US Politics- Enemy at the Gaetz

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

51 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Fun fact!  I have been to the Pez factory and museum in Connecticut.  We then went to New Haven for pizza (naturally).  I think that was a Modern day.  

Never has a cooler toy been paired with a worse candy. 

44 minutes ago, gruff one said:

What is a rural culture? What makes it different from a blue state?

Is this a serious question?

[Jaxom 1974]

4 hours ago, williamjm said:

I wonder what will be done to mark the first anniversary of this seismic event?

I just assumed it would be heavily featured on CNN's 2020s retrospective when it actually comes out sometime in 2025 because they can't wait to get it out, even though the decade isn't over...

[Jaxom 1974]

53 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

The whole of 2020 feels like a fUCking decade, dude

 

(intentional weird caps on my swear word so people’s net nannies at work don’t flag it)

Touche.

[ants]

On 4/11/2021 at 1:43 AM, DanteGabriel said:

"In recent memory" is right there in the part you quoted.

I would have brought up McGovern myself, but for that phrase. Did McGovern's defeat in the cycle after the clusterfuck of the 1968 election shape the institutional attitude of the Democratic Party? Is that the origination of their timidity and fear of being labelled too lefty?

To be fair, there have been a few lefty politicians who have been slaughtered in other similar countries (UK, Australia), which may also feed into it a little bit.  

[gruff one]

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

serious question?

 

 

Serious question, yes.

You make the statement that red and blue states are different culturally. What differences are based on culture?

[Week]

57 minutes ago, gruff one said:

Serious question, yes.

You make the statement that red and blue states are different culturally. What differences are based on culture?

If this is a good faith discussion then you would have stated your view at some point over the last three posts.

[Mindwalker]

Your police are completely out of control.

[IheartIheartTesla]

13 hours ago, gruff one said:

What is a rural culture? What makes it different from a blue state?

Population density.

[Fez]

Not going back to the previous discussion, I already posted one more time than I wanted. 

On 4/10/2021 at 1:30 PM, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Back to politicians we have met:

Now this is more fun. As an intern on the Hill back in 2009, I and two fellow interns wandered into Clinton's going away reception from the Senate. It was supposedly an open invite, but when we got there the only people in the room were us, Clinton, Durbin, and Chris Dodd, plus a Clinton aide. We briefly spoke to them, and then a few active duty military touring the capital showed up to take photos with Clinton. At which point we decided to sneak out since we felt really out of place. No idea if it got more crowded later on.

During that internship, I was working in Schumer's office, and I met him a few times. I also met McCain when we both got haircuts at the senate barbershop at the same time, and got pulled into a conversation he was having about baseball. I also met Joe Lieberman when riding the Hill subway/tram system, and I met Frank Lautenberg. I didn't recognize him at all, he came up to me while I was waiting fo an elevator and we had about a 5 minute conversation about being an intern and college and my future plans; and he introduced himself when he left. Really nice guy.

Outside of that intern experience, a few years ago I was best man at a wedding that Bob Casey Jr. attended, where we had a few conversations over the course of the evening. Another really nice guy. There were no other politicians at the wedding, and no celebrities either, and he seemed pretty self-conscious about not wanting to overshadow the happy couple. He also refused to dance at any point, I assume a politician's instinct about wanting to ensure no embarrassing photos of himself.

 

20 hours ago, Ormond said:

On the other hand, I don't think there is any state that will necessarily be perpetually safe for the Democrats. Change can certainly occur in both directions. It just takes longer than people working for change would like.  Complacency as well as fatalism can be fueled by assuming nothing can change.  

It is extremely hard to envision Hawaii as anything other than completely safe for Democrats for the foreseeable future. Change absolutely happens, but Hawaii is essentially a one-party state currently. Democrats have a 24-1 majority in the senate and a 47-4 majority in the house. It's true that Linda Lingle was governor for 8 years not that long ago, but that was before national polarization fully took over. And the state has become so Democratic that pretty much anyone who would be a Republican becomes a conservative Democrat instead, so they can at least have a voice.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, Fez said:

He also refused to dance at any point, I assume a politician's instinct about wanting to ensure no embarrassing photos of himself.

No one seems to have given Trump that memo.

[Zorral]

Have had increasing contact with city and state politicians in the last years.  First it was due to various arts 'dos', hosted by the mayor and that sort of thing.

