US Politics: Mail and Managers for Mitch

[KingintheNorth4]

Pete Buttigieg looks and sounds like a side character in an Adam Sandler comedy.

[Zorral]

10 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I agree, it is pretty ridiculous tonight.

Because of which this stupid thing They call a debate is a stupid waste of time.  It's only the media that lurves these things coz, you know money and national face time for it / Them.

[KingintheNorth4]

This debate is meant to smear Bernie and be an infomercial for everyone else.

[Durckad]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I am so fucking tired of the fucking debate moderators using fucking Republican talking points as their debate question prep.

"Senator Sanders... you call yourself a Democratic Socialist. Can you explain to the American people just how many gulags you will build, how many people you will put in them, and just what exactly the cost of it all would be?  You have 30 seconds."

50 minutes ago, Triskele said:

I didn't realize that Steyer was going to align so much on the progressive side of things within the Dem debate context.  

Honestly, if our president is going to be a billionaire, we could do a whole lot worse than Steyer *coughbloombergcough*.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

*puts one arm around AHNS' shoulders*

*uses other arm to make a sweeping gesture*

What if we fired it? Out of a cannon? Into the sun?

Only if you have a biological mass synthesized out of Superman's hair. So we can have our own Solar powered Nuclear-Man.

Spoiler

Similarities to the plot of Superman IV (the original with Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman and *sigh* for whatever reason with Jon Cryer). Are purely incidental.

 

[Kalbear]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

Like cows and pigs and our own food waste release methane into the atmosphere so thus we must, They Say, stop eating meat (and eat bugs instead). Miniscule changes make large impacts, which is proved over and over and over. 

No, not like that. Those are not particularly minuscule when you're talking about several billion people. When you're talking about the heat production of one plant, well, you're basically talking about immeasurable values into the environment. A small lake has more thermal output. 

Really, at this point you clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about and are associating the methane production of cows with the thermal production of one nuclear plant as vaguely equivalent. Please learn more.

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

MOREOVER solar panels and mirrors don't provide at all the meltdown overheating disasters that nuclear energy has proven it does.

That's absolutely a reasonable and fair point, and you should lead with that. Nuclear power may help climate change improve, but it doesn't matter if we cause massive climate catastrophes. 

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

So.

Can a woman beat Donald Trump?

Probably not, no. The US is simply too sexist to vote for a woman POTUS right now, with a strong economy and an incumbency bias. 

[Liffguard]

5 hours ago, Durckad said:

"Senator Sanders... you call yourself a Democratic Socialist. Can you explain to the American people just how many gulags you will build, how many people you will put in them, and just what exactly the cost of it all would be?  You have 30 seconds."

Edit: board playing up. Please ignore.

[mormont]

6 hours ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

This debate is meant to smear Bernie and be an infomercial for everyone else.

That's so unfair. After all, if he's nominated Bernie will totally not have to respond to any media smears. 

It's almost as if candidates were expected to be able to deal with public perceptions of them. 

[Gorn]

7 hours ago, Triskele said:

I didn't realize that Steyer was going to align so much on the progressive side of things within the Dem debate context.  

When I took the candidate quiz, I was surprised to see that Steyer was the second closest candidate to my views (after Sanders). I hate the whole idea of a super-rich person with no other qualifications effectively buying a presidency, but between Trump, Bloomberg, Yang and Steyer, I think that Steyer would be the least-awful choice.

[butterbumps!]

18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Why? This a zero sum game and all that matters is getting Trump out of office. None of Bernie’s plans will pass so it’s not like you have much to worry about. Hell, if anything his presidency would likely kill any socialist movement for years, maybe decades. I’d think you’d want that.

In addition to the belief that a Sanders nom will hand Trump a victory, this has a lot to do with why I really, really wish Sanders was not running.  He’s a leader of a movement and a cult of personality, not an executive.  One of the problems with cults of personalities is that for people who aren’t part of the charmed, it’s extremely abrasive.  I find him to be all style, no substance, and a style I find insufferable.  Biden and Sanders may be leading, but they also engender very little love outside their circles of support, and a lot of people really, really dislike Sanders.  

Per other comments in this thread, I think his fight for M4A will be to raise his voice louder.  I think there’s a higher chance more people get insurance under any number of the other candidates than Sanders, as others have much more fleshed out plans and willingness to modify/ compromise, Warren in particular.

(And for the record, some of where I got Sanders so low in that WaPo quiz was divergence in areas he is for the status quo like his not packing the court and no gun control.  I do want the country moving in the direction he’s pulling, so this isn’t me being a moderate curmudgeon.)

I think he’d help the country best if he just embraced being a leader, rallying crowds, but throwing support behind more substantial candidates whole-heartedly.   I genuinely think his and Biden’s continued pursuit of the presidency is not great for the country overall.  I would have loved to see what the field would look like right now if these two with the strongest name recognition, but not necessarily strongest candidacies, were not running.

 

[Gertrude]

1 hour ago, butterbumps! said:

Per other comments in this thread, I think his fight for M4A will be to raise his voice louder.  I think there’s a higher chance more people get insurance under any number of the other candidates than Sanders, as others have much more fleshed out plans and willingness to modify/ compromise, Warren in particular.

