All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[numberthirty]

My mind isn't at ease... so much as I can emphatically say I am not feeling extreme unease that we're doomed every time I look up. We're not devolving into fascism or authoritarianism.

It would not be so bold as to describe my feelings about the Biden administration as... hope. I just need competence to not blow everything up. And that's what they're giving. It's better than the Trump alternative... certain doom.

And that's my pitch for a bumper sticker for 2024... "Biden 2024: It's Not Certain Doom".

On paper?

Passable elevator pitch.

In practice?

I worry about Biden having to play defense if at least a few things don't start to break his way.

[Robotman]

I suspect Harris may be keeping a low profile while the heat from Afghanistan and the COVID mandates dies down. If they plan to run her in 2024, the more distance she has from those negative talking points, the better. When voters in ‘24 think back about these events they’ll hold Biden accountable.

Harris is going to have to do something amazing in the next 3 years to have any chance in 2024. She was a great choice for a running mate because she checks a lot of boxes, but as a candidate she’s not great. Keeping a low profile will only go so far.

[worstblogever]

Senator Warren still continues to say all the right things for me. As a Senator, or as a candidate for president. I've been let down by some of VP Harris' sound bites on immigration since January. I'm not like, "she's dead to me" clearly. She just could be better.

In a world where Sen Sinema exists... there's someone to save your ire for within the party.

But... Republicans have still been circling the wagons around a coup attempt and the domestic terrorists who tried to carry it out, so... y'know... I think it's safe to say which party's hands we're safer in.

[numberthirty]

Senator Warren still continues to say all the right things for me. As a Senator, or as a candidate for president. I've been let down by some of VP Harris' sound bites on immigration since January. I'm not like, "she's dead to me" clearly. She just could be better.

In a world where Sen Sinema exists... there's someone to save your ire for within the party.

But... Republicans have still been circling the wagons around a coup attempt and the domestic terrorists who tried to carry it out, so... y'know... I think it's safe to say which party's hands we're safer in.

It's not ire.

It's people being realistic about a person that the base wasn't so hot on that is now ducking the actual work.

That is a hard sell in every state in the union.

[skyvolt2000]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/...tores-80500845

California on Saturday became the first state to say large department stores must display products like toys and toothbrushes in gender-neutral ways, a win for LGBT advocates who say the pink and blue hues of traditional marketing methods pressure children to conform to gender stereotypes.

The new law, signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, does not outlaw traditional boys and girls sections at department stores. Instead, it says large stores must also have a gender neutral section to display “a reasonable selection" of items "regardless of whether they have been traditionally marketed for either girls or for boys.”

Does California NOT have bigger things to worry about?

Low said he was inspired by the 10-year-old girl daughter of one of his staffers, who asked her mom why certain items in the store were “off limits” to her because she was a girl.

What stuff was off limits to her??????

[Mister Mets]

Biden is of course the face. But as old as he is I would have Harris out there now. Biden can cheerlead and push and Harris can also be going around to push things. Put her out there to push things for him. Covid is a great time to do it. Get her on tv with Biden and alone to push people to get the vaccine. As a POC she could be a huge person to help get the POC population get the Vaccine. I am just saying there are many things she can do right now while still giving Biden the spotlight and still get her face out there to raise her profile.

Kamala Harris is the heavy favorite to be the Democratic party's next nominee, just because that's the way it typically goes (Biden is the ultimate proof of the power of the vice-presidency as a springboard for a presidential bid) in addition to the party's sensitivity on identity issues making it really hard for someone to win a primary over a woman of color elected to national office.

But if she doesn't have a prominent enough role in the administration, is it Biden's fault? He can't make her popular or successful. That's on her.

A few years back I crunched some numbers to see how different states compare to one another, mostly to determine which Party does a better job at governing - Republicans or Democrats (spoiler: red states littered the bottom of the list, while blue ones were primarily those on top). Recently, I updated the statistics to see if and how things have changed, using the most recent data that I could find (all except inmates/capita, which is from 2018, are numbers from 2019 and newer). I also added more data that I had not previously considered. The categories that I looked at this time around are:

GDP/capita, debt as percent of GDP, federal funding as percent of GDP, percent of pensions funded, income adjusted to cost of living, unemployment rate, percent of households receiving food stamps, food insecurity rate, poverty rate, homeless rate, percent of population (over 25) with HS diploma, percent of population (over 25) with college degrees, teen pregnancy rate, divorce rate, suicide rate, murder rate, and inmates/capita.

