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U.S. Politics: Moscow Mitch


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25 minutes ago, DMC said:

Heh, I've been making that joke for about 15 years - didn't need an office survey as supporting evidence.

Lol - it's just a really funny video, tbh! Some of these quotes make me laugh.

Edit - The dog quote though. Yikes!

 

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7 minutes ago, Raja said:

Lol - it's just a really funny video, tbh! Some of these quotes make me laugh.

Yeah, it's a good video.  Talking heads are famous for over-using sports metaphors.  I did especially like the last question in the video - Cory Booker is a household name?

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Why Some Christians ‘Love the Meanest Parts’ of Trump
The writer Ben Howe grew up in the world of conservative evangelicalism. When he looks at the religious right now, all he sees is a thirst for power and domination.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/ben-howe-evangelical-christians-support-trump/596308/

Quote

 

Green: So it’s the hypocrisy that bothers you?

Howe: Hypocrisy irritates me, but it’s not the objective of the book to have people go, “Those guys are hypocrites.” People know they’re hypocrites. But I think people are misidentifying why they’re hypocrites, and that’s what I wanted to address.

Green: You grew up in this world, right?

Howe: Yes.

Green: Does that add to your irritation?

Howe: It is important for people to understand that I’m coming from within this movement. I’m not outside of it, looking in. I know what I’m talking about because this has been my life.

Green: You talk a lot about the bitterness that motivates evangelicals in the realm of politics. Where does that come from?

Howe: It comes from a reasonably understandable place. If people feel that their motives are impugned, if they feel they’re not bad people but are being told they are—being told they’re racist or misogynist—it can foster a mentality of victimhood.

In the minds of a lot of conservatives, the left exists to impugn their motives, and the Republican Party regularly lied to them and said they would defend them and then didn’t. And that was the establishment. Trump became their hero, because he hated the establishment, and he beat up on the media, and he was fighting back against all these forces. The more he fights, the more they feel justified, like, He’s our hero because we needed someone to do this for us.


Trump’s appeal is not judges. It’s not policies. It’s that he’s a shit-talker and a fighter and tells it like it is. That’s what they like. They love the meanest parts of him.

Green: Do you think that that sense of embattlement is grounded in reality?

Howe: A lot of it is. But I think they’re wrong when they say they have it worse than others. Evangelicals have done plenty of unfair things to others with no reflection, other than to complain that the culture was moving away from them.

Green: Like what?

Howe: Take gay marriage, abortion, any evangelical issues that have come up over the last 20 years. I was not happy at all with how we approached most of those issues.

Green: “We” being evangelicals?

Howe: Yes. I thought they were fighting fights in a way that showed a total lack of understanding, empathy, or love for fellow people, all in the name of preventing the culture from getting away from us. It’s very selfis

 

 

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Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who fatally choked Eric Garner to death five years ago, has officially been fired from the NYPD by the police commissioner. The decision also strips Pantaleo of his pension, so he gets no parachute to fall back on.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/19/20812386/daniel-pantaleo-fired-eric-garner-chokehold

While I thought that the decision was leaning against Pantaleo after the official review and administrative court case, I’m a little surprised that the hammer came down so hard on him. I thought he might be given some last minute chance to resign or otherwise save face.

A little takeaway for me is that the fact that Pantaleo didn’t spend 2 or 3 years saving every dime, get himself a job in a different police department or security gig or something says a lot about how much he, and likely other cops, see themselves as immune/protected from consequences for what they do.

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1 hour ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer who fatally choked Eric Garner to death five years ago, has officially been fired from the NYPD by the police commissioner. The decision also strips Pantaleo of his pension, so he gets no parachute to fall back on.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/19/20812386/daniel-pantaleo-fired-eric-garner-chokehold

While I thought that the decision was leaning against Pantaleo after the official review and administrative court case, I’m a little surprised that the hammer came down so hard on him. I thought he might be given some last minute chance to resign or otherwise save face.

A little takeaway for me is that the fact that Pantaleo didn’t spend 2 or 3 years saving every dime, get himself a job in a different police department or security gig or something says a lot about how much he, and likely other cops, see themselves as immune/protected from consequences for what they do.

I'm sure Trump is ready to offer him a job with ICE and make him a poster boy for how unfairly cops are treated.

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1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

I'm sure Trump is ready to offer him a job with ICE and make him a poster boy for how unfairly cops are treated.

In normal times, this would just be bad satire, but today this is actually a rational assessment of his career opportunities. That's sad.

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11 minutes ago, sologdin said:

am more or less certain that permanent exclusion from civil society of persons who deviate from peremptory norms predictably lumpenizes them for usage by the far right.

That moment in time when you wonder is Solo is making up a word, using a foreign word, or coming in stealthily with a super obscure word...

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Support for impeachment hearings is growing palpable among House Democrats:

Quote

The counts from various news outlets differ somewhat, but according to Politico’s latest tally, it’s now 127 of 235 House Democrats. The group has gained several important allies since they started; House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler has publicly come out for an inquiry, and Rep. Ben Ray Luján, the No. 4 Democrat in House leadership, also recently came out in support. On top of that, there’s also independent Rep. Justin Amash, who recently left the Republican Party. CNN’s tally, though, is just under half — it counts 124 Democrats supporting an inquiry.

BTW, I don't get that last sentence either.  124 is - ya know, based on my head - still more than half of 235, you don't need another cup of coffee.

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Sorry for the triple post, but just checked out Charlie Cook's site for the first time in awhile and saw this article, which had an interesting bit at the beginning which I thought was worth discussing:

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The possibility of a global economic slowdown and/or U.S. recession has lots of folks speculating on what it would mean for President Trump's reelection prospects. Conventional wisdom assumes it would be a political death-blow to the President. Already struggling with anemic job approval ratings in what has been a solid economic environment, those job ratings would certainly plunge into the cellar if the economy sputters. 

