US Politics: Help Me Vladimir!!! Xi Wants Me to Lose!!!

[Stannis Cool-Ranchus]

12 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Somebody made a sarcastic statement about the source you cited in a moronic post.

I heard somebody sayin' HIllary is gonna be Biden's running mate. Which has such a Trumpian (lack of) quality to it. I heard somewhere, could've been anywhere, could've been nowhere, could've been the voices in my head, or underwear gnomes. Who knows?

Oh, yeah that somebody was me.

If you want to be taken seriously, about HRC being the running mate on the Biden ticket, make a logical argument for why she could possibly be a candidate. I can't find a single one. She is obviously not that popular with the electorate (as proven in 2016), she doesn't add any new section of voters to a Biden campaign. She adds zero political value. In addition to the sexual assault/rape allegations against Biden, we'd also hear about Bill again ad nauseam. So really, name one upside?

If you or Simon go off about: I heard it on a podcast, or because the DNC is tone deaf and stupid, or cite some drivel from the Hill, then I (and presumably a few other boarders here) won't take you serious, and will regard it as silly whining (at best) or smearing.

Well I'd think prefacing a comment with "somebody told me" would make it fairly obvious I wasn't "peer reviewing" my comments. And what I said was that somebody told me her campaign website updated its policy section a few months ago. I'll assume the reason you changed the wording is that you realize how asinine your response was in proportion to what I said. I don't know who Simon is and how he's clearly hurt you, but don't dump that on me.

And again, just FOR THE MODS, I am not the one bringing this up.

[sologdin]

any DC attorneys who can opine upon the criminal complaint?  

as i see it, the applicable statutes in the current code were revised in 1994, so the 1981 DC criminal code applies, as archived.

§ 22-4101(8)(C) therein defines sexual act as 'the penetration, however slight, of the anus or vulva by a hand or finger or by any object, with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.

This seems to describe fairly the central allegation against biden.  there are four felony degrees for sexual abuse, all of which require a 'sexual act' as defined, and one misdemeanor offense.  under these rules, it looks like the allegations are on the knife's edge between the fourth degree felony and the misdemeanor--but we really need someone who does DC criminal law to explain how the cases shake out.

that said, the real problem is in 1981's § 23-113, the statute of limitation:

Quote

(a) Time Limitations

(1) A prosecution for murder in the first or second degree may be commenced at any time.

(2) Except as provided in paragraph (4), a prosecution for a felony other than murder in first or second degree is barred if not commenced within six years after it is committed.

[...]

the criminal complaint is likely toast, then--even though the revised statute of limitation makes felony sex offenses imprescriptible--any argument here that the revised statute of limitation has retroactive effect in DC criminal law? 

I suspect that a corollary tort claim in civil court and an ethics violation complaint would also be untimely at this point? If so, that means there's no chance to get biden or reade under oath.

[DMC]

10 minutes ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

That's just the effect of their policies. If they could keep everybody covered and still make billions of dollars for the private insurance industry I'm sure they would. I'm not saying the ACA isn't better than just not covering people. But it is a right-wing plan invented in a right-wing think-tank and rolled out by Mitt Romney. I'm not denying it works for some people, but these are the facts.

It's the effect of the left prioritizing coverage while the GOP could care less.  It's a also a fact that the ACA moved the status quo for healthcare policy leftward.  Are you arguing the status quo pre-ACA was closer to the left's preferred policy outcomes?  Because if so, you're simply wrong.

12 minutes ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

No, what I said is that we'd be better off with everybody insured and I see that as the only acceptable solution and the only thing I'll support.

That's an excellent strategy to achieving nothing at all and allowing the Overton window to move further right.