The first image is a list of the 10 worst states in each of the 17 categories, with the red states that fared badly starting on the left and then moving to the right and continuing below with categories that blue ones didn't do well in. Note: there are 5 different color codes that I used in my graphic, very blue, blue, white, red, and very red. There are 10 states in each category, and thus only illustrate their partisanship relative to other states. The data I used for determining this is from FiveThirtyEight's analysis of how voters voted in their respective 2020 Presidential, Congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative elections.

Attachment 114578

Here is a list of the states which were among the worst states the most frequently, followed by how many times (out of 17) they were in the bottom 10:

New Mexico 13
Kentucky 12
Mississippi 11
West Virginia 10
Louisiana 10
Arkansas 10
Alabama 9
Oklahoma 8
Nevada 6
Arizona 5
Hawaii 5

The next image shows the top 10 performing states in each category, again with the categories that red states did well in on the left and the ones that blue states excelled at on the right and continuing below, .

Attachment 114579

Here is the list of states that were in the top 10 most frequently and how many times they were in the top 10:

Utah 11
Minnesota 10
New Jersey 10
North Dakota 10
Massachusetts 9
New Hampshire 9
Connecticut 8
Nebraska 8
New York 8
Virginia 7

I don't know if these are the best ways to determine the quality of governance. There are a lot of other factors involved.

Some of the "good" states are red (Nebraska, Utah, North Dakota) and some of the "bad" states are blue (New Mexico, Nevada, Hawaii.)

The people also matter. Just consider the likely results if everyone in Connecticut and Oklahoma (picking a "good" state and a "bad" state with relatively similar populations) swapped places except for elected officials.

An additional complicating factor is the leadership in the states. Some of the "good" blue states have Republican Governors (Massachusetts, New Hampshire), while some of the "bad" red states have Democratic Governor (Louisiana, Kentucky.)

It's also worth noting that some of the red states that you suggest were poorly governed had state legislatures and Governor's mansions controlled by Democrats until relatively recently, though I wouldn't say that's the reason for the outcomes. Democrats controlled the Kentucky state house until 2016, the Mississippi state house until 2012, the West Virginia House of Delegates until 2014, the Louisiana state house until 2008, and the Arkansas state house until 2012.

She needs to just show up, for starters.

Think what you want about the Post's slant, but no one has come out to challenge the accuracy of this headline.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/09/harris...n-immigration/

I may have asked this question before, but what do you think should be the policy when it comes to immigration?

What kind of border enforcement do you support? What should be done with undocumented immigrants? What limits should there be on legal immigration?

[Kirby101]

She needs to just show up, for starters.

Think what you want about the Post's slant, but no one has come out to challenge the accuracy of this headline.

https://nypost.com/2021/10/09/harris...n-immigration/

Because you don't understand how these things work. The WH was meeting with their counterparts, there are levels to these meetings. It is pure Post BS slant about a nothing story.
But haters gotta hate.

[Mister Mets]

Republicans are "looking at election laws" because they're trying to move the goalposts so they can "win". They've said it out loud.

I'm not suggesting you're a liar. You were lying about the election being close, which is only slightly better than the talking heads in your party lying and claiming the election was "stolen". You got caught and I presented the facts.

I'm not letting Republicans control the narrative. On account of all the lying. And knowing as a party they're lying. (Steve Scalise just lied on Fox News about the election being Ffraudulent this morning. Party leadership.) Maybe you're better than Giuliani and Sidney Powell and Trump, because there won't be e-mails to prove it... but I'm pretty sure you know.

But the election was close.

Biden's margin in Georgia was 0.23% (11,779 votes) His margin in Arizona was 0.31% (10,457 votes) and his margin in Wisconsin was 0.63% (20,682 votes.) A national swing of less than a percent would've resulted in a Trump win. That wouldn't have taken much (IE- a better first debate performance when he was probably sick with Covid.)

You're a reasonably informed person, so you should be aware of this. So why should anyone take anything you say about lying seriously when you add insult to injury by lying about lying?

[worstblogever]

Because pretending that's closer than it really is only furthers the motives of people in your party who fantasize about a Civil War and actually worked to start it on 1/6.

Try and not act surprised. I'm not that you miss that simple truth.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

When it comes to what is in blue?

That is the one place that I might disagree.

Even the really thick blockheads might be able to see that you made their everyday lives better.

