All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Theleviathan]

For those of you who are for Bernie, I have some questions. Full disclosure, I was a registered Republican but I am going to change that to Independent. I'm no longer going to be sucked in by one establishment or the other. Instead, I will choose who the best person, in my mind, who most aligns with my views. I'm sick and tired of our country's war mongering and bailouts of corporate billionaires. I want our country to help our citizens and stop destroying our families, middle class and poor.

I like what Tulsi stands for in regards to stopping the US from being the world police and dumping trillions into the pockets of war mongers. But I also like Bernie's views on a lot of things. I don't agree with everything he says, but I do love his ideas on healthcare, free college tuition (and forgiveness of said tuition to those who already have the debt), mass incarceration, legalization of marijuana, capital punishment, cutting military spending, supporting veterans and some others.

I always thought of Bernie as a flake and nutcase (sorry). I came to that conclusion based on others assumptions, instead of doing my own research. I have listened to Bernie, read about him and concluded for myself that I like a lot of what he is saying. I also plan on going to one of his upcoming rallies.

My biggest concern (and fear) in supporting Bernie, is that I'm worried that if he were elected he would not stand up to the establishment and would cave in to them and just go along to get along, once he was in the WH. I see some times where he could stick by some people that he should, but doesn't because of pressure from the left. Or he has a chance in the debates to go after his opponents, but decides not to (see Hilary in 2016 and this year).

Can the Bernie supporters here please assure me that he would not, in your opinion, cave to the establishment once in the WH? Also, I get mixed signals from him when it comes to being isolationists. He says, like Tulsi, that he wants to cut back on our military spending (which I like, because that money could and should be used for funding programs for the poor and other projects), but then he says he would take down Assad because he's using tanks and his military to hurt his own people. I guess I don't get that logic. If we had to stop every dictator that did this, we would never be able to cut back on military spending and would have to keep sending our troops into harms way over in other countries.

Can you all please enlighten me on these two issues and any others that you may feel would help me understand Bernie better? Thank you

I would suggest that Bernie has decades of evidence that he doesn't cave or compromise much. There are advantages and disadvantages to that certainly.

You'll have some here who will swear Bernie will enact all of his plans because he's got some brilliant, heretofore unseen in Congress, strategy for it. But what Bernie has shown is that he is passionately principled by what he believes in much to his credit. That is not, based on how our government is designed to work, a particularly viable plan to get things done.

So I'd say history says an elected Bernie will stay true to himself and subsequently accomplish little of what he wants to do.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District, Joe Wilson, who made himself notorious back in 2009 at President Obama’s first State of the Union speech when he took the unprecedented act to disregard all decorum by standing up and screaming, “YOU LIE!” at the leader of the free world during a nationally televised speech. At least when Waldorf and Statler heckle on the Muppets, they make it funny. The GOP closed ranks, and only one member of the GOP voted to admonish him for it. Perhaps that should come as little surprise, because he once expressed his disappointment that nobody in the Democratic Primary in 2008 addressed Obama’s birth certificate. That seems to also fall into a pattern, because Joe Wilson was also a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans while a state legislator, tried denying his former boss on Capitol Hill, Strom Thurmond, had ever had an affair with an African-American woman, calling it “unseemly” and a “smear” that anyone would do so (meanwhile, genetic tests proved it true). In a debate about the soon-to-be Iraq War in 2002, Rep. Wilson denied that the United States supplied WMDs to Saddam Hussein in the 1980s to justify a need for force… and since voting to send our brave young men and women to fight in that conflict, Wilson has voted over a dozen times now against healthcare funding for veterans. He’s still using military conflicts to make irrational political points, though, as he claimed President Obama had only started airstrikes against ISIL because he wanted to distract Americans from Benghazi (where investigators found no administration wrongdoing), the IRS Scandal (where no malicious wrongdoing was found), and Obamacare (which is actually a positive thing). Which is to say, Rep. Wilson spends a lot of time jumping at shadows, as he also was highly suspicious of Planned Parenthood after watching the hoax videos produced by the Center for Medical Progress.

