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U.S. Politics: Huff and Puff the Socialism away


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About time for a new thread.

This is not awesome:

 

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The former MLB player Aubrey Huff is taking Bernie Sanders’ run for White House very seriously, teaching his sons to shoot in case the Democrat wins the presidency in 2020 and introduces socialism to the United States.

“Getting my boys trained up on how to use a gun in the unlikely event @BernieSanders beats @realDonaldTrump in 2020,” he wrote on Twitter earlier this week. “In which case knowing how to effectively use a gun under socialism will be a must.” Huff also provided a warning for anyone attempting to introduce universal free healthcare to the US: “By the way most the head shots were theirs,” he wrote alongside a picture of a shooting range target with bullet holes.

 

 

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China Hopes Trump Will Be Re-Elected

November 27, 2019 at 1:03 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 119 Comments

Washington Post: “Although he may seem unpredictable, Chinese officials are betting that Trump’s transactional approach to politics might be preferable to a more principle-driven president, whether Democrat or Republican.”

Said one politically connected person in Beijing: “Trump is a businessman. We can just pay him money and the problems will be solved. As long as we have money, we can buy him. That’s the reason why we prefer him to Democrats.”

 

Will Dems run with this at all and say something like "another foreign power says they want Trump to win because he can be bought?"  I might try that with the midwest in mind in particular though I do find the xenophobic angle distasteful.  In a strange way Russia is a nice foil because no one outside of sologdin considers anti-Russian rhetoric to contain xenophobia.  

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2 hours ago, Triskele said:

About time for a new thread.

This is not awesome:

 

Quote

 

The former MLB player Aubrey Huff is taking Bernie Sanders’ run for White House very seriously, teaching his sons to shoot in case the Democrat wins the presidency in 2020 and introduces socialism to the United States.

“Getting my boys trained up on how to use a gun in the unlikely event @BernieSanders beats @realDonaldTrump in 2020,” he wrote on Twitter earlier this week. “In which case knowing how to effectively use a gun under socialism will be a must.” Huff also provided a warning for anyone attempting to introduce universal free healthcare to the US: “By the way most the head shots were theirs,” he wrote alongside a picture of a shooting range target with bullet holes.

 

There's not accepting the outcome of an election, and then there's this. Both sides of course :rolleyes:

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33 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Will Dems run with this at all and say something like "another foreign power says they want Trump to win because he can be bought?"  I might try that with the midwest in mind in particular though I do find the xenophobic angle distasteful.

I think it's fair to couple this with Trump asking China to investigate Biden.  The 30-second ad writes itself.  Doubt it will have much of an effect, but I don't have a problem with anyone trying, and I don't think it's xenophobic.

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33 minutes ago, DMC said:

 I don't think it's xenophobic.

I don't think that it necessarily is either, but I think there's some perception out there that, to take Trump's anti-China rhetoric on his initial campaign (like the other bogey man, Mexico) had xenophobia to it.

An interesting take here on what might explain Cory Booker's failure to launch by Peter Beinart at the Atlantic (limited clicks).  

 

It ends with:

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What would have happened had Booker—who, like Obama, has a history of transgressing liberal orthodoxy—challenged his party’s leftward shift from the beginning of his presidential campaign? There’s no guarantee that he would have done better. But the harsh reality is that he could hardly have done worse.

 

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I realize there is a long tradition of endorsements, but I don't care for the look of Hillary and Obama lately. Either endorse someone or wait till your committed enough to do so, without taking a wrecking ball to candidates who have committed to running.

Last week I remember feeling a little annoyed with Hillary over the spat with Tulsi, even though I'm not Gabbard supporter. I didn't care for the interference in the campaign of a candidate from a powerful former SOS and First Lady.

This week I'm feeling that same annoyance with Obama and the stories of his unease with Warren/Sanders being too far to the left. I guess the thing I don't care for is the look of a power broker putting their thumb on the scales. Let the voters decide who they want from the Dem. candidates who are running. The former administrations officials should either run themselves or stay quiet and respect the voters preferences.

 

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Thus far, the democratic contenders don't seem all that impressive to a lot of people...but two hopeful indicators do appear in the comments to various political articles:

 

1 - None of the 'big three' - Biden, Sanders, and Warren - has the degree of venom directed at them that Hillary did.  Complaints against Biden tend to either get mired in the Ukraine stuff (which Trump fans appear to be uncomfortable discussing in depth) or refer to his senility.  Sanders and Warren are seen as more 'unrealistic' than 'compromised;' lot of comments about their agendas getting mired down in congress.  But apart from Biden, few or no insane conspiracy theories or out and out criminal allegations.

