U.S. Politics: End Testing, Make Schools Safe Again!

[Jace, Extat]

2 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Is there anything more representative of  the Democratic party than them putting forth a bill that extends legal assistance to those who are about to be getting evicted? Fucking hell, I'm sure that is going to be massive help to the folks who are living on the street because the Legislature has been dragging their feet on inadequate assistance bills while this pandemic makes every single failure of the last 60 year all the more evident.

Republicans are to blame, but the Dems can not be let off the hook, this is their failure too.

Why? What can they do without the senate?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Why? What can they do without the senate?

When you hold only one of four seats of power, everything is your fault.

[GrimTuesday]

1 minute ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Why? What can they do without the senate?

Look, the CARES act had some really good stuff in it, but the fact that they left a massive cliff at the end is idiotic. Only an idiot would be surprised the Republicans were refused to do anything else, and they also knew that the Republicans were also pretty desperate to get a deal done. Why did we put a timeline on any of this aid in the first place? Why did they not set it up as an automatic stabilizer so that we had metrics we had to hit rather than a cutoff date? Why did they just give away more than 4 trillion dollars to Wall Street without any concessions? There have been opportunities that have been squandered..

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Look, the CARES act had some really good stuff in it, but the fact that they left a massive cliff at the end is idiotic. Only an idiot would be surprised the Republicans were refused to do anything else, and they also knew that the Republicans were also pretty desperate to get a deal done. Why did we put a timeline on any of this aid in the first place? Why did they not set it up as an automatic stabilizer so that we had metrics we had to hit rather than a cutoff date? Why did they just give away more than 4 trillion dollars to Wall Street without any concessions? There have been opportunities that have been squandered..

So wait. You know Republicans won't accept what you want, so your plan is to.....demand more?

[HoodedCrow]

My favorite book about America was a biography of Benjamin Franklin. What a dude! I read Helter Skelter with interest about the justice system and a wacko. Musicals are themed and very limited, but Oklahoma! is only clean seeming, The Music Man is about the American tendency to be conned, South Pacific is about racism, and among others, there is Hamilton. Finish it off with 12 Angry Men, Norma Rae, Brokeback Mountain,12 years a Slave, Good Will Hunting,  Cool Hand Luke and To Kill a Mocking Bird. Ken Burn docs are good. Honestly, many films show you America, ( The Smartest guys in the room) and also the tremendous creativity.The great gatsby was not taught in Canada, so I read it later and didn’t actually understand the class system a bit till later. Then there are short stories, the Lottery, The Swimmer, and some by Joyce Carol Oates. As a youth I read Johnny Tremayne and read Gone with the Wind. I read a book more recently that had a Jungian Analysis of Joseph Smith. I read a lot. Basically, we all see you!

[Jace, Extat]

Dude. You're so wrong. Just, c'mon man. Democrats were supposed to go hard-line with one chamber and not take a massive public backlash when optimism was high the virus could be contained?

Reevaluate your life.

[DanteGabriel]

18 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Dude. You're so wrong. Just, c'mon man. Democrats were supposed to go hard-line with one chamber and not take a massive public backlash when optimism was high the virus could be contained?

Reevaluate your life.

He's been quite mad at the Democrats for not being able to unilaterally pass a progressive agenda through the powers granted to the weaker half of the most sclerotic branch of government.

[GrimTuesday]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

So wait. You know Republicans won't accept what you want, so your plan is to.....demand more?

Do you honestly think that the Democrats did a good deal on the Wall Street bailout? They did not extract any concession on that they approved it. Do you honestly think the Republicans didn't want to do the CARES act? Their voters were (and are) going to suffer the same (if not more) as Democratic voters, and they know it.

2 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Dude. You're so wrong. Just, c'mon man. Democrats were supposed to go hard-line with one chamber and not take a massive public backlash when optimism was high the virus could be contained?

Reevaluate your life.

You think that is hard line? Jesus Christ talk about having no vision. Hard line would have been demanding full UBI, temporarily abolishing rent, and a federal takeover of the healthcare sector . It's people like you who think that they have the whole game figured out and that we can't afford to demand better from our legislators because we might lose an election. By taking more radical stances, you move the window of what is possible in the minds of voters. We just fucking saw this with Medicare for All, where universal healthcare has become a fairly popular policy proposal over the course of four years. If we only talk about why we can't achieve our goals, we will never get to where we need to be.

We were never going to get burned by asking for more protection for people.

2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

He's been quite mad at the Democrats for not being able to unilaterally pass a progressive agenda through the powers granted to the weaker half of the most sclerotic branch of government.

I have never acted like policy can be passed unilaterally, I'm talking about maximizing what power we do have in order to set us up for when we are in power. Republicans may be extremely short sighted in their approach to capitalism, but Democrats are short sighted in terms of policy. As I said before, we've seen that advocating for policies that may be considered extreme at the moment shifts the conversation for the future. Do you think the Republicans moved to the extreme right overnight? It was a sustained campaign over decades. Democrats actually moved to the right in some way with the rise of the Third Way folks in the 90s, who sought to bring more economically conservative policies to the Democratic Party.

[karaddin]

I'm not sure on whether this stuff belongs more properly in this thread or the Police thread, but given this is coming from Trump at the moment I think US Politics fits better. The NYPD is following the lead of the federal "agents" in Portland and are taking to kidnapping protesters in unmarked vans as well now. The two I've seen so far are both trans women as well, because of course they come for the most vulnerable groups first.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Their voters were (and are) going to suffer the same (if not more) as Democratic voters, and they know it.

