US Politics: Does the fat man singing count?

[Which Tyler]

13 hours ago, Myshkin said:

Also, an update from crazy conservative land:

I’m learning that things move with incredible speed in the Trumpster world. The contingent that believes SCOTUS will step in and save the day is vanishing fast. The new consensus is that Trump should declare martial law. There is still a deep schism however, between those who think Trump should then bring his election fraud case before a military tribunal and those who think he should just declare himself the victor once the military has silenced dissent.

Linky for you

https://www.newsweek.com/michael-flynn-call-martial-law-comes-amid-violent-threats-trump-election-defeat-1551769?

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

No, what I wrote in Word before C&P was "Bollocks." Not sure why it corrected it to "bullocks." Is "ballocks" the Canadian spelling? 

Its "bollocks" or "bollox" to get around swear filters, "bullocks" if you don't notice predictive text changing things. "Ball-cocks" is an acceptable variation, "ballocks" a regional variation

[Derfel Cadarn]

They probably know a military tribunal would tell them to fuck off too

[A Horse Named Stranger]

14 hours ago, DMC said:

I always spell it bollocks, so clearly at least one of us is losing money on wheel of fortune.

So you are part of the conspiracy then.

[Martell Spy]

Climate purity tests for Biden nominees split enviros
The crossfire has erupted this week after reports that Biden would appoint Brian Deese to lead the National Economic Council.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/03/climate-purity-tests-biden-nominees-split-enviros-442547

Quote

 

Climate change activists who helped rally progressive voters behind Joe Biden in the election are now testing their political capital by putting the president-elect's nominees through a purity test to make sure they are devoted to eliminating fossil fuels.

Many green activists are insisting Biden reject anyone for posts in his administration who previously worked with fossil fuel companies or Wall Street firms that invested in coal, oil or natural gas. But that no-compromise stance is causing splits inside the climate movement, since it would rule out some top Obama administration hands with years of experience from helping implement the climate policies that Biden has said would be a centerpiece of his presidency.

And it might leave some of the purists frustrated in the end as many of the leading candidates for roles in the White House and across the administration may not embody the anti-fossil fuel zeal they are demanding.

The crossfire erupted this week after reports that Biden would appoint Brian Deese to lead the National Economic Council. Deese is a former Barack Obama adviser who spearheaded some of the former president's most successful climate moves, but he has since joined BlackRock to help the investment management giant bring climate change into its decision-making.

Many greens have also already preemptively warned against offering any administration jobs to some widely touted officials, such as former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who is on the board of utility Southern Co. and whose think tank receives financial backing from gas and electric utility companies, and former Obama White House advisers Jason Bordoff and Heather Zichal.

Bordoff was White House climate and energy adviser who supported lifting a ban on exporting U.S. crude oil and argued U.S. natural gas exports are a potent geopolitical tool that can help displace coal, a more potent contributor to climate change. He's the founding director of Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, which receives funding from oil and gas companies. Zichal was instrumental in designing carbon emissions regulations for power plants under Obama, but later served on the board of liquefied natural gas firm Cheniere Energy.

“There’s a certain amount of pressure [Biden's team will] expect, and that’s appropriate,” said Democratic strategist and former Obama adviser John Podesta. “Where you risk your credibility is where the litmus test you’re applying ends up producing a result against your own interest. And I would argue that’s the case with respect to Deese.”

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

15 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

yeah, yeah but isn't the sycophancy disgusting? 

Yes.  It absolutely is disgusting.

[Mindwalker]

6 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Are we certain Powell isn't a Democratic party mole?

THAT would be awesome.

[Ormond]

22 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

THAT would be awesome.

It would not at all be "awesome" if it could be easily proved and that proof distributed through right wing media. Then it would massively backfire.

And Lin Wood, the other Trump lawyer besides Powell who has urged Trump voters to boycott in Georgia, has donated money to many different Democratic candidates in the past, which is being reported today, so there is an excellent chance that the backfire on this has begun.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pro-trump-lawyer-lin-wood-donated-to-democrats-for-years/

[Fragile Bird]

CNBC just reported in a NYT investigation into Senator Perdue’s controversial stock trades. He said all the trading was done by Goldman Sachs, not by him, except with regard to some shares of a company he had been involved with that went public.

2,596 trades were made on his account. I gather that is over his entire term, but still, over 300 trades a year is a lot of trading. More interesting, though, was that the account started buying Pfizer in February, and after senators got on update on the coronavirus situation in April, his entire stock account was liquidated.

Somehow I don’t think Goldman, Sachs was just liquidating entire portfolios for their clients in April. 

[Myshkin]

4 hours ago, Derfel Cadarn said:

They probably know a military tribunal would tell them to fuck off too

See the thing is these people have fetishized the military for so long that they can’t imagine that the military might not love them back.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

It would not at all be "awesome" if it could be easily proved and that proof distributed through right wing media. Then it would massively backfire.