 

2 - a huge number of commentator's are stating flat out the democratic candidate will get their vote regardless of who is nominated - something I saw very little of in the run up to the last presidential election.  

 

A couple other changes affect the conservative vote in a not so positive way -

 

1 - Rural (red) US  is undergoing a massive population implosion. Older (mostly conservative) voters are dying in droves.  This is not something that is going to happen, rather it is ongoing and accelerating.  At a minimum, this will have effects on the 2020 census; more and more I suspect it'll be a major factor in the presidential election.

 

2 - Trump's recent stunts with the military - first betraying the Kurd's, then the whole SEAL war criminal pardon thing - sit very, very badly with a large segment of the military - one of the groups republicans traditionally count on.  Trumps stunts will probably cause a split in the 'military vote,' for want of a better term.  

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47 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

The former administrations officials should either run themselves or stay quiet and respect the voters preferences.

Barack Obama is not a "former administration official" nor can he run himself.  I was surprised with the background quotes given on that Sanders story - and only Sanders was specifically mentioned btw, not Warren - but I'm not surprised with his concern.  As for Hillary, that shit with Tulsi isn't gonna effect the race at all.

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New thread. And I’m going to take this chance to yell at other Vets who for some reason bitch about socialism.

The fuck do you think Tricare is except for government run healthcare?

Tricare was awesome. You went to a military hospital, told them what was wrong with you, and they fixed it.

No worries about the hospital doing extra shit and charging extra to get money from the health insurance provider. Because it was a government run hospital all they wanted to do was get you healthy and get you home. No profit motivation.

 

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12 hours ago, Triskele said:

About time for a new thread.

This is not awesome:

 

 

He's a sexist bigot and an idiot with lots of $ which is a lethal combination. He also follows along with the sorts of people who divide the world into Alpha and Beta males and red and blue pills. His Twitter feed is a sinkhole of insecurity and meathead.

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Two sets of books Donald, really? One for lenders and a different set of figures for the tax man, outright fraud and tax cheating. Remember Leona Helmsley Donny? That's you, that's your deserving future. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tower-financial-fraud-lenders-propublica-2019-11

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A Black Man Dishes on Mayor Pete

https://www.theroot.com/pete-buttigieg-is-a-lying-mf-1840038708

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Pete Buttigieg Is a Lying MF

I’m just a lucky motherfucker.

Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is a lucky motherfucker, too.

He attended one of the best private schools in the country that was quite literally on the campus of one of the best colleges in the country, University of Notre Dame, where his father worked as a professor for 29 years. His mother taught at an even better, more elite school. And if you ask how he got into Harvard or became a Rhodes Scholar, Mayor Pete would probably insist that it had nothing to do with whiteness. He would likely tell you that he valued education and had great role models, both of which are probably true. There is no question that he is intelligent, hard-working and well-educated.

But he didn’t have to jump a ditch. [which the author had to do to get to the only high school, from the projects, if he wanted to get to school at all] ....

.... Mayor Pete’s bullshittery is not just wrong, it is proof.

It proves men like him are more willing to perpetuate the fantastic narrative of negro neighborhoods needing more role models and briefcase-carriers than make the people in power stare into the sun and see the blinding light of racism. Get-along moderates would rather make shit up out of whole cloth than wade into the waters of reality. Pete Buttigieg doesn’t want to change anything. He just wants to be something.

This is not just a lie of omission, it is a dangerous precedent. This is why institutional inequality persists. Not because of white hoods and racial slurs. It is because this insidious double-talk erases the problem by camouflaging it. Because it is painted as a problem of black lethargy and not white apathy. Pete Buttigieg is standing over a dying man, holding the oxygen machine in his hand and telling everyone:

“Nah, he doesn’t need CPR. He’s just holding his breath.”....

 

After dinner conversation turned to Bloomberg (our hostess worked directly with him for several years at Bloomberg News).  She says the rich Dems she knows are saying the candidate is going to be him.  He's the one they want.  Which was how I saw it, when in company with very rich Dems, who consider themselves liberals back before Obama shredded it for their chosen one, Hillary.  

