All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[worstblogever]

Why does the establishment hate Bernie so much bros?

I asked someone I know who's campaigning for Bernie who doesn't go "full bro" about it... "How's Sanders doing in the southern states?"

They begrudgingly admitted that the south is where they're struggling. The only poll that's publicly known is South Carolina, where he's third behind Biden and Warren. But outside of there... they're worried if he doesn't win Iowa and New Hampshire convincingly, he won't have enough momentum to win a lot of those southern states he'd need to get the nomination.

[worstblogever]

In 2015, 2016, and in 2017, on this date, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled former Oklahoma State Senator Don Barrington, whose biggest claims to fame are introducing a law in 2015 to ban hoodies, presumably as a response to people protesting the death of Trayvon Marin, as well as opposing a bill to potentially legalize marijuana because his church told him to. His voting record also features him trying to stop Common Core standards in education, trying to restrict abortion including supporting state Personhood bills, voting for a law to prevent minors from buying emergency contraceptives, preventing the passing of a minimum wage, allowing for open carry everywhere in the state, voting for “Stand Your Ground” in Oklahoma, trying to restrict collective bargaining rights, voting for harsher Voter ID restrictions, and trying to pass a unnecessary ban on Sharia Law. Barrington was forced out of office by term limits in 2016, and seeing as how he’s now into his seventies, he seems unlikely to re-emerge as a candidate for higher office.

It was on this date in 2018, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Gerald Gay, a former engineer who worked for oil companies who became a three-term member of the Wyoming House of Representatives first arriving during the 2010 Tea Party Wave. Gay was adamant that he hated same sex marriage to an extent where he repeated it like a mantra in his 2014 re-election campaign, including a campaign video where he was dressed up like Yosemite Sam’s homophobic brother or something. We’re honestly surprised he never changed his surname. We also can’t say he’s too level-headed about people on government assistance, as Gay also sponsored legislation to drug-test welfare recipients during his time in office. Well, it seems Gay was also obsessed with people who aren’t white men abusing the system wherever possible, because when he was asked by Better Wyoming what his thoughts were on the pay equality gap between men and women, he went on a bizarre, ill-informed rant about how it was necessary because women call in sick too much, complaining about maternity leave in particular. When asked to clarify his views by the press, Gay made it worse by claiming not only do women call in sick more than men, but that they were faking it just to take their kids to activities. Rather than accept any responsibility for his comments, Gay blamed the media for taking him out of context. The ironic part was that Gay himself had repeatedly taken days off in the legislature for medical reasons of his own, and missed plenty of votes. All that sexism may have been the deciding factor for voters in Wyoming’s District 36, who voted for his opponent, Democrat Debbie Bovee by 212 votes, and doesn’t call in sick too much.

On this date in 2019 “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Patrick Little, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in California in 2018, who was out to unseat Sen. Diane Feinstein. Perhaps he was motivated to challenge her because he’s an openly anti-Semitic white supremacist. He is in no way subtle about that, claiming that even the GOP have been overthrown by “Zionist stooges” and dragging around and spitting an Israeli flag around him on the ground after he was kicked out of the California Republican Party’s state convention. Then again, he feels the Neo-Nazi website, the Daily Stormer, is “too Jewish”. Little also refers to Adolf Hitler as “the second coming of Christ”, and would like for the United States to be “free of Jews”. He had plenty of modest and not at all hateful ideas like having the government to grant federal benefits based on merit and to nationalize internet giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter, and making it illegal for people of Jewish faith to take office in government, outlawing foreign aid to Israel and changing the U.S. Constitution to make the U.S. an explicitly an “ethnically European nation.” He also wants to make it illegal for any foundation to raise money for Holocaust education. He, of course, refers to the Holocaust as “a lie”, and bizarrely violated copyright law by sending out a robocall where he discusses his grievances with Jews set to the theme music from the classic sitcom “Friends”. At the point the GOP took measures to not run a Neo-Nazi for U.S. Senate, Patrick Little was polling second behind Feinstein with 18% of the vote. Without his party’s support, and in spite of being a hate-fueled moron, he still managed to get nearly 90,000 votes. He seems determined to not go away, protesting outside the White House for all Jews to be expelled from the United States, and continued touring the nation to outlandishly accuse Jews of raping children or orchestrating murders while occasionally hanging out with the organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally from Charlottesville. We’d like to think that this is the only time we’ll need to mention this hateful sack of trash, so we’re going to set aside his profile at this time, and profile a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 821-40, since this was established in July 2014.)

