All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[zinderel]

I still support the death penalty in very limited cases.

Serial killers, people who can arrange deaths on the outside of prisons while they are still in one, and people who kill/order the deaths of witnesses/judges/jurors for their crimes and trials. But I don't consider those cases to be punitive justice so much as being the only way to truly protect society from them. Everyone else can just go away for life if need be - it costs less for the taxpayer and you can try to make it right if things go wrong. The John Oliver segment on the Death Penalty should be required viewing for anyone - one of the DA's who still pursues it had a little mockup electric chair on his desk with pictures of people who had been sent to it by him. And every face they could identify from the film was later exonerated.

Oh, same. Serial killers, premeditated murderers, violent rapists, child molesters (actual offenders, not just collectors of videos and photographs. Them, you send to places like Miracle Village). If proof beyond the pale can be provided - unimpeachable evidence, eyewitness testimony, a confession without remorse - fine. It's incredibly rare to have that kind of hat trick in a criminal trial, but if you get it, then go for it. But do it and be done. Don't drag it out through 20 years of appeals. Do it quick, clean, and final. Like a firing squad. Bullets are cheaper than a drug cocktail.

But let's not pretend that it's about deterring crime. It's about removing cancers.

I said it in my post about the two kinds of justice: "Both have their value and their place, and both sets of questions together provide a more full picture of the crime." Conservatives are too caught up in the punitive side, liberals are too caught up in the restorative side. We should ALWAYS start from a restorative stance: how can we understand this crime so we can try to prevent anyone else from committing it? But when and if evidence comes to light that restorative justice is not the answer, THEN we switch to punitive and the questions it asks, like, "How do we stop THIS criminal from committing his crimes again?"

[aja_christopher]

I was a Bernie supporter up until it became clear that Hillary was getting the nomination. Even then, while I raged at the dirty tricks the DNC under Wasserman-Schultz pulled and I believed Bernie would have been better, I supported Hillary, because the ONLY other option was a protofascist lunatic. Johnson and Stein were jokes with absolutely no chance, and thus, were a wasted vote. Too many Bernie fans I knew shifted their vote to those two black holes in protest. And some switched to Trump as protest, not believing he was as bad as we all knew he was.

Pragmatism and political reality are key -- can Bernie win in the South? Can Beto win Texas? Can Booker stand up to Trump? Can Warren win over moderates? These are questions that have yet to be answered.

I'm all for supporting a specific candidate in the primaries but politics isn't about getting your way or throwing a tantrum when you don't -- if you really want your party to win, it's about selecting a candidate who appeals to the largest number of voters, which is why we have the primaries in the first place.

This is why the Sanders' argument should be a non-issue in my opinion -- he ran and he lost by millions of votes.

That's not an attack -- that's just reality.

And I understand the complaints about the DNC but the DNC isn't why Bernie lost -- he lost because most Democrats didn't think he was the better candidate.

-----
"Oh, I definitely agree on the divide. That convention was ugly, if you remember.

Now, I think you bring up an interesting question. Yes, we know that there are momentum effects in primaries. People do seem to get aboard a winning train. So I am sympathetic to that argument.

But it's important to remember that Clinton wasn't anywhere close to attaining a majority of delegates at the beginning of the process in 2016. There was plenty of room to catch Clinton. Superdelegates made up only a small portion of delegates overall.

I'd argue the big problem, again, is that Sanders simply couldn't win over black voters in the south. Sanders' bid was all but done when he lost the South Carolina primary to Clinton. Now, she was aided by an endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn, but were people caring about that endorsement because he had a superdelegate vote? Or were people caring about that because he was a longtime representative whose voice they trusted?"

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/polit...ers/index.html

[zinderel]

Pragmatism and political reality are key -- can Bernie win in the South? Can Beto win Texas? Can Booker stand up to Trump? Can Warren win over moderates? These are questions that have yet to be answered.

I'm all for supporting a specific candidate in the primaries but politics isn't about getting your way or throwing a tantrum when you don't -- if you really want your party to win, it's about selecting a candidate who appeals to the largest number of voters, which is why we have the primaries in the first place.

This is why the Sanders' argument should be a non-issue in my opinion -- he ran and he lost.

