All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[Tami]

20-02-26 Sahil Kapur on Twitter I don’t think Ann intended this as an endorsement but.jpg

Plus Warren gets an endorsement from the Boston Globe

[Steel Inquisitor]

It is the height of lunacy to believe this propaganda that we've been fed for decades that somehow these impoverished third world nations like North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela, as bad as they might be for their own people, are somehow the greatest threat to peace and stability in the world when just about every geopolitical conflict can be traced right back to that big 800 pound gorilla that has military bases in every corner of the globe. The failures of socialism can largely be blamed on the actions of the United States, since we actively try to isolate and destroy any socialist regime, often using the pretext of freedom and democracy to topple popularly elected governments in favor of right wing autocrats that are far more brutal and ruthless than what they replaced, and if that doesn't work, we flex our economic muscle to make sure they're unable to participate in global trade, and it's pretty hard to see any country succeeding if they can't secure necessary resources or find markets for their products. As there is no country which threatens our stability on a daily basis in a similar manner, despite all the fearmongering about Russia and China, it stands to reason that a President Sanders would have a relatively free hand to implement his policy as he saw fit, and beyond that, would also be a great boon to the fortunes of many living in impoverished nations whose resources and labor help to feed our economy and are routinely smacked down by American military power for daring to even claim a small slice of the pie.

America deserves ridicule for all the terrible things it done in the world, however, blaming everything dictatorships do on it is disgusting. "As bad as they are to their people" - do you understand how bad they are, in the past and now? What do you think is going on in those countries and how they've impacting the world? This reads like you don't, at worst you're minimising their atrocities to take shots at America. They're dictatorships. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are constantly utilising soft and hard power for their own agendas and they're not goals you might like to be on the receiving end of. They're not passive observers America's picking on.

Sanders won't get anything "free," he'll be their enemy just by being America's president unless they think they can get him to assist them in their agenda like Trump is doing.

You criticism on America using economics to isolate them has some merit, except it's not happening in a vacuum.

The world isn't as simple as you think it is. When Sanders becomes president there is no button he can push where everything becomes ok. He's going to get pressure internally and internationally like every other president. Can he take that? Will you be ok with the decisions he makes that will impact millions of people?

[Tami]

2020-02-26 Kimberly Joyner on Twitter post-debate email.jpg

Anyone else receive an email like this?

[Malvolio]

Yep...

MSNBC has Carville on, but there's not media slant. Nothing that they are trying to sell you.

Let's remember what the MS in MSNBC stands for: Microsoft. So yeah, they might just have a bit of a corporate bias here.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

2020-02-26 Kimberly Joyner on Twitter post-debate email.jpg

Anyone else receive an email like this?

Nope, can't say I have. Playing the victim card to shill for money I'm guessing.

[Mister Mets]

Yep...

MSNBC has Carville on, but there's not media slant. Nothing that they are trying to sell you.

Why wouldn't they have a political advisor with a track record of success on as one of multiple commentators?

[Superbat]

Pete Buttigieg races into car after being drowned out by Black Vote Matters protesters

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...mbXFrpaRMvoZWA

Pete Buttigieg was reportedly “chased down” in South Carolina by Black Voters Matter activists while attending a demonstration with striking McDonald’s workers in support of raising the minimum wage.

The Democratic presidential candidate was at a “Fight for $15” rally when protestors with Black Voters Matter — a group dedicated to increasing the political power held by black communities — lambasted him for failing to raise the minimum wage in South Bend, Indiana, where he previously served as mayor.

Protestors began heckling Mr Buttigieg at the demonstration, according to Tampa Bay Times political editor Steve Contorno, chanting: “Where was $15 in South Bend. Pete can’t be our president.”

Mr Contorno, who attended the event on Monday afternoon, later tweeted: “Buttigieg had to race into a car after the rally as he was chased down by Black Voters Matter protesters.”

According to the editor, one Black Voters Matter protestor yelled at Mr Buttigieg: “This is a workers strike. How dare you.”

A campaign aide for Mr Buttigieg later noted to The Independent that local Indiana laws essentially bars South Bend from passing its own minimum wage ordinances.