The problem being that Biden has a pretty tough row to hoe when it comes to trying to do so.

How about the response to COVID? You mean to tell me that wasn't incompetence?

Trump going to jail is a fun thought and it gives the talking heads something to talk about for a couple segments to get ratings. But truth is it will never happen. His lackeys as we have seen yes, Trump himself? Never going to sit in a cell.

If he is arrested he will bail out, his lawyers will file motion after motion and things will go super slow. if he ever does go to trial a jury trail would be his best friend.

Exactly that. I've mentioned this suspicion a couple of times here: the one thing Trump fears more than losing his wealth is losing his freedom, to which end, he'll willingly spend his last dollar to stay out of prison.

[numberthirty]

...

I may have asked this question before, but what do you think should be the policy when it comes to immigration?

What kind of border enforcement do you support? What should be done with undocumented immigrants? What limits should there be on legal immigration?

Feels like you are asking me how much time in jail we should be giving a prostitute.

While I feel like I've been a broken record about this, my answer is roughly "Well first off, I don't really think that a nation full of Johns is in any position to be talking about how much jail time a prostitute should be serving..."

Actually get serious about addressing the actual issues.

[numberthirty]

How about the response to COVID? You mean to tell me that wasn't incompetence?

...

We talking Trump?

If so, I honestly don't see anything he did amounting to much when it comes to Biden actually making a difference in the day to day life of John/Jane Blockhead.

[CSTowle]

"iT wAsN't As BiG a WiN yOu SeE bEcAuSe TrUmP wAs A TeRrIbBlE pReSiDeNt FoR fOuR yEaRs EspEcIaLlY bY BoTcHiNg CoViD. sHoUlD hAvE bEeN bIgGeR."


I don't care. Biden WON. Biden WON BIG.

Full stop. Those are the numbers. With a sane GOP that weren't ready to have an insurrection weeks later, maybe they wouldn't have voted for the former occupant, especially given his botched leadership killed hundreds of thousands of people. Especially if they weren't actively suppressing the minority vote since a certain Supreme Court decision.

So if it's not bigger? Look at Fox News, look at GOP voter suppression. That's why it was "close" at a 7 million difference.

I'm glad Trump is gone, but he's gone because he lost. Not because Biden won. The common criticism of those on the right is that he can't be legitimate because almost nobody is truly enthusiastic about Biden on his own merits, but rather as an alternative to what came before him. They're right, but underestimate how much people disliked their guy.

Biden's best chance is if Trump runs again and actually follows through to the nomination rather than quitting once he's eked every dollar out of every MAGA sucker and basked in all of the attention the rallies bring. I'd still say right now it'd be close. If anyone else runs with any competence, again as things stand now (and it's a long time out), Biden likely loses.

Worst case scenario for us would be Biden retiring, they push Harris (who polled at around 1% in the primaries) as the nominee, and that perceived weakness ripples down the ticket and we see another four years of the Republicans having all branches and fully entrenching laws that keep them in power despite demographic shifts.

[numberthirty]

Because you don't understand how these things work. The WH was meeting with their counterparts, there are levels to these meetings. It is pure Post BS slant about a nothing story.
But haters gotta hate.

Yeah...

None of these folks on the other end would have had any interest in meeting with the person who is supposed to be taking the lead on this.

Never mind with that you'd better have a better excuse than that if you eventually have to attempt to explain away that nothing really got done after running on being the competent alternative.

[numberthirty]

I'm glad Trump is gone, but he's gone because he lost. Not because Biden won. The common criticism of those on the right is that he can't be legitimate because almost nobody is truly enthusiastic about Biden on his own merits, but rather as an alternative to what came before him. They're right, but underestimate how much people disliked their guy.

Biden's best chance is if Trump runs again and actually follows through to the nomination rather than quitting once he's eked every dollar out of every MAGA sucker and basked in all of the attention the rallies bring. I'd still say right now it'd be close. If anyone else runs with any competence, again as things stand now (and it's a long time out), Biden likely loses.

Worst case scenario for us would be Biden retiring, they push Harris (who polled at around 1% in the primaries) as the nominee, and that perceived weakness ripples down the ticket and we see another four years of the Republicans having all branches and fully entrenching laws that keep them in power despite demographic shifts.

One guy's take...

Actual worst case scenario involves this Congress getting almost nothing done.

It kneecaps Biden, and Congressional Dems have a seriously hard time selling the voter on that this will be the time they can get things done.