All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Theleviathan]

I'd even hold off until Super Tuesday if possible. Unless something really dramatic happens after NSC and Nevada to suggest a clear front-runner with a large enough gap to be hard to overcome. NH isnot al that important in the larger scheme of things.

If it is a tight race even after Super Tuesday, then that would interest me more.

Agreed, but if polling is to be trusted right now (and, let's face it, it's all we've got) then Sanders is favored pretty heavily in Nevada and NH. Biden, as of today, in SC. The question is if Buttigieg's performance in Iowa shifts those numbers at all. If it does and the support of Sanders drops in NH and NV and Biden in SC....then we could be talking about a ridiculously close race going into Super Tuesday.

However, if Sanders comfortably wins those states he leads in, then we're talking a clear front runner status for him and one of the Buttigieg/Biden/Bloomberg guys has to drop out or they'll cannibalize each other.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

If Pete Buttigege can do well in states like South Carolina, if he can get the support of African Americans and other Minorities, and if he stays within spitting disntance or winning the Nomination, then I might consider voting for him.

That is the main thing that keeps me from putting him on my top choices list.

I'd be fine with Buttigieg, but he could have a problem with churchgoing, Christian blacks, rumored, if not said to have as much tolerance for LGBTQ people as hardcore, conservative white bible thumpers. Imagine the vitriol slung at Barack Obama for being an African-American president amped up tenfold if a gay man were to get that close to the Oval Office. Heads in the pews, both black and white would literally explode. I hope I'm wrong, but this country isn't as forward thinking as most would believe, and gays remain a less than fully accepted minority.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

If Pete Buttigege can do well in states like South Carolina, if he can get the support of African Americans and other Minorities, and if he stays within spitting disntance or winning the Nomination, then I might consider voting for him.

That is the main thing that keeps me from putting him on my top choices list.

He does awful with African Americans. He did well in Iowa almost exclusively off going hard in whites more conservative districts

[KOSLOX]

He does awful with African Americans. He did well in Iowa almost exclusively off going hard in whites more conservative districts

This is anecdotal, obviously, but based on my observation and that of my friends at other sites not a single black caucus goer caucused for Buttigieg in at least 10 precincts.

That said there were only three black people total at my site, me (Warren), a woman in Bernie's camp, and a woman that was a nonvoting campaign person for Biden.

I don't know how that played out in any of the other 55 local precincts.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, who while a challenger to Mitch McConnell's U.S. Senate seat back in 2014, came out in support of Personhood legislation to give zygotes the same rights as fully born adult citizens, and who attended a rally in support of cockfighting (and then unsuccessfully tried lying about it when the media reported on it). Matt Bevin then won the 2015 GOP Primary in the governor’s race in Kentucky by a whopping 83 votes, and went on to top the Democrat in the field even though he had spoken about the Medicaid Expansion in Kentucky, and expressed his desire to reverse the decision, which would take away healthcare from hundreds of thousands of people in Kentucky. Much like his previous gaffe with going to a dogfighting rally, Bevin tried denying he ever made remarks about stripping healthcare from so many... even though he was caught on tape doing so. Bevin was elected even though he professed in October that he wanted to execute the failed policy several states implemented of drug testing welfare recipients. Since taking office, Bevin immediately started using the power of his office to reverse any progress done by outgoing Governor Steve Beshear over the past couple years, including the reversal an executive order made by Beshear to restore the voting rights of some who had them taken away permanently for felony convictions, or doing whatever he could to help out bigoted county clerks like Kim Davis who were losing their minds about having to do their jobs and sign off on same sex marriages by changing the way marriage licenses are written so that the clerk's name not only doesn't need to be signed, but doesn't appear at all on the document.