Other activists with the group reportedly blasted the Democratic candidate for “using black workers as a photo op” as he marched with demonstrators at the Fight for $15 rally.

Mr Buttigieg was in South Carolina ahead of the state’s crucial primary vote on Saturday, working to garner support among the state’s sizable population of black voters.

[Billy Batson]

There was also this

[Kirby101]

Well Mayor Pete, what's so funny about Peace, Love and Understanding?

[Superbat]

Anti-Bernie people having a normal one

[Tami]

Joe Biden just got an important endorsement

Clyburn, South Carolina's top Democrat, endorses Biden ahead of pivotal primary

Jim Clyburn gives influential endorsement to Joe Biden days before SC 2020 primary

Meanwhile.................

Bernie Sanders’ wife went on Russian TV to explain why open primaries — like the SC Democratic primary on Saturday — are more “democratic” because they allow REPUBLICANS to vote for who the Democratic nominee should be. Sorry, Jane — THIS IS JUST WRONG!

Twitter Link with video

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" ran a profile of Harry Accornero, a former member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives whose greatest passions were trying to pass laws to force schoolchildren to have to stand during the Pledge of Allegience, and a strong conspiracy theory fetish. In the latter case, Accornero was working hard on trying to push the Birther conspiracy theorty with Orly Taitz in New Hampshire, freaking out about Barack Obama being allowed on the 2012 ballot so badly that other legislators locked themselves in their offices rather than let him burst in to start screaming about it. He began campaigning for Congress to call a "commission of treason" against the president, which isn't a thing (he probably was thinking of drafting articles of impeachment), and was summarily booted from office. Since, Accornero has spent his time imagining other Obama conspiracy theories, including that he never went to college at Harvard because "no one remembers him there", which is amazing considering there are recorded speeches by him on campus, tons of photographic evidence, and people who actually do remember him.



In 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as in 2019, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" published its profiles of Indiana State Senator Jim Tomes, who after being elected in 2010, did not face a primary opponent or a Democratic challenger in the general election for his first eight years in office. Jim Tomes started making more of a name for himself in 2016 by being the sponsor of Indiana's SB 35, one of those transphobic bathroom cop bills that the Republican Party is pushing to make sure that nobody relieves themselves in a bathroom outside of the gender they were born as. He even frames the need for his bill as being necessary with the gem of a quote that, "Shouldn’t we also ask about…what about the other sector of society of people that who have all through the decades women been using women’s restrooms and men been using men’s restrooms and kind of like that and kind of expect that level of privacy?" It should come as little surprise that he would do such a thing, though, considering he also co-sponsored and voted for Indiana's "religious freedom" law, SB 101, back in early 2015, that he voted against SB 220, which would classify assaults motivated by the victim's gender identity as a hate crime, and in 2014, he voted for an amendment to be added to the Indiana state constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. If he were any more homophobic, he would have been caught digging up Liberace’s grave to put a stake through his heart.

Perhaps the only thing Jim Tomes seems to enjoy more in his role as a legislator than legislating to restrict the rights of the LGBTQ community is to go out of his way to let gun owners have ridiculous amounts of leeway, including trying to legalize school teachers having guns in public school classrooms, as well as trying to legalize guns in the state capitol itself. Since Tomes is arming everyone and their uncle in Indiana, you might be worried that gun violence would end up out of control in Indiana. Well, don’t worry, Jim Tomes has a plan to make sure everyone is a fine, upstanding citizen... to force schoolchildren to have to recite the Lord's prayer at the start of their school day. Because as we all know, there's not any sort of constitutional precedent for a separation of church and state, or mandatory prayer in schools, right? I mean, unless you count Engel v. Vitale. Add in the fact that Jim Tomes has supported legislation to regulate abortion so stringently in Indiana that it would have effectively closed down every clinic in the state, and that he supports the perpetually failing conservative policy of drug testing welfare recipients (when laws of this type are always overturned as violations of the 4th Amendment, and they even fail to find enough drug use among the poor to justify having the testing in the first place), and you realize how much of an extremist he really is, in terms of his policy stance. In 2017, he submitted a bill that had it passed, would have tested the limits of the right to protest, since it was written that police would be allowed to disperse protests by “any means necessary”.

