Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 5 minutes ago, Gertrude said: I swear, every time I think "this, THIS is the breaking point. Rs can't deny THIS, right?" I go on a right wing site and see how it's being spun and the fan boys cheering it and I get depressed all over again. Precisely. This is what I'm railing about to my friends and family who I would call "reluctant Trump" supporters. I'm asking them what it will actually take for this horrible human being to do before you will withdraw your "reluctant support"? Hell, my Father who I love and respect was attempting to claim that Trump's tweet about the Stone sentencing was the same thing as a private citizen expressing their opinion. I let him know in no uncertain terms that private citizens don't control employment and policy at the DOJ. Private citizens aren't talking about the possibility of pardoning people who happen to be allies of Trump. It just makes my blood boil to see rational people offering apologia for this horrible man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 15 hours ago, DMC said: Pretty good case being made by Steve Kornacki that this might be a big night for Klobuchar. @Tywin et al. - time to dust off and dry clean the gimp suit! I’m starting to wonder if I made a huge mistake blowing off a holiday party for current and former staff. I knew when I got the email out of the blue that it was a signal she was running. Two weeks later she did so in the most Minnesota way possible. @Maithanet, I’m too lazy to go back and find the exact comment, but told ya Amy and Pete would surprise people in the early states. Also called the end of Warren, and Biden will be out soon too. Side note, Sanders should actually be worried about last night’s results. He got less than half the votes he got in 2016, and even if you combine his and Warren’s votes, it’s still at just two-thirds. Once the moderates figure out who their candidate he’s going to have serious problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 11 hours ago, DMC said: I think this has always been clear. Like, in 2015, it was obvious Sanders' vote was inflated by anti-Clinton vote. But last time there weren't as many candidates among whom the voters divvied out (to use a time-honored midwestern locution) their votes. So this speculation upon a lower percentage this time doesn't seem to be so cogent an analysis? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Bernie's messaging isn't the problem with Bernie's candidacy...Bernie is the problem with Bernie's candidacy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanteGabriel Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 36 minutes ago, Kalbear said: This thread amused me - it's a sanders supporter now just realizing that antagonizing other candidates and their supporters might not in fact be the best strategy. And it is of course filled with people doing exactly that. (Not meant to be representative of anything other than humor) Lol, that same guy was retweeting attacks on Warren just hours earlier. He deserves all the snake emojis he's getting back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 5 hours ago, butterbumps! said: but he just keeps looking like a weaker and weaker candidate to me. Going from 23 points ahead in NH in 2016 to less than 2 points over nobody Buttigieg doesn’t strike me as a position of strength. Pete and Amy are in essentially the same lane, which beats Sanders about 45 to 25, even if you assume best case scenario for Sanders that consolidation of all others would be a wash between the two lanes. Idk if I’m missing something, but I’m seeing these two primary results as more of an indictment of Sanders’ general electability than evidence of any kind of widespread desire for him in office. If Klobuchar is actually happening, I tend to think she has the best electability argument of the pack, Yeah, Sanders did underperform a bit last night, but a win is a win, so that's a bit nitpicky. What was big for Sanders last night, as I suggested, was Klobuchar's emergence. If her support had stayed ~ where Biden and Warren were at, and a large proportion of that ~10% dip went to Buttigieg, he would look a lot closer to consolidating the "anti" or non-Sanders vote today than he does. Instead, we still have three clearly viable candidates in Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Biden competing for the non-Sanders vote in NV and SC; Warren still apparently staying in at least for the time being; and Bloomberg is of course still looming to perpetuate that breaking up of the non-Sanders vote come Super Tuesday. Basically, a shitshow, and that shitshow gives Sanders a huge advantage and clear path because he clearly has the strongest, most active, and most reliable support in such a situation. But yeah, Klobuchar definitely replaces Warren at the top of my ranked preferences based on who I now think is "viable," (like I said last night, I think Warren's done). It is quite frustrating as someone with a strong distaste for Bernie as a candidate (based mostly on his personal qualities, not his ideology) that Klobuchar and Buttigieg couldn't just get in a room together, flip a coin, and one of them take that ~45% they got combined last night. 