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

[numberthirty]

One other thing about that race...

Kasich backing Balderson might have kept Balderson in the running. No telling how much that played in.

The one upside there is that the GOP just seem like they have one of the worst "Survival" plans in recent memory. If you are going to run on tax cuts and that the jobs picture is improved, you need to be doing a better version than they have. It's amazing how skeletal their pitch on those improvements has been.

[Tendrin]

Double post..

[Tendrin]

- Potential Democrats That You Could Have Got Out To Vote By Running Just Left Of Center
- That Those Green Party Voters Were Probably Not The Entirety Of Potential "Left" Votes That Were Not Really Tapped Into.

You have your own set of assumptions, as usual, that just assumes that a great horde of progressive voters will just magically appear in a Trump +12 district if you run 'progressive enough'.


What we factually know is that enough people were willing to vote for a guy who can't remember his own campaign website because of his 'policy positions' to almost make the difference between the two, resulting in nobody on the left getting what they wanted. If you ask me, their voters were the usual assortment of Glenn Greenwald/Michael Tracey wanna be contrarian leftists.


Again, if you ask me, if you're willing to pull the lever, as they say, for a green party candidate in an election that is going to come down to the wire, that everyone knows is going to come down to the wire, to register some kind of protest when the GOP is sticking kids in cages and stripping even legal immigrants of their right to apply for citizenship if they fall on hard times, you don't have the convictions you claim to have.

[numberthirty]

Unless there is a quote to suggest it, I don't think Taz was talking "Horde". I know I wasn't.

The reality is that you would not have needed a horde to win this race. I have a tough time buying that enough votes were not out there if the Democrat had ran even just a bit closer to an actual "Left".

As for that "Insight" into who the Green Party voters likely were, that sounds a bit like "Assumption".

[numberthirty]

As for those Green Party voters, take a moment to consider this...

You have the situation that you are describing. In spite of that, the Democrat is just running "Business As Usual".

Does that really reflect that the party is taking addressing things seriously, and maybe you should reconsider a Green Party vote?

It hasn't felt that way, to me.

Edit: One quick thing on the "Board Trouble Shooting" front. Is anyone who is winding up with double posts getting that "Must Wait "X" Amount Of Seconds Before Posting Again..." message?

I've been getting it pretty consistently.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Ohio Special Election For U.S. House Seat Is Too Close To Call

Republican Troy Balderson is ahead in the 12th District, but the race has not been officially called. Considering Trump won that district by 11 points, that should have the GOP worrying. In other election news....

**********

Gretchen Whitmer Wins Democratic Nomination For Governor Of Michigan

Democrats are optimistic about their chances of retaking the governor’s mansion. Sounds promising.

**********

Rashida Tlaib Wins Democratic Primary For Congress In Michigan

She’s all but guaranteed to win in November, and could become one of America’s first Muslim congresswomen. That's sure to drive conservatives and right wingers batshit insane. Good!

**********

Don Lemon Calls Out Melania Trump: ‘She Was A Birther, Too’

The CNN host said viewers shouldn’t read too much into the first lady’s defense of LeBron James. Well said, Mr. Lemon.

**********

Trump’s Tariffs Are Screwing Farmers. Many Still Won’t Blame Him.

“We’re just hoping this doesn’t last a long time.” For your sake, you better pray that hope isn't misplaced.

[worstblogever]

One other thing about that race...

Kasich backing Balderson might have kept Balderson in the running. No telling how much that played in.

The one upside there is that the GOP just seem like they have one of the worst "Survival" plans in recent memory. If you are going to run on tax cuts and that the jobs picture is improved, you need to be doing a better version than they have. It's amazing how skeletal their pitch on those improvements has been.

It's kind of hard to run on "tax cuts" when the standard-bearer from your party has ADD, feuds with any number of journalists, celebrities, or members of you own party on Twitter, locks children in cages, and you constantly have to defend him from legitimate concerns that he committed treason with Russia to get elected in the first place.

The GOP got into bed with Trump, and are surprised when they ended up with his socially transmitted disease. No one else should be.

[JCAll]

Ohio Special Election For U.S. House Seat Is Too Close To Call

Republican Troy Balderson is ahead in the 12th District, but the race has not been officially called. Considering Trump won that district by 11 points, that should have the GOP worrying. In other election news....

I don't know why it worry the GOP, 51% R over 49% D is the ideal split if they're out to not represent the maximum number of people while still getting the win.

[JCAll]

Ohio Special Election For U.S. House Seat Is Too Close To Call

Republican Troy Balderson is ahead in the 12th District, but the race has not been officially called. Considering Trump won that district by 11 points, that should have the GOP worrying. In other election news....