In September of 2016 at the Voter Values Summit, Matt Bevin lost his goddamned mind when he was asked if the country could “survive a Clinton presidency”, and began rambling about revolution, saying, “The roots of the tree of liberty are watered by what?. The blood, of who? The tyrants to be sure, but who else? The patriots. Whose blood will be shed? It may be that of those in this room. It might be that of our children and grandchildren.” When asked for clarification about his remarks, he became even more paranoid, adding, “Today we have thousands of men and women in uniform fighting for us overseas and they need our full backing. We cannot be complacent about the determination of radical Islamic extremists to destroy our freedoms.” But a month later, Matt Bevin was urging preachers and clergy to ignore whatever warnings they might have received about politicking (which can jeopardize their tax-exempt status), and help the GOP campaign to win offices, and calling the existing law a “paper tiger”. Outside of rhetoric, we’re not fans of Gov. Bevin on policy, either, as he has spent the early part of 2017 trying to get “right to work” legislation passed in Kentucky, and do whatever he can within his power to harm workers’ unions in his state.

[worstblogever]

2017 was a particularly insane year for Matt Bevin, starting in January of that year when he released a Facebook live video where he trashed the name of his state Attorney General, Andy Beshear,because Beshear revealed that he wouldn’t challenge a lawsuit against HB 2, an anti-abortion law Bevin signed even though it was patently unconstitutional based on all precedent. This would, of course, save the state from not just the cost of losing that lawsuit, but the time and effort involved. During his rant, Bevin called Beshear “dishonorable” and called out a newspaper from the Courier Journal of Louisville and calling her reporting “lies”.

In March 2017, Gov. Bevin signed SB 17 into law, a “religious freedom” law that allows public school students to express religious and political views in homework and class projects “free from discrimination or penalty,” distribute political and religious literature, and wear religious items and symbols. Where it completely goes off the rails, is the law would allow for student organizations to openly discriminate against LGBTQ students based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. In other words, it’s a violation of the separation of church and state, and just flat out discrimination, with lawsuits immediately getting filed that the state will inevitably lose. By the end of that month, Bevin’s administration began filing lawsuits against every abortion clinic in Kentucky, and nearly did so to the extent that they nearly closed the last one in the state. The move was blocked, however, by a judge’s ruling.

In May of 2017 Bevin referred to the local press as “cicadas” in a Facebook Live broadcast in an attack on his local press, and within a week, this led an apparent Bevin supporter to shoot out the windows of the Lexington Herald-Leader. In August of 2017, after a Neo-Nazi drove his vehicle into counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, injuring a score of people and killing Heather Heyer, Matt Bevin echoed the remarks of Donald Trump, claiming that “both sides” were to blame. (It’s hard to get any lower than that…)

By October of 2017 Bevin stated his desire to never legalize marijuana usage in Kentucky because of “people overdosing based on ingestion of products that are edibles and things,” adding “law enforcement people in emergency rooms being overrun by problems.” (HINT: There are not marijuana overdoses happening, from edibles or otherwise.)

In 2018, Matt Bevin threatened to take away Medicaid funding from half a million people in Kentucky “if they don’t work for it”, blamed an uptick in gun violence over the past several years, particularly in school shootings, has nothing to do with the easy availability of firearms, but it’s actually due to “violent video games, appeared in a about noted homophobic bigot Kim Davis, declaring her an “inspiration to the children of America”. He also responded to a teacher’s strike in Kentucky by making the ridiculous accusation that teachers not being in school led to a mass outbreak of child molestations in Kentucky, and went Louisville’s Phoenix Hill school district (which is demographically 86% black and 13% Hispanic)to makes the very tone deaf and insensitive statement, "I'm going to go in and meet the members of the West Louisville Chess Club -- not something you necessarily would have thought of when you think of this section of town”.

Matt Bevin was the least popular governor in the United States in December 2018, after the Lexington Courier-Journal and Pro-Publica begin investigations into his administration, Gov. Bevin went on a paranoid, conspiracy-theory-laden rant about how they are “biased” and claimed that they were funded by George Soros. Only days later, a Neo-Nazi mass shooter in Pittsburgh gunned down a synagogue, while ranting about George Soros. He wouldn’t get any less paranoid as the 2019 election approached.

