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

[Kirby101]

Look at this post again.



There was no nuance to it.
He's not blaming a sliver of Bernie voters, and there were no other qualifications.
He's blaming all Bernie voters.

How many times do I have to show you that you are reading that wrong? How many times do I have to explain what was meant? Even though all others on this thread understood it without me going over it again and again. And yet you still insist I absolutely meant ALL Bernie voters, when I absolutely did not.
Also if some anonymous progressive on a comics board is enought to stop a Bernie voter from voting for Biden, they have more problems than Biden not being progressive enough.

[Kirby101]

A better approach would have been, 'Don't you mean some voters? It's not all of them.'

Then Kirby would have replied, 'Yes, your right. I should have qualified my statement. My mistake.'

Then you could have said, 'Thank you for correcting it.'

In civil discourse, it's best to give someone the benefit of the doubt until they make it clear what they really meant. If they double down on their initial statement, then you can say that they are wrong for saying it, that it is inaccurate.

Of course, Kirby could have been more precise with his words, but when you are typing quickly sometimes you don't have time to review what you wrote and realize that there is a better way to phrase it. Still, when possible, I suggest to everyone that we all make an effort to at least review our posts before posting them. And to review them afterward. And to be prepared to be corrected, if it comes up.

But I did then qualify it and he still insists I meant all Bernie voters. Even though I repeatedly said I did not.

[Tami]

But I did then qualify it and he still insists I meant all Bernie voters. Even though I repeatedly said I did not.

You did qualify and correct your statement, that is all you can do. Striderblack01 will either accept or reject your correction, that is his choice. There is nothing more you can do.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Philip Hinkle, a former member of the Indiana state legislature who was caught trying to solicit gay sex from an 18 year old on Craigslist, and then after assaulting the young man after the tried to leave without consenting to sex, attempted to offer him bribes to cover up the fact that he was a legislator. The saga would mark the end of Hinkle’s career.