Exactly. Idealism is wonderful in the primary, and CAN pay off. But once the primary is done, you buckle in and support the nominee with the best chance of beating the enemy. Or opposition. Or whatever you want to call the other guy.

Be an idealist in the primaries, and a pragmatist in the finals.

[aja_christopher]

Exactly. Idealism is wonderful in the primary, and CAN pay off. But once the primary is done, you buckle in and support the nominee with the best chance of beating the enemy. Or opposition. Or whatever you want to call the other guy.

Be an idealist in the primaries, and a pragmatist in the finals.

I went through it with Kucinich and Obama but I wasn't nearly as political then -- Kucinich spoke about universal health care, raising the minimum wage, marijuana legalization, and a lot of the same things you see being talked about today.

"Dennis Kucinich was Mocked in his Presidential Bid -- Turns Out He was the Future of Politics"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...e-of-politics/

Admittedly, Obama got me to the polls, but I would have preferred someone who would hold the Republicans feet to the fire for Iraq and the Great Recession -- I completely understand Sanders supporters in that respect, but that doesn't excuse their behavior both during and after the primaries.

[Mecegirl]

Exactly. Idealism is wonderful in the primary, and CAN pay off. But once the primary is done, you buckle in and support the nominee with the best chance of beating the enemy. Or opposition. Or whatever you want to call the other guy.

Be an idealist in the primaries, and a pragmatist in the finals.

Unless of course if the candidate that wins is problematic in some way. The biggest example of that is Trump. Most candidates won't rise to his level of obvious issues, but it does make you wonder about the other side of things. There should have been a mass revolt from "reasonable" conservatives.

[numberthirty]

Exactly. Idealism is wonderful in the primary, and CAN pay off. But once the primary is done, you buckle in and support the nominee with the best chance of beating the enemy. Or opposition. Or whatever you want to call the other guy.

Be an idealist in the primaries, and a pragmatist in the finals.

Here's the issue...

That goes both ways.

You can't just expect voters to be pragmatic, and that them doing so will save the day. Plenty of folks have wanted serious change for long enough that they've had it with that sort of thing. Never mind the sort of folks that want something like meaningful change in something like our current relationship with Israel. Never mind folks that you will probably never get because they've given up on the system entirely.

Being pragmatic needs to be something that the nominee/party do as well as some of the voters if you are ever going to have a realistic chance at winning elections. Last time out, you had a candidate/party who looked at a "Change" year and just ran like it was any old year. That's about a million miles away from a pragmatic approach.

[aja_christopher]

Being pragmatic needs to be something that the nominee/party do as well as some of the voters if you are ever going to have a realistic chance at winning elections.

Candidates lose -- it happens regardless of how "pragmatic" you might be, especially when you are being attacked from within by people who feel entitled to the nomination despite losing by millions of votes.

You should know, having backed a candidate who lost the primaries before even getting to the general.

Democrats have been "winning elections" long before Sanders came along, and they'll be winning them long after he's gone -- the only thing that "needs" to happen is that you need to realize that even if you don't want to vote for Democrats other than the ones you prefer, then you should at least stop trying to drag other candidates down.

It most likely won't happen -- but it needs to.

[numberthirty]

Pragmatism and political reality are key -- can Bernie win in the South? Can Beto win Texas? Can Booker stand up to Trump? Can Warren win over moderates? These are questions that have yet to be answered.

I'm all for supporting a specific candidate in the primaries but politics isn't about getting your way or throwing a tantrum when you don't -- if you really want your party to win, it's about selecting a candidate who appeals to the largest number of voters, which is why we have the primaries in the first place.

This is why the Sanders' argument should be a non-issue in my opinion -- he ran and he lost by millions of votes.

That's not an attack -- that's just reality.

And I understand the complaints about the DNC but the DNC isn't why Bernie lost -- he lost because most Democrats didn't think he was the better candidate.

-----
"Oh, I definitely agree on the divide. That convention was ugly, if you remember.

Now, I think you bring up an interesting question. Yes, we know that there are momentum effects in primaries. People do seem to get aboard a winning train. So I am sympathetic to that argument.

But it's important to remember that Clinton wasn't anywhere close to attaining a majority of delegates at the beginning of the process in 2016. There was plenty of room to catch Clinton. Superdelegates made up only a small portion of delegates overall.