And Lin Wood, the other Trump lawyer besides Powell who has urged Trump voters to boycott in Georgia, has donated money to many different Democratic candidates in the past, which is being reported today, so there is an excellent chance that the backfire on this has begun.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pro-trump-lawyer-lin-wood-donated-to-democrats-for-years/

So, do we have any rational reason why Lin Wood has backed Trump?

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, do we have any rational reason why Lin Wood has backed Trump?

Whatever his previous political donations were, he's become the Gloria Allred of shitty, over-privileged white people. His recent clients include Nick Sandmann of Covington Catholic, and Kyle Rittenhouse. Also, (paid article warning) he may be experiencing a breakdown.

Quote

In any case, Wood is one of many people in the Trump Era who were prominent but seemed relatively normal and unremarkable until Trump came along and either revealed them to be or made them bonkers and/or evil. And in Wood’s case it’s a bit more than being another 60-something pro-Trump fanboy. He’s clearly a major QAnon supporter. He appears to be part of this latest call to quite literally to overthrow the republic, suspend the constitution and throw out the results of the November election.

So here’s the part I didn’t know about. Back in September three former law partners sued Wood for fees tied to the dissolution of the partnership. They claim they had to quit because he’d essentially lost his mind.

In the course of their filings they list a range of behavior from abusive to unstable and erratic all the way to perhaps even delusional. Again some of the claims are just ‘boss from hell.’ Others are more in the realm of genuine abuse and even violence. They claim that Wood committed “assault and battery” on one of the former partners who came to do a welfare check on him back in late 2019, which was when the erratic behavior began. There are various other times when he summoned them to his residence in the middle of the night or called and texted in the early hours of the morning. At other times he claimed he was disciplining his legal partners “at the discretion of Almighty God.” In one monologue conference call he allegedly referred to himself as “the Almighty.”

One flare-up had him telling his partners, “You damn dumb mother******s... You are going to be ruined financially ... Here are the findings of your final judgment day on earth for today, the day after my Valentine’s Day massacre.”

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/pro-coup-trumpist-lawyer-lin-wood-seems-to-be-legit-bonkers

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Whatever his previous political donations were, he's become the Gloria Allred of shitty, over-privileged white people. His recent clients include Nick Sandmann of Covington Catholic, and Kyle Rittenhouse. Also, (paid article warning) he may be experiencing a breakdown.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/pro-coup-trumpist-lawyer-lin-wood-seems-to-be-legit-bonkers

Well, his representation of Kyle Rittenhouse is certainly not a plus.

[DireWolfSpirit]

7 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Are we certain Powell isn't a Democratic party mole?

Never interrupt your foe when they be effing up yo!!

[argonak]

43 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

See the thing is these people have fetishized the military for so long that they can’t imagine that the military might not love them back.

There's more Trumpers in the military than I like to think about.

[Gaston de Foix]

7 hours ago, Which Tyler said:

Linky for you

https://www.newsweek.com/michael-flynn-call-martial-law-comes-amid-violent-threats-trump-election-defeat-1551769?

Its "bollocks" or "bollox" to get around swear filters, "bullocks" if you don't notice predictive text changing things. "Ball-cocks" is an acceptable variation, "ballocks" a regional variation

My bollocks are like bullocks, how should I spell them?

[Gaston de Foix]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

CNBC just reported in a NYT investigation into Senator Perdue’s controversial stock trades. He said all the trading was done by Goldman Sachs, not by him, except with regard to some shares of a company he had been involved with that went public.

2,596 trades were made on his account. I gather that is over his entire term, but still, over 300 trades a year is a lot of trading. More interesting, though, was that the account started buying Pfizer in February, and after senators got on update on the coronavirus situation in April, his entire stock account was liquidated.

Somehow I don’t think Goldman, Sachs was just liquidating entire portfolios for their clients in April. 

Perdue's been proven to have been lying when he made those statements to the press about all transactions being decided and executed by his outside advisers.  Also, the press has been too credulous in accepting that the email exchange about "changes" with the CEO was a mistake.  Maybe yeah.  Or maybe Perdue lied in his original response to the email because it fucked up his plausible deniability.   Regardless, he knew there were "changes" coming and the idea that he was vigorously trading the stock of his former employer and just shrugged off an email from the CEO informing him of of "changes" coming is bull. 

The Stock Act is a great tool to catch these soulless insider-trading bastards.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

Whatever his previous political donations were, he's become the Gloria Allred of shitty, over-privileged white people. His recent clients include Nick Sandmann of Covington Catholic, and Kyle Rittenhouse. Also, (paid article warning) he may be experiencing a breakdown.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/pro-coup-trumpist-lawyer-lin-wood-seems-to-be-legit-bonkers

I only saw the highlights from his performance yesterday, but it seemed pretty clear that he's not a stable person. His comments were as delusional as they were dangerous. A lawyer of sound mind should know better than to say what he said.

