How many evangelicals have we heard say that? How many Tax Cut Republicans? Meanwhile, how many voters say anything like that about any Democrat politician? How many Leftists of any sort? Setting aside the enormous propaganda gap Republicans are currently enjoying, which obviously makes it far more difficult than it otherwise would be - that's still a pretty massive problem right there. Get those grassroots progressives through the primaries, tell the DNC to go fuck itself, demand more of your candidates and representatives, I'm all for it. No one said you have to like Hillary, or the legacy of the Clinton Presidency, or the fact that Obama is pretty centrist and definitely Christian. But stop pretending the Democrat in the last election, or the Democrat in the next one, is just as bad as the Republican because they've both taken corporate donations and both support Israel. It was a stupid argument in 2016, and it's an insane argument now. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 234] Author : erimir Date : 08-30-2018 04:47 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics If I'm center-right, chunks is a fucking idiot :shrug: If they wanted to expel Menendez, I wouldn't mind much at this point. Phil Murphy is a Democrat and would appoint his replacement. It was more of an issue when Christie was still in office and would've appointed a Republican - it would've meant the repeal of Obamacare and gutting of Medicaid. And yeah, it wasn't worth it to take a stronger stand against corruption if it meant millions more people losing their health insurance. Menendez is still better than any Republican who will vote to gut Medicaid, give huge tax cuts to billionaires and confirm far-right nutjobs, among other horrible things. I certainly would not have voted for him in the primary if I lived in NJ, and would've encouraged anyone I know to vote for his primary opponent. I just don't happen to know anyone there... Same thing goes for Cuomo vs. Nixon. Nixon hasn't necessarily been impressing me with her campaign, but Cuomo is awful. However, the only person I know (who is a citizen) in NY is already voting for her (I was surprised since he actually is a moderate Democrat). Of course, the issue of donating money to the DNC per se is actually quite trivial. I've never donated any money to them although I did donate money to Clinton and 2016 Democratic Senate candidates. This year I am, however, volunteering for the local Democratic Party legislative candidates because the NCGOP legislative supermajority is horrific. But chunks didn't come to post that in my thread because it was about donating money to the DNC per se but because he wanted us to know how pure he is and how much he hates the Democrats. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 235] Author : mickthinks Date : 08-30-2018 05:36 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Also, chunks is no idiot. Yes, pretty much all the time, he is. But I guess you agree with him pretty much all the time, huh? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 236] Author : erimir Date : 08-30-2018 05:56 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Or conversely, don't reward bad behavior by agreeing to be a captive base.This theory seems to rely on the Democrats being the only party with agency. Like you're just punishing and denying toys to the Democratic pols who displeased you, and they'll try harder next time. But the Republicans have agency and will be doing stuff the whole time. Most importantly, every time you allow the Republicans to gain power, they will use that power to entrench themselves. For example:voting restrictions from strikedown of preclearance caused median voter in affected congressional districts to shift to the ideological right, electing more conservative legislators less likely to cosponsor civil rights bills#SocSciResearchhttps://t.co/vLHnQDJStd
— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) August 24, 2018
Even if I grant that throwing a left-wing tantrum by sitting out the election will get Democrats to move left... it only works if the next election takes place under the same rules. Does it help much if you have convinced the Democrats that they would need to move left to improve their electoral chances under the old electorate and districts, if the Republicans use voter suppression to create a more right-wing electorate and gerrymandering to create a more right-wing median district? You know, I would like in particular a response to this part. This seems to me to be a pretty huge fucking flaw in the third-party wank voting "deny them our votes and they'll move left, it's the only thing that could work" plan. As long as the Republicans don't take advantage of your stupidity to fuck you over, it's a plan guaranteed* to work. The problem is that they definitely will exploit the opportunity as much as possible. Whoops. This is why I think things like a new expanded VRA, anti-gerrymandering actions, DC and PR statehood, etc. should be the Democrats' highest priority the next time they have an opportunity. Other things like automatic voter registration, election day being a holiday, expanding vote-by-mail, etc. should also be pushed. Democrats should also embrace lowering the voting age to 16. In fact, they should probably propose a constitutional amendment guaranteeing a positive right to vote (IMO it should also repeal the section of the 14th amendment that allows disenfranchisement for convicted criminals).. And that extends to which Democrats should be primaried. Cuomo's machinations are part of why NY state has such shitty voting laws and a legislative maps drawn to benefit Republicans in a blue state. There have been some bad Democrats primaried over these issues, like a NM Democrat who blocked automatic voter registration lost her primary. *Not really. But even if we pretend it would... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 237] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 08-30-2018 06:31 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics With kiddie concentration camps, dead Puerto Ricans, the appointment of right wing nut job judges for life in their 30s, Cruella DeVos, Trump using the office to benefit his personal businesses, on top of all the international consequences, I really don't know what to say to anyone who's not prioritizing voting for any candidate who has a chance of winning the seat who's intent on putting the brakes on all that jazz. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 238] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 08-30-2018 07:50 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Replies didn't go as hoped:voting restrictions from strikedown of preclearance caused median voter in affected congressional districts to shift to the ideological right, electing more conservative legislators less likely to cosponsor civil rights bills#SocSciResearchhttps://t.co/vLHnQDJStd
— Matt Grossmann (@MattGrossmann) August 24, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 239] Author : erimir Date : 08-30-2018 08:19 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics To be fair, I heard a clip of his band's music and... I did not like it, at all. However, in Ted Cruz's youth, he was the Zodiac Killer, which I guess has to be considered worse. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 240] Author : The Man Date : 08-30-2018 08:29 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics He played with Cedric Bixler Zavala of the Mars Volta and At the Drive-In. Their music might’ve lacked polish at the time, but at this point I think it’s pretty clear that few other politicians in the whole country can lay claim to that level of cool. Especially in Texas - I mean, TMV and ATDI have got to be two of El Paso’s most famous musical exports. Cruz’ campaign is basically insulting Bixler Zavala by proxy. I can’t imagine that playing well. …I should note that before Cruz’ campaign ran that line of attack, I’d had no idea O’Rourke had ever been in a band with Bixler Zavala. Their cunning plan of bringing attention to that fact might not have quite the impact they were hoping for. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 241] Author : SR71 Date : 08-31-2018 02:52 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Also, chunks is no idiot. Yes, pretty much all the time, he is. But I guess you agree with him pretty much all the time, huh? I get his zeal. My state went for Corzine, poster boy for Wall St dems, to Christie, an honest to Pete hardcore Republican, sort of Trump's prototype, to Murphy. Murphys platform was a mirror image of Trump's. He promised everything any segment of the party wanted. Check it out now. (https://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/11/phil_murphys_promise-filled_campaign.html) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 242] Author : erimir Date : 08-31-2018 03:33 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics My impression was that Murphy was doing a pretty good job, but that the NJ legislature wasn't being cooperative on all issues (despite being Dem controlled). Endorsing Menendez for the primary was bad though. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 243] Author : SR71 Date : 08-31-2018 03:57 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I've never been impressed with Menendez and now it's clear he's flat ass corrupt. Corruption in NJ politics is an old and often repeated story. It's not just a cliche, the list of pols that really went to jail for really real is long. I'm glad we elected a flaming liberal, or at least someone who presents as one, for a change, and yes, he needs his own team to be on his side. It's always seemed to me that the Dems we elect are either corrupt or closet Wall Streeters, or both. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 244] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 08-31-2018 05:01 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So apparently debate moderators are asking candidates if they're willing to forego salary.Maybe Beto can’t debate Ted Cruz because he already had plans... pic.twitter.com/LdqKTh3yK4
— Texas GOP (@TexasGOP) August 28, 2018
Following some of the strands and through to the source interesting and informative. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 245] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 08-31-2018 09:32 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsModerators shouldn’t be asking candidates this, and, more importantly, candidates when asked should take the opportunity to say no and explain what values are at stake in treating political office as a hobby for the wealthy.
— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) August 30, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 246] Author : But Date : 08-31-2018 07:27 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Like many Clinton apologists, you lost your fucking mind after the election. Like this? California DNC Member Suggests Superdelegate Reform Is Part Of Russian Plot | HuffPost (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bob-mulholland-california-dnc-superdelegates-reform-putin-russia_us_5b1d636fe4b09d7a3d73e7bb) :lol: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 247] Author : erimir Date : 09-01-2018 12:21 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics You're the one who thinks that the DNC "rigged" the nomination on the basis of a couple of debates being on Saturdays or some stupid shit. But you're attributing idiotic conspiracy theories to me. Ok. But as it turns out, I don't think these rule changes actually benefit Bernie Sanders. Most importantly, it is accompanied by a reduction in the use of caucuses and changes to make it possible to vote in caucuses without attending. Caucuses were where Bernie did much better, because more ideologically committed voters attend them on average. Caucuses were far more consequential in providing a boost to Sanders than closed primaries were in helping Clinton (the effect of open/closed primaries is not nearly as large and in some states benefited Sanders). Of course, caucuses also are difficult for working people or disabled people to attend, so if your primary concern is making the nomination process democratic/maximize turnout, then you should want to get rid of them. But either way, superdelegates were never going to vote for the pledged delegate loser in a two-way race anyway. Superdelegates favored Clinton over Obama in 2008, but when it was clear he would win the pledged delegate race, enough of them switched that his victory was assured. It would have been political suicide for the superdelegates to overturn the outcome in 2008 or 2016. The notion that ordinary Clinton voters would've been totally cool with the first woman having the nomination snatched away and they would've all lined up behind Bernie anyway is... overly optimistic. You can imagine Trump hammering on about the nomination being stolen from Clinton over the course of the general election, for example. On the other hand, in a multi-candidate field, if one candidate gets 40% of the pledged delegates, superdelegates would have a strong incentive to ratify that candidate's victory and ensure the nomination does not go to a second ballot. Under the new rules, they cannot vote on the first ballot, but they can on subsequent ballots. However pledged delegates are released on later ballots as well. So we can imagine this scenario, for example: Sanders has 44% of the pledged delegates Joe Biden has 32% Kamala Harris has 19% Cory Booker has 5% It will go to the second ballot, since no candidate has >50%. Biden, Harris and Booker negotiate a deal... Harris and Booker will tell their delegates to vote for Biden to be the presidential nominee, while Biden will choose Harris to be his vice president. But if superdelegates got to vote on the first ballot, they might have decided to just go with Sanders since he was in the lead, and many voters will feel that thus he "won" and should be the nominee. Now, of course, this scenario could also benefit Sanders if, say, the distribution ended with him in the position to negotiate with another candidate while not being the plurality winner. But these rules make such negotiations much more likely, while superdelegates would probably prefer to avoid such situations if one candidate is reasonably close to 50% to avoid people feeling that their candidate had the nomination stolen by backroom dealing. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 248] Author : But Date : 09-01-2018 02:52 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics But you're attributing idiotic conspiracy theories to me. Ok. To you? Has your strawman building routine gotten so out of hand that it's grown into some real mental dysfunction by now? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 249] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-01-2018 10:00 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsReally worth emphasizing that there’s a good (~25%) chance Republicans hold the House, gain a senate seat or two, replace McCain/Flake/Corker with Trump loyalists, Mueller gets fired, Manafort gets pardoned, and then that’s game over — the coverup worked.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 30, 2018
Why would the people of Texas support Ted Cruz when he has accomplished absolutely nothing for them. He is another all talk, no action pol!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2016
— Grow in Peace (@YourGrowFriend) August 31, 2018-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 250] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 09-02-2018 06:38 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics It paints things as though Democrats just woke up one morning and were like "hey let's all be more conservative!" The whole country moved to the right since Eisenhower and Nixon, especially on economic issues, and it didn't do it overnight.No one was arguing that it occurred rapidly; feel free to present the factors you think caused this. I would argue it was definitely when Clinton used his triangulation strategy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangulation_(politics)), and the Democratic party leaders then attempted that same strategy for every election since. Center-Right Democrats used triangulation to attempt to take issues from the Right- and moved the (D) party to the Right. But in reality, their policies- furthering the interests of Capitalism here and abroad- are in the end nearly identical; most of the rest is window dressing for pulling in votes. Clintonism, R.I.P. - The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/01/clintonism-rip/303692/) As a candidate each sought to distance himself from his party's reigning image—Bush through "compassionate conservatism" and Clinton through a "third way" approach between liberalism and conservatism. Each succeeded well enough to win two terms. And each is now viewed within his party as something close to the ideal. The difference is that Bush measurably strengthened the Republican Party along the way, whereas Clinton worried mainly about his own political fortunes, to the detriment of his party. Every election under Bush has resulted in Republican gains in Congress; in sharp contrast, Clinton assumed office with his party in control of the House, the Senate, and a majority of governorships, and left it with none of those advantages. Since Clinton, Democratic losses have deepened and broadened to include both subsequent presidential races, in which the Democratic nominees dutifully adopted Clinton's strategy of centrist triangulation. ...