In both 2016, 2017, and 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiles of Darryl Glenn, the former U.S. Senate candidate from Colorado who was never even supposed to win the GOP Primary to advance, but the GOP’s favored son, Jon Keyser, got caught forging signatures to be on the ballot and got himself disqualified and charged with a crime. So it was that the rabid and radical Glenn was launched into the spotlight, where he embarrassed the GOP while facing off with Senator Bob Bennet. The GOP was going to make sure that Darryl Glenn had the best chance possible to knock off the incumbent, giving him a speech in prime time of the 2016 Republican National Convention (aka the Trumpster Fire Clusterf***ed Total S***Show). Glenn spoke for six minutes... which the major networks chose not to air. In fact, all of the cable news networks chose to skip it, as well, instead having pundits recap events from throughout the day (including Donald Trump appearing on FOX News for a live interview and upstage the other Republicans from Day One), and hype Melania Trump coming out later in the night (which was it's own disaster because of the plagiarism). But maybe the lack of media attention was for the best, considering the content of Glenn's uninspiring six minutes in the spotlight. In the little time he took, Glenn took time to lay blame for racial tension in the United States on President Obama, deliver his hackneyed one-liner about Hillary Clinton needing to trade in her pantsuits for a prison jumpsuit, and then take time to address the Black Lives Matter movement by saying, "Frankly somebody with a nice tan needs to say this, all lives matter. Blue lives matter, that’s right, ladies and gentlemen.” Anyhow… after Glenn’s speech, the fact-checkers moved in and pointed out that Glenn's remarks in it about neighborhoods being more crime ridden were patently false by any crime statistic available. And, the very next day, Senator Bennet wisely decided it was time to drop an ad-blitz on Glenn, before he could build any momentum... Bennet's ad featured the speech from Colorado's own GOP convention in April, where he talked openly about a wide variety of topics like accusing Planned Parenthood of “dismembering babies”, defunding sanctuary cities, and asserting that working across the aisle was something he’d outright refuse to do, saying he cuold not name any elected Democrats he could get along with, because he was “running against Democrats. I’m running against evil.” And then, things just got strange. About a week after Darryl Glenn's slot at the RNC, the Denver Post did a little digging into Glenn's background, and found out that he previously had been charged with assault against his father in 1983. Rather than own up to the fact that he had attacked his father, Darryl Glenn tried lying... badly. He claimed that the Darryl Glenn in the police report could have actually been another person with the same name as him, or perhaps his half-brother Cedric, who would be a convenient fall-guy to lay blame on, as he died in 1992 and his father wouldn't be setting the record straight, as he died in 2006. Eventually, Glenn was confronted with the truth and copped to it, saying that he had to maintain the lie or he would have been kicked out of the Air Force Academy because their honor code forbids them from accepting candidates with criminal pasts. But the gaffes still kept surfacing. An interview with a conservative radio station from back in June surfaced on August 10th, where Darryl Glenn claimed that prior to Omar Mateen killing fifty people at the Orlando Pulse Nightclub, President Obama specifically directed the FBI to stop investigating Mateen. It was a bald-faced lie, but precisely the sort of thing you'd expect from the GOP narrative that President Obama secretly is helping Islamic terrorists (even the ones that aren't actually Islamic terrorists and just bitter closeted homosexuals like Mateen). With the errors from Glenn piling up all within a three week span, national Republicans stopped aiding him financially, and left him for a lost cause. Now, don’t ask us how, but even though Darryl Glenn trailed Bob Bennet by double digits in the polls, on election day, he still managed to get 44% of the vote in spite of being an uncompromising, chronically lying twit who beat up his father. We thought we would be reporting on the last time you’ll ever hear about Daryll Glenn, but to our chagrin, he re-emerged to appear as a GOP Primary challenger for the U.S. House of Representatives for Colorado’s 5th District in 2018, trying to get to Congress by unseating multiple-time CSGOPOTD Doug Lamborn. In that Republican primary back in late June, Darryl Glenn lost, getting just 20% of the vote. The whole campaign may have just been an end-around for Glenn as a grifter, as it was discovered he used campaign funds to pay himself a salary as a campaign staffer to effectively get himself tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue using an obscure campaign finance rule.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Joey Gibson, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Washington in 2018, but you probably know him as the fascist group Patriot Prayer, that Gibson insists is just “alt-right” and not “white supremacist”, even though white supremacists like Idenity Evropa and the Proud Boys seem to be regular attendees of Patriot Prayer events, and his security is often provided by the 3% militia group. He has responded to complaints about white supremacists hanging out with him all the time by claiming IF such a person was in attendance that he "would say the same thing to them that I would say to any black nationalist or Mexican nationalists group, we have to drop the identity of politics and focus on what is on the inside." Because there are so many Mexican and black nationalists around. And white nationalism is just “identity politics”. Among Gibson’s pseudo-libertarian thoughts are the need to abolish the IRS, and to institute a national sales tax instead. He is more famous for being in the vicinity of riots breaking out in Portland, Oregon in 2018 and folks were wondering how long it would take before he might be charged with a crime for inciting them. Gibson only got 2% of the vote in the primary for that U.S. Senate seat, and was later charged with inciting a riot in Portland on May Day 2019 and arrested by authorities in Oregon. It’s more amazing that it took so long for this to happen. As he seems to be done with politics, we’ll retire his profile at this time, and take a look at another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 910-45, since this was established in July 2014.

[4saken1]

And now you're doing it too.

This entitlement, this tit-for-tat, this frustration, it's how the DNC fails.

Is it, though? I kinda figured it had something to do with the Electoral College, purging voter rolls, felony disenfranchisement, eliminating polling booths in poor neighborhoods, voter ID, voter apathy caused by those gullible enough to believe the lie that 'both Parties are exactly the same', spoiler votes, easily hackable election machines, gerrymandering in the House, etc. Saying 'THIS' is why Democrats fail is a classic example of correlation not necessarily amounting to causation. Do you have any studies that show how some Progressives being shunned by Democrats makes them any less likely to vote blue the next time around, or is the a case that it just makes some Sanders followers feel more justified in not doing so?

[Striderblack01]

How many times do I have to show you that you are reading that wrong? How many times do I have to explain what was meant? Even though all others on this thread understood it without me going over it again and again. And yet you still insist I absolutely meant ALL Bernie voters, when I absolutely did not.

