US Politics: Does the fat man singing count?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Loeffler's programming clearly lacks a cornerstone.

NBC now has Cocaine Steve breaking down playoff probabilities. 

[teej6]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Disappointed Lujan Grisham apparently didn't get it due to turning down the Interior post or some weird shit, but Becerra would've been my second choice.  Not bad.

Yeah I think Grisham really wanted HHS. The whole drama with her rejecting Interior and then it getting leaked by the Biden camp, and then the Hispanic caucus complaining about it, didn’t bode well for her. 

[GrimTuesday]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What does the ACA have to do with Obama's response to BLM, which was largely supportive by the way? 

You tried to use the ACA to refute my point that Obama is not the person you want to go to when looking for a guiding hand when it comes to activism. Obama swoops in when the battle is mostly won. You have cited one example where he took a "bold" step as if if negates his general hostility towards activists who criticized his administration.

You can support a cause without actively doing anything to further the movement. Saying you are supportive of something while not actively agitating for that cause accomplishes nothing, he of course blamed activists for continuing the campaign

Quote

"Once you’ve highlighted an issue and brought it to people’s attention and shined a spotlight, and elected officials or people who are in a position to start bringing about change are ready to sit down with you, then you can’t just keep on yelling at them,"

He's abdicating responsibility for his own role in the process.

1 minute ago, DMC said:

LOL.  Yeah taking the job may well fuck up any future office-seeking hopes he has.  But I think he's rather uniquely equipped for the job - even though I had him at Homeland.

Well, glad to see your kinda being consistent.  But then his SEIU experience outweighs/negates the concerning experience?  What about, say Deval Patrick's experience as Assistant AG for Civil Rights as opposed to his role at Bain?

A venture capital firm and a international aid organization are not the same thing.

[DMC]

Just now, GrimTuesday said:

A venture capital firm and a international aid organization are not the same thing.

Ah.  So what about an international aid organization and a think tank?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

Ah.  So what about an international aid organization and a think tank?

You dorky political Yoda....

[Zorral]

10 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

There is plenty of reason to not support her, and, if the Republicans weren't so obstructionist in nature, they'd realize she's not so different from them

Waahat? 

Like to see any rethug doing remotely any of the things AOC does regularly --

https://thehill.com/homenews/527932-ocasio-cortez-raises-200k-to-fight-food-housing-insecurity-during-video-game-battle

Your problems with her are incomprehensible from where I, at least, sit.  That, unlike our household and those of almost every one we know, rethugs hate her, and a lot of older white politicians have troubles with her -- and they pretty come down to her being 'uppity', i.e. she's confident in herself, and no young woman of color has any right to be like that -- including, which she also is, happy inside her own skin, and effective.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

You tried to use the ACA to refute my point that Obama is not the person you want to go to when looking for a guiding hand when it comes to activism. Obama swoops in when the battle is mostly won. You have cited one example where he took a "bold" step as if if negates his general hostility towards activists who criticized his administration.

You can support a cause without actively doing anything to further the movement. Saying you are supportive of something while not actively agitating for that cause accomplishes nothing, he of course blamed activists for continuing the campaign

Swoops in? Bro, the ACA was the most radical healthcare policy move in at least a half century, and Obama had to burn basically all of his political capital to get it passed. 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Waahat? 

Like to see any rethug doing remotely any of the things AOC does regularly --

Simon was referring to Tanden there, not AOC.

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You dorky political Yoda....

Thanks?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 minutes ago, DMC said:

Thanks?

So long as you're not eating babies I guess....

[GrimTuesday]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

Ah.  So what about an international aid organization and a think tank?

Think tanks are built upon advancing policy proposals and making the case for those. They are also heavily funded by corporate and foreign interests They are typically run by insiders who are beholden to party politics and are generally part of whatever the dominant machine of the day is. The objection to Tanden isn't so much CAP, but rather Tanden herself and her relationship with the Democratic party and to the Left. Now, as I said, working for an aid organization can be a red flag, because they are also heavily funded by those same interest groups, but in theory they have a different mandate than a group that is inherently political.

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

Swoops in? Bro, the ACA was the most radical healthcare policy move in at least a half century, and Obama had to burn basically all of his political capital to get it passed. 

Man, stop, the ACA is to the right of Nixon's health care proposals back in the 50's.

It did some really good shit, but ultimately instead of agitating for a robust healthcare bill, building large scale public support through the methods that activists use to spread their message and grow popular support, he brought a bunch of insurance interests and centrists who are beholden to those interests, who were always going to attack whatever the final outcome was with the exact same vigor, into the process.