>snip<... It is hard to overstate the reverence in which Clinton is held by professional Democratic operatives, many of whom served in his administration and today constitute the party's major powers. This group has hewed faithfully to the tenets of Clintonism, staunch in its belief that Democratic candidates can neutralize troublesome issues simply by triangulating, as Clinton did, and prevail with a list of issues nearly identical to the one Clinton touted. But as Al Gore, John Kerry, and countless lesser Democrats have tried this approach and failed, one thing has become clearer and clearer: the success of Clintonism was due primarily to the period in which Clinton governed and to his remarkable political skills—not to the electoral strategy he bequeathed to his party. The Left in the US seems to have the same problem over and over: we elect a few promising people at the national level then dust off our hands and walk away. Meanwhile activists for all sorts of conservative issues stay on message and on target, and work State and local too for every scrap they can get.You keep saying Left, when I think in this instance you are referring to Center-Right Democrats. When the Center-Right Democrats cynically target privileged, white, affluent voters and assume the working people of all colors and ethnicities are a captive base that will vote for the (D) party simply because the other party is abhorrent, you have a failed strategy and party. Absolutely the Republican efforts (in 2010 especially) to control the redistricting process and implement gerrymandering is a factor- they have been wildly successful. But Center-Right Democrats decided to focus on the interests of the affluent, and ignore the interests of the working class people of all colors- and it backfired on them. What Killed the Democratic Party? | The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/what-killed-the-democratic-party/) Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama attempted to challenge corporate and financial interests, and neither did nearly enough to address the lost jobs and wages that led to deteriorating affluence and fed popular cynicism and distrust. Obama, for example, gratuitously appointed General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to the White House Jobs Council—an odd choice, given that Immelt’s company was a notorious pioneer in offshoring American jobs to foreign nations. Immelt subsequently admitted that he was motivated by GE’s bottom line: American wages were too high, he explained, so he intended to lower them. He succeeded. In this context, blue-collar workers were not mistaken when they blamed the Democrats. During the campaign, Hillary Clinton was virtually silent on the party’s complicity. The Democratic nominee couldn’t very well quarrel with the party’s embrace of Republican dogma on free trade and financial deregulation, since it would have meant quarreling with her husband. On the central domestic issue of our time, she had nothing convincing to say. ...>snip<... A revealing example cited in “Autopsy” of the Democratic Party’s self-congratulatory mentality (and its cluelessness) is the fund-raising mailer it sent to donors in the summer of 2017—eight months after its spectacular wipeout. The mailer was “designed to look like collection letters to its supporters,” the critique notes. “The DNC team scrawled ‘FINAL NOTICE’ across the envelopes and put ‘Finance Department’ as the return address. The message it conveyed, intentionally or not, was: you owe us.” ...>snip<... The condescending approach of party wise guys may seem a trivial matter in the era of high-tech modern elections, but politics is still personal. ...>snip<... ...the Democratic Party neglected its most loyal voters. It not only forgot to ask for their votes; it ignored the general distress of working people (white, black, and brown). Furthermore, the party didn’t have much to offer those folks in the form of concrete proposals to improve their lives. ...>snip<... In midsummer 2016, working-class enthusiasm for Trump was the hot political story, but Senator Chuck Schumer, the soon-to-be Democratic leader in the upper chamber, assured party colleagues that they needn’t worry. “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Philadelphia,” Schumer predicted. “And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” At the time, Schumer sounded as though he was just blowing smoke to motivate donors. But in hindsight, this may actually have been the party’s strategy: Bet on middle-class suburbanites offended by the vile Trump to vote Democratic or stay home, which would offset the loss of working-class voters attracted to him. If this was, in fact, the strategy, the party bet wrong on every point. What’s more, this approach may have encouraged Democratic operatives to shortchange black and Latino voters—two faithful groups that had powerful reasons to vote against Trump. The turnout for both was depressed compared to previous presidential elections. According to the authors of “Autopsy,” the Democrats withheld funding for grassroots canvassing and failed to challenge outrageous Republican schemes to suppress the minority vote. Albert Morales, then the Democratic National Committee’s director of engagement for Latino voters, originally proposed a $3 million budget to increase turnout in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, and Texas. He ended up with $300,000. “It was just pitiful,” Morales said. How many interviews with Trump voters have we heard someone say something along the lines of "I don't like X about Trump, but he's getting Y done..."? How many evangelicals have we heard say that? How many Tax Cut Republicans? Yes, they voted in lockstep, and continue to support policies via their votes, because global markets and Capital are getting what they want, and everything else is secondary in America. They may posture, but for example, "Maverick" John McCain voted with Trump 83% of the time (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/). Meanwhile, how many voters say anything like that about any Democrat politician? How many Leftists of any sort?Leftists don't say that about the Center-Right Democrats, because that party doesn't represent Leftists. This is not hard math. But instead, the Center-Right Democrats are busy trying to close the groupthink gap. If only they could vote in lockstep, like the Republicans! They blame voters for not kissing the ring, instead of actually representing the interests of most working-class and impoverished voters of all ethnicities. But stop pretending the Democrat in the last election, or the Democrat in the next one, is just as bad as the Republican because they've both taken corporate donations and both support Israel. It was a stupid argument in 2016, and it's an insane argument now. Republicans just usually wear more of a veneer of respectability; Trump simply shows the reality of both parties, and both the Center-Right and Right parties are offended that the mask slipped. Clinton is a Neoliberal who is in bed with dictators, but she's the Center-Right's Neoliberal, who sometimes talks about health care and the environment and makes the right mouth noises- who voted for the Iraq War, the AUMF, and every other odious piece of legislation. Noam Chomsky on Fascism, Showmanship and Democrats’ Hypocrisy in the Trump Era | Global Policy Journal (https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/06/2018/noam-chomsky-fascism-showmanship-and-democrats-hypocrisy-trump-era) The Democrats are now torn between a popular base that is largely social democratic and a New Democrat leadership that panders to the donor class. Under Obama, the party was reduced to shambles at the local and state level, a particularly serious matter because the 2020 elections will determine redistricting, offering opportunities for gerrymandering even beyond today’s scandalous situation. The bankruptcy of the Democrat elite is well-illustrated by the obsession with alleged Russian meddling with our sacred elections. Whatever it might amount to — apparently very little — it cannot begin to compare with the “meddling” of campaign funding, which largely determines electoral outcomes, as extensive research has shown, particularly the careful work of Thomas Ferguson, which he and his colleagues have now extended to the 2016 elections. As Ferguson points out, when Republican elites realized that it was going to be Trump or Clinton, they responded with a huge wave of last-minute money that not only led to Clinton’s late October decline but also had the same effect on Democratic candidates for Senate, “virtually in lock step.” It is “outlandish,” Ferguson observes, that former FBI Director James Comey or the Russians “could be responsible for both collapses” in the final stage of the campaign: “For the first time in the entire history of the United States, the partisan outcome of Senate races coincided perfectly with the results of every state’s presidential balloting.” The outcome conforms very well to Ferguson’s well-supported “Investment theory of party competition.” But facts and logic matter little. The Democrats are bent on revenge for their 2016 failure, having run such a rotten campaign that what looked like a “sure thing” collapsed. Evidently, Trump’s severe assault against the common good is a lesser matter, at least to the party elite. It’s sometimes been noted that the US not only regularly meddles in foreign elections, including Russian ones, but also proceeds to subvert and sometimes overthrow governments it doesn’t like. Horrifying consequences abound, to the present, from Central America to the Middle East. Guatemala has been a horror story since a US-backed coup overthrew its elected reformist government in 1954. Gaza, declining in misery, may become unlivable by 2020, the UN predicts, not by acts of God. In 2006, Palestinians committed a grave crime: They ran the first free election in the Arab world, and made the “wrong” choice, handing power to Hamas. Israel reacted by escalating violence and a brutal siege. The US reverted to standard operating procedure and prepared a military coup, pre-empted by Hamas. In punishment for this new crime, US-Israeli torture of Gaza sharply increased, not only with strangulation but also regular murderous and destructive US-backed Israeli invasions, on pretexts that quickly collapse on examination. Elections that come out the wrong way plainly cannot be tolerated under our policy of “democracy promotion.” I know it's all tl;dr, but you might ask others, including Palestinians, what they think of Clinton and Obama: In Gaza, we aren't mourning Clinton's loss | US & Canada | Al Jazeera (https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2016/11/gaza-aren-mourning-clinton-loss-161117123959810.html) Bush pressed for a Palestinian National Council against all odds in 2006. But when Hamas, as predicted, won the elections, he approved a plan to overthrow Hamas by igniting a Palestinian civil war with the help of Israel. In the meantime, Clinton was busy co-sponsoring a Congress resolution entitled, "The Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006". The resolution, which was introduced after Hamas won the elections and taken over Gaza as a result of Bush's interference, denied Hamas any participation in the "peace process" unless it recognised Israel, disarmed and renounced violence. Obama hands Israel the largest military aid deal in history | The Electronic Intifada (https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/obama-hands-israel-largest-military-aid-deal-history) The Obama administration has signed a $38 billion military aid pact with Israel in what the State Department boasts is the “single largest pledge of bilateral military assistance in US history.” The record agreement will provide Israel with $3.8 billion annually over 10 years beginning in 2019, up from $3.1 billion under the current deal. At a time when the US government supposedly can’t afford to provide poor and working Americans with basic services like universal health care – something Israelis enjoy – it is striking that there is always money available to enable Israel’s ongoing destruction of Palestine. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who has expressed opposition to universal health care and free college tuition, cheered the aid deal. With kiddie concentration camps, dead Puerto Ricans, the appointment of right wing nut job judges for life in their 30s, Cruella DeVos, Trump using the office to benefit his personal businesses, on top of all the international consequences, I really don't know what to say to anyone who's not prioritizing voting for any candidate who has a chance of winning the seat who's intent on putting the brakes on all that jazz.By all means vote strategically. Just do so with the full knowledge that if you're voting for a Neoliberal, Center-Right Democrat, that the differences are mostly surface noise for the poor in America, for people of color, for the working class- and for the numerous client states where the US kills people in your name. The failure of the Center-Right Democrats to deliver is a feature, not a bug. The Anthropocene won't survive another 50 years of Global Capitalism; waiting for Center-Right Democrats to save anyone from Trumps policies is a losing strategy. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 251] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-02-2018 07:19 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The Anthropocene won't survive another 50 years of Global Capitalism; waiting for Center-Right Democrats to save anyone from Trumps policies is a losing strategy. And there's the long term concern. Will complex mammalian life survive? I don't hold out much hope for any form of government pulling out of this ecological nosedive but I suppose I'm mainly a believer in a government with A: compassion and B: devotion to empirical methods. Make mine Least Bad or Least Harm. Fat chance of that with so many humans, so many conflicting regional interests. Yankee gonna Yank, Chinese gonna China, Rusky gonna Russian. And smaller states dragged along for the ride. Some times screaming in panic louder than other times. ETA: obvious onset dementia and NPD and a nuclear button seems a More Bad approach. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 252] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-02-2018 08:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Interesting thrad with interesting replies to the thrad. Start:
The kick off for interesting replies:People’s response to McCain’s passing and his memorial today shows me that we are very bad at nuance.
— Aditi Juneja (@AditiJuneja3) September 2, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 253] Author : Kael Date : 09-02-2018 06:43 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Chunks, I really don't disagree with most of what you're saying. I'm on the same page on the broad strokes, like the analysis of why Clinton's centrist strategy backfired, and just how bad things are now. I'm not saying you have to like or even put up with the shortcomings of the Democratic Party. I'm talking about the brute pragmatism of the situation: we don't have a genuinely leftist party in the US with any real clout. It's just not on the table. It could be, these things are mutable, and efforts like getting more progressive candidates through primaries is a good way to push things in that direction, and in the long run either get the Party leadership to come around or get them replaced. What I'm saying is that come election day when the only options – and yes, they are the only options; that's the math of a first-past-the-post system, if you think that sucks as much as I do then that needs to be a focus of your demands for reform – are Center-Right with standard-issue corruption and Ultra-Right with a double helping of corruption and bonus insanity, the necessary choice is pretty clear. The only reason I can see to let the Ultra-Right sweep the table, which is what you're doing when you don't vote or vote third party – again, that's just the math of it – is if you're actively trying to make things worse in hope of a total collapse and probably violent revolution. Now, if that's you're goal, just be honest about it. We can have a whole separate discussion about why I think that's a terrible idea. But if it's not, don't pretend you're standing on principle when you're actually just ignoring the reality of the situation. The electoral numbers over the last decades, culminating in 2016, make it clear to me that the worst elements of the Right got in power because of the abstentions of the liberals, progressives, and leftists far more than because of a sudden surge in the popularity of fascist ideas. I disagree with the "both parties are the same" narrative on nearly every level - even the places where they are comparable such as big business interests and drone bombings I think there is a non-trivial distinction to be made, usually with Republicans being worse. However, even if we grant some level of parity in these areas for sake of argument, there are still too many areas where the unarguably worse outcomes of a Republican win, such as efforts to roll back LGBT rights and women's rights, should have been enough to get your vote, however begrudging, and however rightfully outraged that there wasn't a better choice. The state of the Supreme Court and the known intention of Republicans to appoint more theocratic “originalist” bullshitters to lifetime seats should have been enough to get you out there working damage control, however frustrated you were that damage control was the best available option. These things should still be enough to get your vote in November, although I hope that you and everyone else keeps pushing back on the areas where the least-worst party keeps falling way too short. I know you don't think anyone can avoid the moral responsibilities of the abuses of Global Capitalism simply because they don't personally run any sweat shops. So why do you think you've dodged the moral responsibilities of the outcomes of our elections because of your refusal to effectively participate? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 254] Author : But Date : 09-02-2018 08:04 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Noam Chomsky on Fascism, Showmanship and Democrats’ Hypocrisy in the Trump Era | Global Policy Journal (https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/21/06/2018/noam-chomsky-fascism-showmanship-and-democrats-hypocrisy-trump-era) With no support from big business or the media, Sanders might well have won the Democratic nomination had it not been for the machinations of Obama-Clinton party managers. :ohnoes: Chomsky engaged in "stupid shit" conspiracy theories! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 255] Author : erimir Date : 09-02-2018 10:26 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics we don't have a genuinely leftist party in the US with any real clout. It's just not on the table. It could be, these things are mutable, and efforts like getting more progressive candidates through primaries is a good way to push things in that direction, and in the long run either get the Party leadership to come around or get them replaced.Yes, exactly. There is a sort of bipolar type thing I've seen with some of these primary options. On the one hand, people like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez or Kara Eastman* can win primaries, and they claim that the left is coming for all establishment Democrats and they'd better fall in line. But if someone like Cuomo or Menendez wins a primary, the claim is that the Democratic Party is too corrupt to be redeemed. Maybe the people making these claims don't overlap that much, it might be the different factions are just louder depending on the results. I think it's clear that people running more progressive campaigns can win primaries and that's how I vote in primaries**, but the fact that you don't win every one of them is a function of not all other Democratic voters being on the same page AND other Democratic candidates responding by moving to the left. The former means you need to work on persuasion more. The latter is a good thing. What won't work is taking your ball and going home. Maybe the Democratic Party doesn't do enough. But spending your time and energy on 3rd-party candidacies that are guaranteed to do nothing of value, and might even get more Republicans elected, is a far worse strategy than trying to move the Democratic Party left. Seeing the Tea Party/white nationalists completely take over the GOP should make it clear that entryism is a better strategy than 3rd-party spoilerism. *she doesn't get talked up as much, but she defeated Brad Ashford in the primary, who held the seat 2015-2017 **unfortunately I haven't had many interesting primaries to vote in. I did help oust the longtime somewhat socially conservative not very good DC councilman. Of course, I'd also consider other aspects of the candidates like personality (if you're progressive but kooky, say) or scandals, etc. What I'm saying is that come election day when the only options – and yes, they are the only options; that's the math of a first-past-the-post system, if you think that sucks as much as I do then that needs to be a focus of your demands for reformI think electoral system reform is a good thing for people who want better options to push for but I'd have to add some caveats (mostly disappointing ones). For one, starting locally is probably better. However, an issue in the US is the sheer amount of elections. A lot of other countries don't have as many elected offices. The problem with this is that most voters can't really pay attention to that many races, because they don't have time to learn about all the candidates or understand the issues, particularly for offices like Commissioner of Agriculture or weird-ass shit like mosquito control districts (which actually have elections in some places for some reason). This means that attention is an aspect to consider - the system needs to work when voters will be using simple heuristics. This is one of the reasons that parties are valuable. Another is that the Constitution mandates some aspects of our elections, which means that reforming some parts is an extremely tall order. In particular, the presidency has the Electoral College and mandates that the winner get a majority of electors, and if not, the House of Representatives will vote on a state delegation basis. That means it's extra vulnerable to gerrymandering in the House and also affected by similar issues as the Senate. Not only do Republicans get more seats in general, but gerrymandering means they hold majorities in more states than they should, but North Dakota gets equal weight to California. This means that no 3rd-party candidate is winning out of the House, and there's a very high chance that a Republican will win in any given year even if the Democrats control the House. As a result is basically impossible to dislodge the two-party system for the presidency without amending the Constitution or as part of the country falling apart (like 1860). Recognizing this doesn't make me a "center-right status quo" person, it just means I'm not in denial and thinking that voting for Jill Stein (or other 3rd-party) will ever accomplish anything good. And given that partisan polarization is strongly affected by the presidency, that means that 3rd-parties are going to have a hard time in many places regardless of reforms. But we can push for things like approval voting, single transferable vote or other ranked choice systems at the city or state level. I do think that expanding the franchise through making the right to vote a guarantee, making it easy to exercise, lowering the voting age and extending voting rights to non-citizens for some elections and eliminating gerrymandering is more important than trying to encourage third-parties though. Eliminating the factors that make the electorate/median district more right-wing than the general public will do more to move the country left. I don't think the two-party system is as important an explanation for the situation in the US as many people do (or I used to). I think other anti-democratic features are more important. I disagree with the "both parties are the same" narrative on nearly every level - even the places where they are comparable such as big business interests and drone bombings I think there is a non-trivial distinction to be made, usually with Republicans being worse.It's really quite hard to think of where Republicans are better. As for drones, Trump has increased their use significantly and loosened the rules for their use, resulting in a large increase in civilian deaths. For what the Palestinians think of Clinton, well, I don't think they all think the same way. There were also quite a few on the left (like Glenn Greenwald) pushing the notion that Trump would not be so hardline pro-Israel. Maybe it would be more informative to hear what Palestinians think now, after seeing Trump's uniformly pro-Israel/anti-Palestine changes, rather than in 2016. However, even if we grant some level of parity in these areas for sake of argument, there are still too many areas where the unarguably worse outcomes of a Republican win, such as efforts to roll back LGBT rights and women's rights, should have been enough to get your vote, however begrudging, and however rightfully outraged that there wasn't a better choice.I'd also note that chunks quotes Chomsky about Russian meddling. I don't really agree with Chomsky's view here, which is somewhat tu quoque and which I think makes an unjustified conflation between America and certain factions within America. The fact that the US has meddled in other countries elections and governments does not thus make it ok that it happens to America, for one. For another, America's elections have far higher stakes than Guatemala's because it has the world's more powerful military and has a central role in the world economy, and of course, because it is simply one of the largest countries in the world by population. Putting a right-winger in charge of Grenada is very bad, sure, but putting a deranged narcissist in charge of the world's largest military and nuclear arsenal seems somehow worse. More importantly, however, the fact that right-wing Americans meddle in foreign elections to benefit right-wing extremists doesn't even make it a proper revenge for foreign right-wingers (like Putin) to meddle in America's elections to benefit right-wing extremists. If the USSR brings about a communist government in Cuba, and then Cuba were to now (somehow) bring Russia back to communism, this should be seen as a story of global communism, not Russia vs. Cuba. It would be nonsensical for a right-wing Cuban to conclude that it was only fair for Cuba to meddle in Russia and thus Russian's complaints about communism returning are silly. And I don't think they would - they would probably feel sympathy for the Russian right-wing. Consider that people like John Bolton supported regime change in countries like Iraq and Iran, and then Russia meddles to affect which regime takes over America. "America has received its comeuppance!" you say. Well fucking John Bolton is now the National Security Advisor, presumably pushing for regime change in Iran rather than merely pulling out of the Iran deal. Some comeuppance he received, eh? It would be another matter entirely if instead Russia had meddled to put a far left president in the White House. Then the response of "aha, see you don't like it when it happens to you! Well, turnabout is fair play in the great game!" would at least make sense on its own terms. In response, I'd also note two other things that Chomsky has said. For one, he is a proponent of voting for the lesser evil (https://chomsky.info/an-eight-point-brief-for-lev-lesser-evil-voting/). The other is that the called the GOP the most dangerous organization in human history (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-39879374/chomsky-republican-party-most-dangerous-organisation-on-earth), because it does not simply have an inadequate response to climate change, but actively embraces policies to make it worse, and thus is working towards making Earth uninhabitable for human life. As such, he said that anyone in a swing state in the US should vote for Clinton. Apparently he is a center-right status quo fool too :sadno: Errr, but to get to my point to Kael... climate change is also a pretty big deal, perhaps the biggest deal and even if the Democrats are inadequate to the challenge, it makes no sense to shrug your shoulders at the GOP instead wanting to encourage the use of coal and relax fuel standards, etc. Particularly if you're concerned about the rest of the world - many developing countries will be hardest hit by climate change. Losing four or eight years on this issue is not trivial. Even if you are disappointed with them on many of these other issues, climate change should be reason enough. I know you don't think anyone can avoid the moral responsibilities of the abuses of Global Capitalism simply because they don't personally run any sweat shops. So why do you think you've dodged the moral responsibilities of the outcomes of our elections because of your refusal to effectively participate?Lemieux at LawyersGunsMoney calls this consumerist/individualistic voting. Gonzo expressed this in its purest form in the aftermath of the election: I know how responsibility works. You are implying it was my literal job to heal the a situation by voting for Clinton. You have a right to feel that way, but I think it is obnoxious.Since we're on the subject of "betraying socialism", the individualistic attitude displayed here seems pretty opposed to the principles of socialism, doesn't it? Every libertarian asshat out there knows how to say "You might think it's my job to pay taxes to support sick people or poor people, but I think it is obnoxious." This is a consumerist model of voting and it's not a coincidence that it requires little to change it into a libertarian argument. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 256] Author : erimir Date : 09-02-2018 10:36 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics With no support from big business or the media, Sanders might well have won the Democratic nomination had it not been for the machinations of Obama-Clinton party managers. :ohnoes: Chomsky engaged in "stupid shit" conspiracy theories! I see you think Chomsky's authority is great enough that this should be an issue for me. Chomsky said it, so it must be justified. In which case, I will again point to these other things Chomsky has said: he is a proponent of voting for the lesser evil (https://chomsky.info/an-eight-point-brief-for-lev-lesser-evil-voting/). The other is that the called the GOP the most dangerous organization in human history (https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-39879374/chomsky-republican-party-most-dangerous-organisation-on-earth), because it does not simply have an inadequate response to climate change, but actively embraces policies to make it worse, and thus is working towards making Earth uninhabitable for human life. As such, he said that anyone in a swing state in the US should vote for Clinton. :ohnoes: Chomsky engaged in "center-right status quo" foolery! As for what Chomsky said about the nomination, I would say that sure, if Democratic politicians hadn't gotten behind Clinton, she might not have won the nomination. If you want to call that "machinations", sure. That's not the same thing as "rigging" the primary. Party leaders endorsing candidates in party primaries is not illegitimate or corrupt, in my view. She won the popular vote and the majority of pledged delegates, so superdelegates did not nominate someone against the will of Democratic voters. But it is also true that if they had nearly uniformly rejected her, the superdelegates could've delivered the nomination to Sanders despite his popular vote/pledged delegate loss. Ok, if ratifying the popular will of Democratic primary voters is "machinations" then also sure, they did that. But it is unclear what exactly he means, so I wouldn't say whether he's embracing conspiracy theories without more detail. If what he means by "machinations" is the same as you do, then yes, he believes in a stupid conspiracy. Chomsky is not infallible and he doesn't have access to secret evidence that I don't. The evidence doesn't support your stupid shit conspiracies. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 257] Author : But Date : 09-02-2018 10:47 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics :lol: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 258] Author : erimir Date : 09-02-2018 11:46 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics :rolleyes: Do you have anything of actual worth to contribute? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 259] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 09-03-2018 12:06 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics ...Chomsky also argues that voting for Clinton is better than voting for Trump; Noam Chomsky on Leftists Who Did Not Vote for Clinton - YouTube His points are entirely valid. Like I said, vote strategically, but with open eyes; note that he also points out that pressure from the Left is required. What I refuse to accept is arguments that the Center-Right Party cannot be criticized and pressured, including with the threat and reality of with-holding votes. Politicians on the national stage especially must be led, rather than leading; too many of them are wind socks. The emails I sent to the senators representing my state today: I am writing to you today to ask you to stand up and block as many judicial nominations put forth by the Trump Administration, with every tactic available to you, and to repudiate the actions of Senator Schumer this last Tuesday, August 28, fast-tracking 15 Trump nominees to the judiciary. Why did Senator Schumer do this? What possible real justification could this ever have? The actions of Senator Schumer undermine the stated goal of Democrats to make every effort to block the upcoming judicial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, and signals capitulation. A Democratic Party unwilling to fight for this with everything they’ve got signals to the electorate that they are either unwilling or unable to represent the interests of the base they claim to represent. A Democratic Party unable to censure Senator Manchin, Senator Donnelly, and Senator Heitkamp for voting to confirm Neil Gorsuch is additionally signalling to the people that they cannot, will not take a stand when it counts. Too many articles by pundits and scholars claim the Democratic Party is powerless to block this nomination, and claim that the Democratic Party is unwilling to force questions regarding a quorum, and unwilling to force a “nuclear option” to filibuster the nomination. Many people the Democratic Party assumed would vote for them in the 2016 election did not participate, in part because of decisions like just like Senator Schumer’s this last Tuesday, that signal a lack of resolve and an unwillingness to stand up, think creatively, hold their members accountable, and fight for their constituents. A Democratic Party that won’t fight with everything stands for nothing, and will lose voter support, including my own. I sent a modified version of this same email to Schumer. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 260] Author : But Date : 09-03-2018 12:48 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The fact that the US has meddled in other countries elections and governments does not thus make it ok that it happens to America, for one. That's debatable. What is an objective fact is that when it happens to the bitch who supported the coup in Honduras and organized the clusterfuck in Libya, it's really, really funny. :nelson: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 261] Author : Kael Date : 09-03-2018 12:54 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics What I refuse to accept is arguments that the Center-Right Party cannot be criticized and pressuredOf course, in fact that is exactly what is necessary if you really want things to move away from the insane fringe of the right that has taken control. including with the threat and reality of with-holding votes. See, that's where you lose me. In an ideal world that would be how it works, but it ignores the realities of how our system works. Not voting for the major contender that most closely matches your views, no matter how far away from your views they actually are, is effectively supporting their opposition, which would necessarily be even further removed from where your ideal is. When you're this far to the right, movement back toward the center is still movement to the left, and when you're this far to the right, any movement to the left is better than more movement to the right - which is the inevitable and entirely predictable consequence of staying home or voting third party. If you want that to change, you have to start where we currently are. And most centrally in this discussion, you shouldn't act as though abstaining gives you the moral high ground. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 262] Author : erimir Date : 09-03-2018 01:15 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics ...Chomsky also argues that voting for Clinton is better than voting for Trump; Noam Chomsky on Leftists Who Did Not Vote for Clinton - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cpRFtzZAdg) His points are entirely valid. Like I said, vote strategically, but with open eyes; note that he also points out that pressure from the Left is required. What I refuse to accept is arguments that the Center-Right Party cannot be criticized and pressured, including with the threat and reality of with-holding votes.If Noam Chomsky, of all people, is saying to vote for Clinton, after all the criticisms he's made of the Democrats, it would seem that he doesn't think the reality of withholding votes is a worthwhile strategy. You are free to disagree with Chomsky, of course, I don't agree with him on a lot of things, but it does seem you do disagree. I have not argued that you cannot criticize the Democrats. I haven't defended everything they do either. I do not say that you should not pressure them. You should especially pressure them in primaries, and also with other forms like phone calls, letters and protests. It is a straw man to say that I have suggested otherwise. I do think you should, if you have the time and ability to understand how our stupid political system works, take the realities of our system into account when you do criticize them, however. I don't think Schumer is doing a great job and I think Harry Reid would be doing a better job. But I'm not expecting him to block everything the GOP wants to do because that simply isn't possible. There is on one neat trick that lets them do that. The Democrats seriously fucked up in 2009-2015, especially the earlier half of that period, in maintaining norms that the Republicans demonstrated they were determined to pervert into a minority veto. Quite a few of the Democrats most responsible are already gone (a lot of red state Democrats thought this moderation would save their seats, and it did not, others like Lieberman are just assholes), but others are not (for example, Pat Leahy*, the sucker who reinstated the blue slip rule that allowed the GOP to hold so many circuit court seats open). If the Democrats had been willing to nuke or neuter the filibuster earlier, or change other procedural rules, they could've done a lot more in that time period. But none of that means that they can now unilaterally stop Kavanaugh. The failure of 2009 Democrats to utilize their majority to its full extent does not somehow give them the ability to prevent the GOP from doing so now. And you should not misrepresent Nixon and Eisenhower as being to the left of current Democrats. Or suggest they've spent the entirely of the past 20 years moving to the center. Particularly not when the current Democratic platform is the most progressive it's been in decades, at a minimum. And you shouldn't claim that Democrats want to privatize Social Security when the most recent push to do so was unanimously opposed by Democrats and they spent none of their time controlling Congress trying to do so. And that you should also know facts like that the Heritage plan gutted Medicare and Medicaid while Obamacare expanded Medicaid before you dismiss Democratic accomplishments. What is the value in that criticism? Is it meant to make conservatives seem less monstrous than they are? Is there some value to the left in arguing that the GOP wanted to expand Medicaid enrollment by millions when that wasn't true then and they spent the last year trying to gut it? Responding to that by claiming I'm declaring Democrats immune from criticism seems to me to be deeply in bad faith. *Unfortunately he's not up again until 2022, but Leahy is an example of someone progressives should be targeting in a primary. His wishy-washy spinelessness ought to mean he gets a serious challenger, but nobody bothered to challenge him in 2016... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 263] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 09-03-2018 01:56 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics In an ideal world that would be how it works, but it ignores the realities of how our system works. Not voting for the major contender that most closely matches your views, no matter how far away from your views they actually are, is effectively supporting their opposition, which would necessarily be even further removed from where your ideal is. When you're this far to the right, movement back toward the center is still movement to the left, and when you're this far to the right, any movement to the left is better than more movement to the right - which is the inevitable and entirely predictable consequence of staying home or voting third party. Debatable, depending on which race, in which state, in which election. Otherwise, how do you actually move the politicians to the Left? If voting is your power, and you pledge that power no matter what, then you've given that power away. Many black voters, for example, are not okay with the Democratic Party simply assuming they will get their votes no matter what, especially when the concerns of the black community fall on deaf ears. Power has to be leveraged, or it's not power at all. If you want that to change, you have to start where we currently are. And most centrally in this discussion, you shouldn't act as though abstaining gives you the moral high ground.You're reaching here. I'm saying don't give laurels and don't put blinkers on about how Center-Right politicians give one single fuck about you; you have to make them. And to do that you have to leverage your voting power. There is a clear gap RIGHT NOW between what people believe is the political realities and what they call ideals, and shit on. There were numerous pundits talking about how Andrew Gillium in Florida had no chance, M4A and Abolish Ice was too radical, and that voting for Gillium in the primary was throwing away your vote. They were only too happy to frame their argument in "political realities". And they were absolutely mistaken- just as the Center-Right "reality" based strategy in the last election was entirely mistaken. I'm not compromising away ideals before even getting near a ballot box. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 264] Author : Ensign Steve Date : 09-03-2018 06:44 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics One thing to keep in mind is that a protest vote (or abstention) is a very different thing in Oregon than it is in North Carolina, for example. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 265] Author : erimir Date : 09-03-2018 08:22 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Debatable, depending on which race, in which state, in which election. Otherwise, how do you actually move the politicians to the Left? If voting is your power, and you pledge that power no matter what, then you've given that power away.There are things called primaries. How do you think the Tea Party filled the GOP with kooks? There is a clear gap RIGHT NOW between what people believe is the political realities and what they call ideals, and shit on. There were numerous pundits talking about how Andrew Gillium [sic] in Florida had no chance, M4A and Abolish Ice was too radical, and that voting for Gillium [sic] in the primary was throwing away your vote.Ok, you seem to be aware of them. But I'm pretty sure Gillum didn't win because his folks were campaigning on "we won't vote for Gwen Graham if she's the nominee." They were only too happy to frame their argument in "political realities". And they were absolutely mistaken- just as the Center-Right "reality" based strategy in the last election was entirely mistaken.I definitely hope Gillum wins the general, and I think he has a good chance. The first poll shows him slightly ahead. Winning in Florida would be a big deal. But, you know, there's still a general election to win before you declare this proves all your points. And either way, there's also the matter of explaining other elections. There is a backlash against the GOP because Trump is in power, and it's not only benefiting candidates like Gillum. Joe Manchin is consistently polling ahead of his Republican opponents, in a state Trump won by 42 pts. Bob Casey is polling ahead by double digits in Pennsylvania, but is not running on as progressive of a platform. Florida is a state that Trump won by 1 pt. What is your theory of things that makes sense of that? Joe Manchin and Bob Casey seem to have a handle on their political realities, based on the polling so far... Shouldn't a theory work for more than one race? I think we're also seeing with Stacey Abrams in Georgia that some ideas that Democrats needed to move right on race and gender issues in the wake of Trump, that we shouldn't nominate non-white candidates or women, aren't really being borne out. The polling is close, but the average is slightly in her favor. In Georgia. (Interestingly enough, Gillum and Abrams both endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary...) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 266] Author : Kael Date : 09-03-2018 11:05 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics My whole point is that withholding your vote in the general election, for most offices in most States and pretty much everything at the federal level, doesn't work in our current system. It doesn't leverage power, and it doesn't force Democrats back to the left. Instead it cedes the field to a party unambiguously worse in every metric you can think of, who then claim a popular mandate no matter how close the race was and strengthen their hold on power to make it that much harder for anyone less insane to oust them next time. Criticize, push, and threaten Democrats all you want, that's a good thing. But when the general rolls around and it's the corporatist Democrat vs the literally fascist Republican, abstention in whatever form will be a losing strategy every time. When your shit's on fire, it doesn't matter how crappy, incompetent, or corrupt the fire department is, letting the arsonist who wants to throw gasoline on it have a go is not a better option, and it doesn't prove anything except your willingness to see more people get hurt before you compromise. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 267] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 09-04-2018 12:43 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://apnews.com/593208cb65f24c4798274291bc310247/$30-million-poured-into-effort-to-energize-young-voters -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 268] Author : erimir Date : 09-04-2018 02:06 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics One thing to keep in mind is that a protest vote (or abstention) is a very different thing in Oregon than it is in North Carolina, for example. Sure, but 1. you should still vote in your primaries and there may be local races that get less attention. Oregon isn't likely to go red for president (although it got pretty close in 2000 and 2004), but you still could have worthwhile primary elections. There are a lot of district attorney and sheriff elections that could have implications with ICE, for example... 2. I didn't see chunks using any qualifiers about swing states or which elections (presidential vs. lower office) 3. people don't always know what a safe state is. If you're in California or Vermont, sure. But there were people who thought Pennsylvania was safe in 2016 though, despite, you know, both campaigns visiting it heavily... People they know or public figures in other, safer states may have persuaded them to risk a protest vote even if those persuaders wouldn't have risked it in PA. Oregon appears to have a competitive gubernatorial election this year, for example. I don't think abstaining there this year would be risk-free just because OR isn't voting for Trump... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 269] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-04-2018 03:49 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Random guy gets involved:Which maybe means that I shouldn’t be on Twitter or need to really cull who I follow. Who are the more nuanced twitter accounts you follow that challenge your thinking?
— Aditi Juneja (@AditiJuneja3) September 2, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 270] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 09-04-2018 05:42 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics John McCain’s Funeral Was the Biggest Resistance Meeting Yet (https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-trumps-washington/john-mccains-funeral-was-the-biggest-resistance-meeting-yet) This was to be no mere laying to rest of a Washington wise man, nor just another funeral of an elder statesman whose passing would be marked by flowery words about the end of an era. It was a meeting of the Resistance, under vaulted ceilings and stained-glass windows. War criminals are the #Resistance? George Bush, responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people, is going to help America get rid of Trump? Are these the allies that are going to put out that fire in the burning building analogy? Quick question: How many hundreds of thousands of people has Trump killed so far? Wait- Trump- a self-serving piece of shit- dared suggest actually pulling ALL of the US troops out of Afghanistan, until "wiser heads" prevailed. He suggested removing the 30,000 US troops that have been sitting on the Korean Peninsula for six decades, until political realists and the "Deep State"- that is also being touted as #The Resistance, and war hawks in the Democratic Party as well, prevailed. Dem senators move to halt potential US troop withdrawal from S. Korea (http://thehill.com/policy/defense/392081-dem-senators-move-to-halt-potential-us-troop-withdrawal-from-s-korea) Mind you, there's definitely still time. Trump may be able to outdo his predecessors in war crimes, and he's certainly killed on his watch. His road to fascism is scary as fuck. George Bush is the resistance. George Bush. The New Yorker, bastion of serious journalism and culture. New Yorker Festival Drops Steve Bannon From Speaker Lineup Amid Backlash (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/new-yorker-festival-draws-ire-including-steve-bannon-speaker-lineup-1139355) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 271] Author : erimir Date : 09-04-2018 07:29 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics George Bush resists Trump by throwing very subtle shade and giving Michelle Obama candy. McCain resisted Trump by voting for billionaire tax cuts and voting to confirm almost all of his appointments, even blatantly unqualified/grifters like Rick Perry*, Ben Carson and Betsy DeVos, and then holding onto his seat long enough to protect Trump's ability to appoint more nutjobs in 2019-2020. And occasionally issuing statements about how SOMEONE (usually not specified, but you know who) is doing something bad. *The sad thing is that Rick Perry, despite being put in charges of the nukes while having a degree in animal husbandry, might actually be one of Trump's better appointments, and he didn't even know what the Department of Energy did and wanted to eliminate it before he was chosen. That's how low the bar is. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 272] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-04-2018 09:00 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Thrad of some pretty enraging shit:��SHORT THREAD ��
— Tim "Actually you DO need my vote" Patrick (@dasdeadpool) September 3, 2018
I used Twitter to vent for over a year. it was the only way to get out my fear, frustration, and anger. Then, almost 6 months ago, I decided to try to do something. Went to a Democratic primary debate for my congressional district, #NJ11 pic.twitter.com/3QhjVTvucF
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 273] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-07-2018 06:23 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren't Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote (https://www.texasobserver.org/in-violation-of-texas-law-most-high-schools-arent-giving-students-the-chance-to-register-to-vote/) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 274] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 09-10-2018 10:27 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The Onion: Obama Urges Young Voters To Ignore How Many Lousy Candidates Democratic Party Runs (https://politics.theonion.com/obama-urges-young-voters-to-ignore-how-many-lousy-candi-1828941779) “We’re experiencing a crisis in our democracy that can only be stopped by showing up to vote for people who will fight for transformative change, but until we start offering that, please just go to your polling place and cast your vote for whichever mediocre Democrat is on the ballot,” said Obama, pressing young people to avoid thinking about the actual track records and ideological beliefs of Democratic Party politicians who have been in government for years and just concentrating on the (D) next to their name. Strange, this is eerily familiar... nope can't place it -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 275] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 09-10-2018 10:41 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics David Sirota in The Guardian: Yes, let's wipe out Trump. But take neoliberal Democrats with him, too (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/10/trump-neoliberal-democratic-party-america) ...Democratic politicians who constantly echo courageous populist themes in speeches, news releases and election ads, and then often uses the party’s governmental power to protect the status quo and serve corporate donors in their interminable class war. Take California: a state where Democrats control the governorship, every state constitutional office and a legislative supermajority. With healthcare premiums rising, polls show 70% of Americans support the creation of a government-sponsored healthcare system. Considering that Canada’s healthcare system first began in its provinces, California would seem a perfect place to create the first such system in the United States. There is just one problem: Democrats are using their power to shut down single-payer legislation as they rake in big money from private insurance and drug companies. On the opposite coast, it is the same story. A solidly Democratic New York, Connecticut and New Jersey have declined to take up single payer, and have also refused to pass legislation closing special “carried interest” tax loopholes that benefit a handful of Wall Street moguls. As those tax breaks drain public revenue, state officials simultaneously plead poverty in justifying cuts to basic social safety net programs – even as they offer massive taxpayer subsidies to corporations such as Amazon and play host to an endless series of pay-to-play corruption scandals that see wealthy campaign contributors enriched at the public trough. Even in deep blue Rhode Island – where Democrats are so dominant the 113 member legislature has only 17 Republicans – then-treasurer Gina Raimondo and her fellow Democrats chose to stake their brand on a plan that eviscerated retirement benefits for teachers, firefighters, cops and other public sector workers. Raimondo, a former financial executive whose firm received state investments, also shifted billions of dollars of public workers’ retirement savings into politically connected hedge funds and private equity firms that charge outsized fees, but often generate returns that lag a cheap stock index fund. The primary sentiment I disagree with in the op-ed is the sentiment about making America great again- A slave society built on genocide and war profiteering with massive racial and class and sex inequalities- how about for the first time ever, maybe- and that is still a long fucking way off. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 276] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-11-2018 03:27 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsCROWDSOURCE: Do you have a representative that voted to repeal the ACA that’s running again? Did they have a town hall to explain why did that and a better vision for health care?
— Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) August 31, 2018
Tell all if you’re willing to share and consider circulating.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 277] Author : But Date : 09-11-2018 05:15 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics David Sirota in The Guardian: Yes, let's wipe out Trump. But take neoliberal Democrats with him, too (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/10/trump-neoliberal-democratic-party-america) Their crude attempts to stamp out any dissent or intraparty discord negates a stark truth: liberal America’s pattern of electing corporate Democrats – rather than progressives – has been a big part of the problem that led to Trump and that continues to make America’s economic and political system a neo-feudal (https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1024056136629014528) dystopia. :yup: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 278] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-15-2018 09:27 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://puu.sh/BvkC3/65ea418d94.jpg 10823 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 279] Author : The Man Date : 09-16-2018 08:08 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics A thing about alleged serial fabulist (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/evefairbanks/we-are-all-julia-salazar-i-wish-we-werent) and N.Y. State Senate candidate Julia Salazar and the bizarre cult of suffering that, the author contends, leads to such fabulism. When I applied to college in 2001, my mother suggested we look into my father’s Native American heritage — a vague family tale — to see if I could register for a tribe to gain an advantage. I didn’t. The family legend was so distant the very idea felt embarrassing. But, in my early twenties, I did let the people around me know that I went to a public high school, that I came from a middle-class family, that my mother dropped out of school, and that I helped pay for my college education. My “public school,” though, was a Magnet consistently ranked among the top 10 public schools in the country. My father was a college professor who made double the US median income. My mother finished her BA in night school. And by “helped,” I meant I made $200 a week to defray my parents’ expenses for my meals. Maybe this is part of why Julia Salazar’s much-reported embellishments of her own background didn’t torpedo her campaign for State Senate in Brooklyn. Even articles reporting on her win last night led with the controversy over how she’s described her backstory: The New York Post condemned her personal story — a big part of her appeal — as “wildly exaggerated.” Salazar has said she immigrated from Colombia when she was, in fact, born in Florida; asserted a “working-class background” that her brother strongly denied, offering photos of the family’s four-bedroom riverfront house; said she went to work at 14 to “make ends meet,” which her mother contradicted; implied her mother hadn’t gone to college when her mother got a degree when Salazar was 8 years old; asserted a very confused timeline about her conversion to Judaism; and claimed Jewish ancestry nobody could verify. There’s no interpretation of Salazar’s claims about her life that can escape the conclusion that she presented a selectively edited and lightly fabricated account of her personal history, and Rolling Stone seemed baffled to have to report last night that “the constituents of District 18 were apparently untroubled” by that. But I wonder if the supporters — certainly the young, mostly white, recent college graduates who flooded her victory party — didn’t recognize, at least subconsciously, that this kind of thing is just way more common than we’d like to admit. I’m older now, and I don’t flog my “middle-class” cred so much anymore. Yet let’s be real here: We have a culture that lionizes survivors of challenging childhoods, that gobbles up memoirs of poverty and suffering, and that makes having endured harrowing circumstances seem almost necessary to speak with any moral authority. I suspect so many of us have been embellishers, especially when we were young, in the stakes to abjure privilege, to claim uniqueness in the form of obstacles, to show our guts and thorny individualism in rising above ordinary roots. I think there’s a fair bit of credibility to the author’s thesis, and the entire time I was reading it, I kept thinking of this superb quote from “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, which I’m using as my signature on another board (I’d be using it here, too, if there were enough characters): The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 280] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-19-2018 07:12 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsget in loser we’re flipping the senate
— Sophia Benoit (@1followernodad) September 11, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 281] Author : JoeP Date : 09-19-2018 08:32 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics That is awesome ... awesomely bad. It's not even accurate. Think out of the box? Politicians only think in the boxes their donors specify. And I see someone commented on the giving and sharing: They’re not known for their cultural sensitivity. Honestly though, my favorite part is the giving and sharing, as if republicans weren’t the party of “I’ve got mine and fuck you..” -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 282] Author : ChuckF Date : 09-19-2018 03:17 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics wtffff I can’t even tell if that is supposed to be outreach or dogwhistle-posing-as-outreach. Very poor execution either way. Also, this Kulkarni guy is more than a little hawt. Just saying. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 283] Author : lisarea Date : 09-19-2018 03:37 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Correction: The ad doesn't tell them to vote for Republicans. It tells them to worship Republicans. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 284] Author : Ymir's blood Date : 09-19-2018 07:17 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics They are forbidden to swallow bull. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 285] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-20-2018 03:01 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics We Found Bigfoot! — Dean Phillips for Congress MN-03 - YouTube -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 286] Author : JoeP Date : 09-20-2018 10:17 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://i.imgur.com/5ibOaWK.png -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 287] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-22-2018 04:43 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This will be one awkward Thanksgiving: Paul Gosar Is Not Working For You Long - YouTube -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 288] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-23-2018 09:42 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Longer read: Polarization in Poland: A Warning From Europe - The Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/poland-polarization/568324/) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 289] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 09-24-2018 08:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsAsking Hindu-Americans if they would rather vote for a donkey or an elephant by comparing Ganesha, a religious figure, to a political party is highly inappropriate.
— Sri Preston Kulkarni (@SriPKulkarni) September 18, 2018
The Fort Bend County Republican party must retract this ad. https://t.co/zHyqux9Soc pic.twitter.com/z1Us2oVQ5L
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 290] Author : mickthinks Date : 10-06-2018 12:57 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Mitch McConnell; America's Paul von Hindenburg - Vox (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/5/17940610/trump-hitler-history-historian) Paul von Hindenburg, elected president of Germany in 1925, was endowed by the Weimar Constitution with various emergency powers to defend German democracy should it be in dire peril. Instead of defending it, Hindenburg became its gravedigger, using these powers first to destroy democratic norms and then to ally with the Nazis to replace parliamentary government with authoritarian rule. [...] McConnell, in Browning’s eyes, is doing something similar — taking whatever actions he can to attain power, including breaking the system for judicial nominations (cough cough, Merrick Garland) and empowering a dangerous demagogue under the delusion that he can be fully controlled: I doubt this pop-historical piece stands up to much detailed scrutiny, but it serves to remind us that Trump is not the author of America's misfortunes. The entire GOP and its 1% backers are. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 291] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-10-2018 08:12 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsTomorrow, I’m just going to call random Republicans and say “Hi, can you please let the Senator know Ronan Farrow is on the line. I’ll hold.”
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) September 24, 2018
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 292] Author : JoeP Date : 10-10-2018 10:12 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I think it's becoming clear that establishment politicians have no more credibility or integrity than pop stars. More voter registration seems good. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 293] Author : The Man Date : 10-10-2018 11:18 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I think it's becoming clear that establishment politicians haveVoter registration surges after Taylor Swift's Instagram post https://t.co/lEsPtc4aV7 pic.twitter.com/wcpyUTRLeY
— The Hill (@thehill) October 9, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 298] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-14-2018 07:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsAt one of the first doors I knocked, I met young man named Jordan. He said, "Are you really going around to make sure everyone in my neighborhood can vote?" I said yes.
— Molly McGrath (@votermolly) October 9, 2018
He grabbed his coat and said, "I'm coming with you to help." This was his first, but not last, canvass. pic.twitter.com/C765b8uHfI
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 299] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-14-2018 09:47 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://i.gyazo.com/eeea8647e4e185f30eaab32f6ed02d60.png -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 300] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-15-2018 06:34 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsThis Disney heiress is here to tell you exactly what the 1% did with Trump’s tax cuts
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 12, 2018
Spoiler: They didn’t create more jobs and increase salaries pic.twitter.com/8Ou21x1GMG
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 301] Author : The Man Date : 10-15-2018 06:30 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Welp, Warren is definitely running in 2020: Nicely Played, Senator Warren – Balloon Juice (https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/10/15/nicely-played-senator-warren/) Good. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 302] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-15-2018 06:37 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics 71 years old. Ambivalent. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 303] Author : JoeP Date : 10-15-2018 06:55 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Ambivalent. Is she? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 304] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-15-2018 07:15 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Ambivalent. Is she? https://thesaurus.plus/img/synonyms/908/pedant.png African or European? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 305] Author : specious_reasons Date : 10-15-2018 08:33 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics 71 years old. Ambivalent. I'm assuming you're ambivalent, because I doubt Warren is. Conventional wisdom says she's either going to run this next election, or remain happily at the Senate until she retires. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 306] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-15-2018 08:43 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics 71 years old. Ambivalent. I'm assuming you're ambivalent Ya. There I went too minimalist on the internet again. :derp: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 307] Author : Sock Puppet Date : 10-15-2018 11:10 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Meh, if she were a dude I'd be more concerned about age. Plus, she's smart enough to pick a running mate who isn't completely useless. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 308] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-16-2018 07:41 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Big thrad:More shameless racism & patriarchy:
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@MuslimIQ) October 10, 2018
•Georgia’s Governor has purged 500K voters—mostly Black—from the voter roles
•Why? B/c Georgia is set to elect @staceyabrams as America’s first Black woman Governor
•If you cant win w/o cheating—drop out of the racepic.twitter.com/CII5MlAf8H
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 309] Author : erimir Date : 10-16-2018 08:50 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Now that Ralph Nader is endorsing Michael fucking Bloomberg as someone Democrats should nominate in 2020, can we all agree that he's been trash for decades? I understand people thought he was a big lefty and that's why he ran in 2000, but aside from a couple of issues, it was really more just that he hates Democrats. Which is why endorsing a centrist who spent a lot of time as an independent makes sense for him. Ralph Nader touts Bloomberg 2020 (https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber/watch/liberal-shock-ralph-nader-touts-bloomberg-2020-1344957507999?v=railb&) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 310] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-16-2018 09:58 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Now that Ralph Nader is endorsing Michael fucking Bloomberg I started laughing at the absurdity right here. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 311] Author : JoeP Date : 10-16-2018 10:18 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Speaking of family stories, @realDonaldTrump has one, too. It's the story of a second-generation tax cheat who was handed a $413 million inheritance through rich-guy loopholes and outright criminal fraud. If only anyone thought that was a bad thing. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 312] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 10-16-2018 02:47 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Cherokee Nation: Warren's use of DNA test 'inappropriate,' 'wrong' | TheHill (https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/411521-cherokee-nation-warrens-use-of-dna-test-inappropriate-wrong) Oofa. 71 years old. :yup: And even now, before announcing, she's playing the game on Trump's terms. A lot can happen between now and November 2020, of course, but the Dems nominating Warren could well be the path of least resistance to a Trump reelection (although Sock is surely right that Warren would make a much better running mate choice than Clinton did). It looks like the GOP is going to pick up at least one seat in the U.S. Senate this year. Warren is needed in the Senate more than ever. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 313] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 10-16-2018 02:50 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Now that Ralph Nader is endorsing Michael fucking Bloomberg as someone Democrats should nominate in 2020, can we all agree that he's been trash for decades? Even if Nader hadn't otherwise been trash for decades, this endorsement would travel back in time and render the "trash for decades" statement true. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 314] Author : SR71 Date : 10-16-2018 03:45 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics A guy on my block is running as Democrat for congress. He's a second generation Korean. He has gazillions of signs all over the district. I haven't seen a single yard sign for the incumbent republican, McArthur. Does that mean anything? idk I hope he wins. I'm sick of McArthr's emails bleating and mewling about bipartisanship. I'd like to know what he thinks about all the untruth and insanity issuing forth from Dear Leader. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 315] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 10-16-2018 07:16 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics If 538 has any credibility left, your neighbor is running a hell of a campaign (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/new-jersey/3/). A big push from now until election day might just flip that seat, which a big deal since wresting control of the U.S. House of Representatives is likely the last chance to even slow down the crazy train. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 316] Author : Ensign Steve Date : 10-16-2018 08:03 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics If 538 has any credibility left, your neighbor is running a hell of a campaign (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-midterm-election-forecast/house/new-jersey/3/). A big push from now until election day might just flip that seat, which a big deal since wresting control of the U.S. House of Representatives is likely the last chance to even slow down the crazy train. What the fuck happened on September 23? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 317] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 10-16-2018 11:06 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics That's an interesting question! SR71, did a certain Republican incumbent accidentally get his dick stuck in a zoo animal on or about 9/23? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 318] Author : erimir Date : 10-17-2018 06:33 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Siena/NYT did a live poll that started on Sept 22, and it was added to the average on Sept 24. They actually had a ridiculously good result initially, showing Kim ahead by over 20 pts. But eventually as they did more calls and finished out the poll, they ended with a merely really good result (Kim +10). This caused such a huge change because most of the previous polls showed a much closer race AND most of them were partisan-affiliated polls, which get less weight. And most of them were a lot older. The weight put on polls relative to other factors increases significantly as you get into the final couple months of the race, and the confidence intervals narrow as well because instead of having only the error associated with the polling itself, it's possible or even likely the race will change when you have months left. (That is, the poll may be an accurate snapshot of how people feel at that time, but people's feelings will change.) There are a couple reasons the Siena poll could've shown such a large shift from previous polls. One is that people start paying a lot more attention after Labor Day, and so some people who might've said "eh, I'll vote for whoever's in there" in June, by September have realized "Oh, I don't like what MacArthur's been up to*, so I'll vote for the other guy actually". The other is that the MacArthur campaign was sending around a flyer calling Kim fishy with a picture of fish that evoke an Asian market the week before. It almost would've been subtle enough to deny it was racist, except they paired it with a blatant "Oriental" font (https://newjerseyglobe.com/fr/is-the-macarthur-kim-mailing-racist/). That probably would work in a lot of places, but New Jersey is maybe not the best place to run with that? A short term effect caused by the racist flyers would be consistent with the next two polls showing a close race though. Otherwise I'm gonna go with "people were just tuning into the election" and that's why Siena got such a good result for Kim, particularly if more polling shows a significant lead for Kim. Anyway, aside from winning the seat (it's possible that Democrats will win 8 or more of the 23 seats they need to flip the House just in New Jersey and Pennsylvania) being good just for the one seat... *MacArthur is the asshole who wrote the amendment to the GOP health care bill that gutted protections for pre-existing conditions, which because the GOP is so fucking awful actually revived their ACA repeal push. So that would make his defeat particularly sweet. Fuck MacArthur and call out his claims of bipartisanship for the bullshit they are. There's a reason he resigned his chairmanship of the "centrist" GOP Tuesday Group caucus after writing that amendment because even they couldn't buy his bullshit anymore. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 319] Author : erimir Date : 10-19-2018 12:31 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I was told some... "interesting" information by the Republican volunteer outside my early voting site: 90% of all crime is drug-related John McCain did not really die of brain cancer McCain was controlled by the Saudis (however, Trump's behavior regarding Khashoggi is "a complicated situation") McCain actually died because he was found guilty of treason by a military tribunal and executed Jews don't really control Israel, it is controlled by fake Jews called "Khazarians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazar_hypothesis_of_Ashkenazi_ancestry)" who worship the devil and came from Kazakhstan in the 1100s Jared Kushner is one of them, but he might not be evil because they're not ALL evil But, he conceded that since Khazarians worship the devil, and the devil is indeed very evil, Jared very well might be evil too :whatthefuck: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 320] Author : JoeP Date : 10-19-2018 11:05 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics That. Is. Awesome. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 321] Author : SR71 Date : 10-23-2018 03:23 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics NBC says Republicans are way ahead in early voting turnout. (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/republicans-outpacing-democrats-early-voting-key-states-nbc-news-finds-n922881) I'm hoping it's his most fervent devotees and the initial enthusiasm will soon be exhausted, but prepared to accept that the hope is nothing more than wishful thinking. This election, last election, same shit, different year. Did anyone really need any more convincing last time that it was needed to go vote? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 322] Author : erimir Date : 10-23-2018 04:30 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics 1. The source of the data disagrees with NBC's analysisWe all know why @realDonaldTrump makes creepy physical threats about me, right? He’s scared. He’s trying to do what he always does to women who scare him: call us names, attack us personally, shrink us down to feel better about himself. It may soothe his ego – but it won’t work. pic.twitter.com/2rfPSlvlQA
— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) October 15, 2018