Do you see now?

How important it is to be clear in your language?

---
Relax, Kirby.

I believe you and I apologize for using that example again.
Though I did it to prove a point, it was lazy.

But I actually think your views may be the exception.

I think a lot of people feel like the DNC should've converted 100% of the Sanders & Progressive votes.
I think a lot of people are frustrated and are carrying over some acrimony from the 2016 election.
And that is leading to further acrimony in this election.

It seems to me, based on this and many conversations I've read, that many blame Sanders and all of his voters for the 2016 loss.
And in that acrimony and frustration, they're laying the groundwork to scapegoat them again for this November.
And that is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

As we've discussed before, Progressives are in a weird place and Sanders doesn't have a choke-hold on the Progressive vote.
Through his endorsement, and Biden's policies, we'll win most of the Progressive again, but not all.

However unfathomable it may seem to us, this election may be close.

And that tension, which we all feel, leads to fear and anger.
That anger robs us of nuance, and the ability to address concerns in a way that is conducive to persuasion.
It leads to careless comments, which breeds further acrimony at a time we should all be united.

And that we cannot afford.

[worstblogever]

John Curtis

Welcome to what is the 910th original profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be discussing the current U.S. House Representative from Utah’s 3rd Congressional District, John Curtis, who first ran and won office for that seat in a 2017 special election to replace former Congressman and all around sneering bastard Jason Chaffetz. His elevation is kind of surprising, given how that during the buildup to that election in 2017, the public would learn that while the Mayor of Provo, John Curtis hired Police Chief John King even though he had resigned from two prior posts as two prior accusations of sexual harassment were made against him. John Curtis HIRED that guy. Then, as the police chief in Provo, there were then multiple complaints filed against King in 2014 and 2015, and he was kept around by Curtis in spite of all the women coming forward… until King’s resignation in March of 2017 when another woman came forward to accuse him of rape. It seems John Curtis missed the whole #MeToo memo, or he doesn’t think much of women being violated. Which would seem to be the case, considering it is alleged then Mayor Curtis told police department supervisors that he “did not want to hear any more complaints about Chief King” when multiple women were coming forward. And, Curtis was so revolted by Chief King's accusations that he cut the cake at his going away party.

What a champ.

But John Curtis has other things on his mind to prioritize… like reducing the size of the Bears’ Ears Monument for pillaging by fossil fuel companies while ignoring the native tribes of the area, and allowing oil companies to fast-track drilling without any research into the environmental impact it might have upon the surrounding lands.

His voting record shows a whole pattern of Curtis looking the other way against the interests and safety of everyday people in his two terms in office:

• December 19th, 2017: John Curtis votes for HR 1, the GOP’s $1.7 trillion tax cut to benefit the wealthiest Americans and corporations permanently that coincidentally also removes the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate and kicks 13 million people off their health insurance.
• February 18th, 2018: Rep. Curtis and his fellow Republicans decide that poor big businesses are suffering too much at the hands of the Americans with Disabilities Act too much, and vote for HR 620, which would strip most of the civil rights protections guaranteed by it.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Curtis voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Curtis 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. Curtis 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: John Curtis 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: Curtis votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Curtis votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: John Curtis 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”.
• December 18th, 2019: Curtis ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Curtis votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Utah’s 3rd Congressional District has a +25 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, and after advancing out of the GOP Primary at the Utah Republican Convention (with no data released on how that vote actually went), John Curtis advances to the general election against Democrat Devin Thorpe in about eight weeks. Considering he won by 40 points in the 2018 Blue Wave election, it seems like Curtis is going to hang around Congress to continue to do the bidding of the oil industry through at least 2022. Regrettably.

[Mister Mets]

If there are a segment of Bernie supporters who vote Trump because they wont vote for Biden how can they say they even agree and support anything Bernie is for if they vote for a man who goes against everything he is.

There are some people who are unhappy with politics as usual. This is why in the 2016 Republican primary, Trump did so well with the people who voted in Ron Paul in 2008 and 2012, despite having radically different policy suggestions. Many of them are looking for unconventional politicians, figuring that it has some chance of improving things. I certainly disagree with the viewpoint, but they might be inclined to think that a post-pandemic Trump will be more likely to make things better than a guy who became a generic Senator in 1978.