I'd argue the big problem, again, is that Sanders simply couldn't win over black voters in the south. Sanders' bid was all but done when he lost the South Carolina primary to Clinton. Now, she was aided by an endorsement from Rep. Jim Clyburn, but were people caring about that endorsement because he had a superdelegate vote? Or were people caring about that because he was a longtime representative whose voice they trusted?"

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/28/polit...ers/index.html

If you are going to pose that question while ignoring how the South went last time and if any other Democrat has a chance at winning in the South this time out, you are asking the wrong questions.

That party voters kept a guy who they thought didn't jibe with their politics from getting the nomination didn't do anyone any good when the eventual nominee lost all over the South.

If the eventual nominee cannot actually win at least a couple of Southern states, that particular question will be a non-issue in 2020.

Again, some actual pragmatism from the party would probably make sense.

[wjowski]

Except that punitive Justice doesn't ACTUALLY do anything to deter crime. States with the death penalty, which later did away with it, found that crime numbers barely fluctuated.

https://www.amnestyusa.org/a-clear-s...oes-not-deter/

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-a...-death-penalty

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ter-criminals/

The only people who still believe that the death penalty deters criminals are people who just like watching someone die. Period.

And that's not even getting how the US, with our heavily punishment-based justice system, has the highest recidivism rate in the developed world.

[numberthirty]

Candidates lose -- it happens regardless of how "pragmatic" you might be, especially when you are being attacked from within by people who feel entitled to the nomination despite losing by millions of votes.

You should know, having backed a candidate who lost the primaries before even getting to the general.

Democrats have been "winning elections" long before Sanders came along, and they'll be winning them long after he's gone -- the only thing that "needs" to happen is that you need to realize that even if you don't want to vote for Democrats other than the ones you prefer, then you should at least stop trying to drag other candidates down.

It most likely won't happen -- but it needs to.

Yeah, no reason that might have happened...



Doing that, and then thinking you won't be attacked and that everything is going to be hunky dory is exactly what I am talking about.

Pretty much the opposite of pragmatism.

The one upside is that I don't really think any on the Democrats this time out will be dumb enough to actually go that far out of their way to pick that particular fight.

[numberthirty]

And that's not even getting how the US, with our heavily punishment-based justice system, has the highest recidivism rate in the developed world.

While this is surely true, the rest of the big picture in the US certainly helps to put folks in a position where recidivism is a more likely outcome.

The whole thing probably needs to change.

[aja_christopher]

"Sen. Bernie Sanders: 'I am an independent'"

"Sen. Bernie Sanders put to rest questions about his party affiliation, telling a Fox News reporter he’ll continue to run as an independent.

“I am an independent and I have always run in Vermont as an independent, while I caucus with the Democrats in the United States Senate,” Sanders said Sunday after an appearance in Rollinsford, N.H. “That’s what I’ve been doing for a long time and that’s what I’ll continue to do.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ent/792186001/

-----
"Beto could give Biden and Bernie a run for their money"

"We know him as “Beto” but his real name, befitting a fourth-generation Irish American on St. Patrick’s Day is Robert Francis O’Rourke. He is so cool that — like Bernie, Lebron and Kanye — he has become one of America’s few single-name icons, known to pundits and voters alike simply as "Beto."

The anticipation over former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s decision to enter or sit out the presidential campaign hung over the Democratic Party as heavily as Bryce Harper’s destination clouded the fortunes of Major League Baseball teams in the National League East. Now that we know their decisions, the question is whether the anticipation was all hype or whether their decisions will have a lasting impact on both races.

Beto’s decision to run for president arrived in a blaze of glory including a cover story in Vanity Fair complete with pictures by the famous photographer, Annie Leibovitz. The cover photo of the candidate resplendent in jeans and standing by his truck was all over the internet. Is his campaign just an internet and media frenzy or will it last through the dog days of the long nomination marathon?

The time had has come for someone like O’Rourke to run for president. He’s only 46 and he only spent six years in the U.S. House representing the El Paso, Texas area. The two Democratic frontrunners, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are both in their 70s and have served in Washington for 38 and 28 years respectively.