[worstblogever]

Asa Hutchinson

Welcome to what is the 821st original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profile, where we’ll be discussing Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who squints hard enough to try and convince himself he’s good at the job he’s held now since he won office in the 2014 elections. Hutchinson is also a former Congressman, who served three terms representing Arkansas’ 3rd Congressional District back from 1997-2001, giving him enough time to have served as one of the impeachment managers during the Clinton impeachment hearings, and ending when he resigned only months into his third term to take the job as the Administrator of the DEA during the Bush administration. After two years in that roll, the Bush administration allowed him to fail up into the role of leading the Border and Transportation Security Directorate. He resigned in 2005, because he was determined to become Governor of Arkansas in 2006.

Spoiler alert: He lost that year to Mike Beebe, and ended up kicking around GOP circles for four more years. It gave him time to do things like become a toady for the NRA, and come up with a “solution” after the Sandy Hook shooting that was “why don’t we put guns in schools, then?”

But yes, Hutchison won office in 2014, and somehow, with five years of leadership under his belt, his only noteworthy achievement was his desire to execute seven inmates in 11 days. What was the hurry in killing so many inmates on death row? Well, the expiration date on the lethal injection drugs was coming up, and you just can’t let that stuff go to waste, right? This would have been the first executions since 2005, and yet, Hutchison was foiled by the courts, who created stays of execution to prevent him from sending eight men to their graves.

Hutchison truly is a cold-hearted bastard, signing legislation in 2018 to force work requirements on recipients of Medicaid to collect their benefits… even though many of those recipients are disabled, and cannot work. Back in 2015, he released a statement that he would use whatever powers of his office he could to stop the settlement of Syrian refugees in Arkansas. But of course, Hutchison claims to be “pro-life”. He’s already tried passing extreme anti-choice legislation like fetal heartbeat bills, and already jumped the gun and signed a bill that would criminalize abortion in Arkansas “when Roe v. Wade is overturned”.

At this point, Hutchison is a lame duck who is holding the seat once held by loon Mike Huckabee warm until Huckabee could properly groom his daughter as the Trump administration’s biggest propagandist to run for it in 2022, when Hutchison faces term limits. His legacy as governor is that he not only has been unable to take his state out of the Bottom Five in most categories like education, or economic growth, or poverty… he can’t even stop his own son, Asa Hutchison III from being a serial drunk driver (who was only required to serve one of 365 days in jail for his third offense, because hey, it’s the governor’s son.) His nephew Jeremy, of course, wasn’t as lucky, and is likely awaiting a prison sentence for bribery and tax fraud.

Arkansas might want to pause on sending another Republican into the Governor’s mansion, from where we’re sitting.

[worstblogever]

I don't know that this was meant to be political, but...

[SquirrelMan]

Tbf though afaik that wasnt after the US had just made an illegal terrorist attack on a foreign nation.

I would not be so sure about that, there usually was some kind of shit going on in South America.

[SquirrelMan]

I asked someone I know who's campaigning for Bernie who doesn't go "full bro" about it... "How's Sanders doing in the southern states?"

They begrudgingly admitted that the south is where they're struggling. The only poll that's publicly known is South Carolina, where he's third behind Biden and Warren. But outside of there... they're worried if he doesn't win Iowa and New Hampshire convincingly, he won't have enough momentum to win a lot of those southern states he'd need to get the nomination.

I think the mood against the very white early caucus states has become so negative that winning there might hurt as much as it adds momentum in the South and in California.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I don't know that this was meant to be political, but...

Sure sounds political to me. And the truth is there for all to see....provided you WANT to see it.

[Mister Mets]

Why does it have to be more relevant? Not all things that are voted on are equal. As pointed out earlier, primaries are inconsistent. On top of that, the participation is part of it, but the scale of national elections are much higher. They involve federal, state, and local issues whereas primaries are on a much smaller scale. Yes, more participation in primaries would be great and we should move more towards that, the national election day simply has greater, more widespread impacts. So, no, surely it doesn't matter more.

I'm not advocating for this based on outcomes, but as a way to honor one of our most fundamental principles of government. Right now the gamesmanship the parties play (mostly by Republicans) to suppress votes is partly possible by the restrictions put on Americans to both work and vote. In some places there isn't a problem, but where problems are targeted and intended, such a holiday would greatly reduce the effectiveness.

Efforts to increase participation in primaries would arguably matter more because it's possible to triple participation in a way that doesn't apply to federal elections (It's mathematically impossible to triple 60%.)

Primary participation is meaningful since it can have more of an impact. The 19,743,821 votes for Ross Perot in the 1992 general election did not matter as much for getting an outsider elected President as 14,015,993 votes for Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primary.

