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US Politics: Shutbound & Down


DMC

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45 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

(and yes, he really did give out copies of Atlas Shrugged).

At least he is not doing any damage by giving it to staffers. If he gave all those copies to schools he might do real damage to the minds of young kids.

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Fair point on Iowa re "midwest' Although as a side note, calling PA midwestern boggles my mind. OH pushes it from my perspective.

I don't disagree that I would like a younger candidate, but I don't like letting externalities sway me (age/gender/(long list) etc) Let a candidate's ideas and record stand on their own.

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2 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

Fair point on Iowa re "midwest' Although as a side note, calling PA midwestern boggles my mind.

Yeah, calling PA midwest is pretty silly, especially if you just look at a map.  It's just easier to use Midwest as shorthand than writing "those three states" over and over again.

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1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

Just wanted to say that on voting record, Gillibrand is probably right there with Sanders and Warren, and currently probably sits to the left of both of them.  She took a lot of flak for her comments on Franken, but out of the entire field, she's my favorite right now.  I don't think she's very 'electable' but I think policy-wise she's a cut above the rest in substance and stance.

I like Harris but the fact that she's kind of a cop freaks me out a little bit.  

Beto I think would be vulnerable on his DUI he tried to run away from but apparently it's not much of an issue.  Policy wise he is way to centrist for me, but I'd vote for anyone you listed.  I like Booker and that he isn't afraid to actually take a stand on shit bit I'm kind of nervous about his big pharma $.  Agree that Warren and Sanders are too old.  

If the Dems wanna win in 2020 they need to turn out the under 30 vote.  If they could get 75% of college students to vote they'd probably be unstoppable.

I'm not a Sanders support currently, I lean more towards Harris, but you can't argue that Sanders does not excite the youth vote. One of the most surprising part of the primary for me was that Sanders captured women 18-29. So age is perhaps not everything, although two older candidates were competing.

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5 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

I'm not a Sanders support currently, I lean more towards Harris, but you can't argue that Sanders does not excite the youth vote. One of the most surprising part of the primary for me was that Sanders captured women 18-29. So age is perhaps not everything, although two older candidates were competing.

I agree, but that was 2016.  I voted for Sanders in the primary.  I just think that today, the party has moved left, and he's no longer the only option to Clinton.  I think half the reason he was popular with younger voters is that he wasn't Clinton.  Most of his policy stuff I'm down with in a general way but I was a little concerned that his foreign policy wasn't more openly pacifist.  I think the best thing Sanders did was show that there is a lot of popular support for a more progressive domestic agenda that really seeks to address income inequality.  

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1 minute ago, larrytheimp said:

I agree, but that was 2016.  I voted for Sanders in the primary.  I just think that today, the party has moved left, and he's no longer the only option to Clinton.  I think half the reason he was popular with younger voters is that he wasn't Clinton.  Most of his policy stuff I'm down with in a general way but I was a little concerned that his foreign policy wasn't more openly pacifist.  I think the best thing Sanders did was show that there is a lot of popular support for a more progressive domestic agenda that really seeks to address income inequality.  

Well he barely had a foreign policy. I was somewhat concerned about that. 

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7 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Well he barely had a foreign policy. I was somewhat concerned about that. 

I mean if you start with the premise that the president can dictate foreign policy independent of the military industrial complex, having none is certainly better than any US foreign policy since, well, basically ever.

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48 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

I don't disagree that I would like a younger candidate, but I don't like letting externalities sway me (age/gender/(long list) etc) Let a candidate's ideas and record stand on their own.

I don't think the age factor can reasonably be discounted. We need someone to do a punishing job for eight years, that doesn't start for another two years. People like Warren and Sanders might be fully up to the task of campaigning now, but what shape will they be in a decade's time? It's certainly possible that they'd be fine, but I'm not comfortable with the odds.

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4 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I mean if you start with the premise that the president can dictate foreign policy independent of the military industrial complex, having none is certainly better than any US foreign policy since, well, basically ever.

Sure, but he is running for President and just because he does not talk much about his foreign policy does not mean he does not have one. It just means he is not telling us. I understand he probably did that due to messaging. His greatest strength perhaps was staying on message on economic issues. But not knowing much of what he would do if given control of foreign policy was somewhat concerning to me as a voter.

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30 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Western PA, and Ohio, if they aren't part of the Midwest, what are they?  

Yeah Ohio is literally part of the Midwest according to census region.  And while PA is in the Northeast, Western PA is much more similar to the midwest than (most of) the rest of the Northeast.  A simpler way (and more flexible) term to describe this is the rust belt.

23 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

I agree, but that was 2016.  I voted for Sanders in the primary.  I just think that today, the party has moved left, and he's no longer the only option to Clinton. 

Yep exactly.  There was almost literally no one else to be excited about if you had misgivings about Hillary.  Four years later changes things, plus there's plenty of other candidates for the youth to get excited about.