So, while Joe Wilson has a district tailor fit to keep electing conservatives, things were hardly copacetic down in South Carolina’s 2nd District. Rep. Wilson hosted a town hall back in April that, quite frankly, devolved into his constituents chanting “YOU LIE!” back at him, because he was feeding them some less-than-honest statements regarding the GOP’s attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. His district’s lean, though, remains at a +12, so Joe Wilson was re-elected to a tenth term in 2018 with 56% of the vote. This was in spite of the fact that Wilson was another of the GOP’s witless morons who was duped by Sasha Baron Cohen on “Who is America?” that year, having himself recorded on video endorsing the idea of arming toddlers, saying, "A 3-year-old cannot defend itself from an assault rifle by throwing a Hello Kitty pencil case at it". He still insists he’s not a lunatic.

And in his tenth term, well… let’s just say Joe Wilson hasn’t changed much:

• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Wilson voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Wilson votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Wilson votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Joe Wilson is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 17th, 2019: Wilson cannot even be bothered to vote against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Wilson votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Joe Wilson votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.

Joe Wilson is currently sweating profusely during the impeachment hearing, because he’s already been shown to have received campaign donations from the indicted Russian influencer Igor Fruman during the 2018 elections. As in “Lev and Igor”, the chucklef***s who were looking to aid Russia’s attempts to screw with Ukraine on behalf of Donald Trump. This could perhaps taint him enough going into 2020 to make him have to worry about getting an eleventh term in Congress.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

For those of you who are for Bernie, I have some questions. Full disclosure, I was a registered Republican but I am going to change that to Independent. I'm no longer going to be sucked in by one establishment or the other. Instead, I will choose who the best person, in my mind, who most aligns with my views. I'm sick and tired of our country's war mongering and bailouts of corporate billionaires. I want our country to help our citizens and stop destroying our families, middle class and poor.

I like what Tulsi stands for in regards to stopping the US from being the world police and dumping trillions into the pockets of war mongers. But I also like Bernie's views on a lot of things. I don't agree with everything he says, but I do love his ideas on healthcare, free college tuition (and forgiveness of said tuition to those who already have the debt), mass incarceration, legalization of marijuana, capital punishment, cutting military spending, supporting veterans and some others.

I always thought of Bernie as a flake and nutcase (sorry). I came to that conclusion based on others assumptions, instead of doing my own research. I have listened to Bernie, read about him and concluded for myself that I like a lot of what he is saying. I also plan on going to one of his upcoming rallies.

My biggest concern (and fear) in supporting Bernie, is that I'm worried that if he were elected he would not stand up to the establishment and would cave in to them and just go along to get along, once he was in the WH. I see some times where he could stick by some people that he should, but doesn't because of pressure from the left. Or he has a chance in the debates to go after his opponents, but decides not to (see Hilary in 2016 and this year).

Can the Bernie supporters here please assure me that he would not, in your opinion, cave to the establishment once in the WH? Also, I get mixed signals from him when it comes to being isolationists. He says, like Tulsi, that he wants to cut back on our military spending (which I like, because that money could and should be used for funding programs for the poor and other projects), but then he says he would take down Assad because he's using tanks and his military to hurt his own people. I guess I don't get that logic. If we had to stop every dictator that did this, we would never be able to cut back on military spending and would have to keep sending our troops into harms way over in other countries.

Can you all please enlighten me on these two issues and any others that you may feel would help me understand Bernie better? Thank you

Put it this way, a lot of this sub dislikes Bernie and one of there biggest attacks on him is he didn't accomplish enough as a Congressman. That was largely because throughout his entire career he has been hardfast on progressive policies even when they were unpopular. Hence why he's one of the very few politicians who opposed the war. He has a track record of being on the right side of history even when the politically popular thing was the opposite.

He's the only candidate I wouldn't fear selling out in any capacity. Mostly because every other canidate has already

[numberthirty]

I would suggest that Bernie has decades of evidence that he doesn't cave or compromise much. There are advantages and disadvantages to that certainly.

