All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[mogwen]

http://https://www.huffpost.com/entr...Ldw2qLKpcMY8Sj
Disgusting, isn't it? Of course, why would they need soap, toothbrush or a bed to sleep on! They should be happy not to have been gassed....yet!
That said I found some Trump supporters already advocating for killing those children because, you know, they're "illegals".

[worstblogever]

Elizabeth Warren's Pocahontas stuff was weird

What's weird is of all the ways you could choose to discuss any controversy about her lineage, you decided to go with the racial slur Donald Trump calls her.

[jetengine]

Boris Johnson seemed like a sure-in to become PM of the UK ... and then this happened:

Police called to loud altercation at potential PM's home



Cops, man.

And Lordy, there are tapes:

Its not really doing much here frustratingly

[PaulBullion]

What's weird is of all the ways you could choose to discuss any controversy about her lineage, you decided to go with the racial slur Donald Trump calls her.

"Weird" is not the adjective I would have gone for here. But I'm on my "last chance."

[Malvolio]

A spot on analogy. Trump is the puppet, and Turtle Boy, the true power behind the throne, is the puppet master, pulling the strings not just in the Oval Office, but in the Capitol with the Senate as well. People have said it’s not enough for Dems to reclaim the presidency, they have to win back the Senate or face four years of mindless obstruction from McConnell who’s already on record saying he’ll block and stall anything and everything if a Democrat becomes president.

Samantha Bee is right. Many of these Democrats running for President, who have no chance at winning the nomination, would be doing us all a lot more good if they ran for the US Senate instead of running for President.

[JackDaw]

Its not really doing much here frustratingly

It’s just Boris being Boris...few (if any) people interested in UK politics will be remotely surprised. I’d be amazed if it even loses him any votes in leadership election...jeez, given nature of conservative members, it might gain him a few votes.

But you’re right, it’s frustrating.

[Iron Maiden]

Totally agree about the Democrats need to win more seats in the Senate. Turtle Boy and his wife are getting away with a lot of stuff, probably some that hasn't been uncovered yet. You rarely hear Trump making up names for him or even Rand Paul. I think McConnell, Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham are the Unholy 3 of the Senate.

[JCAll]

You're giving him way too much credit.

He's the gravedigger of American democracy and you know it. He's a prime example of conservatives rejecting democracy when it does not deliver unto them the results that they want. When the history of this era is written, you can bet it won't be about how McConnel was earnest about how the 'country was better off', rest assured.


...and we're not better off.

Mitch McConnell needs to be America's reminder of why Kings are bad.

[wjowski]

Samantha Bee is right. Many of these Democrats running for President, who have no chance at winning the nomination, would be doing us all a lot more good if they ran for the US Senate instead of running for President.

I've been saying this since freaking 2016.

[Mister Mets]

What's weird is of all the ways you could choose to discuss any controversy about her lineage, you decided to go with the racial slur Donald Trump calls her.

The backlash to Elizabeth Warren isn't due to any opposition to Native Americans, but about her exaggerated claims of heritage, and her DNA test reveal that she is between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American, which doesn't seem to be enough to be listed as a racial minority in various faculty directories.

The point of Trump's insult isn't that there's anything wrong with Native Americans, but to highlight Warren being an eccentric white lady.

Do you know anything about them? If Charlie Baker was a Senator he'd be derided as a charlatan to Republican principles and called a Democrat.

By national Republican standards, the men and women you cited are Democrats. At best they'd be called Rhinos. So, yeah, they make a lot of right decisions. Like being pro-choice, accepting refugees, and support for same sex marriage. If Charlie Baker is the one you want to hold up - I'd tell you it undermines your point.

Trump, McConnell and the other national Republicans are scum. If more of them were Charlie Baker we'd be far, far better off. But they are not. They are far, far from it.

There are precious few moderates in the legislature and that's a problem.

Part of this is that we're in a polarized time so voters don't want their national representatives or Presidents to be members of the other party. It's more about that than the national party disliking moderates, although you can see a bit of this on the left with the backlash to Joe Manchin.

You're giving him way too much credit.

He's the gravedigger of American democracy and you know it. He's a prime example of conservatives rejecting democracy when it does not deliver unto them the results that they want. When the history of this era is written, you can bet it won't be about how McConnel was earnest about how the 'country was better off', rest assured.


...and we're not better off.

I legitimately think McConnell is doing what he thinks is best for the country. Most politicians operate the same way, even if I disagree with many of their ideas and solutions.

There is a clear distinction between "He thinks the country is better off" and "the country is better off." A lot of politicians are going to advocate for things that makes things worse, but they usually don't realize it at the time.

[worstblogever]

The backlash to Elizabeth Warren isn't due to any opposition to Native Americans, but about her exaggerated claims of heritage, and her DNA test reveal that she is between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American, which doesn't seem to be enough to be listed as a racial minority in various faculty directories.

1) There really is no backlash.
2) It's still racist that you would repeat that term.