There are two other key figures.

More Hillary Clinton supporters said they backed McCain in 2008, than Sanders supporters said they backed Trump in 2016. Multiple surveys have suggested that it was about 25 percent of Clinton supporters who went with McCain. There might be a shy voter effect, with people who backed Clinton claiming to have supported Obama after he ended up with the most impressive election of any Democratic President since LBJ's reelection. When Clinton lost the general election, there was less reason for Sanders supporters to claim to support her in the primaries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.28acc119becc

Sanders did do a lot worse in 2020 than he did in 2016. He had 43.13% of the vote in 2016, and 26.62% in 2020. So the people who backed Sanders this time are more likely to be hard-core supporters, while also being a smaller part of the electorate.

[Malvolio]

I still don't get people who hate Trump, but won't vote for Biden unless he "excites" them. This isn't a rock concert. It's your civic duty! And please stop pretending like there's some magical third choice that will get you everything you say you want. It's not happening. Either Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be President on January 20th, 2021. And guess what? If not enough of us vote for Biden, Trump will win, even if only 40% of eligible voters actually vote. We don't get to install "None of the Above" into office.

[BeastieRunner]

I'm not voting for Biden, I'm voting for RBG's replacement.

That's why I am voting for him. Plus, I actually like Harris. That's a good bonus.

[The Cool Thatguy]

I'm not voting for Biden, I'm voting for RBG's replacement.

That's why I am voting for him. Plus, I actually like Harris. That's a good bonus.

I like Biden, but at the end of the day, I'm voting for basic sanity and a functional government

[Striderblack01]

I still don't get people who hate Trump, but won't vote for Biden unless he "excites" them. This isn't a rock concert. It's your civic duty! And please stop pretending like there's some magical third choice that will get you everything you say you want. It's not happening. Either Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be President on January 20th, 2021. And guess what? If not enough of us vote for Biden, Trump will win, even if only 40% of eligible voters actually vote. We don't get to install "None of the Above" into office.

Representation is kind of a big deal in a representative democracy.

The people that you are describing obviously feel unheard and unsatisfied. Whether or not that is warranted or justified, your mileage will vary.
They didn't want nor create the effective duopoly of both parties, and we can't assume that they are unreasonable for not wanting to participate.
Nobody owes us any votes.

We have to persuade them, if possible, with the expectation that we won't win them all over.
Vote shaming won't do this.

[BeastieRunner]

Beastie's Cartoons of the Week

[The no face guy]

I don't forsee Bernie Bros withholding there vote, this time round.

Biden one the primary without any controversy. With Clinton there appeared to be a lot of shady things going on behind the scene with the DNC, to ensure the nomination was in her pocket.

Whether it's fair or not, the Clinton name is resonates with corruption with a lot of the general public, and in the mid west it resonates with NAFTA, China's entry into the WTO & other free trade deals that helped carve out the rust belt.

This is the second election in my life where I don't hear Americans bemoaning that both parties are the same, in 2016 that favoured Trump, in 2020 it will most likely favour Biden.

[babyblob]

]I still don't get people who hate Trump, but won't vote for Biden [/B]unless he "excites" them. This isn't a rock concert. It's your civic duty! And please stop pretending like there's some magical third choice that will get you everything you say you want. It's not happening. Either Donald Trump or Joe Biden will be President on January 20th, 2021. And guess what? If not enough of us vote for Biden, Trump will win, even if only 40% of eligible voters actually vote. We don't get to install "None of the Above" into office.

What amazes me is some of my friends are Republicans who like me voted for Trump but now very much regret it. But unlike me they are not using what he and his cronies are doing as a chance to take a hard look at the Republican party and what it has become. They are either voting for Trump again because you know that is what the party says. Or are not voting for Trump because they hate him. But they are not voting for Biden because they can not vote for the other party. Those that are voting for another party are voting 3rd party candidate. Saying well I didnt vote for Trump so its not my fault what happens.

It just amazes me how blind to the party some people are.