In 2018, Jim Tomes finally got a challenger for his seat in the form of Democrat Edie Hardcastle, who he still defeated with 64% of the vote. That, in spite of Tomes ditching out on the debate for his Indiana Senate seat because the newspaper that hosted it had run a few opinion editorials that he felt “weren’t nice” and “hurt his feelings”.

Seriously.

Tomes has decided to sooth the wounds from the media being critical of him by continuing to attack the LGBTQ community again, sponsoring legislation to try and deny transgender citizens from changing their gender on their driver’s licenses. So at least we know he hasn’t changed.

What was a new behavior from Jim Tomes, however, is how he wanted to make it impossible for people to anonymously report environmental violations illegally carried out by corporations, sponsoring SB 73 to silence whistleblowers and make them the targets of fear or intimidation should they choose to do the right thing and report a crime against the planet itself.

Again, Jim Tomes is only rabidly pursuing smaller government as it pertains to making wealthy people wealthier, and cannot get over his obsession with legislating people based on their genitals. And he’s going to at least be around until 2022.

[PwrdOn]

America deserves ridicule for all the terrible things it done in the world, however, blaming everything dictatorships do on it is disgusting. "As bad as they are to their people" - do you understand how bad they are, in the past and now? What do you think is going on in those countries and how they've impacting the world? This reads like you don't, at worst you're minimising their atrocities to take shots at America. They're dictatorships. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are constantly utilising soft and hard power for their own agendas and they're not goals you might like to be on the receiving end of. They're not passive observers America's picking on.

Sanders won't get anything "free," he'll be their enemy just by being America's president unless they think they can get him to assist them in their agenda like Trump is doing.

You criticism on America using economics to isolate them has some merit, except it's not happening in a vacuum.

The world isn't as simple as you think it is. When Sanders becomes president there is no button he can push where everything becomes ok. He's going to get pressure internally and internationally like every other president. Can he take that? Will you be ok with the decisions he makes that will impact millions of people?

For one thing, while all of these regimes are obviously atrocious, it's a bit delusional to pretend like THAT is the reason that America opposes them, when we have no problem propping up equally brutal regimes like Saudi Arabia or any number of Latin American tinpot dictatorships as long as they serve our economic interests. Indeed, resentment at being strip mined by American corporations and not seeing any of the gains from that supposed economic development flowing back to the public is the primary reason why most of these countries turned to socialism in the first place. For another, while they do of course have their own foreign policy objectives, by and large their ability to disrupt the geopolitical order outside of their own backyards is fairly limited, even China only has one overseas military base and they didn't get that until a few years ago.

It's interesting to see how people have absolutely lost their minds at the prospect of Russian interference in American politics, because for people outside of the US, foreign interference in domestic affairs is just a reality that everyone accepts and is forced to live with, and it's not hard to figure who the main culprit is in all of that. And the thing is, all of this geopolitical ratfucking really doesn't get us very far, because while it may secure us resources and the allegiance of corrupt local elites in the short term, it has built up an unbelievable amount of ill will that has become increasingly resistant to us trying to flex our military muscle to suppress. Nobody had any great love for Saddam Hussein or the Taliban, but even given how brutal they could be, the people knew better than to trust American promises of democracy and prosperity, which is why it has proven impossible to set up a stable pro-American government anywhere in that region.

Granted, Bernie won't bring all our troops home immediately and he isn't running on that particular plank. But what he is promising is a foreign policy outlook that is less exploitative and more cooperative, not trying to constantly scare our rivals into submission but rather trying to work together to tackle global challenges instead of wasting resources on unproductive arms races. Perhaps this is all kind of pie in the sky thinking, but the reality of the current situation is that our "peace through strength" posture has simply not worked, it hasn't bought us any kind of peace and we look increasingly weak as the dysfunction and corruption of our military industrial complex is revealed to the world.

[Billy Batson]

Meanwhile.................

Twitter Link with video

Now they're passing a 4 year old thing as news

[PwrdOn]

Well Mayor Pete, what's so funny about Peace, Love and Understanding?

The funny thing is that facts don't care about your feelings, snowflake!