You'll have some here who will swear Bernie will enact all of his plans because he's got some brilliant, heretofore unseen in Congress, strategy for it. But what Bernie has shown is that he is passionately principled by what he believes in much to his credit. That is not, based on how our government is designed to work, a particularly viable plan to get things done.

So I'd say history says an elected Bernie will stay true to himself and subsequently accomplish little of what he wants to do.

As opposed to all of the good that "Business As Usual..." Democrats have gotten us over the years.

Setting the stage for George W. to be within spitting distance of a Presidency as an obvious example. Never mind not taking Trump seriously.

I'd rather back Sanders taking a serious run at making actual change than the sorts of things that the other Democrats in the running have delivered in the past.

Could I back the sort of "Treading Water..." that most of the other Dems(outside of Gabbard and Bloomberg. Don't want to have to think about voting for either of them.) will likely be doing should they win?

Sure.

That said, why would that ever be the plan going in?

[Tami]

We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated

Patriotism and the survival of our nation in the face of the crimes, corruption and corrosive nature of Donald Trump are a higher calling than mere politics. As Americans, we must stem the damage he and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character.

That’s why we are announcing the Lincoln Project, an effort to highlight our country’s story and values, and its people’s sacrifices and obligations. This effort transcends partisanship and is dedicated to nothing less than preservation of the principles that so many have fought for, on battlefields far from home and within their own communities.

This effort asks all Americans of all places, creeds and ways of life to join in the seminal task of our generation: restoring to this nation leadership and governance that respects the rule of law, recognizes the dignity of all people and defends the Constitution and American values at home and abroad.

Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line. We do not undertake this task lightly, nor from ideological preference. We have been, and remain, broadly conservative (or classically liberal) in our politics and outlooks. Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain, but our shared fidelity to the Constitution dictates a common effort.

[Tami]

Peter Thiel at Center of Facebook’s Internal Divisions on Politics

Republican billionaire Peter Thiel, a member of Facebook's board, has convinced Zuckerberg to stand by his decision to allow politicians to lie in Facebook

Thiel, Zuckberberg and Trump had dinner at the White House in October

Twitter Link

[AnakinFlair]

Peter Thiel at Center of Facebook’s Internal Divisions on Politics

Twitter Link

I really hope the hammer get's brought down hard on Facebook in the next few years.

[Kirby101]

It should be remembered that in 2016 the Republicans openly talked about impeaching Hillary as soon as she was sworn in.

[JackDaw]

It should be remembered that in 2016 the Republicans openly talked about impeaching Hillary as soon as she was sworn in.

My mate who watched some of The Donald/Hilary tv debates said the Donald promised to have Hilary arrested as soon as he became President...

Not the first fib the great one told by any means...but I would have thought that (as she wasn’t arrested in early days of his ascent to godhood)...that it was a strong clue to even the most fervent of his supporters that he’s an habitual liar.

[Jack Dracula]

We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated

The article was co-written by George Conway. I like what they're saying regarding getting rid of Trump, but if the ultimate goal is to return the party to the heady days of George W Bush I'm apprehensive.

[Tami]

The article was co-written by George Conway. I like what they're saying regarding getting rid of Trump, but if the ultimate goal is to return the party to the heady days of George W Bush I'm apprehensive.

For now, i'll take my chances with GW over Trumpism. At least GW wasn't colluding with Putin and trying to destroy the country.

[Tami]

The lone GOP amendment for the Rules Committee’s impeachment markup, offered by Rep. Bradley Byrne, would amend the articles to state that Barack Obama and Eric Holder should have been impeached, too.

Twitter Link

[wjowski]

For now, i'll take my chances with GW over Trumpism. At least GW wasn't colluding with Putin and trying to destroy the country.

You have a short memory. Then again so do most voters.

[Kirby101]

You have a short memory. Then again so do most voters.

So true. If they had any memory at all they would not have voted the Republicans back into Congress two years after they broke the Economy.
Trump is the worst human to ever be President, but GW did worse things.

[worstblogever]

Twitter Link

And to think Mets had amnesia about all the times the GOP called for Obama's impeachment.