• January 30th, 2019: After public schools close in Kentucky during minus-15 degree weather, Gov. Bevin complains about how “we’re getting soft” for not sending children out to get frostbite.
• March 21st, 2019: Matt Bevin apparently was not yet done campaigning on his “cruelty to children” method to winning re-election, as he began boasting about deliberately exposing his 9 children to chickenpox rather than getting them vaccinated. He then followed by going on an anti-vaccination, small-government tirade.
  
• August 29th, 2019: Bevin becomes more and more desperate, and things look really bleak as Donald Trump, Jr. comes to stump for his re-election… and only about a hundred people showed up to the event.
  
• November 4th, 2019: On the eve of the election, Donald Trump comes to host a rally on Matt Bevin’s behalf, where he makes everything about him, telling Bevin, “You’re sending that big message to the rest of the country. It’s so important, you got to get your friends, you got to vote. Because if you lose, it sends a really bad message. You can’t let that happen to me.”
  
  That… is some foreshadowing.
• November 5th, 2019: Even with the president coming to campaign on his behalf and beg for votes, Democrat Andy Beshear defeats Matt Bevin by about 5,400 votes to become the next Governor of Kentucky. Sadly, that isn’t the last thing we have to write about Bevin, as he’s still a spiteful conspiracy theorist.
• November 13th, 2019: Eight days after the election, Bevin still had not conceded to Beshear, and continued to spread conspiracy theories about supposed “voter fraud”. Even fellow Republicans including U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell started to tell him to pack it in.
• December 13th, 2019: In his last days in office, Matt Bevin makes 650 shocking and egregious pardons of Kentucky felons without first doing the proper review process, including a convicted murder whose family donated money to Bevin’s campaign, a man who raped a 9-year old because Bevin believed he couldn’t have done anything because the victim’s “hymen was intact”, and a man who raped an unconscious teenage boy with a sex toy at a party, nearly killing the victim in the assault (Which the perpetrator FILMED. THERE IS VIDEO EVIDENCE.)
• December 24th, 2019: The FBI has launched a formal investigation into the legality of Bevin’s lame duck pardons.

Now, we’re revolted by the last acts of Governor Matt Bevin, and those pardons, but we are goddamned relieved he’s no longer in office, and based on him giving some of the biggest monsters in Kentucky’s prisons their freedom to roam the streets (possibly because Bevin is just evil and wants children to suffer, or something), we’re almost certain he will never win office, anywhere, again.

But with the Republican Party these days, you can never be too sure.

[Tami]

I'd be fine with Buttigieg, but he could have a problem with churchgoing, Christian blacks, rumored, if not said to have as much tolerance for LGBTQ people as hardcore, conservative white bible thumpers. Imagine the vitriol slung at Barack Obama for being an African-American president amped up tenfold if a gay man were to get that close to the Oval Office. Heads in the pews, both black and white would literally explode. I hope I'm wrong, but this country isn't as forward thinking as most would believe, and gays remain a less than fully accepted minority.

Personally, I have no problem with him being gay. I think it could be both fun and interesting to have someone with a same sex spouse in the White House. But the issue becomes, is he electable enough to beat Trump. If there are enough people, like those you mentioned, who are turned off by this (which is a shame) then he may not be able to get the votes needed. if he can't get support from the same demographic that has shown support for Biden, from minority groups, then he can't get the votes needed.

[Tami]

I hate to say it, but if this election was solely about people who looked like me. if the only voters were White Eurocentric Caucasians, Trump would definitely win reelection. There are quite a lot of us, like me, who oppose Trump. But those who support him are probably larger in number.

That is why it is so important, among other equally important reasons, for the chosen Democratic Candidate to be able to reach out to all ethnic, racial and religious groups. Or at least as many as possible.

[aja_christopher]

Personally, I have no problem with him being gay. I think it could be both fun and interesting to have someone with a same sex spouse in the White House. But the issue becomes, is he electable enough to beat Trump. If there are enough people, like those you mentioned, who are turned off by this (which is a shame) then he may not be able to get the votes needed. if he can't get support from the same demographic that has shown support for Biden, from minority groups, then he can't get the votes needed.