If you'd like I can try and dig up a doc done by Pelosi's daughter in which a guy seems to blame Democrats for him not having any teeth despite them trying to give him dental care. 

Republicans don't care about their voters. Why else would they flagrantly lie to them about even their most basic needs? Most Democrats do at least care, despite their constant inability to even drink water when someone pours it down their throats.

[Ormond]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

You do know the marriage in Goodfellas worked largely because they both came from cultures that cooked way too much food for meals, or are you an Antifa sympathizer? 

 

What subcultures in modern America do NOT cook way too much food for meals? 

[Darth Richard II]

1 minute ago, Ormond said:

What subcultures in modern America do NOT cook way too much food for meals? 

The poor

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, Ormond said:

What subcultures in modern America do NOT cook way too much food for meals? 

Kiwi-Americans? 

[GrimTuesday]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you'd like I can try and dig up a doc done by Pelosi's daughter in which a guy seems to blame Democrats for him not having any teeth despite them trying to give him dental care. 

Republicans don't care about their voters. Why else would they flagrantly lie to them about even their most basic needs? Most Democrats do at least care, despite their constant inability to even drink water when someone pours it down their throats.

I obviously don't like Republicans, and I agree that they are usually pretty content to let their voters die, but they still have material interests that have to be fulfilled. If you can speak to those, the need to stay in your house, the need to be able to feed your family, you may be able to win support on some issues. This is life and death for a lot of people. Of course, I did also read a story a while back in The Guardian about Trump voters who are being hurt by his economic policies who aren't mad the policies exist, but rather because it is not hurting "the right people".

That said, I did specially mention the bailout package for the folks they do actually care about, namely Wall Street. Do you actually think that the Democrats did a good job there?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Of course, I did also read a story a while back in The Guardian about Trump voters who are being hurt by his economic policies who aren't mad the policies exist, but rather because it is not hurting "the right people"

There's nothing new about this. Let's take a step back in time:

Quote

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

Their game has always been about hurting the right people. 

Quote

That said, I did specially mention the bailout package for the folks they do actually care about, namely Wall Street. Do you actually think that the Democrats did a good job there?

They did a not terrible job?

Wall St. will always get its money, by the way. Until you can flip the game I'm not sure how much you do here.

[TrueMetis]

2 hours ago, karaddin said:

I'm not sure on whether this stuff belongs more properly in this thread or the Police thread, but given this is coming from Trump at the moment I think US Politics fits better. The NYPD is following the lead of the federal "agents" in Portland and are taking to kidnapping protesters in unmarked vans as well now. The two I've seen so far are both trans women as well, because of course they come for the most vulnerable groups first.

 

Longer video because the uniformed bike cops only show up part way through. Which means initially it looks exactly like some randos trying to kidnap someone (which I mean that's still what it is after the uniforms show up) so what's gonna happen when someone in the crowd tries to really do something about this?

 

[karaddin]

9 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Longer video because the uniformed bike cops only show up part way through. Which means initially it looks exactly like some randos trying to kidnap someone (which I mean that's still what it is after the uniforms show up) so what's gonna happen when someone in the crowd tries to really do something about this?

 

Yeah that's a much better video of it, thanks. Even just from the first one - people literally piling into the van on top of someone pinning them to the floor of it doesn't look anything like due process to me. And anyone that thinks this isn't too worrying as the people [that we know of] in Portland have wound up being released after trying to scare them is deluding themselves, there is a very clear line for where this shit leads from history and its not good

 

[GrimTuesday]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

There's nothing new about this. Let's take a step back in time:

Their game has always been about hurting the right people. 

They did a not terrible job?

Wall St. will always get its money, by the way. Until you can flip the game I'm not sure how much you do here.

Of course it gets its money, which is something else that I have a bug up my ass about as related to the Dems. It's ridiculous that we have a party that bows and scrapes to big business and another that just nods politely as they let them walk all over them, but as you say, gotta flip the table to move away from that.

Really what it comes down to is this is where we had the most leverage to extract concessions. This being the bill that Republicans actually cared about, the Dems were in a position to turn the the tables a bit and play "the I'm going to hold my breath until I get what I want because I know you want this" game, and instead they just did the ol' Ole block and pretended to be shocked when it was just a massive giveaway to Wall Street.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Yeah the Dems only control the house but let's not act like they have zero leverage here.  I heard an interview with Moore today about what the GOP came up with and she admitted that the PUA reduction to $200 was likely negotiable.  Republicans are facing reelection and some of them ought to be a little nervous.  

If the GOP is holding all the cards, then the Dems have nothing to lose by insisting on a better figure than the $200 and trying to beef up local and state aid. 

I know it's fun for you guys to all pile on anyone remotely critical of Dems, but just because they aren't the worst game in town doesn't mean they're out there getting you the best deal they possibly can.  

They won't even go to bat for their constituents on popular issues like legalizing weed, not sure why I'm supposed to think that whatever the fuck they get out of any additional covid support this week is going to be, by default, the best we could have gotten.  

Republicans are in a shit position and can't do anything without the House.  At least apply a little pressure or maybe ask for some shit even if you doubt you can get it.

 

[Guest]

I think taking a hard line early in the pandemic probably would have been a mistake.

That having been said, Republicans are all over the place on this new bill, and Democrats goddamn well better not even consider any concessions until Republicans can show they can pass their Senate bill on their own.

Right now, Democrats have Senate Republicans by the short and curlies. If there was ever a time to be ruthless, this is it.