I don't know why it worry the GOP, 51% R over 49% D is the ideal split if they're out to not represent the maximum number of people while still getting the win.

[worstblogever]

I don't know why it worry the GOP, 51% R over 49% D is the ideal split if they're out to not represent the maximum number of people while still getting the win.

They had to spend $4 million in the last month before that race, send the VP, the president, and get the two-term governor to back the candidate. For a four month term that they have to defend again anyway. And after the provisional ballots are counted, it's still going to be a tight .5 % victory that warrants a recount. But they had to put all that effort in to win a district set up to be won easily by 13-14 points.

If Democrats perform at that clip, +13 across all the districts in the country, they easily retake the House. Putting it further in perspective in the 2006 "Blue Wave", Democrats only performed at +6 and went on to take an overwhelming majority.

They can't do that for every House race that's at-risk for the next 90 days leading to November. Or the Senate, or the Governor's races. They're going to have to triage, because it took all that effort just to snap an obvious losing streak. They also can't say that each of the states they have close races in have a governor popular enough that his endorsement actually means something, if even a GOP Governor at all. Hell, Trump coming to campaign on someone's behalf could be a detriment to candidates as the Mueller probe develops in the news. It could quickly turn into a political kiss of death.

They're rigged the game, make no mistake, but even with their thumb on the scale, there's only so many places where they're going to be able to cheat the will of the people.

[Tendrin]

Unless there is a quote to suggest it, I don't think Taz was talking "Horde". I know I wasn't.

The reality is that you would not have needed a horde to win this race. I have a tough time buying that enough votes were not out there if the Democrat had ran even just a bit closer to an actual "Left".

As for that "Insight" into who the Green Party voters likely were, that sounds a bit like "Assumption".

I'll make this really simple for you, 30.

If you're a person on the left, who cares about things that people on the left claim to care about, then the last thing you want to do is continue to hold your breath and pout while actual fascists are running our government. If all of Trump's manifest awfulness can't get you to the polls to vote for anyone who will be in the way of his agenda because they're not left enough, you probably don't actually care enough about the things you claim to care about. O'Connor running a smidge more to the left, however, /may/ have helped, sure, but so would not running off to Greece or dancing around the Nancy Pelosi question. As always, a politician can not run too far out of step with their district.

The dude came close, however, despite those missteps.

And yeah, I'm arguing that protest-Green votes are awful, and show a clear lack of understanding of the moment we're in. And just being 'more progressive' isn't the way to thread every political needle, no matter how much people shout it.

[worstblogever]

August 8th, 2018

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, as well as 2017, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published profiles of Pete Sessions, the U.S. House Representative from Texas' 32nd Congressional District, and somehow still only the second s***tiest person to hold the surname Sessions in American government. In our first look at Rep. Sessions, we identified him as a man perpetually under investigation for ethics investigations, who as the former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee would assure the “party of family values” would meet annually in Las Vegas to see burlesque shows for entertainment, but then was OUTRAGED when Janet Jackson’s nipple fell out at the Super Bowl halftime show. In news stories you only wish were made up, we also talked about how Sessions once missed the ceremony to take his oath to uphold the Constitution because he was too busy attending a fundraiser, and how he was the one who helped orchestrate the 2013 Government Shutdown as a head of the House Rules Committee. In our 2015 follow up on what hijinks Pete Sessions had gotten up to, we added his continued extremist voting record, as well as how he had accused the Obama Administration and Democrats of being “accountable for murders everyday committed by illegal immigrants” that they release (that aren’t actually happening), and how he reacted to the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling on the Affordable Care Act by saying that they had decided that “words do not matter” for upholding the flimsy challenge presented in King vs. Burwell. In March of 2016 Pete Sessions decided it’s a great time to introduce legislation “recognizing magic as a rare and valuable art form and national treasure confirming that he believes in magic more than he does climate change (and he’s produced more legislation to acknowledge it). After House Republicans in ruin any chance of passing funding for the prevention of the Zika Virus by repeatedly inserting “poison pill” legislation, if not far underfunding the cost estimates to successfully prevent the disease, Rep. Sessions said that it was proof that the House was running properly (Note: He still considers himself a champion of the unborn). And, after the tragic mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Pete Sessions tries to invalidate that the shooter was motivated by resentment towards gays, and instead lied to try and change the narrative, claiming, The Pulse wasn’t “even a gay club. It was a young person’s club. They were Latinos”. (Someone might want to tell Rep. Sessions that young people or Latino people can also be gay. Oh, and that the Pulse is actually a gay nightclub, it clearly says so on their website and was founded as such in the memory of a gay man who died of AIDS.)