[GrimTuesday]

I don't know how you folks feel about Sam Seder, but I am a big fan, and I think that his analysis of the whole left wing voting for Biden thing. I have cued it up to the start of the discussion and it goes for about 10 minutes. I think that it might be good for people on both sides, as far as leftists taking something constructive away, and for more moderates on how to talk to with disaffected people who are unhappy about voting for Biden. In our discourse among the left and its component parts, those of us further to the left need to be able to see that those who are willing to vote for someone who isn't in line with where we need to go aren't necessarily at that position because they are against our vision, and those who are already on board need to see just because those of us on the left are critical of Biden doesn't mean that we all seek to undermine and sabotauge him and are therefore ok with another 4 years of Trump.

 

[Stannis Cool-Ranchus]

Just now, DMC said:

It's the effect of the left prioritizing coverage while the GOP could care less.  It's a also a fact that the ACA moved the status quo for healthcare policy leftward.  Are you arguing the status quo pre-ACA was closer to the left's preferred policy outcomes?  Because if so, you're simply wrong.

If the democrats prioritized coverage we'd all be covered. They prioritize coverage in a way that still makes their donors money. I don't want that and I'm not supporting that. I'll support someone who doesn't take Super PAC money because then I know they are working for ME, the person who voted for them, not the corporations that pay for their advertising.

[DMC]

Just now, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

They prioritize coverage in a way that still makes their donors money.

I suppose if you're ~25 years old or younger you may think the healthcare industry didn't intensely oppose the passage of Obamacare.  But otherwise this is just insanely naive or from someone that wasn't paying attention at all to the battle to get the ACA passed.

[Stannis Cool-Ranchus]

Just now, DMC said:

I suppose if you're ~25 years old or younger you may think the healthcare industry didn't intensely oppose the passage of Obamacare.  But otherwise this is just insanely naive or from someone that wasn't paying attention at all to the battle to get the ACA passed.

I don't even know what this means. Because the private healthcare industry opposed the few concessions the ACA squeezed out of them that means it wasn't a business friendly plan? What part of what I said do you think is contradicted by this?

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

Because the private healthcare industry opposed the few concessions the ACA squeezed out of them that means it wasn't a business friendly plan? What part of what I said do you think is contradicted by this?

The part where the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress passed the ACA in an effort to "still make donors money" when these "donors" you're referring to were bankrolling efforts to defeat the ACA's passage, and Obama, and the Democratic Congress.

[GrimTuesday]

18 minutes ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

I don't even know what this means. Because the private healthcare industry opposed the few concessions the ACA squeezed out of them that means it wasn't a business friendly plan? What part of what I said do you think is contradicted by this?

I dislike the ACA too as far as I view it much the same as you, that much of it is little more than a giveaway to the healthcare industry and that the Democrats missed their opportunity to do something truly transfomative, but the patient protections part is very important and should not be minimized. The healthcare industry is going to to viciously resist any attempt to curb its greed and cruelty, which is why it needs to be done away with entirely, so within the framework that we have to work in those "tiny concessions" taken on their own are a pretty big win.

[DanteGabriel]

4 minutes ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

I never said Democrats were corrupt and useless. They're better than Republicans, but I'd rather withhold my vote until enough centrists get the message and support a progressive than go back to the system that produced Trump and, if allowed to continue, would surely produce another.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm saying first, we don't really have time for it, and second, electing Joe Biden president is incrementalism in the wrong direction.

I think Biden will go the way the caucus pushes him. Hillary Clinton's platform was the furthest left platform the Democratic Party has ever had. Biden is incorporating priorities from Bernie and Warren. This is the only kind of incrementalism we're going to get. It's a dangerous delusion to think that it would be better to have Trump and 51 Democrats than Biden -- especially because a Biden victory is more likely to bring the Senate with it than a Trump victory is.

You think 51 Democrats and Trump leads to a better outcome? Trump still gets to appoint lifetime federal judges, staff the executive branch, and nominate Supreme Court justices. All 51 Democrats will get you in that scenario is another John Roberts instead of a Kavanaugh. Meanwhile the Trump Justice Department has been conspiring with states to suppress minority voting rights instead of acting as a check against them. The Trump Interior department is taking orders from polluters instead of regulating them. The power of the Presidency is enormous, as Trump has taught us, and letting Trump fuck over the federal bureaucracy for another four years will destroy the rights of everyone who is not a cis white Christian male.