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

So long as you're not eating babies I guess....

Only when I go to church.

12 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Think tanks are built upon advancing policy proposals and making the case for those. They are also heavily funded by corporate and foreign interests

What specific policy proposals by CAP do you think are beholden to moneyed interests?

12 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

The objection to Tanden isn't so much CAP, but rather Tanden herself and her relationship with the Democratic party and to the Left. Now, as I said, working for an aid organization can be a red flag, because they are also heavily funded by those same interest groups, but in theory they have a different mandate than a group that is inherently political.

Well, first, seems to me a whole hell of a lot of the objection to Tanden has been due to her role at CAP - by the left in general, on these threads, and by you yourself.  Second, if being president of Soros' group involves interaction with moneyed interests that's analogous to Tanden's role at CAP, then why is the "different mandate" an important distinction?  In other words, if you think Tanden is going to be beholden to such interests, why wouldn't Gaspard?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

18 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Man, stop, the ACA is to the right of Nixon's health care proposals back in the 50's.

It did some really good shit, but ultimately instead of agitating for a robust healthcare bill, building large scale public support through the methods that activists use to spread their message and grow popular support, he brought a bunch of insurance interests and centrists who are beholden to those interests, who were always going to attack whatever the final outcome was with the exact same vigor, into the process.

Do you think I'm not aware that the ACA's original conception came from a conservative viewpoint? 

Shouldn't the difficulties of getting it passed teach you how hard it is to get any significant changes made? 

Look to the mountain top, then lock down and take another step. 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, GrimTuesday said:

Anyone else watching this Georgia debate? I don't think that Kelly Loeffler has moved her face once and if I was drinking every time she called Warnock a radical liberal I'd be dead. She's such a robot. Warnock is pretty cool though.

 

1 hour ago, Raja said:

Kelly Loeffler looks like she's from Westworld in this debate. She does not seem like a real human being.

One word: Botox.

[SFDanny]

Tonight a group of armed people showed up at the Michigan Secretary of States's home shouting "Stop the Steal" according to a video tweeted from Sherilyn Ifill. Armed thugs trying to intimidate elected officials for doing their job is a continuation of dangerous escalations to stop the democratic will of the majority as expressed in the lawful vote of the people. It is a direct result of Trump's lies, and somebody is likely to get hurt.

[Martell Spy]

'Flexing their power': how America's richest zip code stays exclusive
Atherton, California – home to Silicon Valley heavyweights like Eric Schmidt and Nick Clegg – isn’t technically a gated community. But its laws create walls of their own

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/06/atherton-california-wealthy-zip-code-zoning

Quote

 

And of the 89% of the town that is residential, Atherton is zoned only for single-family homes on a minimum lot requirement of one acre. In a state where land is expensive and housing is scarce, the town’s zoning and one acre-lot requirement has all but guaranteed that only the wealthy can afford to build and live in Atherton.

California has a mandate called the regional housing needs allocation that requires all cities to create housing for people of all incomes, from very low to above-moderate income. In November, George Rodericks, Atherton’s city manager, drafted a letter to the Association of Bay Area Governments asking that the planning committee reassess its allocation methodology. His argument was that the methodology “relies heavily on proximity to jobs as a factor” and Atherton’s “long-standing character is as a residential community”.

While he had a point – Atherton has no land zoned for commercial activity – the number of landscapers, contractors, plumbers, electricians, painters and cleaners who inundate the town limits to service the various mansions during the work week is a wonder of its own. On a recent Thursday, so many pickup trucks of landscapers and contractors lined Atherton Avenue that a taco truck and a pupusa truck parked along the stretch to feed the workers.

“You have these small, wealthy cities who are able to flex their political power within this obscure and arcane process, and they’re able to shunt the number [of allocated affordable housing units] to their poorer neighbors,” said Aaron Eckhouse, regional policy manager with California Yimby, an advocacy group. “It’s absolutely ridiculous that we let these wealthy and exclusionary cities continue to push housing out to other places.”

And that doesn’t even touch on the bigger issue: that Atherton reaps the benefits of Silicon Valley without taking on the heavy lifting of providing necessary infrastructure like affordable housing.

“They may have drawn their lines of incorporation to not include commerce, but Atherton derives value from being in the Silicon Valley jobs center,” Eckhouse said. “It rings false to me for them to say ‘we’re just a humble residential town’ when their residents are the titans of commerce and industry who are opening these offices in Palo Alto and Menlo Park and other neighboring areas.”