Sessions faced no Democratic challenger in the 2016 elections, and coasted to earning an eighth term in office with 71% of the vote against the scarecrows put out by the Libertarian and Green Parties, respectively. He has thus, returned to Congress, to continue to do all the things that make us suspect he’s a large container half filled with water mixed into a bag filled with an equal amount of vinegar:

• February 16th, 2017: Sessions votes for HJR 69, to make it legal for hunters on wildlife reserves to kill several species of hibernating bears or wolves while they’re sleeping. Because… well, the logic really isn’t there as to why, it’s just awful.
• March 16th, 2017: Pete Sessions votes for HR 1181, which would allow veterans deemed mentally incompetent to continue to own firearms, and not have them taken away without a judge's written order. We feel safer already.
• March 28th, 2017: Rep. Sessions votes for SJ Res 34, which allowed internet providers to sell the data information of their customers' internet usage to businesses. Well, so much for privacy.
• May 4th, 2017: Sessions votes for the House GOP's healthcare plan, that would kick roughly 24 million people off their health insurance plans, allow up to 28,000 more people to die a year, give $50,000 in tax breaks to millionaires, and would eliminate coverage for pre-existing conditions which would include such medical conditions as pregnancy (current or past), postpartum depression, or prior sexual assault. Oh, and a provision in the bill would make sure that Sessions would be allowed to keep his healthcare plan as it exists under the ACA, which would be repealed for the rest of the country. He and his Republican compatriots threw themselves a beer bash to celebrate taking away healthcare from millions and then gloated about it with Donald Trump at a White House press conference, as well.
• June 8th, 2017: Pete Sessions votes for HR 10, the GOP’s attempt to repeal Dodd-Frank financial reform, because what the country really needs is to allow the big banks to make the same mistakes that imploded the economy only a decade earlier.
• October 3rd, 2017: Sessions votes for HR 36, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, that would try to create an unconstitutional ban abortion at 20 weeks (even though medical science tells us fetuses do not have the capability to feel pain until 29 weeks).
• December 19th, 2017: Pete Sessions votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Sessions and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.

After fourteen-plus years of Pete Sessions’ bulls***, it seems that maybe even a red district like Texas’ 32nd has decided they’re fed up with him. At a March 2017 town hall, Sessions was mercilessly heckled and jeered by the audience, who were chanting “PETE MUST GO”. He didn’t make matters much better when he during his discussion of Trumpcare that he tried a unique method for calming them down… patronizing:

"I understand why you're so frustrated. You don't know how to listen."

Actually, Pete, the problem might be that you’re not listening to your constituents, what with voting for a healthcare bill that only 20% of the country or less think is a good idea. Whether or not all the boos from that town hall translate to the polls in November of 2018, though… well… Texas’ 32nd Congressional District is within reach for the right kind of Democratic challenger, with only a +5 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. But did Pete Sessions end up with someone badass enough to take him down?

OH. HELL. YEAH. If you’ve not yet heard about the gentlemen they call Colin Allred… pull up a chair. Make no mistake, football is one of the biggest pillars of Texas life, and Allred was a four year starter for the Baylor Bears who went on to play in the NFL for the Tennessee Titans. But maybe you’re thinking that makes him just some slab of beef that Team Blue is running? You would be so, so wrong. Allred is also a law school graduate from the University of California-Berkley who specializes in civil rights law who worked in both the Obama White House, for Julian Castro, and the U.S. Attorney’s office.

What we’re saying is… we think come November, Pete Sessions’ goose might be cooked. And Colin Allred might be bringing the gravy.

[catbellysqueezer]

Isn't supporting people because they are less-bad the whole reason the overton window has shifted so far to the right? You can't even talk about raising the minimum wage in most places nowadays.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario:

Candidate A is pro-slavery
Candidate B is anti-slavery but pro-segregation.
Candidate C (who you've been told has little chance to win) is anti-slavery and anti-segregation.

Who do you vote for and why?

[Trey Strain]

Bill Clinton's "triangulation" said to voters, "Yes, I suck, but look at how awful those other guys are. You should be grateful for my small favors." And people bought into it and licked his hand.

This is a very good piece. Steve Bannon's points are especially interesting. Warning: rough language.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...al-crisis.html

[ed2962]

Isn't supporting people because they are less-bad the whole reason the overton window has shifted so far to the right? You can't even talk about raising the minimum wage in most places nowadays.

Imagine this hypothetical scenario:

Candidate A is pro-slavery
Candidate B is anti-slavery but pro-segregation.
Candidate C (who you've been told has little chance to win) is anti-slavery and anti-segregation.

Who do you vote for and why?

It's like when you keep buying a comic with your favorite character that has bad art and a bad story. You keep buying it in the desperate hope that one day it'll get better. Of course, if you keep buying it regardless, then the creators have no reason to change anything they are doing.