2. You can't read early vote data without reference to the typical patterns in that state. In some states, Democrats or Republicans tend to vote by mail/in-person early/Election Day at different rates, which means that early vote can have very different composition from Election Day vote, and thus the overall vote. For example, in some states, black voters often turn out for the early vote in "souls to the polls" events, where they may have buses that take parishioners from churches to the early voting location on the Sundays before the election. But not all states have early voting on Sundays (the NCGOP ended it specifically because of its use by black voters). And not all states have enough black voters for this affect turnout patterns by party. You can see how this would affect Dem vs. Rep early vote turnout differently in Georgia (30% black) vs. Iowa (3%). Missing from that report: any mention of early vote patterns in those states in 2016 or 2014. Which is what you would you need to place those numbers into context. They do mention that Republicans tend to do better in mail-in absentee voting, while Democrats do better with in-person early voting... And they mention that early voting has only just started. But they don't put that into context of how you would expect the numbers to evolve as early voting continues. In other words, they didn't do anything you would need to understand whether this is good news or bad news for Democrats. 3. Early vote party registration doesn't tell you how people are voting, and in particular independents are a black box on this. Turnout among independents can vary between Dem leaners and GOP leaners and you won't have any indication. Consider an example from earlier this year, the special election in Arizona's 8th district. Registered Republicans turned out at a higher rate (https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/23/politics/arizona-8-special-election-lesko-favored/index.html) than their registration advantage in the district. 49% of the early vote was registered Republican and a measly 28% was registered Democrats. Trump won the district by 21 pts, and Trent Franks, the disgraced former holder of the seat, won by 37 pts in 2016. Wow, that looks really bad for Democrats! That would be a natural reaction. That is how a lot of people interpreted it in the leadup to the election, despite the polls indicating that it should be close. Debbie Lesko, the Republican, only won the early vote by a <6 pt margin, and won the overall vote by <5 pts. That was a dismal performance for a Republican in that district, 16 pts worse than Trump did and 32 pts worse than the previous Republican. But a naive reading of the early vote would've told you that Lesko was heading for a landslide victory. 4. Even reading into the early vote for an idea of what overall turnout will be is a bad idea. One, there has been a trend towards more use of early voting relative to voting on Election Day. So higher early vote numbers than previous years doesn't necessarily mean higher overall turnout. It might also reflect campaign tactics - campaigns may have convinced high likelihood voters to vote early instead of on Election Day. That doesn't change overall turnout, it just changes whether people voted early or on Election Day. Second, policies for early voting can change from year to year. NC ending early voting on Sundays and reducing the number of days is one example, but polling places, hours, number of days, etc. can all change. You can't properly read the data without taking that into account, and that means keeping on top of changes in policies in all of the states you're looking at. 5. As such, reading too much into the early vote data is a bad idea that's most likely to either mislead you or just confirm your priors. If you tend to think Democrats are fucking up, you'll find reasons to think that's what happening. Meanwhile, people, including me, read too much into the high turnout for early voting in Florida in 2016, thinking it was showing good news for Clinton. So I've learned my lesson there too. There are exceptions, however - in some states, the early vote comprises the majority of the vote. At that point, early vote is a much better indicator of overall turnout. And there are election analysts who understand specific states very well and are better at sorting out these issues. But basically, that report needs to be taken with a giant grain of salt. The polling people I follow on Twitter have been saying to ignore reports like this aside from certain state-specific analysts (Jon Ralston in NV, for example). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 323] Author : lisarea Date : 10-23-2018 04:40 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics 10846 Sorry. I'm not criticizing. Just trying to remind myself, mostly. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 324] Author : erimir Date : 10-23-2018 07:33 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Is he throwing a thought-baseball at the other guy's face? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 325] Author : erimir Date : 10-23-2018 09:04 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Anyway, the :tealdeer: is: Ignore the early voting numbers. The slightly longer version would be: Polls that are released at this point are already taking into account early voting, since they ask people how likely they are to vote (and "I already voted" is a possible response). But polls will also capture people who are going to vote but haven't yet, which means they're covering the whole electorate instead of just a portion of it. So just look at the polling averages. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 326] Author : Vivisectus Date : 10-24-2018 02:43 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I am going to go ahead and predict that the Repubs will keep the senate. And that they will not even lose congress. I have the feeling the general disillusionment with established politics is still strong enough to keep turnouts low enough in all the places where it matters, despite the growing evidence that nationalistic populism is not a viable alternative, and is even downright dangerous. I think that what we have been and are still seeing is a crisis of relevance: people do not feel they have any real skin in the game. They will vote along tribal lines, and they will vote according to topical issues they may care about, if they vote at all. At the same time the firehose-effect of all these different sources pumping out vast amounts of a mix of actual and false information is making people feel like there is no objective, dependable information at all. That there is no real difference between Trumps blatant lies and a well-researched piece of journalism. In the end they will simply opt to believe what appeals to them the most, and this will hamper a unified response while not hampering Trumps message in the slightest. I suspect turnouts will be better, but not that much, and that the increased turnouts will be there on both sides. I do not think enough young people will vote to make a decisive difference. I do not think it will impact where it matters, and that the populist dogwhistles, strongman posturing and reactionary signalling is liked by a large enough minority to keep recent events from changing much. And that the rest just doesn't care enough to provide them with a concerted counter-push. I think this will provide enough encouragement to Trump and his enablers for them to double down on the tactics that worked for them: a shameless disregard for accepted political norms, blatant appeals to racism, nationalism, a strong reactionary message where minority rights and women's rights are concerned, disregard for ethics and anti-corruption rules, scapegoating of political groups and immigrants, scaremongering about these same groups, undermining the press, even more blatant voter suppression, and a continuous muddying of the waters without any real accountability to facts. Also tax breaks, because deficit schmeficit and he can always let the republicans cut social security and the like. And I think he will be able to do it, because while the majority disagrees with Trump, not enough of them give enough fucks. The US is going to get the government it deserves, and it is going to suck. It may even get properly dangerous. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 327] Author : ChuckF Date : 10-24-2018 03:42 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics GOP isn't losing the senate - I fully expect they will expand their margin. I have not seen much reason to believe in the existence of a blue wave at all, other than maybe I would very much like for it to be a real thing. A generic ballot lead is nice and all but Republicans don't draw house districts to make sure the will of the voter is translated into representation. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 328] Author : Crumb Date : 10-24-2018 04:16 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics :deepsigh: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 329] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 10-24-2018 06:01 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The GOP will likely gain ground in the Senate. The final tally figures to be at least 52-48, and could go as high as 56-44. Taking back the House is the only hope of slowing things down at the federal level. If that doesn't happen, we're reduced to hoping for complete self-immolation by those in power, something along the lines of what happened when the Klan took over the state government of Indiana in the 1920s. Meanwhile, we're seeing reports today that Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros and others received "suspicious packages" that may have contained explosives. The GOP appears to have has its own Einsatzgruppen. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 330] Author : Ensign Steve Date : 10-25-2018 01:19 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Sorry I don't have the words to type words now https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/10/23/democratic-candidate-isnt-sorry-she-once-burned-georgia-flag/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 331] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-26-2018 08:27 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Dear young people, "Don't Vote" - YouTube -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 332] Author : The Man Date : 10-26-2018 05:50 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics A suspect has been arrested in the pipe bombings, and my immediate reaction was to quote Archer.Folks, our partnership with NBC allows them to perform their own analysis with our data. Sometimes I agree with what they do, sometimes I don't. The piece today falls into the latter category.
— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) October 23, 2018
“Dude, this van’s like rolling probable cause.” Archer - Krieger's Van - YouTube So not merely are the writers still incapable of subtlety, but they’re stealing ideas from some of the best animated comedies now. Can we please fire them and get some new ones already? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 333] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 10-26-2018 11:10 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I am going directly to hell for loling at "MAGA Mystery Machine." -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 334] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-27-2018 07:19 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comics/1540614348-581.png Three Panel Soul - They Don't (http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/they-don39t) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 335] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-27-2018 07:58 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics@CBSMiami I have some pictures of this van I saw him at a stoplight one day and thought is was very strange. pic.twitter.com/VWUwznJK8k
— Mahmud mohamed (@thereal_mo01) 26 October 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 336] Author : SR71 Date : 10-29-2018 05:24 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Seems like the opposition is disappearing all of my neighbor's yard signs and replacing them with McArthur's. Just my personal observation, but it's noticeable to me. In other news, I don't know if Menedez will be able to pull this out or not. Most voters who vote for him will be doing so only because he won't be voting with Republicans. His opponent Hugin is a slimeball in his own right. Definitely a choice between two disgusting alternatives. Hugin's latest hit ad says Menendez is pedo. I don't know how true it is but if Menendez does win this will show how deeply unpopular Trump is and nothing more. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 337] Author : erimir Date : 10-29-2018 06:40 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I don't think there's much evidence supporting that pedo ad: Bob Menendez - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Menendez#Attempted_implication_in_prostitution_scandal) In November 2012, the conservative political news and opinion website Daily Caller published allegations that Menendez had contact with underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. [...] On March 18, 2013 police in the Dominican Republic announced that three women had said they had been paid $300–425 each to lie about having had sex with Menendez. (WaPo link (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dominican-police-3-women-paid-to-make-false-claims-about-menendez/2013/03/18/f2ff253c-8fe7-11e2-9abd-e4c5c9dc5e90_story.html?utm_term=.89496a521f9e)) If Hugin is using a rerun fabricated charge from 2012, it probably is not an indication of confidence. If he were up, he'd probably be running more positive stuff + hitting Menendez on the corruption. But since Trump is so unpopular in NJ, it's harder for him to run on GOP policy and such per se. Switching to these discredited allegations means that Menendez's corruption isn't enough to get him over the hump. That is, all the people who were going to flip due to Menendez's corruption have already flipped and he's still behind by 7 pts or so... so he needs something more. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 338] Author : SR71 Date : 10-29-2018 07:06 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics At least the pedo stuff looks like balogna. Checked a Washington Post story and it backs that as well as confirming my memory of all the stuff with the Florida eye doctor, all of which reeks to me. Menendez' big hit pieces are that Hugin is a pharma bigshot who overcharged outrageously for certain meds and of course that he's tied at the hip with Derp Fuhrer, which he certainly would be if elected. Hope he wins, though I'll be holding my nose when I pull the lever. Hope neighbor Andy wins too. Sign swiping is childish and slimy. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 339] Author : erimir Date : 10-29-2018 07:52 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics It could be that this year will bring some new blood into NJ's House delegation that could give Menendez a strong primary challenge in 2024... That would be the hope anyway. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 340] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-30-2018 09:08 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This is a thrad. You can scroll up and read down.You realize that if an organized bombing campaign isn’t enough to make MAGAts renounce authoritarianism we’re basically at win the election or brownshirts
— ❤️ (@umairh) October 26, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 341] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 10-31-2018 03:01 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Oh hey coolSo as we near one of the most important midterms of (maybe) our lives, I want to highlight some of the stories I remember best. Stories that might be about your neighbor, your colleague, or your own family. Remember these stories. These are the people we fight for when we vote.
— A. Sharon (@ASharon004) October 29, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 342] Author : JoeP Date : 10-31-2018 01:59 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Prediction: that will be ruled illegal by presidential* edict or something. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 343] Author : SR71 Date : 11-01-2018 06:03 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics dohp -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 344] Author : SR71 Date : 11-01-2018 06:04 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Georgia governor race: Poll shows Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp nearly tied in - CBS News (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-governor-race-stacey-abrams-and-brian-kemp-nearly-tied-in-poll/) :yup: Two words... Oprah (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/nov/01/oprah-winfrey-stacey-abrams-georgia-campaign-town-hall-midterm-election) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 345] Author : The Man Date : 11-01-2018 07:26 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics that's one word... a name, actually :psst: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 346] Author : The Man Date : 11-02-2018 08:34 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics At least the writers of this season haven’t lost their sense of irony.This just in from City Council!@GoRaleighNC bus fare will be FREE on Tuesday, November 6th to help make it easier to get to the polls and #VOTE! https://t.co/pNrplffWYw pic.twitter.com/W1u2U4vqbr
— City of Raleigh (@RaleighGov) October 29, 2018
…also, this:They did. https://t.co/7y3YvssaJK
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) 31 October 2018
…I guess the previous posts discussing this were in another thread. Oh well. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 347] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-02-2018 09:24 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics …I guess the previous posts discussing this were in another thread. Oh well. Meh, this whole preposterous saga has so many moving parts there's room to go over multiple aspects of the same items. And.This is literally just a graph proving people had to google your dumbass to figure out who you are https://t.co/xpUkyB8NTM
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) November 1, 2018
— YS (@NYinLA2121) November 1, 2018-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 348] Author : Ensign Steve Date : 11-02-2018 06:19 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I DONT GET IT :loud: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 349] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-05-2018 07:44 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 350] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-05-2018 09:22 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Thrad.Brian Kemp Campaign Energized After Seeing Early Voter Suppression Numbers https://t.co/avVfbEc0by pic.twitter.com/REM1wll8Uu
— The Onion (@TheOnion) November 5, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 351] Author : lisarea Date : 11-05-2018 03:05 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This article made me really mad the other day, too: 12 Young People on Why They Probably Won’t Vote (http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/12-young-people-on-why-they-probably-wont-vote.html) Some don't have stamps. They don't know what postmarked means or how to send mail and have no access to any resources to explain such a thing because it's their parents' fault. One adult human is not motivated, and thinks that some someone should explain the issues and somehow enable voting on Snapchat or Instagram. I knew that was clickbait designed to make me mad, but I let it sucker me anyway. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 352] Author : JoeP Date : 11-05-2018 05:02 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I've just had an idea: to motivate at least some of the people: If you don't use your vote, somebody else gets to use it -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 353] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-05-2018 05:52 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://i.gyazo.com/eb395ad800e8601cf310ec05596a82b0.png Nancy by Olivia Jaimes for November 05, 2018 - GoComics (https://www.gocomics.com/nancy/2018/11/05) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 354] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-05-2018 07:14 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Voting 2018: Here's what to do if you're turned away at the polls - CNNPolitics (https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/01/politics/midterm-election-voting-rights-trnd/index.html) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 355] Author : The Man Date : 11-06-2018 10:59 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Leopards, faces, etc. (https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/georgia-gop-candidate-brian-kemp-foiled-states-voter-id-law-tried-vote/) Georgia Secretary of State and GOP gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp had problems with his voter ID when he went to cast his ballot on Election Day. “It turns out his voting card was invalid,” a reporter with Atlanta’s WSB-TV revealed in a video report on Kemp’s issues voting at his polling place in Winterville, Georgia. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 356] Author : Ensign Steve Date : 11-07-2018 01:12 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics That's more like the leopard eating its own face. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 357] Author : ChuckF Date : 11-07-2018 02:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Yep, no wave here. At least I don't have to stay up late tonight. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 358] Author : viscousmemories Date : 11-07-2018 02:35 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I knew that was clickbait designed to make me mad, but I let it sucker me anyway. I fell for that one too. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 359] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-07-2018 06:30 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://satwcomic.com/art/return-of-the-lovable-dork.png Return of the lovable dork - Scandinavia and the World (https://satwcomic.com/return-of-the-lovable-dork) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 360] Author : mickthinks Date : 11-07-2018 09:12 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Donald Trump's unchecked hold on power has come to an end | The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/07/trump-unchecked-power-end-midterms) The 2018 midterms weren’t a blue wave for Democrats, but they were a landslide for women voters and women candidates. For a man who famously thought he could grab women by the genitals, Donald Trump is about to experience just how painful a squeeze that can be. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 361] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-08-2018 09:48 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsI just saw a couple tweets complaining about how people were trying to persuade them to get out and vote this year.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) November 5, 2018
As someone who's researched the voting rights struggle, I've always found that dismissive attitude pretty infuriating. But never more than now.