I want the same end state that you want, I think, but you haven't articulated a way to get there. All you've done is express impatience with the fact that a country that was designed to move slowly, is moving slowly. There is no magic bullet to suddenly convert Americans into proper leftists. It's magical thinking.

[Stannis Cool-Ranchus]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

The part where the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress passed the ACA in an effort to "still make donors money" when these "donors" you're referring to were bankrolling efforts to defeat the ACA's passage, and Obama, and the Democratic Congress.

Well maybe I explained myself poorly then. I wasn't implying that the ACA didn't face opposition. But the idea that the donor class as a whole were united against it is just foolish. Not everyone has the same backers, they don't all demand the same concessions. But if the Democratic donors didn't have diverging interests with the voters, we'd have universal healthcare. It's what every other post-industrial democracy does. We know it works, we know how it works, we know we spend the most on coverage, and it's not acceptable to me.

[Stannis Cool-Ranchus]

6 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I want the same end state that you want, I think, but you haven't articulated a way to get there. All you've done is express impatience with the fact that a country that was designed to move slowly, is moving slowly. There is no magic bullet to suddenly convert Americans into proper leftists. It's magical thinking.

No magic about it. Start with publicly funded elections and free education.

[DanteGabriel]

2 minutes ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

No magic about it. Start with publicly funded elections and free education.

How do we get there? Will Trump and 51 Democratic Senators get us there? Will some of the 60 million people who voted for Trump vote for those?

You need to show your work. Otherwise it's magical thinking.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

But if the Democratic donors didn't have diverging interests with the voters, we'd have universal healthcare. It's what every other post-industrial democracy does.

And this is based on what?  If the Democrats just went by how the voters thought, the ACA never would have been passed.  Take a look at its polling to see how long it was underwater.  Was that shaped by the health insurance industry and GOP's attacks?  Sure, of course.  But plenty of Democrats literally sacrificed their political career to get the ACA passed, and knew very well they were doing so.  And now you're coming along and saying they did so to appease their donors with neither evidence nor logic.

[Stannis Cool-Ranchus]

7 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

How do we get there? Will Trump and 51 Democratic Senators get us there? Will some of the 60 million people who voted for Trump vote for those?

You need to show your work. Otherwise it's magical thinking.

Vote for people who advocate for publicly funded elections, universal education and healthcare. Like I said, down-ballot elections. Ilhan Omar's just outright calling for the canceling of almost two trillion dollars of student debt. You try and no-sell that.

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

If the Democrats just went by how the voters thought, the ACA never would have been passed.

I agree.

Quote

And now you're coming along and saying they did so to appease their donors with neither evidence nor logic.

Why don't you give me some evidence and logic. Why do we have the ACA and not a version of the system every other post-industrial democracy uses? Why do we pay more for coverage than anyone else?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

First, @The Great Unwashed, I'm sorry for what you experienced. There's really not much I can say, nor would it really help, but I recognize the trauma it caused.

Second, these treads are starting to take some dark turns. It's important to remember to be kind to one another. 

Thank you. 

That's a big reason I posted what I did and when I did, since things were getting so heated again. Since I was responsible for the mess earlier in the week, I hoped that posting something explaining why I (or others) may feel that way to help with understanding each other (thanks for the advice @Kalbear); I know that everyone is dealing with a ton more stress than they usually do, but it's difficult to remember that with all the shit going down.