"Evangelicals" in general may have an issue with it but it's always possible that it won't be a deciding factor in the voting booth.

Cities with large black populations have elected LGBT representatives and there's no reason the same thing couldn't happen on a national stage.

https://www.glaad.org/2010/01/05/ann...lgbt-community

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...or/3732428002/

[Tami]

"Evangelicals" in general may have an issue with it but it's always possible that it won't be a deciding factor in the voting booth.

Cities with large black populations have elected LGBT representatives and there's no reason the same thing couldn't happen on a national stage.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/u...13houston.html

What happens locally doesn't always break the glass ceiling as far as Presidential races. There have been plenty of female mayors, governors, Senators, Representatives and so on. But it is still hard to elect a woman president. Thank goodness we were able to elect a black president, at least that is a step forward. There is hope, but it is a difficult barrier to get past. one reason why Warren and Klubochar are having trouble.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

What happens locally doesn't always break the glass ceiling as far as Presidential races. There have been plenty of female mayors, governors, Senators, Representatives and so on. But it is still hard to elect a woman president. Thank goodness we were able to elect a black president, at least that is a step forward. There is hope, but it is a difficult barrier to get past. one reason why Warren and Klubochar are having trouble.

Hillary Clinton got 65 million votes in 2016, so, it is possible for a woman to be elected president, but it would be the ultimate glass ceiling to break. There have been female heads of state all over the damn planet, in countries large and small, the fact that hasn't happened in the U.S. in the 21st century speaks to the misogynistic mindset that still prevails in this country.

[kidfresh512]

I'd be fine with Buttigieg, but he could have a problem with churchgoing, Christian blacks, rumored, if not said to have as much tolerance for LGBTQ people as hardcore, conservative white bible thumpers. Imagine the vitriol slung at Barack Obama for being an African-American president amped up tenfold if a gay man were to get that close to the Oval Office. Heads in the pews, both black and white would literally explode. I hope I'm wrong, but this country isn't as forward thinking as most would believe, and gays remain a less than fully accepted minority.

You are entirely right I think. And even with blacks in general not even taking into account his sexuality. His campaign has an outreach problem with minorities that he MUST somehow fix to ensure the broadest support. He needs to have a more concerted effort to reach all minorities in terms of his campaign strategies. He needs to show a much broader appeal and that doesn't mean showing up at a couple black church services or picnics. He needs active engagement on the ground with his teams reaching out to minority communities showing he recognizes the contributions to the party of minorities AND he understands and values specific concerns that these communities care about as priorities.

Long term he almost certainly needs a minority running mate to balance him out if he were to end up being viable enough to get the nomination. He would need someone with more experience than he does as a small mayor and I think he would need a minority or a woman for the best possible ticket.

[aja_christopher]

Hillary Clinton got 65 million votes in 2016, so, it is possible for a woman to be elected president, but it would be the ultimate glass ceiling to break. There have been female heads of state all over the damn planet, in countries large and small, the fact that hasn't happened in the U.S. in the 21st century speaks to the misogynistic mindset that still prevails in this country.

It's challenging but it's still possible -- Americans are becoming a lot more progressive in that respect as time goes on.

The real problem is that the Republicans do everything possible to subvert the public will with regards to voting and democracy in general.

Even to the point of making it clear that they have no problem with one of their candidates calling on other nations to interfere in our elections.

Or extorting said nations with taxpayer dollars for the same purpose.

[Michael Watkins]

Hillary Clinton got 65 million votes in 2016, so, it is possible for a woman to be elected president.

she was riding Bill's coat tails and had people feeding her questions.

[Tazirai]

Was really hoping the #Resistance would have done more to get Trump hone, like prosecute him on his actual list of crimes, like the 25th amendment, overwhelm them on his crimes, not the vague abuse of power.

They think the American people wouldn't understand multiple crimes? Congress could have called witnesses and didn't.

Now the moron in chief has his highest approval rating and can claim his invulnerability. Then the Democrats bungle Iowa.

The Democratic party needs a sea change.