I don't see the 'diversity' vote coming out for him at all, no matter what.  Any more than they did for Hillary.  Bloomberg is so boring to look at and listen to, despite having a great deal of all the money in the world. And he doesn't give a damn about any of the issues beyond guns and the environment, because they create the instability that is even near to impossible to control even by men like him. 

So, I guess we can expect 2020 to be yet another Dem failure because they can't tolerate the truth that the Dems are the party of diversity and without a candidate that appeals to those voters they cannot win the White House.

 

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cannot win the White House

i don't think it an ultraleft deviationism to regard this sort of failure as the electorate getting punished with fascism for a while because of its credulous ideological mix of exceptionalist imperialism and market triumphalism.

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Lol, love this bit at the end about "files and pays taxes to herself".

marco antonio torres/flickr

Population: 1

Why it’s a great small town: As the smallest incorporated municipality in the entire United States, there is nowhere in the country quite like Monowi. This miniscule Nebraska town was slowly abandoned by all but two of its residents: Elsie and Rudy Eiler. When Rudy passed away in 2004, Elsie became Monowi’s sole resident, mayor, librarian and bartender. People love to stop by the Monowi Tavern to chat with Elsie (pictured here) and learn about the town’s history. 

Fun fact: Elsie files and pays taxes to herself, and also grants her own license for the bar.

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an obvious example of collectivist tyranny wherein the population and the sovereign coincide without remainder, the three branches of municipal governance merge into a solitary entity, the dystopic public knows everything that its citizenry does, and some mindless bureaucrat has daily totalitarian control over the private decisions traditionally reserved for civil siciety.  

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On 11/27/2019 at 1:28 AM, Triskele said:

This is sort of out of nowhere but a question crossed my mind that feels worth exploring if anyone would indulge me, and it's this:

If you like Warren, what's your aversion to Sanders (assuming have any aversion and don't just prefer Warren by a slim margin)?

Where I'm getting at with this question is that I realized that I was someone who leaned Warren but then wondered what the logic was that I wasn't seeming that willing to consider Sanders, so I am soliciting feedback.

Is it a demonstrable difference between the policy platform of the two?  Is it brainwashing by party insiders that we've failed to see?  

Joking on the latter (sort of).  And definitely not meaning to rip on Warren all of the sudden.  But it feels like a lot of Warren people are both "no way" on Biden/Pete but also "no way" on Bernie.  That seems bizarre from a certain perspective.  

A very long-winded way of asking to myself "If Warren starts to go down, am I a Bernie guy (Bernie bro?) after all?"

Since none of you will support Booker I have to ponder.  

Okay, I started on this the other day, then didn't get close to finishing it. Anyway...

Short answer: I soured on Bernie by the end of the 2016 primary and that has continued during the time that has passed since then, plus I think he's kind of a fuck up, so I'm reluctant to support him now.

Long version: I think Bernie has an extraordinarily narrow view of problems and refuses to considers alternatives, no matter how obvious it becomes that his theories are out of touch. I think he's so set on going back to the state of the world 50 years ago he doesn't see how the larger world and environment has changed and those solutions aren't viable anymore. I think his heart is in the right place but he's only interested in what he wants to see and is oblivious to anything else, which is a terrible quality in a president. (I always think back on part of a debate I listened to while driving in 2016. Sanders and Clinton were asked about problems in Central and South America, and Sanders got peevish and basically said "Why are we talking about South America? I'm running to be president of the United States!" Because, y'know, it's not like anything that happens in another country can ever effect the US, right?)

For a lot of the 2016 primary, he didn't really put out much detail about his proposals, and when he did, they often got things wrong and were called out even by left aligned think tanks and analysts. He often seems all too willing to throw social, gender, or racial causes under the bus in pursuit of his economic goals. 

I want a lot of the things Bernie wants. I just don't think he's going to be able to deliver on any of it. Meanwhile Warren wants very similar things and almost always has a far more solid idea of how to get it. And because I do worry about Bernie screwing up an attempt at getting solid momentum for a leftward push in US politics, I would be willing to accept some candidates with more modest proposals (such as Booker) before him.

If it came down to Bernie vs one of the "moderates" like Biden, Klobuchar, Bloomberg, or Buttigieg, I'd go with Bernie. Until then, he's Plan C behind Warren and some of the younger candidates, like Booker, Castro, and Harris, all of whom are struggling mightily and are unlikely to get anywhere in this election, sadly.

My $.02.

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