US Politics: finally we can get back to blaming each other

[Week]

2 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

As sucky as it is, he's the only Democrat capable of winning West Virginia these days.

Yeah, he sucks. We have a lot worse to fucking deal with first.

(In agreement w/ you MdL)

[DMC]

16 minutes ago, alguien said:

"If you get rid of the filibuster, there's no reason to have a Senate."

...

I mean, don't threaten me with a good time...

Ah beat me to it.  In terms of that statement, he's definitely not technically wrong.  Let's get to it!

[The Anti-Targ]

Even Fox News quickly cut away from McEneny's press briefing. I guess Fox news trusts its election bean counters more than it wants march in time with Trump's drumb and is making sure it won't be a pariah in the Biden press briefings like I am sure OAN will be. Can always trust corporate news to do what's good for shareholders first and foremost, and doubling down on the Trump fraud BS is not it. Keep the powder dry until Biden is undoubtedly sworn in and then go into attack mode.

Of course having called AZ for Biden way back put them on the outs with Trump.

I don't know if Cavuto is one of the less rabid right wingers, but I can see a scenario where, say Hannity shows the whole thing and marches in lock step with everything McEneny says.

[DMC]

21 minutes ago, kairparavel said:

It's never really been an issue before, I guess, but people might want to consider limiting the kinds of actions that can be taken during the 'lame duck period' by the outgoing administration. Maybe? 

It definitely came up after H. W. Bush and Clinton for people that really care about pardons.  Dubya and Obama were much better about that.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Thank god.

It’s unpaid and she’s on some forestry committee or something and he’s currently writing his cover letter on how interested he is and his volunteer experience in forests (dead serious, he volunteers twice a week working in a forest), yay forests.

Without knowing anything about your son other then what you've shared, I would say though it's important to make it clear to him that it's very unlikely the internship, if he were to get it, will lead to a paid position. I've been on both sides of that and I always felt like shit getting unpaid interns to work harder than many paid professionals knowing none of them would get offered anything more than a great experience and a letter of recommendation out of it. It's why I view unpaid internships as inherently evil. 

[Sci-2]

37 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

This man should be primaried with prejudice, thrown out of the party, and preferable fired out a trebuchet.

 Before primary-ing existing Democrats, I'd like the Left to have a solid plan on how to flip red districts/states blue for House/Senate respectively.

[The Anti-Targ]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Without knowing anything about your son other then what you've shared, I would say though it's important to make it clear to him that it's very unlikely the internship, if he were to get it, will lead to a paid position. I've been on both sides of that and I always felt like shit getting unpaid interns to work harder than many paid professionals knowing none of them would get offered anything more than a great experience and a letter of recommendation out of it. It's why I view unpaid internships as inherently evil. 

If an internship is part of your learning process and self improvement, then I don't see an issue with it being unpaid. If, however it is doing necessary work for which a contractor or other paid staff would need to be engaged were it not for the intern then there should definitely be some stipend, even if it's just lunch money and bus fare.

As far as I know, everyone who works for an MP here in the capital gets paid. Some people working back at the electorate office will be party volunteers. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If an internship is part of your learning process and self improvement, then I don't see an issue with it being unpaid. If, however it is doing necessary work for which a contractor or other paid staff would need to be engaged were it not for the intern then there should definitely be some stipend, even if it's just lunch money and bus fare.

Fuck that noise. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that the federal minimum wage needs to be raised to $15 an hour and say that unpaid labor is okay out of the other. First, the work those interns are doing, and at times for 40 hours a week, is harder than a lot of minimum wage jobs, and second, creating a system like this just allows for people to justify offering more unpaid internships. 

[Ormond]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Assuming it was a true expression of opinion Borat 2 tells us there are people who think Democrats are more dangerous to the USA than SARS-COV-2. I hope that means they think SARS-COV-2 doesn't exist, rather than it being a serious pandemic but Democrats are still worse.

Of course there are people who would believe Democrats are worse than a serious pandemic. I hope there aren't many of them, but to think in a country of over 300 million people that there is absolutely no one who hates Democrats that much is nigh on to impossible.

 

[Mindwalker]

32 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Of course there are people who would believe Democrats are worse than a serious pandemic. I hope there aren't many of them, but to think in a country of over 300 million people that there is absolutely no one who hates Democrats that much is nigh on to impossible.

 

In a country with tons of guns, many on the far right/ conspiracy believers' side... I hope Biden and Harris have good protection.

[Ormond]

5 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

In a country with tons of guns, many on the far right/ conspiracy believers' side... I hope Biden and Harris have good protection.

I have been told that as soon as he was declared President-elect, the amount of Secret Service protection they had increased. (They already had some protection from the Secret Service as major party candidates.)

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Sci-2 said:

 Before primary-ing existing Democrats, I'd like the Left to have a solid plan on how to flip red districts/states blue for House/Senate respectively.

Flipping seats seems pretty situational.  Katie Porter and Abigail Spanberger won in historically red districts on pretty much opposite ends of the Dem spectrum.  

Flipping states, seems to be more about turning out your vote and minimizing voter suppression.

[Larry of the Lawn]

59 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fuck that noise. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that the federal minimum wage needs to be raised to $15 an hour and say that unpaid labor is okay out of the other. First, the work those interns are doing, and at times for 40 hours a week, is harder than a lot of minimum wage jobs, and second, creating a system like this just allows for people to justify offering more unpaid internships. 

It's also regressive and classist.

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

But then how do we grab the guns? 

Don't worry, Obama already took away all the guns.

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fuck that noise. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that the federal minimum wage needs to be raised to $15 an hour and say that unpaid labor is okay out of the other. First, the work those interns are doing, and at times for 40 hours a week, is harder than a lot of minimum wage jobs, and second, creating a system like this just allows for people to justify offering more unpaid internships. 

I agree that unpaid internships are bullshit. They really put poor kids at a disadvantage. 

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

This man should be primaried with prejudice, thrown out of the party, and preferable fired out a trebuchet.

 

It could be worse: he could be Joe Lieberman. And Manchin is actually good on healthcare.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

It's also regressive and classist.

Two dings here. And that's why I speak very candidly on this subject. Who can be a full time student and work a full time internship unless your rent and cost of living needs are being covered by your family? 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I agree that unpaid internships are bullshit. They really put poor kids at a disadvantage. 

I agree. They also create what I would argue is unhealthy relationships between an individual and who they work for. It's modern day indentured servitude, and for many it creates a dependency to their job. 

[Martell Spy]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I agree. They also create what I would argue is unhealthy relationships between an individual and who they work for. It's modern day indentured servitude, and for many it creates a dependency to their job. 

I would not go that far. Terrible as it is, you can simply walk away from it. You can never walk away from massive student loan debt, short of actually fleeing the country which is expensive in itself. It truly is a modern day indentured servitude. And if you try to run away from the debts, the federal government beats you with a very big stick. I know this from personal experience.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fuck that noise. You can't say out of one side of your mouth that the federal minimum wage needs to be raised to $15 an hour and say that unpaid labor is okay out of the other. First, the work those interns are doing, and at times for 40 hours a week, is harder than a lot of minimum wage jobs, and second, creating a system like this just allows for people to justify offering more unpaid internships. 

People do political internships for a lot of reasons so those are not cut and dried IMO, but because of the unpaid intern culture there will be positions that should be fully paid, other's being voluntary is fine I think. I did volunteer work as a student at university, albeit at the SPCA not for some politician, but it served my education so it had value to me other than a monetary income. Private sector corporate internships,100% that should not be a source of free or cheap labour, minimum wage without exception at least, govt subsidised - paid directly to the intern - if necessary.