More lately, it was essentially political, with the local young up-and-coming diverse communities getting representation in both Albany and D.C.  We contribute small amounts frequently and repeatedly to multiple campaigns across the country of these younger ones, particularly women.  Until the pandemic Partner, being so deeply and closely embedded in her community, had a fair amount of f2f with AOC, starting before she began officially her first campaign.

I think the only national political figure I ever met personally was Birch Bayh.  He was on the board of a fellowship program that had awarded me one some years back.  I chatted while sailing on a replica of an 18th century Chesapeake trading vessel, part of the annual festivities celebrating the program.  He was long retired by then, of course.

[Ormond]

The other political figures with minor national fame I have known personally are three Republican members of the US House of Representatives.

When I was a child we attended a church in North Tonawanda, New York where Henry P. Smith was a member. Probably none of you remember him, but he had his brief moment of fame when he said he would support Nixon's impeachment for bombing Cambodia. His youngest daughter, Christiana (who everyone called Chana) was someone I considered a friend during childhood though she was a few years older than I was.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_P._Smith_III

Then here in Omaha after the church I was a member of closed in 2009 I joined the church where Hal Daub had been a member since his childhood. He was a congressman from Nebraska 2 from 1981 to 1989.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Daub

And Nebraska 2's present congressman, Don Bacon, was an adjunct instructor at the university I taught at for a couple of years before he was first elected to the House. He used to eat lunch at the university food service at the same table where I often sat with several other professors. 

https://bacon.house.gov/

If Henry P. Smith were still alive, (and magically reduced in age by at least 40 years from the 110 he would be )  I might vote for him today. I don't think I'd ever vote for either Daub or Bacon. 

[Martell Spy]

Military buildup near Ukraine sows confusion over Russian intentions
Analysis: there are several reasons Russia would want to raise tensions, but an attack appears unlikely

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/12/military-buildup-near-ukraine-sows-confusion-over-russian-intentions

Quote

 

“This movement stands out as possibly the largest unannounced movement of troops since Russia’s invasion of Crimea,” said Thomas Bullock, an analyst at Janes. He estimates that several thousand troops have arrived in the last fortnight from as far afield as Siberia to the east and the Estonian border in the north.

Nor is it just the size of the redeployment that has attracted attention. Its broad composition, including short-range ballistic missile systems, plus a strengthening of the Black Sea fleet, has many of the components of a force military experts say could attack Ukraine, with the possible exception of combat aircraft.

That would represent a dramatic escalation of the conflict that has simmered since Crimea was taken and Russian-backed separatists seized the border Donbas region seven years ago. Already an estimated 14,000 people have been killed.

Rob Lee, a doctoral student who follows Russian deployments at King’s College London’s war studies department, said: “In this case Russia is moving the military assets near the border that they would use in an actual invasion. I think it is a demonstration, but it is disconcerting because it isn’t like previous scares.”

 

 

[Fez]

At least they didn't claim the footage doesn't exist...

Fire her for incompetence and charge her with involuntary manslaughter.

[Week]

7 minutes ago, Fez said:

At least they didn't claim the footage doesn't exist...

Fire her for incompetence and charge her with involuntary manslaughter.

Even a taser tho. Fairly extreme use of force that shouldn't be sanitized as simply "less than lethal". Significant escalation of force and danger for -- what reason? 

[Fragile Bird]

I think this is what people outside the US simply don’t understand. Why is it that you would shoot a person with an outstanding warrant? They ran, you’ll get them later. The taser could have killed him as well, as we have seen in other cases.
 

And she may have yelled taser but she automatically went for her gun. 

[Week]

38 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I think this is what people outside the US simply don’t understand. Why is it that you would shoot a person with an outstanding warrant? They ran, you’ll get them later. The taser could have killed him as well, as we have seen in other cases.
 

And she may have yelled taser but she automatically went for her gun. 

Went for the gun*, undid the safety, and fired a round.

*On the opposite hip as the taser (I believe...)

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, Week said:

Went for the gun*, undid the safety, and fired a round.

*On the opposite hip as the taser (I believe...)

It's pretty hard to swallow that summary.

[Larry of the Lawn]

25 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's pretty hard to swallow that summary.

It's completely unbelievable.  If you are confusing a taser with a gun you have no business being police.  There is no amount of training that's going to fix that. 

Anyone see the footage of that vehicle stop (in VA, I think?) where the cops end up pepper spraying an active duty service member?  They escalated the entire time for no reason, have contradictory commands, it seemed like they were trying to trick the guy into getting shot.

[Maithanet]

I think that is such a bad excuse that I actually do kind of believe it.  But that is still an egregious error that calls into question every element of that officers training and judgement.