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20 hours ago, Triskele said:

I sure hope that you guys are right.  But so much already big deal stuff has proven not to be in our new abnormal.  

It's good that you're developing some intuition for spotting things that are probably not a big deal. For future reference, the fact that the story originated in BuzzFeed is also a rather strong indicator. Interestingly enough, Mueller's office decided to quash this one directly:

Quote

Special counsel Robert Mueller's office disputed an explosive story from BuzzFeed News as "not accurate" Friday night, after the news outlet reported the President had directed his personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, for which Cohen was later prosecuted.

"BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate," said Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller's office, in a statement.

 

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11 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It's good that you're developing some intuition for spotting things that are probably not a big deal. For future reference, the fact that the story originated in BuzzFeed is also a rather strong indicator. Interestingly enough, Mueller's office decided to quash this one directly:

 

Buzzfeed also responded asking Muellers office to clarify what wasn't correct and how it wasn't correct. Also that they were confident in their report and the evidence they were given and stand behind their reporter 100%. Which clouds the issue for me because they could get sued into the dirt over a false article.

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3 minutes ago, Lord Dracarys said:

Buzzfeed also responded asking Muellers office to clarify what wasn't correct and how it wasn't correct. Also that they were confident in their report and the evidence they were given and stand behind their reporter 100%. Which clouds the issue for me because they could get sued into the dirt over a false article.

Mueller isn't going to provide any additional clarity to Buzzfeed, and I really doubt that Mueller is lying.  On the other hand, one of the authors on the buzzfeed article has a checkered past, which was pointed out by other news organizations earlier today, and so far zero other news organizations have been able to corroborate the allegations in the article.  So, it seems very likely that Buzzfeed's article contains multiple material errors.  No way to tell what the errors are until Mueller submits his report, and even then, it will depend on what portions of Mueller's report are made public.

Trump and his supporters are going to have a field day with this.  It bolsters his claims of fake news.

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2 minutes ago, Lord Dracarys said:

I suppose you mean Leopold who was a finalist for a Pulitzer prize last year? Sure, he does but he's also broken big stories. Cormier also doesnt seem to have any skeletons far as I have read.

The Buzzfeed story is as good as dead (worse than dead really), unless another reputable news organization can independently confirm their findings.  Cohen is due to testify to Congress in February, so I'm sure he'll get asked about the portions that relate to him.  If he answers, we might get some confirmation (true or false) about portions of the report then.  Or we wait until Mueller is finished and hope most of the report is made public, and I'm sure all the portions that exculpate Trump, if any, will be made public.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

Yeah Ohio is literally part of the Midwest according to census region.  And while PA is in the Northeast, Western PA is much more similar to the midwest than (most of) the rest of the Northeast.  A simpler way (and more flexible) term to describe this is the rust belt.

We're also part of the Great Lakes Conference which includes western PA, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, western NY, Minnesota (and Ontario and Quebec). We have far more in common with those regions than we do the Northeast. Even Harrisburg thinks the state ends at the Susquehanna.

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16 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Yeah, if Sanders does run it will be interesting to see this tested.  There was definitely a desire last time for a non-Clinton option.  I hope Sanders doesn't run because I don't think it will go great, and he's already accomplished a lot in terms of moving the window a bit.

Yeah I also hope Bernie doesn't run so that lefty enthusiasm can settle on someone else. If he runs I doubt he'll get the nomination but he'll hoover up important support for other more leftist candidates. He might be an interesting VP choice for someone.

I wonder if any of the candidates are going to stake out some differences on foreign policy as there is plenty to critique about the US foreign policy consensus. That's actually one thing I really like about Tulsi Gabbard, I know I know she has a ton of problematic history, but I really like her foreign policy record. I'm hoping some other candidates stake out some foreign policy positions outside the beltway consensus.

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26 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

The Buzzfeed story is as good as dead (worse than dead really), unless another reputable news organization can independently confirm their findings.  Cohen is due to testify to Congress in February, so I'm sure he'll get asked about the portions that relate to him.  If he answers, we might get some confirmation (true or false) about portions of the report then.  Or we wait until Mueller is finished and hope most of the report is made public, and I'm sure all the portions that exculpate Trump, if any, will be made public.

Honey, you're dreaming in technicolor if you think this story is dead!

The significant thing about the Mueller commentary is that Mueller did not say the story was untrue,. The statement is very, very carefully written.

"BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the Special Counsel's Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's Congressional testimony are not accurate."

"Are not accurate" does not mean "are untrue".

"This office" does not mean that some other office investigating Cohen or Trump doesn't have those statements.

Mueller's office does not leak. The two investigators who have talked to BuzzFeed are obviously, I think, not on Mueller's team. But there are 17 different investigations being run by 7 DoJ offices. 

All Mueller is saying is, hey, don't look at us, we didn't talk to BuzzFeed. Otherwise Mueller would have come out and said the statements are untrue.

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