By the time November comes along, a lot of the races are settled. If you live in Washington (picking a random state for an example), the Senator is probably going to be a Democrat. The presidential votes are probably going to a Democrat (and if it's not, it's part of a Republican landslide.) If you're in the eighth congressional district, the congressional race may be competitive, but the other nine aren't (six Democratic seats; three Republican.) Your vote can make significantly more of an impact in local primaries, where you're going to be directly affected by the issues under consideration, and probably more familiar with the topics.

I'm curious about the argument that the national general election is more meaningful- it can be made, but it isn't articulated much. The nomination process is a sorting mechanism that allows voters to focus on 2 finalists in November (3 in rare situations) rather than all the people who might run in a primary, but that seems to be more of a bug than a feature. It cements problems with the system, including the way we pay more attention to national races than the local races where we can have greater impact.

[jetengine]

QUOTE=worstblogever;4776748]I don't know that this was meant to be political, but...

[/QUOTE]
There IS a lobgstanding theory that the Scoobydoo earth has had a terrible recession thats destroyed their economy. Hence why so many people are trying to steal mundane fortunes or advanced technology is invented or used for blase heists.

[InformationGeek]

White Supremacist Steve King is back.

Steve King is on the floor of the House talking about how white nationalism isn’t real and the Democrats are funded by George Soros https://t.co/b7P3zGCHUD

[Tendrin]

Participation in primaries is nice but they hardly matter if people aren't also allowed to cast their vote on election day. A holiday would help. Any arguments to the contrary are just people concerned about more people voting for candidates they don't like.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I asked someone I know who's campaigning for Bernie who doesn't go "full bro" about it... "How's Sanders doing in the southern states?"

They begrudgingly admitted that the south is where they're struggling. The only poll that's publicly known is South Carolina, where he's third behind Biden and Warren. But outside of there... they're worried if he doesn't win Iowa and New Hampshire convincingly, he won't have enough momentum to win a lot of those southern states he'd need to get the nomination.

This is true for anyone not named Biden. Biden's strategy is to withstand the early states and have the Southern states be a fire wall. Bernie and Warren's (and to a MUCH lesser extent Buttigieg) are banking on winning Iowa, having that fall into a NH win, having that close the gap to make it a race and then start building leads in the closer states to minimize the South.

I also will say, I don't feel comfortable with a candidate who's strength is in the South. Those states simply don't go blue in the general. Clinton had a similar issue. She won on the strength of the South. Then got into a general, lost every single state there, and then struggled where she struggled in the primary and it opened up a path for Trump.

[Tami]

This is true for anyone not named Biden. Biden's strategy is to withstand the early states and have the Southern states be a fire wall. Bernie and Warren's (and to a MUCH lesser extent Buttigieg) are banking on winning Iowa, having that fall into a NH win, having that close the gap to make it a race and then start building leads in the closer states to minimize the South.

I also will say, I don't feel comfortable with a candidate who's strength is in the South. Those states simply don't go blue in the general. Clinton had a similar issue. She won on the strength of the South. Then got into a general, lost every single state there, and then struggled where she struggled in the primary and it opened up a path for Trump.

I actually agree, however, if Bernie wins Iowa the Media is going to go nuts fro Bernie (unfortunately). They might make it seem like the Primary season is over right there and then. Forget about the other states.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I think the mood against the very white early caucus states has become so negative that winning there might hurt as much as it adds momentum in the South and in California.

Democrats would be much better served organizing their primary around states that are hard blue and swing states. Get an idea of the temperature in the states you need to win and hold before you decide a primary on states that won't help you. Does it marginalize some Democrats? Yes. But the alternative puts the party in an uncomfortable position where someone might win a primary and then the rest of the party is asked to pick up the slack of those states with a candidate they were never enthusiastic about.

Or even start with the swing states. Have someone start out being able to say "I have support where we need to win", then let the Democratic strongholds decide it, and if there is a need to go down to the wire, then have the South be the tiebreaker at the end when we have all the information on who can win where.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

I actually agree, however, if Bernie wins Iowa the Media is going to go nuts fro Bernie (unfortunately). They might make it seem like the Primary season is over right there and then. Forget about the other states.

Whoever wins Iowa will inevitably get a boost because they will have a win under their belt. It's basically how Obama won. He proved he could win early on, it made people believe he had a shot. Donors got on board, and it cooled the jets on Clinton. Now I would be happy if Bernie won, unlike you, so I'm pulling for that (unless Warren can make a comeback).

That said, it will still be a race no matter who wins Iowa. What you will see happen is Bernie would (assuming he wins) get a bump that nationally puts him in tight race with Biden (maybe around 3 points). And then he goes up in states where he is close and that turns into wins, and then they have to slug it out.

It's hard to know until people jump ship from other candidates. I big part of politics is the belief thats someone can win. People aren't motivated to turnout when they think someone will lose.