Yeah, I'm not blind to that, it's why I'm waffling between them. I think Liz would actually get more done, but I think Sanders would drag the window further and he's more passionate (but I recognize that's style). I also weigh comments from Rs I talk to that occasionally say 'Hey, Warren said something I actually agree with", mostly with trust-busting, but other stances as well. Bernie is just a dirty communist.

[Fragile Bird]

8 hours ago, Triskele said:

If Bloomberg puts his money where his mouth is on spending $1 billion against Trump even if he's not the nominee (we shall see) that would really be the ideal scenario, wouldn't it?   He has suggested he may do this. 

Bloomberg should call up Bezos and say ‘toss in a billion with me and we’ll offer that fucker $2B not to run. No strings attached. Let’s see if he takes the bait.’

[IheartIheartTesla]

Just to comment on the nuclear plant stuff, at least for the US electricity and transportation are roughly 30% each of our national emissions profile (and agriculture is 10%). So decarbonizing our grid is nothing to sneeze at (somewhere in the vicinity of 2 billion metric tonnes of CO2 equivalents). 

Nuclear of course is not THE solution, but an important intermediate one in my opinion.

 

[Maithanet]

4 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Just to comment on the nuclear plant stuff, at least for the US electricity and transportation are roughly 30% each of our national emissions profile (and agriculture is 10%). So decarbonizing our grid is nothing to sneeze at (somewhere in the vicinity of 2 billion metric tonnes of CO2 equivalents). 

Nuclear of course is not THE solution, but an important intermediate one in my opinion.

 

With nuclear the focus should be on extending the life of every nuclear plant we already have.  If those plants are decommissioned, it will significantly increase GHG emissions over the next 10, 20, 30 years.  In contrast, building new nuclear plants won't reduce our emissions in 2025.  Won't reduce them in 2030.  Probably won't reduce them in 2035.  That money should instead be spent on wind, solar, biomass, and other projects that can decarbonize the grid in the near term.

Nuclear was a reasonable GHG mitigation strategy in the 90s, in spite of its drawbacks.  If we'd made a push then for nuclear we could have a bunch of plants online now, and that would really help.  But the situation has changed - renewables are cheaper and the climate crisis is more pronounced. 

[Gaston de Foix]

55 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Bloomberg should call up Bezos and say ‘toss in a billion with me and we’ll offer that fucker $2B not to run. No strings attached. Let’s see if he takes the bait.’

He would immediately demand 15 bn.  Besides, you shouldn't reward bad behavior, you should punish it. 

[Paladin of Ice]

11 hours ago, DMC said:

Pretty sure all women that can should be allowed to beat Donald Trump.

Should have started happening 50 years ago, and maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today.

Also, a woman beat Trump by 3 million votes last time, and that was a woman who has been smeared nonstop for about 30 years, despite far too many people voting third party, and it was before Trump spent 4 years pissing all over the country and alienating everyone who isn't a Fox News, Breitbart, or OAN addict. There were also people who more or less refused to have an opinion on Trump in 2016 or convinced themselves that maybe it was all a front, or that he was a blank slate that could be led into being the sort of president they wanted if only he surrounded himself with the right advisors, etc.

A lot of those people got pretty damn disappointed by about 6-8 months into the Trump administration. A lot of them won't be sitting out or voting third party again.

Of course, maybe not everyone has learned the lesson, if some posts here are anything to go by.

Quote

Nuclear was a reasonable GHG mitigation strategy in the 90s, in spite of its drawbacks.  If we'd made a push then for nuclear we could have a bunch of plants online now, and that would really help.  But the situation has changed - renewables are cheaper and the climate crisis is more pronounced. 

Yeah, basically. Those plants would have to be online now, or coming online, to make a difference or play the role that they should. Considering how long it takes to build a plant and get it running, starting it now is likely to to be too late. As far as I can see, we're at the point where they'll help at the margins, but it's too late for them to really be part of the solution.

[Maithanet]

I still find it kind of amazing that so many people are willing to accept a B minus version of Obama.  It's like if we had President Michael Jordan from 1990 to 1998, and then people were like "let's elect President Pippin".  We all know how that's gonna go, right? 

I mean, I like Biden.  If he's the nominee, voting for him won't feel like a soul crushing compromise or anything.  It's just a very uninspired choice.  He wasn't good enough to be the nominee in 1988 or 2008, but now, in 2020, when he's 76 and clearly not as sharp mentally as he used to be, NOW is the time bet it all on Biden?  I don't get it. 

I feel like Biden should wear a shirt that says "World's Okayest candidate". 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

 

I feel like Biden should wear a shirt that says "World's Okayest candidate". 

With the secondary tag line "He won't fix anything, but at least he won't f*ck up anything else too badly"

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

It's like if we had President Michael Jordan from 1990 to 1998, and then people were like "let's elect President Pippin".  We all know how that's gonna go, right? 

Hey now, that comparison is an insult to Scotty Pippen!  Biden was not nearly as productive or integral to the administration/team's success.