US Politics: Butter Not Guns

[DMC]

DNC speaker list announced.  AOC did get a slot, albeit not a keynote.  Boo.

Sounds like the VP could be announced any minute now, or maybe tomorrow or Thursday who knows.  Any final predictions?  I'm sticking with Harris.

[Maithanet]

For those who care about that sort of thing, 538's model is coming out tomorrow morning. 

[JGP]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

DNC speaker list announced.  AOC did get a slot, albeit not a keynote.  Boo.

Sounds like the VP could be announced any minute now, or maybe tomorrow or Thursday who knows.  Any final predictions?  I'm sticking with Harris.

Harris is speaking right before Biden too, no?

She's the one I like for it, but then, I liked her for President too.

It's a nailbiter.  

[DMC]

Just now, JEORDHl said:

Harris is speaking right before Biden too, no?

She's the one I like for it, but then, I liked her for President too.

Well, they can obviously change around the schedule.  The VP slot is slated for Wednesday night keynote with Barack.  Harris is scheduled on Thursday before Biden (didn't see any link saying she'd be right before Biden), but so are most of the other also-rans from the primary.

[Zorral]

PEOPLE! Listen up! Yankees are New Englanders! From Connecticut (re Twain's Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court) and MA and New Hampshire.  Not NYers!  They'd have killed you during the War of the Rebellion if you walked around NY and called them Yankees!

Moreover the dumpfers don't even have the other pedigrees that make for Yankees.  Good frackin' grief,

Don't mix up a baseball team franchise name with regional identities.

As for claiming he's not made foreign catastrophes for the US -- one word: RUSSIA.  He gave us and as much of the rest of the world as possible to Russia.  That's just for starters.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

It's Harris or Rice, and other pick would be a bit surprising. I think it's Harris, and don't be surprised if Rice is his pick for SoS, but I'd keep that under wraps until after the election.  

I'm curious which Senators would be willing to leave to join his cabinet. With even just the finalists, Warren could be Sec of Labor and Duckworth could be sold as SoD. 

[Fez]

28 minutes ago, DMC said:

DNC speaker list announced.  AOC did get a slot, albeit not a keynote.  Boo.

Sounds like the VP could be announced any minute now, or maybe tomorrow or Thursday who knows.  Any final predictions?  I'm sticking with Harris.

With the networks saying they were only going to cover 1 hour each night (even though there will 2 hours of programming, which presumably cable news will cover entirely), I'm not sure there would've been any way to fit AOC into prime coverage without bumping someone that isn't bump-able. 

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Warren could be Sec of Labor

Warren should be Treasury and Rice should be SoS.

2 minutes ago, Fez said:

I'm not sure there would've been any way to fit AOC into prime coverage without bumping someone that isn't bump-able. 

Bill Clinton seems eminently bumpable on Tuesday.

[Fury Resurrected]

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

Warren should be Treasury and Rice should be SoS.

Bill Clinton seems eminently bumpable on Tuesday.

It seems very inadvisable to have Bill around at all with the Epstein thing, his bad job during Hillary’s campaign, and the metoo movement in general.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

It seems very inadvisable to have Bill around at all with the Epstein thing, his bad job during Hillary’s campaign, and the metoo movement in general.

Agreed I think it's stupid.  Don't see how Bill gets you votes at this point.  Hard to find recent polling on him, but YouGov says he's at 39/39 right now.  That don't really help.

[Fez]

41 minutes ago, DMC said:

Bill Clinton seems eminently bumpable on Tuesday.

I'd prefer Bill Clinton not speak as well, but that just doesn't seem feasible to me. It would be a whole huge fight that would generate massive "Dems in disarray" stories. The Clintons are too entrenched still in Democratic political spheres to just push aside like that.

[DMC]

Just now, Fez said:

I'd prefer Bill Clinton not speak as well, but that just doesn't seem feasible to me. It would be a whole huge fight that would generate massive "Dems in disarray" stories.

Meh.  If Bill whines about it, which I agree is possible but hardly a sure thing, let him look like a petty dick - cuz that's what he'd be.

