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

[Tendrin]

"America" doesn't, the DNC does.

I think that's once again putting too much into 'the DNC'.

[Tami]

I still dont get how America thinks a guy like Biden (so clearly out of touch with the modern world) is a deffo for nomination.

Biden, to many voters, is a warm cup of hot apple cider. He's comfort food. They know him, they are familiar with him, he was their favorite president's VP. After all the chaos of Trump, many want to go back to the peaceful feeling of an Obama presidency. Since, Obama can't be president again, they are willing to settle with the next best thing, Biden.

The other candidates are unknowns, Biden is well known.

Might not be the best reason to vote for him, but I do understand the reason behind it.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Biden, to many voters, is a warm cup of hot apple cider. He's comfort food. They know him, they are familiar with him, he was their favorite president's VP. After all the chaos of Trump, many want to go back to the peaceful feeling of an Obama presidency. Since, Obama can't be president again, they are willing to settle with the next best thing, Biden.

The other candidates are unknowns, Biden is well known.

Might not be the best reason to vote for him, but I do understand the reason behind it.

Everything you said hit home to perfection. Biden is the living example of that old Eagles song, "Peaceful Easy Feeling", and while that's certainly not an ideal reason to vote for him, most would for that very reason. People yearn for calm waters after Trump mercilessly roiled the ocean, and Biden would provide that much needed relief, bringing the ship of state that's America into a safe harbor. At present, I'm still undecided as to who I'll throw my support behind as there's still a year left until the election, but if Biden is the candidate, he'll get my vote, same if it's Warren, Sanders (if he's up to the task physically), Harris or Mayor Pete.

[worstblogever]

Biden may not be "with the times" as much as the other folks in this primary, but he's still a capable leader, a superb statesman, a true patriot, and someone with the country's best long-term interests at heart. He's had to make some s*** compromises with some terrible people along the way to see us towards the progress we've gotten, and while that isn't always so inspiring, regrettably, as they say, "that is how the sausage gets made".

At this point, I'm still:

Warren > Harris > Castro > Booker > Biden > Sanders > Buttigieg > Everybody Else I'm not gonna name in this primary > Gabbard > Trump

We still have 13 months left before 2020, and 9 before a nominee is chosen.

[Tami]

Biden may not be "with the times" as much as the other folks in this primary, but he's still a capable leader, a superb statesman, a true patriot, and someone with the country's best long-term interests at heart. He's had to make some s*** compromises with some terrible people along the way to see us towards the progress we've gotten, and while that isn't always so inspiring, regrettably, as they say, "that is how the sausage gets made".

At this point, I'm still:

Warren > Harris > Castro > Booker > Biden > Sanders > Buttigieg > Everybody Else I'm not gonna name in this primary > Gabbard > Trump

We still have 13 months left before 2020, and 9 before a nominee is chosen.

In some ways, I'm still undecided. I am more confident in who I don't want to vote for [and hope I'm not put in the position to have to choose between them and Trump] than I am about who I will vote for.

I lean towards Warren, but I want to look the other candidates over more carefully.

If Biden gets the nomination, I hope he chooses a VP that is much younger yet has solid political experience. Someone who can easily be seen as becoming President on their own some day.

As much as I like Stacy Abrams, I don't think she quite fits the bill as far as political experience. I'd rather he went with Cory Booker or Julián Castro or even Amy Klobuchar. Someone like them.

I'd have added Kamala Harris to that list, but I don't know if that burnt bridge between her and Biden can be mended.

[Tami]

Pentagon officials deemed withholding of aid to Ukraine was illegal

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon was confused. Hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine had been appropriated in late 2018 by Congress, intended to help fend off aggression by neighboring Russia. But well into 2019, as summer was edging toward autumn, the funds had still not moved.

Department of Defense officials began to worry that the funds would never make it to Ukraine, since the appropriations would expire with the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. They even began to prepare a legal challenge to the freezing of the funds, leading to an unprecedented fight within the Trump administration

[PwrdOn]

I think that's once again putting too much into 'the DNC'.

The DNC is just a useful stand in for all of those wishy washy moderates who care more about everybody in middle class white America getting along, than actually addressing any issues or standing up for the people suffering the most. The thing is though, in order to appeal to that demographic, a candidate has to at least pretend to be principled and compassionate, and Biden has been and always will be an opportunistic good ole boy who is just out of his element in the modern political climate, and never fails to remind voters of this through his inability to articulate basic talking points without going off script in uncomfortable ways.