46 minutes ago, Zorral said: But last time there weren't as many candidates among whom the voters divvied out (to use a time-honored midwestern locution) their votes. So this speculation upon a lower percentage this time doesn't seem to be so cogent an analysis? Right. It's rather obvious Sanders is going to get less support with so many competitive candidates as opposed to when it was essentially a 1 on 1 matchup between him and Hillary from the start in 2016. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbigski Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 2 hours ago, Darzin said: The DNC are scared that he will turn the election from a referendum on Donald Trump, into a referendum on socialism vs capitalism which they feel will lose the election and if not harm down ballot races. I am scared of that as well I mean in this very thread we have moderates who hate Trump but talk about having difficulty supporting Sanders. I think Warren would have been the stronger progressive option since she had very similar policies but also was willing to say she was a capitalist and willing to support capitalism. Also the DNC can't actually do anything it's up to Democratic voters to decide. Rampant hypocrisy does go down a lot smoother when the media is ideologically aligned and will you give you cover. Am I reading your post correctly that her dishonesty is a feature? 2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said: I see Trump is now saying (tweeting?) that the army is considering taking action against Vindman. No one should be above the law. If he actually was shitting on the chain of command then there should be consequences. 1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Precisely. This is what I'm railing about to my friends and family who I would call "reluctant Trump" supporters. I'm asking them what it will actually take for this horrible human being to do before you will withdraw your "reluctant support"? Hell, my Father who I love and respect was attempting to claim that Trump's tweet about the Stone sentencing was the same thing as a private citizen expressing their opinion. I let him know in no uncertain terms that private citizens don't control employment and policy at the DOJ. Private citizens aren't talking about the possibility of pardoning people who happen to be allies of Trump. It just makes my blood boil to see rational people offering apologia for this horrible man. What's the problem with Trump expressing his opinion on this? He has the legitimate power to unilaterally commute Stone's sentence to zero via pardon. He's actually being restrained by merely commenting. When a bunch of Democrat appointee holdovers resign in protest, and the next day the House is rumbling about investigations, it's clearly just more of the same manufactured outrage. Why can't the Democrats "Move on?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mexal Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 2 hours ago, Maithanet said: Trump's weird Biden obsession always struck me as odd because I didn't think he would be the democratic nominee. While his polling throughout 2019 was strong, his debates were poor, and his overall campaign seemed unfocused and listless. More and more it looks like Biden was the #1 choice for people who have paid no attention to the race. That's good enough for a while, because most democratic voters only start paying attention when voting is about to start. But once that happened, Biden fell apart. While Trumps hit job doesn't HELP, I'm really skeptical that it made much of a difference. I haven't met a single Democrat who even thinks Joe did something wrong in Ukraine, let alone illegal. Hunter Biden showed bad judgement OMG!! In some ways I think Biden benefitted from being Trump enemy #1, becuase it made him seem more formidable. Instead, the simpler story makes a lot more sense: Biden was a weak candidate who ran a poor campaign. Once people got a good look at him, it became obvious why he was a non-factor the other two times he ran. So I get this and I get what everyone is saying. But I never met a single Democrat who thought Hillary did anything wrong yet it depressed turnout in key states and made a material difference in the election which she lost. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the combination of Biden running a mediocre campaign, the consistent attacking by Trump and all of his surrogates, fear of his electability in a general with a consistent Republican attack plus "other choices in a similar lane" has contributed to his free fall. I, in no way, think that the last 6 months of constant Hunter/Joe Biden corruption attacks has helped him or people's perceptions that he could beat Trump. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drawkcabi Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Precisely. This is what I'm railing about to my friends and family who I would call "reluctant Trump" supporters. I'm asking them what it will actually take for this horrible human being to do before you will withdraw your "reluctant support"? Hell, my Father who I love and respect was attempting to claim that Trump's tweet about the Stone sentencing was the same thing as a private citizen expressing their opinion. I let him know in no uncertain terms that private citizens don't control employment and policy at the DOJ. Private citizens aren't talking about the possibility of pardoning people who happen to be allies of Trump. It just makes my blood boil to see rational people offering apologia for this horrible man. My neighbor is one of the best people I've ever known in my life. An army veteran of Gulf War I, wounded and suffers from PTSD but is a true give you the shirt off his back kind of guy. He's helped me and my family out so many times I can't count them. However with all this impeachment, trial, etc. going on he's always riding the line "They're (elected politicians) all corrupt we should throw them all out!" if I grant him that but say "Trump is the worst though and we need to start with him" he just disagrees and says (paraphrasing) "No, he's no more corrupt than the others, throw them all out or no one." Kinda like some say once you're wet, you're wet you can't get wetter, once you're corrupt you're corrupt can't get more corrupt. Only that's so not true, even the wet analogy is off, that's why we have words like moist, damp, drenched, soaked... But yeah, it's frustrating, especially when you know no matter what you say you can't change someone's mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Precisely. This is what I'm railing about to my friends and family who I would call "reluctant Trump" supporters. I'm asking them what it will actually take for this horrible human being to do before you will withdraw your "reluctant support"? Hell, my Father who I love and respect was attempting to claim that Trump's tweet about the Stone sentencing was the same thing as a private citizen expressing their opinion. I let him know in no uncertain terms that private citizens don't control employment and policy at the DOJ. Private citizens aren't talking about the possibility of pardoning people who happen to be allies of Trump. It just makes my blood boil to see rational people offering apologia for this horrible man. And yet you think that some horrible outrage will be the cause of a civil war. How do you square this actual evidence with this thought? Republicans now are fully onboard with any and all atrocities caused by Trump. Any who wouldn't be have long declared themselves independent. There is no line they will not cross. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 16 minutes ago, mcbigski said: 1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: What's the problem with Trump expressing his opinion on this? He has the legitimate power to unilaterally commute Stone's sentence to zero via pardon. He's actually being restrained by merely commenting. When a bunch of Democrat appointee holdovers resign in protest, and the next day the House is rumbling about investigations, it's clearly just more of the same manufactured outrage. Why can't the Democrats "Move on The problem is the President isn’t a Judge and it is fundamentally inappropriate for him to comment on any criminal case (because of his influence) much less a case where he is friends with the convicted Defendant. It is within his power to commute or pardon but he is neither a judge nor a prosecutor. His interference with this case is illustrative of Trump’s view that he “owns” the Executive branch because he is President. He does not. He was not elected King for 4 years. The DOJ (and the rest of the Executive branch) does not work for him. They, and Trump, work for us and act on our behalf. Interposing himself in a case he is personally interested in is a perfect example of the abuse of power that should be grounds for removal from office. And you know I would say exactly the same thing if a Democratic President were behaving in a similar fashion. Donald Trump is unworthy of the office he holds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Also, a POTUS having the ability to pardon does not make that pardon consequence free, and using pardons as a way to encourage illegal behavior is obstruction of justice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 4 minutes ago, Kalbear said: And yet you think that some horrible outrage will be the cause of a civil war. How do you square this actual evidence with this thought? Republicans now are fully onboard with any and all atrocities caused by Trump. Any who wouldn't be have long declared themselves independent. There is no line they will not cross. I think that if Trump openly declares himself above the Constitution, openly (without claiming it’s a joke to “troll the libs”) that he will seek a third term (assuming for sake of discussion that he wins a second term) regardless of the 22nd Amendment, or refuses to surrender the office of the POTUS if he loses that all bets are off and we are in uncharted waters. Waters that could lead to civil war if even a significant minority of the US military attempts to back his claim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice Queen Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 3 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: I think that if Trump openly declares himself above the Constitution, openly (without claiming it’s a joke to “troll the libs”) that he will seek a third term (assuming for sake of discussion that he wins