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

[Tendrin]

First off, take a minute to consider the assertion that a Donald Trump is a racist.

Second, ask yourself how long the things that point to that the guy might be/probably is a racist have been the case.

Once you have done both of those, take a minute to think over the dates that Kamala Harris was perfectly willing to accept a political donation from the guy.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics...226975319.html

Oh GTFO with this nonsense.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

‘Grab that record’: How Trump’s high school transcript was hidden

Maybe Trump's grade school records were hidden too. Makes me wonder just how poor of a student IQ45 really was.

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Here’s Exactly What The Democrats’ Trump Investigators Are Looking For

A full breakdown of the House Judiciary Committee’s massive document request.

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North Korea Rebuilds Part Of Missile Launch Site It Promised Trump To Dismantle

The East Asian country is reportedly “pursuing a rapid rebuilding” at the site. Looks like Rocket Man pulled a fast one on Dolt45.

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Bernie Sanders Struggled With Black Voters. His Campaign Is Working Overtime To Fix That.

The Vermont senator is diversifying his staff, talking about his civil rights activism and putting more emphasis on anti-racist policies. As a black man, I'll certainly be paying attention to how Sanders goes about attracting the vote of people of color.

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Trump’s First Veto Will Probably Be To Defend An Unprecedented Power Grab From Congress

Trump’s widely expected veto would force congressional Republicans to choose between supporting him and defending their own constitutional powers. I fear cowardly Republicans will put Trump first.

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Donald Trump Tried To Troll Hillary Clinton (Again). She Hit Him With ‘Mean Girls.’

Why the obsession, Mr. President? Answer: He lost the popular vote to Clinton in 2016. Nothing more complicated than that.

[aja_christopher]

Oh, my bad. It was just allowed and the sergeant at arms resigned afterwards. Big whoop.

This is how Mets avoids the truth about his party's racism and homophobia -- sweep it under the rug and pretend it's not a real problem because someone "resigned" after the fact.

Because it isn't a issue for him and actually works to his and his party's advantage, he'll find all kinds of ways to talk around the elephant in the room while criticizing Democrats for imaginary threats like "open borders" and "universal health care".

In reality, it just confirms that he only cares said issues when he can use them as a political weapon against opponents -- he applies the "slippery slope" argument to "liberal" positions such as health care and immigration, but completely ignores the fact that his party (especially under Trump) has already gone over the cliff with regards to issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, and Islamophobia, not to mention the deficit, climate change and rampant corruption within the party itself.

The Republican party is now the party of Trump -- and Trump is a known racist, sexist, and Islamophobe, as well as a criminal, a liar, and a cheat.

It's a perfect fit and Mets repeated avoidance of this reality shows us exactly why Trump is in the position he is today -- at the head of the Republican party.

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"Why did you feel the need to tell this story now?

I think we’re sliding backwards. We're seeing an increase in voter suppression in the name of political power and it hurts all minorities. We're also seeing a rise in hate crimes, and more anti-Semitic crimes than we’ve had in years. There's more hateful speech out there. We saw what happened in Charlottesville. I think it’s important for folks to read this book because we tend to forget the sacrifices and hard things people went through in the 1950s and 1960s. If we don’t learn the lessons from history, we're doomed to repeat the bad things, so I think now more than ever, people need to see and understand fully the sacrifices made by the civil rights movement so we can prevent similar types of terror in the future.

You write that the Republican Party is losing its soul. What do you mean?

Voter fraud is a non-issue in the country. But Republicans are doing things under the guise of preventing voter fraud that are designed to limit access to the ballot box. This is a clear, concerted effort, especially in states in the Deep South, to try to stop minorities from participating in voting. You only have to look at what happened in Georgia [where then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp was in charge of counting ballots in his own gubernatorial race], or look at what the Secretary of State of Alabama said, that voting is a "privilege" that has to be earned as opposed to a right.

Look at the tough voter ID laws in Texas, North Carolina and Alabama, as well as the gerrymandered districts in the House of Representatives and in legislatures all over the country.

Those are designed to concentrate the minority and black electorates into specific districts and to dilute their overall voting power."

https://www.newsweek.com/2019/03/08/...s-1344729.html

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"US federal deficit widens 77% in first four months of fiscal 2019"

"The federal budget deficit ballooned in the first four months of the 2019 fiscal year, growing 77% over the same period a year earlier as tax revenue plummeted and government spending went up.