I think that, aside from my personal reasons, another big reason that I had such an emotional reaction to the corroborating statement made by Reade's neighbor, is that I felt like I had mostly made my peace with voting for Biden before the new information came to light, and I'd been exhorting some of my Bernie-stan acquaintances to still turn out for the Senate and House elections, if nothing else (it's a process). It's more difficult to get people excited about them though. The added news from Reade's neighbor really threw all that for a loop, and there's probably some frustration on my part also due to feeling like that work kind of got wiped out. It kind of feels like there was a chance some dialogue could happen that would lead to bridge-building, but now it feels more like we are back in square one. Hopefully not.

All this has kind of reframed my perspective I guess. I think much of it stemmed from just sheer frustration about how there just isn't really any good decision to be made.

ETA: I do feel like I'm in a better headspace now, at least temporarily, so thank you everyone. 

[Fez]

Trump appears surprisingly unwilling to directly attack Biden over the Reade accusations; though certainly plenty of GOP hacks are starting to. Perhaps he knows how much it would rebound onto a discussion of his own history. Or he just can't overcome his instinct to always side with white men in every conflict.

 

[Maithanet]

15 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I think much of it stemmed from just sheer frustration about how there just isn't really any good decision to be made.

Agreed completely.  I remember through 2018 and well into 2019 I was really excited about the Democratic primary.  The first debate was so refreshing to hear different people articulating Democratic ideals rather than the usual insults and nonsense from Trump.  But that optimism gradually faded as it became more and more obvious that Democratic voters as a whole had a very different (and on the whole, rather disappointing) way of evaluating candidates than I. 

And the end of that process led to Joe Biden being the nominee, in spite of him doing very little that I could see to earn it.

5 minutes ago, Fez said:

Trump appears surprisingly unwilling to directly attack Biden over the Reade accusations; though certainly plenty of GOP hacks are starting to. Perhaps he knows how much it would rebound onto a discussion of his own history. Or he just can't overcome his instinct to always side with white men in every conflict.

If Trump were Machiavellian, I'd say the strategy is to make himself and Biden seem more alike, which is definitely to Trump's advantage.  But I don't think Trump is Machiavellian. 

[DanteGabriel]

26 minutes ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

Vote for people who advocate for publicly funded elections, universal education and healthcare. Like I said, down-ballot elections. Ilhan Omar's just outright calling for the canceling of almost two trillion dollars of student debt. You try and no-sell that.

Okay, then what? Does President Trump sign off on those bills? Are there 60 votes in the Senate to resist filibusters? You're telling me we'll get not just Democrats, but Bernie-aligned Democrats, elected in places like Arizona and Florida? Because those are places you need Democratic Senators to get any major change done. The vile, watered-down, give-away-to donors ACA passed by the skin of its teeth two years after the shock of the financial meltdown.

Will there be five Supreme Court justices who support those bills against the inevitable "this law violates the rights of Corporate Persons to sell snake oil across state lines" lawsuits the Federalist Society gins up? You might get those Justices within the next four years with a Democratic President in 2021. You definitely will not get those justices in the next 20 years if Trump is re-elected.

While you wait for people to elect these politicians (who I am sure are just waiting in the wings in Arizona and Florida and North Carolina), how much damage will Trump do to the federal bureaucracy and judiciary? How many people will lose their freedom, their voting rights, their lives, their health care, because you think incrementalism isn't enough?

[Week]

25 minutes ago, Stannis Cool-Ranchus said:

Why don't you give me some evidence and logic. Why do we have the ACA and not a version of the system every other post-industrial democracy uses? Why do we pay more for coverage than anyone else?

The ACA was barely passed through reconciliation (with huge concessions - i.e. Lieberman killing the public option) and has been fought by the right in Congress and the courts every day since. We're "lucky" we even have the ACA.

The ACA was so close to finished that fucking John McCain had to cast a deciding vote to save the ACA. 

Our institutions are ill-suited for drastic change and years of GOP slander - amplified by Fox News - of government has retarded progress forward immensely both via rhetoric, starving the beast, and hollowing the out the government of capable public servants. I don't see a path forward other than incrementalism and you haven't articulated a realistic alternative.

Eta- @DanteGabriel, preach brother.