[IheartIheartTesla]

There is a new SurveyUSA poll that has Warnock 52-45 and Osoff 50-48, and they are pretty good pollsters. Also, Georgia polls were pretty accurate in the aggregate. Still....based on the 2020 elections caution is warranted regarding the polls. It will be close, no doubt.

[Gaston de Foix]

1 minute ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

There is a new SurveyUSA poll that has Warnock 52-45 and Osoff 50-48, and they are pretty good pollsters. Also, Georgia polls were pretty accurate in the aggregate. Still....based on the 2020 elections caution is warranted regarding the polls. It will be close, no doubt.

Hope.  What we need is for Trump to keep making this about him, and for the focus to remain on Perdue and Loeffler's borderline-criminal acts. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 12/2/2020 at 10:23 AM, DMC said:

Gotta hand it to John Harris.  The provocative headlines for his op-eds lately make me wonder if he's actually trolling these threads.  Today's:  The Left’s Stupid Second-Guessing Of Biden - It’s possible many people making the arguments against potential Biden appointees don’t know what they are arguing.

 

It's possible, based off this article, he doesn't know what progressivism as a movement actually is. When I see people say that Neera Tanden and the Center for American Progress is aligned with progressive values, that suggests those people are confused about the progressive movement. Tanden's cozy love affair with big business is a perpetuation of capitalism that is untenable. Most progressive belief within the movement comes from the foundational belief that no progress will be made politically from those politicians who continue to take support from the capitalists. 

From the article, "It was news to many who know both men [Ricetti, Klain] that either man has an ideological profile different than the moderate progressivism embraced by most Democratic professional operatives, much less that there are important distinctions between them. Some activists don’t like how Ricchetti represented corporate interests in his public affairs work when not in government." Correct, and this is exactly why people in the progressive movement don't like him (or Klain, which Harris claims progressives were cool with). Ties to multi-billionaires, big businesses are what many progressives see as exactly the barrier to achieving anything in this country. Unchained from raising money from big money institutions, we have recently seen politicians able to actually criticize big business and capital as opposed to having their lips sealed--happily, I suspect in many politicians' cases.

Harris also writes, "But Tanden is also drawing grumbles from some on the left, even though she is president of the Center for American Progress, one of the leading generators of progressive policy ideas. That’s because she was vocal in arguing that Bernie Sanders would be a poor choice as nominee on electability grounds." This is pure bullshit and either Harris is stupid, or he's a liar. It's well known that Tanden's idea "generator of progressive policy ideas" is not that. Let's look at Tanden first. She a public progressive who urged things privately to Clinton such as not fighting for the raise of th minimum wage, or telling Clinton that she should push for monetary reparations from Libya for our inconvenient bombing of their country. The money trail in terms of donations for Center for American Progress shows connections to big corporate donors, plus outward donations to neo-liberal, and sometimes, right wing foundations. For Harris, this amounts to people being upset she was hard on Bernie on Twitter. Politico and its writers are one of the biggest offenders in this dumbing down of the left's ideas and saying, "Oh, they're mad because they bitter white men." Which is interesting given Bernie's truly diverse coalition that he built, but I digress. Back to the matter at hand.

Harris also notes, "Both the centrists who want a robust expansion of government and those on the left who want to go even further have the same problem: Insufficient legislative power to do more than modestly advance the goals of either wing." This classic gem of BS. We've seen progressive politicians elected without big money donors who are suddenly free to talk about issues impacting people every day, as opposed to those who happily take money in exchange for (happily I suspect) sewing their lips shut. But political power is predominantly in the hands of the wealthy, big donors, and until this kind of person is severed from politics, no changes will be made--incremental or not. Harris segues to how this is an example of the stupid attacks from the left on Rahm Emanual not being progressive. Harris cites a book from 15 years ago to say, see he had progressive ideas once, he just works from within the system and understands persuasion, etc. First off, many progressive do hate Rahm for what is indirectly related to progressive goals: covering up Laquan McDonald's death at the hands of police, and defending the police state hurting people of color all over the U.S., plus Rahm's inability to help (or "persuade" others to help as Harris would put it) poor communities, shuttering their schools. It seems, Harris' belief in a progressive Rahm comes from a book Rahm wrote fifteen years ago. The man has yet to act on his bold statements in the book. So Harris' assertion that the left is "stupid" for criticizing these picks comes from Harris' misunderstanding of what these criticisms actually are. Like so many hard hitting Politico pieces, I suspect he pulled his ideas from some Tweets.

Harris finally admits, "The alternative to stupid second-guessing isn’t simply to shut up. It is smart second-guessing. AOC and others on the left are surely right that an administration headed by a president who came to Washington in the 1970s, and who is surrounded by advisers who began their government service in the 1980s and 1990s, isn’t necessarily going to be fully attuned to the challenges of the 2020s. They will benefit from being pushed." So, not fully stupid, but in fact, some progressives are smart. As I said before, the "stupid" of progressive pushback must be coming from some Tweets that Harris read, because in the end, who is he specifically pointing to as the problem? No one. He doesn't point at anyone except the general other.