Figures released Tuesday by the Treasury Department showed the deficit hitting $310 billion, up from $176 billion a year ago.

The growing deficit is being driven in part by the 2017 Republican tax reform, which sharply cut taxes for corporations as well as individuals.

Treasury said revenue from taxes collected from individuals for the period for October 2018 through January 2019 fell 2% to $19 billion. Revenue from corporations declined about 22% to $58.9 billion from $75.5 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that federal budget deficit will reach roughly $900 billion starting in 2019, and is expected to exceed $1 trillion each year beginning in 2022."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/05/polit...ons/index.html

[Tendrin]

This is how Mets avoids the truth about his party's racism and homophobia -- sweep it under the rug and pretend it's not a real problem because someone "resigned" after the fact.

As long as we can focus on the supposed 'inaccuracies', we can ignore the accurate point being made. Bogging down a conversation in 'nuance' and demands for 'accuracy' is a good way to sidestep actually having to reflect on what the party has become, yes.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

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"US federal deficit widens 77% in first four months of fiscal 2019"

"The federal budget deficit ballooned in the first four months of the 2019 fiscal year, growing 77% over the same period a year earlier as tax revenue plummeted and government spending went up.

Figures released Tuesday by the Treasury Department showed the deficit hitting $310 billion, up from $176 billion a year ago.

The growing deficit is being driven in part by the 2017 Republican tax reform, which sharply cut taxes for corporations as well as individuals.

Treasury said revenue from taxes collected from individuals for the period for October 2018 through January 2019 fell 2% to $19 billion. Revenue from corporations declined about 22% to $58.9 billion from $75.5 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that federal budget deficit will reach roughly $900 billion starting in 2019, and is expected to exceed $1 trillion each year beginning in 2022."

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/05/polit...ons/index.html

Isn't it ironic how the deficit only goes up when Republicans are in control, and Democrats have to ride to the rescue, time after time?

[aja_christopher]

Isn't it ironic how the deficit only goes up when Republicans are in control, and Democrats have to ride to the rescue, time after time?

Like I said before, issues like the deficit and "family values" only matter when they can use them against their political opponents -- it's past time assuming they are arguing in good faith when their actions and policy repeatedly reveal otherwise.

[Tendrin]

Isn't it ironic how the deficit only goes up when Republicans are in control, and Democrats have to ride to the rescue, time after time?

That's one of the methods through which conservatives undercut the liberal agenda. It's a double win for them: Defund the ability of the left to enact an aggressive agenda by sapping resources cleaning up ther mess while also rewrading their actual backers in the ranks of the ultra-rich. There's a lot more to it than this summary, but yers, this is one of the reasons the GOP agenda is 'loot the government as much as possible'.

[Tendrin]

Like I said before, issues like the deficit and "family values" only matter when they can use them against their political opponents -- it's past time assuming they are arguing in good faith when their actions and policy repeatedly reveal otherwise.

There was an interesting interview

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...ft-brad-delong

The baseline assumption for too long of third wayists and/or neoliberals was exactly that: good faith negotiations would get you somewhere with the conservatives.

We were certainly wrong, 100 percent, on the politics.
Barack Obama rolls into office with Mitt Romney’s health care policy, with John McCain’s climate policy, with Bill Clinton’s tax policy, and George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy. He’s all these things not because the technocrats in his administration think they’re the best possible policies, but because [White House adviser] David Axelrod and company say they poll well.
And [Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel and company say we’ve got to build bridges to the Republicans. We’ve got to let Republicans amend cap and trade up the wazoo, we’ve got to let Republicans amend the [Affordable Care Act] up the wazoo before it comes up to a final vote, we’ve got to tread very lightly with finance on Dodd-Frank, we have to do a very premature pivot away from recession recovery to “entitlement reform.”
All of these with the idea that you would then collect a broad political coalition behind what is, indeed, Mitt Romney’s health care policy and John McCain’s climate policy and George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy.
And did George H.W. Bush, did Mitt Romney, did John McCain say a single good word about anything Barack Obama ever did over the course of eight solid years?
No, they fucking did not. No allegiance to truth on anything other than the belief that John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell are the leaders of the Republican Party, and since they’ve decided on scorched earth, we’re to back them to the hilt. So the politics were completely wrong, and we saw this starting back in the Clinton administration.

Read the whole thing.