a second term) regardless of the 22nd Amendment, or refuses to surrender the office of the POTUS if he loses that all bets are off and we are in uncharted waters. Waters that could lead to civil war if even a significant minority of the US military attempts to back his claim. Then We the People storm the Bastille and he'll go out just like the Romanovs. Before anyone gets their hackles up, I hope that doesn't happen. But if he refuses to leave and the Secret Service doesn't do its job and remove him, then there's really no other option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Scot A Ellison Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 7 minutes ago, Ice Queen said: Then We the People storm the Bastille and he'll go out just like the Romanovs. Before anyone gets their hackles up, I hope that doesn't happen. But if he refuses to leave and the Secret Service doesn't do its job and remove him, then there's really no other option. Is it the Secret Service's job to remove someone refusing to vacate the White House? I suppose I can see that as they provide protection for the incoming administration, what is odd, is that they provide protection for former Presidents as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fragile Bird Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 47 minutes ago, mcbigski said: No one should be above the law. If he actually was shitting on the chain of command then there should be consequences. Don’t be ridiculous - he followed the rules every step of the way. And when served with a subpoena, he obeyed the subpoena. As a soldier he’s taken an oath to follow the law, hasn’t he? What Trump is doing is trying to shut up anyone else from following the rules if he says they shouldn’t. Trump has repeatedly broken the law, but he’s above the law, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maithanet Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 41 minutes ago, Mexal said: So I get this and I get what everyone is saying. But I never met a single Democrat who thought Hillary did anything wrong yet it depressed turnout in key states and made a material difference in the election which she lost. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the combination of Biden running a mediocre campaign, the consistent attacking by Trump and all of his surrogates, fear of his electability in a general with a consistent Republican attack plus "other choices in a similar lane" has contributed to his free fall. I, in no way, think that the last 6 months of constant Hunter/Joe Biden corruption attacks has helped him or people's perceptions that he could beat Trump. There were definitely Democrats on the forum that said having a private email server is wrong and possibly illegal. Obviously the Republican outrage was completely overblown and manufactured, but it showed a certain "the rules don't apply to me" attitude that fed into the narrative that had formed in 8 years of Bill's presidency. In contrast, everyone who cares about facts agreed that Joe Biden did nothing wrong, full stop. I can concede that it didn't help Biden, but a good candidate would have been able to sell the line "see how afraid of me Trump is? I'm the guy you want leading the fight!" Biden tried to do that, but failed, just like everything else he did in this campaign. Biden was a bad candidate, and eventually bad candidates get exposed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IheartIheartTesla Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 Well, I'm just learning about Klobuchar's record as a prosecutor. How damn difficult is it for all these prosecutors to show some empathy? And why are they all Democrats? We have 4 candidates now (Bloombergy, Pete, Klobuchar and Harris) who have been problematic when it comes to race and harsh enforcing of the law. I shouldn't give Biden a pass either for his busing+tough sentencing, so let's make it 5. I always felt that the Democrats taking the AA vote for granted was a bit of a stretch, but now I can see if I were in the AA community I wouldnt be enthused about any of the above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 22 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Is it the Secret Service's job to remove someone refusing to vacate the White House? I suppose I can see that as they provide protection for the incoming administration, what is odd, is that they provide protection for former Presidents as well. They swear an oath to protect the Constitution and the country from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. If we arrive at this point in time Trump would officially be a domestic enemy of the country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice Queen Posted February 12, 2020 Share Posted February 12, 2020 24 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said: Is it the Secret Service's job to remove someone refusing to vacate the White House? I suppose I can see that as they provide protection for the incoming administration, what is odd, is that they provide protection for former Presidents as well. I have no idea. But SOMEONE is going to have to do it. DC police? The military? Edit: NVM. Tywin answered that pretty well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.