My colleague Charlie Cook isn't so sure that this would happen. He suggests that our growing partisanship over these last few years, (Democrats and Republicans stick by their party no matter the political, economic or social environment) "limit how much a good economy can help or a bad economy can hurt a president."

There's a link to Cook's original article, but it's paywalled at the National Journal so I haven't read it.  Anyway, I agree with the general argument that polarization - and particularly Trump's relationship with the public - limits the ceilings and basements of presidential approval.  However, I think this kind of misses the point of the effect of a recession on Trump's reelection prospects.  Will his approval crater?  No. 

But the assumption right now - and why there remains a good chance he wins reelection - is his vote share will be significantly higher than the ~42% approval he's showing right now as long as the economy remains healthy.  A recession would charitably mean about a 2-3 point drop, but the more important thing is it would mean he's not going to recoup all the other voters that are leaners.  Unless there's unforeseen third party candidate, no incumbent can ever win with 40% approval.

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5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

That moment in time when you wonder is Solo is making up a word, using a foreign word, or coming in stealthily with a super obscure word...

Its not that obscure if someone like me knows about it ^_^.

Idk if solo was talking about that piece of shit cop who killed eric garner, but if he is, i would argue that he was already a tool of the far right. 

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28 minutes ago, DMC said:

There's a link to Cook's original article, but it's paywalled at the National Journal so I haven't read it.  Anyway, I agree with the general argument that polarization - and particularly Trump's relationship with the public - limits the ceilings and basements of presidential approval.  However, I think this kind of misses the point of the effect of a recession on Trump's reelection prospects.  Will his approval crater?  No. 

But the assumption right now - and why there remains a good chance he wins reelection - is his vote share will be significantly higher than the ~42% approval he's showing right now as long as the economy remains healthy.  A recession would charitably mean about a 2-3 point drop, but the more important thing is it would mean he's not going to recoup all the other voters that are leaners.  Unless there's unforeseen third party candidate, no incumbent can ever win with 40% approval.

It is true that as polarization increases, the impact of an economic recession on Trump's approval is reduced.  But it is still there. 

A lot of articles I've read suspect that (like in 2016) one of the key demographics in 2020 will be low information voters who aren't particularly partisan.  These are the people who made up the ~15% of voters who disapproved of both Trump and Clinton in 2016, and who voted for Trump by like 40 points.  Trump hasn't done much to reach out to this group, he is instead always focusing on exciting his base.  These aren't people who care about supreme court nominations or banning asylum seekers.  If the economy goes south, Trump's support amongst this group is going to plummet. The fact that they already dislike Trump on a personal level definitely doesn't help.  

While we aren't going to get approval in the high 20s like we saw at the worst moments of the Bush Administration, a recession could definitely have Trump in the mid-high 30s, and if so, he's finished for sure. 

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already a tool of the far right. 

i understand the argument, and it is not unreasonable. am however assuming almost a priori that the police in a state with a liberal constitution are not subject to usage by the far right insofar as they are police sworn to uphold that constitution and deviations therefrom are handled, as here, properly like deviations.  left radicals may on occasion malign the police as agents of capital, which, in the liberal order, they by definition must be; this is nevertheless hardly fascistic.  disciplinary action, up to involuntary termination, strikes me as appropriate, assuming the facts as alleged by the decedent's estate--but stripping the former employee of a vested pension and simultaneously rendering him unemployable otherwise banishes him to the margins of civil society--this is textbook lumpenization, the recruitment ground for fascism. it may be disproportionate on kantian grounds, and it certainly has little utilitarian rationale, if the prohibited conduct was negligent or, a fortiori, the result of poor employee education by the responsible state agency. i wonder, by the bye, if the survivors have a 1983 case.

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Regarding partisanship and party loyalty, is Cook taking into account that the Republican Party is in the process of a realignment? That could have a strong negative effect on lifelong Republicans who dislike Trump but haven’t left the party if the economy tanks.

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4 hours ago, sologdin said:

am more or less certain that permanent exclusion from civil society of persons who deviate from peremptory norms predictably lumpenizes them for usage by the far right.

This may be a dumb question, but this comment touches on an issue I've been struggling with for a while now: how does the left, especially now in light of the BLM movement, #MeToo, anti-fascist and other movements that are rightfully calling out bad actors, continue their work raising consciousness of systemic and heretofore mostly unrecognized gender and racial bias inherent to American culture, while still providing an avenue for rehabilitation and acceptance back into the good graces of civil society?

The example that has occurred most prominently to me is that I am most certainly aware of the systemic racial and economic bias inherent in the criminal justice system, and as such, wholeheartedly support reform of the system and a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration of convicted felons, even violent felons, back into society. And fortunately there are programs and policy positions I can support to help realize this goal.

But what about bad actors in law enforcement, or the numerous individuals who have been rightfully outed by the #MeToo movement? Their bad actions surely are due at least partially to systemic factors in U.S. society, although not perhaps to the extent of someone caught up in the criminal justice system. And yes, they also were the ones benefitting from these systemic biases, so I'm not arguing that they shouldn't receive punishment, but thus far I haven't seen any wholehearted support for anything but permanent exclusion from "polite society", as it were, which as you say could create even more fertile recruiting ground for the far-right and proto-fascist groups that are popping up at an increasing rate.

This probably doesn't apply as much to the Harvey Weinstein's or Bill O'Reilly's of the world, but definitely does to the Pantaleo's and other non-elites. I recognize that there isn't much sympathy towards those who used the systemic biases in the U.S. to avoid responsibility for their anti-social behaviors, but shouldn't we focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society for them also, if only to avoid creating even more enemies of the egalitarian society the left hopes to create?

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