[Tami]

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Bernie Sanders Struggled With Black Voters. His Campaign Is Working Overtime To Fix That.

The Vermont senator is diversifying his staff, talking about his civil rights activism and putting more emphasis on anti-racist policies. As a black man, I'll certainly be paying attention to how Sanders goes about attracting the vote of people of color.

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If Sanders didn't understand the concept that voters came in all sizes, shapes, colors, genders, and ethic/racial backgrounds to begin with, back in 2016, why assume that he understands this now?

His campaign will try to give him a makeover, but in the end he'll stil lbe the old white guy from Vermont who hung around minorities once in his youth then forgot about them for the rest of his political career. No amount of Foundation and Blush can hide those wrinkles.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

If Sanders didn't understand the concept that voters came in all sizes, shapes, colors, genders, and ethic/racial backgrounds to begin with, back in 2016, why assume that he understands this now?

His campaign will try to give him a makeover, but in the end he'll stil lbe the old white guy from Vermont who hung around minorities once in his youth then forgot about them for the rest of his political career. No amount of Foundation and Blush can hide those wrinkles.

Can't argue anything you said. While I agree Sanders might well be the old dog that hasn't learned any new tricks, I'll be gullible and give him the benefit of doubt until he demonstrates beyond any shadow of doubt that he hasn't at all changed.

[numberthirty]

If Sanders didn't understand the concept that voters came in all sizes, shapes, colors, genders, and ethic/racial backgrounds to begin with, back in 2016, why assume that he understands this now?

His campaign will try to give him a makeover, but in the end he'll stil lbe the old white guy from Vermont who hung around minorities once in his youth then forgot about them for the rest of his political career. No amount of Foundation and Blush can hide those wrinkles.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articl...r-faiz-sh.html

Bernie Sanders Picks up Progressive Superstar Faiz Shakir for Campaign Head

And, at only 39 years old, he will be the first Muslim-American manager of a major presidential campaign.

Funny how the old white guy had to be the one that actually made that happen.

[Tami]

Let's see how long it lasts. I will always be of the opinion that Sanders is to Democrats what Trump is to Republicans. I don't want to see the Democratic Party fall down the same rabbit hole the Republicans did.

[TheDarman]

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articl...r-faiz-sh.html

Funny how the old white guy had to be the one that actually made that happen.

Funny how much this train of thought mimics the “Trump is not racist” defense from the Cohen hearing. And this defense is a weak one for a claim no one made. No one said he was racist; just that he is been largely ambivalent to social issues regarding minorities. And he has been. Hiring a Muslim American changes absolutely nothing about his record. If anything, people might criticize the move for tokenism.

[Tendrin]

Funny how much this train of thought mimics the “Trump is not racist” defense from the Cohen hearing. And this defense is a weak one for a claim no one made. No one said he was racist; just that he is been largely ambivalent to social issues regarding minorities. And he has been. Hiring a Muslim American changes absolutely nothing about his record. If anything, people might criticize the move for tokenism.

I mean, his tone deafness is pretty bad. The way he talks about racial issues is bad. His centering of white working class is bad. His association with grifters like Shaun King is bad. It's nice that he hired a Muslim guy as his campaign head but I'm not seeing that helping him not automatically associate being black with being in the ghetto.

Dude's entire political career has been representing one of the the whitest states in the nation. It shows.

[TheDarman]

That's the exact argument you see some states making in the case against joining in on the nationwide popular vote determining where their Electoral College votes wind up.

They make it badly because it makes the minority population in each respective state completely irrelevant. Rather than making everyone compete for every vote everywhere, and thus get closer to the issues that affect the people, it allows politicians to take certain people for granted, like those in New York or Alabama, or ignore people sympathetic to their position, like Republicans in New York and Democrats in Alabama. It practically emphasizes the need for these primaries as they at least give these people you’ve proposed to ignore (under the guise of being realistic to ensure your candidate wins) at least a little say and a little lip-service being paid to these minority coalitions in these red and blue states. For all the talk about Republicans making it more difficult to vote and have a say (an argument that I agree with), we certainly have a lot of people on the left asking to disenfranchise already effectively disenfranchised voters even further. To me, that is irksome. Especially since it has been admitted to be purely for political purposes—and for the purpose of getting a particular white guy that hasn’t presented himself as an effective advocate for minority rights the nomination that should hopefully secure the presidency. The hypocrisy is running rampant.