US Politics: compromising positions

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

33 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

OK, I'm not a Booker fan, but he definitely has one thing going for him.

 

Actress Rosario Dawson confirms relationship with Cory Booker

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/14/rosario-dawson-cory-booker-dating-1221753

Truth be told I always thought he was asexual. 

33 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

My suspicion is that the court will easily pass that the XO is constitutional. The argument is really, really simple, and is hard to refute:

- the NEA already provides what a POTUS can do as far as allocating money, and that's already been put into law. If congress wants something else, pass something else

- once that money is allocated, the NEA treats that money as already allocated to it; in other words, any money in certain areas that congress allocates can, by rule, be allocated to emergency actions, and this is a feature of all that money. If you don't like it, don't allocate it in the first place. 

- while it's clear that building a multi-year wall project to deal with a supposed 'emergent' situation is bullshit, it is well within the powers of the POTUS to do so, and there's no legal basis to deny it. 

The big problem here is that it is a massive norm violation, like Merrick Garland, and like Merrick Garland there is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about it.

More about this horribleness at Lawfare, which reached similar conclusions.

The retort would be to simply point to Trump saying it wasn't an actual emergency. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

15 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It doesn't matter what you tell him - he knows that. 

But when you put in attack ads that Sanders wrote about women fantasizing rape, and he has to explain about how he was making an academic argument about gender issues and it was 40 years ago - how effective do you think that'll be? 

Honestly, the better attack ad is simply deeclaring that he's a socialist - another self-inflicted label that he can't fight without using a lot of words - and that'll hurt him far more. 

I think you're deliberately not understanding that "BernieBros" does not mean 'supporters of Bernie Sanders" any more than 'sexist men' means 'men who like sex'. 

I don't think it will be effective, and I think you're right. I don't think he'll be effective this cycle either--he is awash in progressives. I also think his adherence to being labeled a socialist (which he's not) is about the biggest blunder he could make. But he insists on it. I can definitely see Trump using that to stir up the base, and I think someone like Warren really understands this. She's a "capitalist" and one of the few who will go with that. I also can't believe Bernie will make it through the primaries. 

I don't mean to be deliberately obtuse about Bernie Bros. It's something I heard back in 2016 directed at me (by a friend), and I really haven't reflected on it since, to be honest. I just took it as a name people put on Bernie supporters. I never thought about investigating the term, but a cursory Wikipedia perusal (the first line) about Bernie Bros says "some" of his supporters. I thought it was just what Bernie supporters were called, but after reading a bit, I guess it's a more troll like behavior--or worse.

Your point is well taken--I get annoyed when people (on talk shows for example) bring up sexist white men, and all the white men on the panel say something like, "not ALL white men." In that situation it is clearly not all men, and it annoys me. 

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Truth be told I always thought he was asexual. 

The retort would be to simply point to Trump saying it wasn't an actual emergency. 

Right - this is a similar argument to the Muslim ban, which is that Trump himself said it was a Muslim ban. 

And the court threw that out, because they (somewhat reasonably) stated that his comments are not the actual policy, and intent is not nearly as important as action. (that Roberts decided that it was totes cool because there was a 'rigorous exemption process' that has so far failed 99% of the time is extra shit on the shit cake, but that's the logic).

It's hard for me to see how they can decide that it isn't something the POTUS can do. Especially when there are a number of in-existence emergencies that are still going on which have been going on for well over 15 years. 

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I don't think it will be effective, and I think you're right. I don't think he'll be effective this cycle either--he is awash in progressives. I also think his adherence to being labeled a socialist (which he's not) is about the biggest blunder he could make. But he insists on it. I can definitely see Trump using that to stir up the base, and I think someone like Warren really understands this. She's a "capitalist" and one of the few who will go with that. I also can't believe Bernie will make it through the primaries. 

 I don't mean to be deliberately obtuse about Bernie Bros. It's something I heard back in 2016 directed at me (by a friend), and I really haven't reflected on it since, to be honest. I just took it as a name people put on Bernie supporters. I never thought about investigating the term, but a cursory Wikipedia perusal (the first line) about Bernie Bros says "some" of his supporters. I thought it was just what Bernie supporters were called, but after reading a bit, I guess it's a more troll like behavior--or worse.

Your point is well taken--I get annoyed when people (on talk shows for example) bring up sexist white men, and all the white men on the panel say something like, "not ALL white men." In that situation it is clearly not all men, and it annoys me. 

Honestly, it's hard for me to imagine that Sanders won't make it through the primaries. Having a large minority of supporters and a crazy amount of cash flow means that he can stay in for a looooong time. And while there are a lot of other progressives that make people happy, as they fade and lose out chances are good their supporters will go to Sanders as well. 

And as we saw in 2016, Sanders will not concede if he thinks he has a sliver of a chance of winning. Which, in this year, is significantly the case. It is almost certain that we will not have someone who has wrapped up the nomination by having a simple majority of electors come the convention. It's far more likely that we'll have at least 2 people with a large minority, and a good chance that we'll have 3 or 4. If that happens, literally any of them could win the nomination, and the superdelegates ironically become far more important than they ever were in 2016. 

My feeling right now is that it'll be Sanders, Biden, and whoever ends up coming out best of the South. Right now I'd say that's Harris, but that could also be Biden. I think most of the supporters of people like Gillibrand, Inslee, Buttigieg, Warren will gravitate towards Sanders, with some heading to Harris (if she's still around) and others going back to Biden. 

And if it is those three, I think that none of them get a majority. Biden will do well in a lot of states, Harris will do well in a lot of diverse states, and Sanders will simply do well enough to keep fighting.