[Dalak]

I legitimately think McConnell is doing what he thinks is best for the country. Most politicians operate the same way, even if I disagree with many of their ideas and solutions.

There is a clear distinction between "He thinks the country is better off" and "the country is better off." A lot of politicians are going to advocate for things that makes things worse, but they usually don't realize it at the time.

As we've seen play out time and time again, any 'deeply held convictions' he has are thrown away the second it's politically convenient. You are making the mistake of accepting what he says at face value, which you shouldn't do considering you've read the politics threads where we've groused about him for years now. Unless you assume we're all reactionary liars or something else worth ignoring, along with all the journalists in the links we've shared on the subject.

1) There really is no backlash.
2) It's still racist that you would repeat that term.

+1

[SquirrelMan]

So, is there a list of racist statements that are ok on this board?

I haven't found one yet.

[Jack Dracula]

He thinks the country is better off when socialists don't get what they want, and when the courts are filled with originalist and textualist judges.

The reality: He thinks the country is better off when society at large has no actual influence over it's government as intended rather than the corporations Republicans are beholden to and when the courts are full of conservative justices who will rule in favor of corporate and evangelical interests.

You know what I find so strange about McConnell? He does all this awful stuff and he's still not even appreciated by the dregs of the Republican base. They hate him, chide him, mock him, and blame him and yet he is their most effective and most staunch facilitator. He's doing evil, awful things and the people that should be thanking him aren't even doing it!

Because they know he doesn't actually represent them, but he's a Republican so he gets a free pass.

[Mister Mets]

As we've seen play out time and time again, any 'deeply held convictions' he has are thrown away the second it's politically convenient. You are making the mistake of accepting what he says at face value, which you shouldn't do considering you've read the politics threads where we've groused about him for years now. Unless you assume we're all reactionary liars or something else worth ignoring, along with all the journalists in the links we've shared on the subject.



+1

We might be arguing past one another here, but I've read much of the criticism of McConnell here, and I'm not claiming anyone is reactionary liars. But criticism of tactics or outcomes doesn't contradict the idea that he could be mainly doing what he thinks is right.

Looking at a few of the controversies, a Senator getting infrastructure projects in his home state could believe this is a valid use of government funds, and a legislative leader preventing a vote on a judge from the other party could prefer that his party nominate a Supreme Court justice.

There's a problem in politics in assuming the other side is evil, when they've got different solutions.

1) There really is no backlash.
2) It's still racist that you would repeat that term.

It does appear that Elizabeth Warren's handling of her DNA results hurt her favorability numbers, and got her some bad numbers, so there was unambiguously a backlash.

https://www.vox.com/2019/5/8/1853574...cratic-primary
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/16/polit...tas/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/u...test-2020.html

From the New York Times in December.

But nearly two months after Ms. Warren released the test results and drew hostile reactions from prominent tribal leaders, the lingering cloud over her likely presidential campaign has only darkened. Conservatives have continued to ridicule her. More worrisome to supporters of Ms. Warren’s presidential ambitions, she has yet to allay criticism from grass-roots progressive groups, liberal political operatives and other potential 2020 allies who complain that she put too much emphasis on the controversial field of racial science — and, in doing so, played into Mr. Trump’s hands.

Advisers close to Ms. Warren say she has privately expressed concern that she may have damaged her relationships to Native American groups and her own standing with activists, particularly those who are racial minorities. Several outside advisers are even more worried: They say they believe a plan should be made to repair that damage, possibly including a strong statement of apology.

For some Warren allies and progressive groups, Ms. Warren’s standing by the DNA test amounts to profoundly poor judgment. Some said she was too reactive to Mr. Trump’s attacks — test results would never silence a president who often disregards facts, they said — and created a distraction from her own trademark message of economic populism. The president revels in repeatedly slurring Ms. Warren as “Pocahontas,” and conservative commentators like Howie Carr of The Boston Herald have enjoyed holding the DNA issue over the senator’s head.

“The biggest risk in engaging a bully is that bullies don’t usually stop, regardless of what the truth is,” said Charles Chamberlain, executive director for the progressive political group Democracy for America. Mr. Chamberlain’s group had, in 2014, launched a “Run Warren Run” campaign to encourage her to seek the 2016 presidential nomination.

“When you can’t win an argument,” he added, “then sometimes it’s not worth having that argument.”

Ms. Warren’s allies also say she unintentionally made a bigger mistake in treading too far into the fraught area of racial science — a field that has, at times, been used to justify the subjugation of racial minorities and Native Americans.

Ms. Warren has also troubled advocates of racial equality and justice, who say her attempt to document ethnicity with a DNA test gave validity to the idea that race is determined by blood — a bedrock principle for white supremacists and others who believe in racial hierarchies.

There's an effort by some on the left to frame this as bias against Native Americans, and I doubt that's helpful, since it's an objectively false argument. My comment on the "Pocahontas stuff" was mainly about that.

Just as the backlash against Rachel Dolezal is not due to an animus against African-Americans, the mockery of Elizabeth Warren is not due to an animus against Native Americans.