Seven years ago, a brave & composed 19-year old named Zach Wahls stood up in front of the Iowa legislature and delivered a speech about growing up with two mothers in a lesbian household.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 6, 2018
Tonight, Zach Wahls won his primary for an Iowa state house seat!https://t.co/ROZQqLGGci
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 362] Author : The Man Date : 11-14-2018 10:05 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics A+ trolling and history lesson.We won. Thank you, Iowa.
— Zach Wahls (@ZachWahls) November 7, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 363] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-15-2018 12:02 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics News media unsucking.1) As an Old, I want to tell a story to the Youths about a great hero-- Nancy of the West, Once and Future Speaker, Savior of Social Security.
— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) November 8, 2018
This is our history, O Ye Progressives. Gather and listen.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 364] Author : erimir Date : 11-15-2018 01:48 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Cross posted in the Facebook thrad: NY Times out with a big piece on Facebook: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html A notable bit: When Facebook users learned last spring that the company had compromised their privacy in its rush to expand, allowing access to the personal information of tens of millions of people to a political data firm linked to President Trump, Facebook sought to deflect blame and mask the extent of the problem. And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and it faced a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack. While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, persuading a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic. I was on the fence about Schumer before - he had some points where the Senate Democrats were reasonably effective, but these deals lately with judges seemed suboptimal at best. But this is unacceptable...Hey US media folks, here, I would argue immodestly, is how you interview a Trump supporter on Trump's lies:pic.twitter.com/D8qElaic7o
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) November 14, 2018
After an election in which fake news and propaganda on Facebook were used to help the right-wing elect an authoritarian bigoted idiot, and likewise Facebook has been fomenting ethnic violence in Myanmar and elsewhere, and has been exploited to promote authoritarianism and undermine democracy across multiple countries, etc. and taking advantage of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to deflect blame. The Democrats' Senate leader can't be covering for them. Schumer can't be telling Mark fucking Warner to moderate. Yet all the focus is on Nancy Pelosi. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 365] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 11-16-2018 03:26 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsSchumer doesn't come off well here https://t.co/s9UPy0sayL pic.twitter.com/1je7rZZb6N
— David Beard ��️*�� (@dwbeard) November 14, 2018
Feeeeeeemales. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 366] Author : BrotherMan Date : 11-16-2018 05:14 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://i.imgur.com/2PTlxIf.jpg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 367] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 11-16-2018 06:59 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics "A female wearing clothes is like a man without any profits." Ferengi Rule of Acquisition No. 108. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 368] Author : SR71 Date : 11-19-2018 02:33 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Beto O'Rourke? Did anyone get the substance of his platform? Whenever the news cut to him campaigning it always just sounded like a stream of happy talk to me. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 369] Author : SR71 Date : 11-19-2018 04:33 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics How do we think this is a good idea? Dear Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats: Why Are You Embracing Trickle-Down Economics? (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/dear-nancy-pelosi-and-house-democrats-why-are-you-embracing-trickle-down-economics/ar-BBPRUJD) Second, the supermajority rule is just awful policy—especially when combined with a proposal to bring back PAYGO rules, which Nancy Pelosi said months ago Democrats would adhere to if they gained the majority—the bonkers trickle-down policy that requires Congress to either cut the budget or hike taxes to offset any new spending. Republicans always vote against tax increases—always, under any circumstance and for any purpose. So guess which option they’ll always choose? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 370] Author : The Man Date : 11-20-2018 11:13 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics So in case anyone still has doubts about why Pelosi has survived for so long in leadership, here's the latest bit of evidence."There’s plenty of really competent females that we can replace her with."
— Emily Badger (@emilymbadger) November 15, 2018
Tim Ryan on Nancy Pelosi: https://t.co/AoWsXpDXUu
The only people who'll be worse off as a result of this are Seth Moulton and the vote-suppressing fascists in the GOP. Fudge has released a statement that she's supporting Pelosi for leadership, which you can see by clicking through to the Twitter thread. Regardless of whether she could be more progressive or not, Pelosi is a goddamn legislative ninja. If you want to get rid of one of the House dinosaurs, I suggest Steny Hoyer. And the fact that Schumer's at best questionable Senate leadership - after we actually lost seats in the Senate, mind you - hasn't come under the same kind of fire seems telling to me. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 371] Author : mickthinks Date : 11-25-2018 09:15 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Good people of :ff:, I need your help. https://www.facebook.com/whitehousebrief/videos/1179119685574331/ This is Jon Miller. How notorious he is I have no idea, sitting as I do way over here in Europeland. (Please feel free to fill me in.) But that isn't what I'm looking for. What I would like is a wide range of views on how best to answer him on this topic, (and by extension, similar Bannonesque shock-jocks on similarly uncontentious* topics). I realise Miller is plain wrong on a load of small details ("NBC: The Saudis say he was part of the Muslim Brotherhood and an enemy of the State. Those two things are not true" Miller: "Yes they are" ) but I don't believe point by point rebuttal is the way to go about the task of undermining his message among those who are right-leaning, because wall of points to rebut and many of them are pretty inconsequentially nitty. Rather I am looking for one or two broad-brush observations that might show that Miller's rhetoric is crooked. One liners, if you like, that will raise troubling doubts in those who are inclined to trust him. So, how would you tackle it? *Uncontentious? Yes, because the point here is that the murder of Kashoggi has been condemned on all sides. It should be uncontentious. Yet here is Miller contending it. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 372] Author : SR71 Date : 11-26-2018 05:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I consider the crucial point to be that Trump has essentially taken the position that the ethical judgement of the US can be bought if the price is high enough. He justifies his rejection of the CIA conclusion, that the SA prince is certainly responsible for the murder of a journalist citizen of SA, by trying to hide it behind the lies of an inflated weaponry sale to SA and associated inflated US job loss if the sale doesn't happen. He also credits the Saudis for the crash in oil prices, which is also largely false, as if that should somehow excuse the killing of journalists even if it were true. Trump is an amoral lieing sack of shit. He has an obvious penchant for the tyrannical by his demonstrated contempt for free press, the essential underpinning of undemocracy. In order for democracy to be of any value, citizens must have some grasp of objective reality. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 373] Author : JoeP Date : 11-26-2018 08:14 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Half [thanks] ... this is the non-Trump thread :P -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 374] Author : SR71 Date : 11-26-2018 02:24 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics There's really no way to tip toe around it. Unjustifiable dumb shit comes out of his mouth and his party falls in line and tries to justify the dumb. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 375] Author : mickthinks Date : 11-28-2018 02:52 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics ... the ethical judgement of the US can be bought if the price is high enough. The trouble is that that is true whether or not you abhor it. It doesn't discredit Jon Miller's analysis in any way. Trump is an amoral lieing sack of shit. That is exactly the kind of obviously partisan rhetoric that I think I need to avoid. But thanks for trying. :thankee: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 376] Author : SR71 Date : 11-28-2018 07:13 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics ... the ethical judgement of the US can be bought if the price is high enough. The trouble is that that is true whether or not you abhor it. It doesn't discredit Jon Miller's analysis in any way. Trump is an amoral lieing sack of shit. That is exactly the kind of obviously partisan rhetoric that I think I need to avoid. But thanks for trying. :thankee: Apart from the epithet, it seems objective to me and not really partisan. There's no way to sugar coat it, the man is a liar. Lie, deny, sidestep and cloud the issue is what he does on a regular and ongoing basis, by any dispassionate analysis of his own words. As for Miller, there isn't any merit to any of it, save perhaps whether or not AQ is making hay of it or whether he supports the Muslim Brotherhood or not. On those points I have no idea, but suppose we stipulate they're true, for the sake of argument. Would that justify his murder, or Trump's lack of concern over the murder? No one suggests making war, at least so far as I'm aware. There is plenty we could do short of war to demonstrate our disapproval. No one cares about the man's murder? Lots of people care, there is a lot to disapprove of when journalists are murdered because they criticize governments. I don't think that should be a partisan issue, unless the conservatives are making it one by buying into the "Media is the enemy of the people, fake news" line the president is pushing. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 377] Author : SR71 Date : 12-04-2018 01:27 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Watching Scott Walker, Governor un-elect of Wisconsin, get shown the exit is an especially sweet morsel from November. I read somewhere, and I think you can verify this if you want, is that 54% of voters chose democrats for the state house, but republicans held on to 63% of the seats because of gerrymander. The republicans see the writing on the wall, so they're trying to reassign powers from the governor to the legislature. This has spawned a demonstration. Wisconsin Republicans may have gone too far as their brazen move to nullify the midterm vote sparks massive backlash | Alternet (https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/wisconsin-power-grab-protestors-state-capitol) Among the things the bills would do are restrict Evers' power to allocate public funds, shift the authority to let Kaul terminate a state lawsuit from Evers to the legislature (thus vetoing his campaign promise to end Wisconsin's involvement in the Affordable Care Act lawsuit), give the legislature authority to defend cases challenging the constitutionality of their own bills (so they can fight to preserve their own gerrymandering scheme), cut back early voting, and move the date of the Democratic presidential primary so that it is held on a different day from the state Supreme Court election (which the GOP hopes will depress turnout and let them keep their judicial majority). -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 378] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 12-04-2018 09:07 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Fun thing with chaos agents..@NancyPelosi is really good pic.twitter.com/ykDqNu5J9X
— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) November 20, 2018
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 379] Author : SR71 Date : 01-03-2019 03:56 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics This seems like a good article (https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/the-gops-most-successful-scam-is-about-to-reboot-itself/) on the life story of trickle down and how republicans need to legislate tax breaks when in power and then scream about debt when out. It had a tidbit I was unaware of, this Jude Wanniski guy who hatched the undeniably brilliant, if exceptionally devious scheme. Most of the rest is old news and materially correct, it matches my understanding of the situation. Unfortunately, it's much too long to hold most peoples interest for long, so they'll sail along believing that democrats spend too much and republicans are fiscally responsible when the opposite is demonstrably true. Somebody needs to distill this down into a simple chart somehow. Will It Work Again? The Republicans got what they wanted from Wanniski’s work. They held power for nearly 40 years, skimmed trillions of dollars out of the economy, gutted organized labor, and packed the Supreme Court and the entire federal court system. Best of all, though, for the Two Santa Claus GOP, the years since 1981 have left such a massive national debt that some misguided “conservative” Democrats will again be clamoring to shoot Santa with cuts to education, infrastructure, health care, and other social programs. The Two Santa Claus theory isn’t dead, and starting any day now we’ll see the Republicans crank up their debt hysteria. It’s as predictable as the seasons. Hopefully, though, this time Democrats will point out the massive fraud perpetrated by the GOP since 1981, and begin talking about Two Santa Clauses in the media. If they don’t, and enough “Third Way” and “New Dem” Democrats get on board with the “deficit hawks” to drag down the New Deal progressives, get ready for the second Trump term. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 380] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-04-2019 07:16 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics We're going to need more popcorn. Pelosi to Trump: ‘Hawaii is part of the United States of America’ (http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2019/01/04/pelosi-trump-hawaii-is-part-united-states-america/) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 381] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-04-2019 07:26 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics And about that AOC dancing thing:Some important context here.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 4, 2018
David Sirota is Bernie Sanders’ former spokesman.
He has been a de facto Bernie surrogate since 2015.
For some reason, he’s spreading disinformation about... Beto.
1/ pic.twitter.com/cWfLtZ3cZl
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 382] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-04-2019 07:36 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsim not ������ ur ������ pic.twitter.com/v1YkanMMwX
— m i t h (@ManInTheHoody) January 4, 2019
I'll stop for now. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 383] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-05-2019 09:18 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsWhen you finally realize the Benghazi hearing is over and you lost. pic.twitter.com/NjNzoNNXV2
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) January 3, 2019
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/07/see.gif -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 384] Author : The Man Date : 01-05-2019 10:42 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Thread from Leverage writer John Rogers:NEW: DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is about to go under the microscope. House Homeland Security Chair Bennie Thompson tells her in a letter this evening she is “long overdue” for an oversight hearing, having appeared just once when the panel was under GOP control. pic.twitter.com/UVtTYXSM00
— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) January 5, 2019
Not going to attempt to summarise, as I can’t possibly do his words justice in fewer words than he did; just go read it. It’s not that long, and it’s worth it. I will, however, excerpt a particularly choice sentence. I think this one of the first times in the country’s short (and it is *short*) history we’ve had a serious cultural shift without a war in the middle of it. Now go read it. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 385] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-06-2019 04:30 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Now go read it. So I read it, and posted it in a couple places and what do you know, boomers out of the woodwork to say Not All Boomers. And so I had a thought that maybe when someone needs to jump up and say "Not All X" it might be that they weren't the target audience. #randommusing #notbringitupinthoseplacesbecauseican'tbearsedtosparoverit #stillblamingboomersfordisco -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 386] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-06-2019 05:04 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Karaoke time!1/ On the left is a teenage AOC dancing with her friends as part of a nationwide viral video craze. The Right called this proof she’s a “nitwit”.
— John Rogers (@jonrog1) 4 January 2019
Next is GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Who thought this photo was a good idea AT AGE 42. He was considered a policy genius. pic.twitter.com/kulyY5jnf8
WHO LET THE BOTS OUT? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 387] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-06-2019 08:57 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Hits so many thrads I'll put it here.Remember the havoc the “BernieBro” bots caused in 2016?