In his letter regarding regional housing needs, Rodericks asked that “the final methodology take into consideration sustainability and impacts on community character”. To housing advocates, talk about “impacts on community character” is nothing more than a dog whistle for racism and classism – and also, they said, nothing new for the town of Atherton, where a former Google executive resigned from a local school board last month after his wife tweeted sexist and racist remarks about Kamala Harris, the vice-president-elect.

 

 

[Fury Resurrected]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

 

One word: Botox.

That’s way more than Botox can be responsible for

[SFDanny]

15 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

What sectarian nonsense? I haven't seen anyone out there fighting against Biden picks except the Republicans. I think the Biden.picks really suck, and that's about it. Biden's just showing me he's as bad a choice as I suspected, but whatever. My response to all this was due to a Politico troll writing about how not liking Biden's picks makes people stupid. The sectarian nonsense consistenly comes from the neo liberal, centrist core of the party. 

PS Meera Tanden is the enemy. She is ingrained in the capitalist system that harms.so many Americans. These people do these things willingly. They're not out to help, but to further enrich themselves. Until they're out of politics, inequality will continue to rise as ridiculous rates.

 If you think people online expressing this serves Republicans, then I'd be happy to get into a debate how you supporting these picks perpetuates a cycle of suffering not only in the US but around the world. And that someone like Tanden pushed Clinton to seek reparations from Libya because we bombed them. She is legit terrible.

Also, I'm not going to sit here as a white man in grad school and tell black people their "slogan" has bad optics. I'll let a real humantarian like Obama do that I guess.

I thought long and hard about not responding to this, but I will throw my thoughts out there, and then will stop.

I'm going to start by referencing two examples of sectarian nonsense. First, from before I was born and in another country. The Communist Party of Germany, in the days before the takeover by Hitler, was a powerful political force. The Socialists were even more so. But the Communists had an analysis of the politics of pre-Nazi Germany that included the idea of "Social Fascists." That meaning Socialist in form, but Fascist in deeds. If you haven't ever heard of or read about this idea, please, look it up. So, instead of seeing the great danger of Hitler's movement, the Communists said the Socialists were the greater enemy. The Socialist had similar terrible ideas about the Communists, and instead of joining together their sectarian analysis lead to a divided resistance to the Nazis and a vastly weakened response to them. It wasn't until later that the Communists changed their analysis and moved to united/popular front tactics that helped end Hitler's and Mussolini's rule. Two parties that advocated the same goal of socialism could not get past their sectarian division to literally save their own lives. In hindsight it should be a lesson to everyone about understanding who the real enemy to working people really is.

Flash forward to 2015/2016 and here in the United States we had an anti-democratic, authoritarian threat appear in the person of Donald Trump. A man whose ideas spoke straight from the fascist playbook. Yet, we had people here say there was no difference between Hillary Clinton and Trump. In fact, we had people who claimed to stand for socialism saying Hillary was the greater danger and even that if Trump was elected it might be a good thing because the American people would wake up to what capitalism was all about. Echos of the sectarian ideas of Germany's Communists and Socialists reverberating in our own politics.

If one can't see the difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, then their analysis is so flawed it needs to be ignored. That doesn't mean people have to love Clinton. It doesn't mean that one shouldn't disagree with her on critical issues. It does mean she wasn't the enemy in 2016, nor is she today.

Neera Tanden isn't the enemy today either. People who want to take away our democracy - people led by Trump and are willing to overturn the election by force - they are the enemy. People like the armed thugs who showed up at the Michigan Secretary of State's home tonight. People like those who planned to kill the Michigan governor are the enemy. And the people that push them to do their dirty work are the enemy. Trump first and foremost.  Anyone whose sectarian ideas would have us believe allies, with who we may have serious disagreements, are the same or worse than the danger that Tump represents, is lost in a fantasy world. Now, I love fantasy stories, but I don't construct them in place of reality when it comes to political analysis. I'm done

[A Horse Named Stranger]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Only when I go to church.

Catholics...

[Raja]

10 hours ago, DMC said:

This is quite offensive to the acting talents of the cast of Westworld.

Her repeating the same stuff over and over again was akin to the writing on the show! ( I *may* not be fond of that show at all)

[Relic]

This fucking guy - 

 

Talk about going out with a bang. 

A new report from Axios claims that President Trump is considering a dramatic White House departure that includes a final Air Force One flight to Florida where he will host an opposing rally during Joe Biden's inauguration.

"The Trump talk could create a split-screen moment: the outgoing president addressing a roaring crowd in an airport hangar while the incoming leader is sworn in before a socially distanced audience outside the Capitol," Alayna Treene of Axios wrote. 

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-inauguration-day-rally