[Tami]

Bernie Sanders is still listed as an Independent.

[Tami]

‘She was just mouthing off’: 13-year-old who pointed a finger gun at four classmates faces felony charge

During a classroom discussion in Overland Park, Kan., a student asked a middle school girl which five classmates she would kill if she could.

She extended her forefinger to imitate a gun, and pointed at four students last month. Then, she turned the pretend “gun” on herself, the Kansas City Star reported.

The girl, who was reported on the school’s anti-bullying app, now faces a felony for threatening her classmates, just one week after two boys at a neighboring middle school were charged with misdemeanors after they were caught with real guns in their backpacks.

“I think that this is something that probably could have been handled in the principal’s office and got completely out of hand,” Jon Cavanaugh, the girl’s grandfather, told the Star. “She was just mouthing off.”

A police officer and Westridge Middle School officials questioned the 13-year-old girl and another student about the Sept. 18 incident, an Overland Park Police Department spokesperson told The Washington Post in a statement on Thursday. The Overland Park officer then handcuffed the teenager and took her to a nearby juvenile detention facility, where she was charged with a felony for threatening.

The Westridge Middle School student, who hasn’t been named because she is a juvenile, was released to her mother and is staying with her grandfather in California, the Star reported. Her grandfather told the newspaper he was worried about the girl’s future, because the felony charge could carry up to a year in juvenile detention for what he believes was a childish joke. Cavanaugh said his granddaughter does not have access to a real gun at home.

But Howe told WDAF that the charge would probably not result in any time in detention, because the girl would likely be eligible for a program with more lenient penalties.

“It would be extremely difficult, almost impossible, under the current juvenile justice system to actually send them to the correctional facility for that type of behavior because it is such a low-level offense, it would not meet the criteria needed,” Howe told the TV station.

[Tami]

New revelations about Trump test Pelosi’s narrow impeachment strategy

Recent revelations about President Trump’s conduct are testing the limits of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s narrow impeachment strategy, leading some Democrats to wonder whether the probe should be expanded beyond the Ukraine scandal.

Since House Democrats launched their impeachment inquiry just over two weeks ago, Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her top lieutenants have coalesced around a plan to focus on Trump’s pressure on the Ukrainian president to investigate former vice president Joe Biden, a 2020 presidential candidate, and his son Hunter. The episode, Democrats argue, is clear-cut, easy for Americans to understand and doesn’t require further proof as the White House has released a rough transcript of the call.

But a spate of allegations about other possible abuses have led some Democrats to rethink the strategy.

[Michael Watkins]

I still dont get how America thinks a guy like Biden (so clearly out of touch with the modern world) is a deffo for nomination.

i worry that he'd unknowingly set us back as a country. and MSNBC getting behind him as the candidate also gives me pause. they are as establishment as it comes.

[Michael Watkins]

Methinks investigators are about to get a warrant, because that sounds like some bulls*** that they conveniently "lost" them.

Like, you'd think they would have said they didn't have them in prior court hearings when they were fighting to not release them.

Trump wouldn't need to block the bank from releasing the information if they didn't have it. definitely shady.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

Bernie Sanders is still listed as an Independent.

Sanders is overrated in terms of how left he is, and I don't like that he calls himself a Democratic Socialist but I got to hand it to him for staying in office for long as he has while renaming an Independent.

Running for the Democratic nomination but not being a pathetic Democrat, props for that.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

‘She was just mouthing off’: 13-year-old who pointed a finger gun at four classmates faces felony charge

Perhaps this instance was overkill, but, these days, better too much caution than not enough. You never know if some kid "just mouthing off" today might show up in class with a gun tomorrow.

[GindyPosts]

i worry that he'd unknowingly set us back as a country. and MSNBC getting behind him as the candidate also gives me pause. they are as establishment as it comes.

The sad truth about the election in 2020 is that it's going to boil down to Trump vs. Not Trump, and people will not vote based upon improvements to our infrastructure, or improving the tax code that would help reduce the debt and help fund programs, or actually leaving the Middle East and not instigating conflicts in Syria or Iran, but instead whether you want to keep Trump around for Trump to do Trump things, or someone to bring back the American presidency to where it's background noise.