[Fury Resurrected]

Can’t we trade Bill for Julían Castro? Especially since this is online only we need some people who are actually, you know, good at speaking

[Maltaran]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

PEOPLE! Listen up! Yankees are New Englanders! From Connecticut (re Twain's Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court) and MA and New Hampshire.  Not NYers!  They'd have killed you during the War of the Rebellion if you walked around NY and called them Yankees!

Moreover the dumpfers don't even have the other pedigrees that make for Yankees.  Good frackin' grief,

Don't mix up a baseball team franchise name with regional identities.

As for claiming he's not made foreign catastrophes for the US -- one word: RUSSIA.  He gave us and as much of the rest of the world as possible to Russia.  That's just for starters.

You're all Yanks. Texans are Yanks.

[S John]

13 hours ago, Altherion said:

This is debatable. US actions have far reaching consequences which the US media generally starts ignoring after a time. For example, consider the Libyan Civil War (here's a Time article on the same theme if you want to read a more coherent story). The US intervened in Libya almost a decade ago (during the first Obama term) to topple Gadaffi, but the country fell apart shortly after that and has been a warzone ever since. The American response has been... practically nothing. Most people don't know about it at all and for the ones who do it's not a high priority.

You won’t get any argument from me that the US needs to exit the regime change business - except for very rare circumstances where national security is legitimately at stake AND the US is willing to make the longterm commitment to rebuild the country.  Even then, it’s been shown quite clearly that decision makers at the highest levels are prone to overlooking or underestimating major obstacles (sectarianism in post-Baathist Iraq for one example).

Libya was a massive fuck up for two reasons. First, it reinforced the message sent by the removal of Saddam Hussein that if you don’t have nukes, you ain’t shit. North Korea, Iran, and everyone else for that matter have surely taken to heart that US adversaries without nukes (Gaddafi, Saddam) get got. Personally, I don’t think promoting democracy via drone strike in Libya is in any way worth sending the message that nuclear proliferation is the best way to hold onto power.
 

The other reason it’s a disaster, somewhat speaks to the point I was trying to make in my earlier post which is basically to beware of creating a vacuum. Removing Gaddafi was a kind of drive-by regime change with no plan or appetite for ensuring that a free and democratic government replaced him. And it has become an example of what happens in a power vacuum - adversarial nations looking to expand influence through proxies or plain old local extremists gain a foothold and the whole thing goes to shit.

If you look at who the US’s primary geopolitical adversaries are right now - China, Russia, Iran, North Korea - there’s not a single one of them that I personally think it would be a good idea to cede ground to in terms of influence. A China led globe looks like a tech dystopia, Russia has a cynical authoritarian outlook, Iran is an oppressive anti-Western theocracy, North Korea - while short on influence will push it as far as they think they can get away with. Wherever the US contracts, or sits on the sidelines, these are the kinds of influences that are likely waiting in the wings to replace US diplomatic influence, US aid, US military presence. It’s going to take some convincing to get me to the place where I believe that any of that is preferable to a competently led United States setting the tone globally - even in spite of all of the mistakes. I’m not in a hurry to see the post-WW2 order breakdown.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Warren should be Treasury and Rice should be SoS.

You're right, that's a better call, and it seems like most people I talk to are down with Rice at State.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

29 minutes ago, Fez said:

The Clintons are too entrenched still in Democratic political spheres to just push aside like that.

If they really cared about the party they'd gracefully decline an invitation to speak, and only Hillary would be asked to campaign.

[Larry of the Lawn]

42 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Can’t we trade Bill for Julían Castro? Especially since this is online only we need some people who are actually, you know, good at speaking

I saw something on Twitter claiming Castro was speaking like an hour ago and now I can't find it

[DMC]

1 minute ago, larrytheimp said:

I saw something on Twitter claiming Castro was speaking like an hour ago and now I can't find it

I'm sure it's very likely Castro was speaking an hour ago. 

[TrackerNeil]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'm curious which Senators would be willing to leave to join his cabinet. With even just the finalists, Warren could be Sec of Labor and Duckworth could be sold as SoD. 

Only senators from states with Democratic governors should be tapped; Biden is going to have only a thin Senate majority, if any, and we can't afford to narrow it any further.