— Leah McElrath ��️*�� (@leahmcelrath) January 6, 2019
Well look what is happening in the replies to @ewarren tweets: pic.twitter.com/UkXQqu0kr9
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 388] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-08-2019 06:49 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Thousands of people have signed a petition to name the street in front of Trump Tower after Obama | indy100 (https://www.indy100.com/article/trump-tower-barack-obama-petition-rename-fifth-avenue-new-york-city-8713821) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 389] Author : Crumb Date : 01-10-2019 11:27 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Texas county GOP set to vote this week to remove leader because he is Muslim | TheHill (https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/424615-texas-county-gop-set-to-vote-this-week-to-remove-leader-because-he-is) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 390] Author : JoeP Date : 01-14-2019 03:53 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Joe Liebermann hopes that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez isn't the future of the Democratic party. AOC has other opinions ...I'm sorry you had to see this.
— Stonekettle (@Stonekettle) January 6, 2019
It just doesn't get any more Patriarchal than than the old white guy apologizing to other white men for the brown woman in the room. https://t.co/bxphDoxfzE
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 391] Author : lisarea Date : 01-14-2019 04:03 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Every now and again, something reminds me of Joe Lieberman, and I can never remember his name. I have had to ask Matlock a couple of times, "Who is that stupid little yellow Democrat everyone hates?" -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 392] Author : BrotherMan Date : 01-14-2019 05:26 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics little yellow Democrat :inscrutable: -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 393] Author : The Man Date : 01-15-2019 02:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Every now and again, something reminds me of Joe Lieberman, and I can never remember his name. I have had to ask Matlock a couple of times, "Who is that stupid little yellow Democrat everyone hates?" He is, in fact, a former Democrat. It is important to remember that he ran in, I believe it was, 2006 as an independent after Ned Lamont won the primary. It is also important to remember that he is the reason Obamacare didn't have a public option, despite having previously pledged not to vote against one. In short, what I'm saying is fuck Joe Lieberman. His opinion of the Democratic Party's direction is about as relevant as Individual-1's. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 394] Author : ChuckF Date : 01-15-2019 03:00 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Ugh, that guy. I have this weird thing with Joe Lieberman where my reptile brain has classified him as dead but my thinking brain knows that he is not, so that every time I see him mentioned anywhere (which is not very often nowadays) the lizard brain goes "I thought he was dead" and regular brain goes "shut the fuck up lizard brain you did not think that." I think it is because several years ago I noted that Jim Jeffords died and the Lieberman synapses got all confused. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 395] Author : JoeP Date : 01-15-2019 07:54 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Wait, you're saying Joe Lieberman is a zombie lizard brain? *rereads* Well, you're not denying it. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 396] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 01-17-2019 10:28 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Beto O'Rourke? Did anyone get the substance of his platform? Whenever the news cut to him campaigning it always just sounded like a stream of happy talk to me. DailyDot: Where does Beto O’Rourke stand on policy? (https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/beto-o-rourke-platform-policy/) Capital&Main: Beto vs. Democrats: Texas Lawmaker Frequently Voted to Help Trump and GOP (https://capitalandmain.com/beto-vs-democrats-texas-lawmaker-frequently-voted-to-help-trump-and-gop-1220) The big eye opener in this article for me was the regular hiring "surges" for Customs and Border Protection, where they dropped the polygraph requirements for applicants: Polygraph tests have been part of CBP’s efforts to confront the corruption and misconduct that have plagued the agency in recent years. A 2012 Government Accountability Office report found that between 2005 and 2012, “144 current or former CBP employees were arrested or indicted for corruption-related activities.” The report noted that CBP uses polygraph tests as part of employment background checks “to mitigate the risk of employee corruption and misconduct” — and it recommended that the agency consider expanding the tests. The report specifically noted that CBP internal affairs officials were expressing “concerns about the suitability of the officers and agents hired during [employment] surges because most of these officers and agents did not take a polygraph examination.” In April of 2017, the Trump administration issued a memo pushing for authority to waive the polygraph tests in order to expedite the hiring of thousands of new CBP agents. Critics immediately raised red flags — the American Immigration Lawyers Association said it was a plan “to water down hiring standards.” Tom Jawetz, the Center for American Progress’ Vice President for Immigration, told Univision that “many agents brought on beforehand who had not gone through a polygraph were cooperating with cartels and subject to corruption.” James Tomsheck, the CBP’s former head of internal affairs, called the idea of waivers “preposterous” in light of what the polygraph tests had been finding. Compared to other law-enforcement agencies, “a larger number of people failed the exam, but the admissions of the applicants who failed the exam were hair-raising,” Tomsheck told The Nation. “The most shocking, frankly terrifying, were the many applicants who admitted that they were infiltrators. That they actually worked for a drug-trafficking organization and had for some period of time. They had been directed to apply for the job solely for the purpose of feeding information back to the criminal organization they worked with.” Two days after the Trump administration’s memo, Republicans introduced legislation to allow the polygraph tests to be waived. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 397] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 01-17-2019 11:58 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Fun thing with chaos agents.New party, who dis? https://t.co/2cznisv8tB
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) 11 January 2019
I think the Hoarse Whisperer (whose own identity and work history is secret) has a point in that a.) the tweet of David Sirota's above is certainly biased in that its headline is overblown when compared to the linked findings; it would be more accurate to say that Beto O'Rourke had the second highest donations from individuals who work in the oil and gas industries, running in the (oil) State of Texas in a hotly contested race, and b.) Sirota personally identifies with left and progressive politics, and worked for Bernie Sanders... but in 2001; he didn't work on Bernie Sander's last presidential campaign; de facto surrogate since 2015 is a dismissive stretch. I look forward to learning the answer to the question: what will become of the Democratic Party? While you may see this as the work of "chaos agents," I genuinely want the Democratic Party to figure out which factions are going to hold power into the next election. I think the Party Faithful and the Insurgent Left are battling each other first for the Youth vote, followed by the Black, Latinx, Asian, and LGBTQIA factions. Insurgent Left want to obviously push the party left, and promote a leftist agenda. Party Faithful want to return to the status quo of Clinton-Obama. They often frame themselves as political realists and reasonable centrists. The problem I find is that the "realest" position is 100% status quo, as it requires the least effort, retraining, testing, or change- it is realistic as fuck. Since Bill Clinton, the orthodoxy of the Democratic Party Presidential Playbook is Triangulation, which has steadily moved the Democratic party rightward, as they attempt to co-opt and negate issues from the Right. That is how the Democratic strategists have been thinking and trained for decades- it is the status quo. Leftists see this internal struggle as necessary; with a 12-year ecological cliff to actually address the human species mostly wiping out, along with a ton of other species- neoliberal technocrats will not turn the ship; instead they'll "realist" themselves along the path of least resistance- beholden to corporate donors and global capital until forced away from it by pressure from the left. Faithfuls see this internal battle as destructive and damaging at a time when they want unity- a fractured party is weakened at a time when a destructive Republican administration could be pushed out of office through the vote. In their view, Leftists are too fringe and disorganized and will lose votes through radical policies. Anyway... I'm obviously in the Leftist camp. My hope is that it is resolved early, and that it gets more people engaged. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 398] Author : erimir Date : 01-18-2019 08:56 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I think the dichotomy of a centrist "party faithful" and an "insurgent left" is a bit of an oversimplification. One of the issues that is causing such resistance to the "insurgency" is the feeling that everyone who hasn't been right (that is, left) since the 90s or something needs to be purged. So you can either be an outsider hater of the establishment, or you are a centrist? But if that's your path, you won't be able to assemble a majority coalition in the party - you saw the result in Bernie vs. Hillary of relying too heavily on independents who don't like the party and not really trying to win over those who do like it. There has to be some balance between moving incumbent party members left and simply tossing them out. If you'll only consider replacing all of them, and quickly, a victory... you'll be disappointed. (Of course, candidates in districts that can clearly be more to the left or don't side with us on critical priorities should be tossed. Henry Cuellar is in a safe Dem district, but votes with Trump the majority of the time. There's no point in trying to move him left other than by trying to remove him.) b.) Sirota personally identifies with left and progressive politics, and worked for Bernie Sanders... but in 2001; he didn't work on Bernie Sander's last presidential campaign; de facto surrogate since 2015 is a dismissive stretch.I mean, he's clearly a Sanders partisan. I don't need Hoarse Whisperer to tell me that. Since Bill Clinton, the orthodoxy of the Democratic Party Presidential Playbook is Triangulation, which has steadily moved the Democratic party rightward, as they attempt to co-opt and negate issues from the Right. That is how the Democratic strategists have been thinking and trained for decades- it is the status quo.The reception to AOC proposing a 70% tax on income over $10 million* hasn't really involved any important Democrats criticizing her, has it? Medicare for All has momentum, including picking up support among "establishment" Democrats. They're not caving on the wall, when there used to be Democrats who ran on "securing the border." The Democratic Party hasn't been moving right since 2006, at the latest. Second-term Obama was left of first-term Obama, Hillary 2016's platform was left of Obama 2008/2012 platform, Democrats in 2018 are to the left of Democrats in 2006, easily. I don't really understand how it's supposed to have been a steady march rightward. From Ford to Clinton, sure. But continuing to today? Reagan-era Democrats in the House cut the top income tax rate from 70% to 28%. Maybe you think it's plausible, but the idea of Pelosi agreeing to cut the top tax rate to 28% is laughable. *tbh the bracket should start lower than that. More like $1 million probably. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 399] Author : JoeP Date : 01-18-2019 09:45 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics For those of us somewhat distant from things, what is Beto looking at? If the Bernistas are knocking him, presumably there's a campaign brewing? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 400] Author : erimir Date : 01-18-2019 06:12 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I dunno what Beto is going to do. I don't think he should run for president. He should run for Senate against John Cornyn. If Trump goes down with a significantly worse margin than 2016, Texas is in play, and Beto did do notably well. It's possible there are other Texans who could win, I suppose. One of the Castro brothers, maybe? But Julian is more interested in the presidency as well. Stacey Abrams ought to be getting as much buzz as Beto, given how well she did in Georgia and a similarly exciting campaign, and similar level of government experience, etc. But she's not, for "some reason". But she also seems more likely to be mulling a Senate bid herself, because that really makes more sense than jumping from failed senate/gubernatorial candidate to president. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 401] Author : Ensign Steve Date : 01-18-2019 06:22 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Do you mean failed gubernatorial candidate? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 402] Author : erimir Date : 01-18-2019 08:07 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Yes, I did. Beto is the failed senate candidate. But it applies the same either way, I think. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 403] Author : The Man Date : 01-19-2019 06:40 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Oh, speaking of Abrams:Some important context here.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 4, 2018
David Sirota is Bernie Sanders’ former spokesman.
He has been a de facto Bernie surrogate since 2015.
For some reason, he’s spreading disinformation about... Beto.
1/ pic.twitter.com/cWfLtZ3cZl
Abrams was robbed. Let's not forget that. Gillum was almost certainly robbed as well, and Beto may very well have been, but there is no "almost certainly" in Abrams' case. It should be treated as documented fact. (And I know this says "non-Trump" - sorry - but if those are his numbers in Georgia, he's gonna have a bad time next year.) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 404] Author : erimir Date : 01-23-2019 05:19 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics omgNew @ajc poll out of GEORGIA testing politicians favorability —>
— Chris Lee (@politico_chris) January 18, 2019
Donald Trump (R): 37/56 (!)
Gov. Brian Kemp (R): 37/46
Stacey Abrams (D): 52/40
Sen. David Perdue (R): 45/31
Gov. Nathan Deal (R): 57/26https://t.co/li2Xf1FVFq
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 405] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-23-2019 07:14 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics Talking to a trans friend right now about that whole amazing event. :) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 406] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 01-25-2019 09:35 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://gyazo.com/f5debd8eff8684e34eace99c9f9657fa I think Teen Vogue just called for a general strike across America. (https://www.teenvogue.com/story/general-strikes-explained) https://i.imgflip.com/2rzy6h.jpg -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 407] Author : JoeP Date : 01-25-2019 10:17 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics The American choice of protest clothing icon corresponding to the gilets jaunes could be extremely interesting. It's not going to be wifebeater vests, for sure. Or bandannas. Or Texan hats. Or check shorts and big cameras (Americans in Europe). I'm going to suggest bulletproof vests. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 408] Author : Stephen Maturin Date : 01-25-2019 03:23 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I hear-tell that while everyone else was covering Roger Stone's arrest, Faux News was covering Elizabeth Warren's "wealth tax" proposal. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 409] Author : JoeP Date : 01-25-2019 08:37 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics "hear-tell" right, you watch it 24x7 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 410] Author : chunksmediocrites Date : 02-02-2019 09:57 PM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics 'Trumpwashing': the danger of turning the Republican resistance into liberal heroes (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/19/trumpwashing-republican-resistance-trump-dangers-history) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 411] Author : SR71 Date : 02-03-2019 02:19 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics I've actually formed that self same thought independently. Being critical of tRump is on par with condemning a guy who punches a cat in the face. IOW, if you aren't repelled by him, something is seriously fucking wrong with you. Nothing especially laudable in finding tRump to be absolutely contemptible. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 412] Author : But Date : 02-03-2019 05:03 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics 'Trumpwashing': the danger of turning the Republican resistance into liberal heroes (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/19/trumpwashing-republican-resistance-trump-dangers-history) Among the distinguished speakers at the Washington National Cathedral: Henry Kissinger, now a venerable 95. 95. Wow. Still alive and still hasn't spent a year in prison where he belongs, the piece of shit. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 413] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 03-22-2019 07:25 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics https://i.gyazo.com/7a70217417d94ad105bbb08d986c0d83.png -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 414] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 02-28-2020 04:47 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politicsCan’t wait to do a Twitch 101 class with House Dems so we can finally get the Super Smash Bros Town Halls we’ve all been waiting for �� https://t.co/0d5xXGPTb7
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 23, 2019
Hashtag Arpaio -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 415] Author : Kamilah Hauptmann Date : 03-08-2020 06:21 AM Thread Title : Re: Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics9th Circuit Judge Jay Bybee wrote the unanimous ruling, with newly named Judge Daniel Collins (Trump) and senior judge N. Randy Smith. (All three were Republican-appointed.) The court appointed a special prosecutor in the case, after DOJ backed Arpaio https://t.co/RerVRjSD9m
— Mike Scarcella (@MikeScarcella) February 27, 2020
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Downloaded from Freethought Forum (https://www.freethought-forum.com/forum) at 05-17-2024 09:39 PM..@ewarren in the #SNL cold open!
— Alexis Goldstein ��️*�� (@alexisgoldstein) March 8, 2020
"The woman who savagely murdered Michael Bloomberg on live television" pic.twitter.com/HukmRZ9pJH