A generational war is being waged in American politics, particularly within the Democratic Party. A battle rages between the boomers who run the party and the millennials who are the strongest Democratic partisans. The defeats of Reps. Joe Crowley in New York City and Mike Capuano in Boston by the victories of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley were as much generational than they were ideological. Both incumbents had very good liberal voting records that were no match for younger and more energetic challengers.

O'Rourke’s youth and energy would be an effective contrast against the two frontrunners. The outcome of the fight is vital for the future of the Democratic Party...."

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign...or-their-money

[Malvolio]

Bernie may run as an Independent in Vermont, but for the Presidential election, he damn well better run as a Democrat. If he runs as a third party candidate in the general election, he will guarantee Trump another four years.

[aja_christopher]

Cont'd

"Beto has charisma to burn. He runs the risk of appearing shallow, but he projects leadership which is what many voters look for in a president. Many of the other Democratic candidates are very smart and very earnest. Some of the Democratic presidential candidates come across as policy wonks and are almost totally policy-oriented when most voters are personality driven especially independent voters. These indy voters are key to beating Trump. Candidates can talk about issues until the cows come home but most people vote for people not programs.

If the Democratic candidates were in high school, Biden would be the popular senior class president on his way to bigger and better things. Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would be the school nerds well on their way to Ivy League colleges. Beto O’Rourke? He would be the popular and cool freshman who the other newbies would gravitate towards.

The social media reaction to Beto’s entry into the Democratic nomination sweepstakes from Sanders supporters was especially harsh. I saw tweets from Sanders supporters describing O’Rourke as a “pretty boy” and “vapid.’ When I saw those comments, I thought of Felix Frankfurter’s reaction to Franklin Delano Roosevelt after their first meeting. The future Supreme Court justice said FDR “had a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament.” Well Roosevelt used that temperament to lead a nation out of a devastating economic depression and through a horrific world war...

O’Rourke isn’t all personality. Recently he threw down against Sanders in the ideological war waging within the Democratic Party. O’Rourke drew a line in the sand between himself and Sanders in remarks to reporters in his hometown of El Paso Texas in February. “I’m a capitalist. I don’t see how we’re able to meet any of the fundamental challenges that we have as a country without in part harnessing the power of the market.”

That makes it clear the candidate O’Rourke doesn’t shy away from the issues. His statement reflects his plan to run a slightly left of center campaign. The Texan believes that Democrats and Americans generally are more pragmatic than ideological."

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign...or-their-money

[numberthirty]

Cont'd

"Beto has charisma to burn. He runs the risk of appearing shallow, but he projects leadership which is what many voters look for in a president. Many of the other Democratic candidates are very smart and very earnest. Some of the Democratic presidential candidates come across as policy wonks and are almost totally policy-oriented when most voters are personality driven especially independent voters. These indy voters are key to beating Trump. Candidates can talk about issues until the cows come home but most people vote for people not programs.

If the Democratic candidates were in high school, Biden would be the popular senior class president on his way to bigger and better things. Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would be the school nerds well on their way to Ivy League colleges. Beto O’Rourke? He would be the popular and cool freshman who the other newbies would gravitate towards.

The social media reaction to Beto’s entry into the Democratic nomination sweepstakes from Sanders supporters was especially harsh. I saw tweets from Sanders supporters describing O’Rourke as a “pretty boy” and “vapid.’ When I saw those comments, I thought of Felix Frankfurter’s reaction to Franklin Delano Roosevelt after their first meeting. The future Supreme Court justice said FDR “had a second-class intellect but a first-class temperament.” Well Roosevelt used that temperament to lead a nation out of a devastating economic depression and through a horrific world war...

O’Rourke isn’t all personality. Recently he threw down against Sanders in the ideological war waging within the Democratic Party. O’Rourke drew a line in the sand between himself and Sanders in remarks to reporters in his hometown of El Paso Texas in February. “I’m a capitalist. I don’t see how we’re able to meet any of the fundamental challenges that we have as a country without in part harnessing the power of the market.”

That makes it clear the candidate O’Rourke doesn’t shy away from the issues. His statement reflects his plan to run a slightly left of center campaign. The Texan believes that Democrats and Americans generally are more pragmatic than ideological."

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign...or-their-money

If that's the take, why not just cut the crap and run Tom Steyer?