All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[aja_christopher]

They like non interventionists

They like people who attack Obama and other Democrats because division in the Democratic party helps them win elections -- it was and still is all about taking down the Democrats, which is why they often promote "liberal" critics of said party, especially when they share similar prejudices.

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"The latest Democratic candidate to enter the 2020 race has an unexpected base of support: The far right and conservative media.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), who announced her candidacy last Friday, has cultivated a fandom among the right by bashing fellow Democrats and espousing views that break with the party line...

Gabbard first became an in-demand Fox News guest in 2015 after she criticized Barack Obama’s unwillingness to use the label “radical Islamic terrorism.” Her media tour explaining that position earned her positively-tilted coverage in right-wing outlets like Breitbart and The Daily Caller—a trend that continued when she later expressed skepticism of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.

One person with direct knowledge told The Daily Beast that in the wake of her Obama criticism of Obama, Gabbard became an increasingly requested guest for Fox News hosts and producers to appear on-air. They weren’t the only ones in television news who took notice: senior executives at Sinclair Broadcasting made appeals for Gabbard to appear on their networks after she rebuked Obama.

And her emergence as a left-wing Obama critic further put Gabbard on the map in conservative media."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-co...-for-president

[PaulBullion]

I’m on my phone and I’m busy. Don’t have time, to correct everything little thing.

Democracy is not a trifle to be handled carelessly, Knight.

[JCAll]

"Why Do the Democrats Want to Run Against Obama Instead of Trump?"

"The Dark Psychic Forces of Collective Hatred won tonight’s debate. It is absolutely mind-boggling to me that the Democratic candidates think their best path forward is to aggressively and personally attack one another over the finer points of their white papers and decades-old positions, given the intensity of their base’s desire to remove Trump from the White House. It’s mind-boggling that there would be several candidates taking shots at Barack Obama when he’s broadly popular, Trump isn’t, and the whole point of this enterprise is beating Trump.

And so in that regard, the loser of the debate tonight was the eventual Democratic nominee, who it is clear will win only after being a victim of some aggressive friendly fire.

Trump won tonight. Some of the candidates on the stage tonight represented the Democrats’ best chance to take back the White House, and their performances ranged from blah to cringe-worthy. Biden looked old and disconnected. Harris looked nervous and unprepared. And all of them moved further to the left in their positions.

Obama lost tonight. Apparently, his record is far too right-wing on the issues of health care and immigration. Kinda nuts to watch.

Good news and bad news for Biden camp: He didn’t do great, but neither did Harris. This debate won’t improve his poll numbers, but it won’t knock him out.

Over the past two nights, almost every one of these candidates has been so blindly focused on winning the nomination that they have completely ignored what general-election voters will think of the positions they’re taking. Most of them are staking out very liberal positions, well out of the mainstream, that could cost them the general election."

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...undup-2-227496

"Dark psychic forces"? I already hate this meme, and it's not even a meme yet.
Is that the new X-Men reboot? Is Jean Grey going to blow up a star after every debate?

[PaulBullion]

Are greatest thread is stupid people

But is our children learning?

[PaulBullion]

Meanwhile, the Fed finally caved to Trump's pressure and lowered interest rates for the first time in 10 years.

Which had the opposite effect of what Trump had hoped for: The DJI now had two days of sharp losses.

[aja_christopher]

"Dark psychic forces"? I already hate this meme, and it's not even a meme yet.
Is that the new X-Men reboot? Is Jean Grey going to blow up a star after every debate?

America isn't ready for Williamson -- she needs to come back in another century or two, assuming we're still around... whether as a nation or a species.

I wouldn't be surprised if she hangs out on the astral plane in her spare time fighting dark psychic forces that we will never comprehend.

[Theleviathan]

Because the issue is Democrats are showing in polls that it’s not necessarily that Biden is preferred, just that there is a belief he is more electability. It’s a similar pragmatism to 2016. And I don’t think that wins the day anymore

Maybe you're right, but I'd suggest that what lost 2016 was not "pragmatism" but a candidate who was seriously disliked by a lot of Americans before the race even began. It's unwise to think that because you define Clinton and Biden as being at a similar place on the political spectrum that their flaws or strengths are the same.

Frankly, I think (I say that intentionally, I could well be wrong) too many liberals think disaffected lefties are the key to winning because they are themselves a disaffected lefty. It is a self-serving narrative to think America Wants What I Want! That may be true of them as individuals, but it's quite another thing that this is the voting bloc that will sit out or determine the election. Given what happened in 2016 and 2018 there is weak data to suggest that's true. In fact, that data would seem to indicate the demographics that need to be targeted are quite unlike that group based on recent elections. Maybe 2020 is a whole different ballgame.....but I doubt that.

[worstblogever]

August 1st, 2019
On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled former one-term Michigan Congressman Kerry Bentivolio, who only found his way into office because his predecessor was caught forging signatures in his own re-election bid right at the deadline to register for the Republican primary, so he got a conservative-leaning district gift-wrapped to head to serve in the U.S. House. Bentivolio was a special kind of kooky, as his career prior to running for office was that of a reindeer farmer who ran a Christmas village in his district. To this day, you can find photos of a shirtless Kerry Bentivolio blowing air-kisses at his reindeer pals. Bentivolio also once starred in a 9-11 Truther movie where President Bush was left in a bed to sit in his own filth by a nurse for his role in the "inside job". While in Congress, he gleefully ran amok with Tea Party loons during the 2013 Government Shutdown in protests near the White House, talked about how impeaching President Obama would be a "dream come true", and generally proved himself clueless while in Washington, including mispronouncing "Samoa" when introducing the Representative from there and utterly butchering his name. Bentivolio’s utter mistake of a Congressional career seems good and over.


It was in 2016, 2017, as well as 2018, that “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of the U.S. House Representative from Tennessee's 6th Congressional District, Diane Black, who was another beneficiary of the 2010 Tea Party Wave to help her find her way to Washington, D.C. Back 2012, Black faced no Democratic challenger, getting a slam-dunk victory that saw her main threat coming in the GOP Primary, where she had to fend off Lou Ann Zelenik, an anti-Muslim fearmonger who claimed Rep. Black hadn't done enough to prevent the rise of Islam in Tennessee, with the evidence being the mosque that stands in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Rather than call out Zelenik for her bigotry, Black instead began trying to one-up her, saying that "violent Islam" was becoming the norm, and "not the exception". Don't worry, though, she didn't abandon this disgusting belief after surviving the primary challenge that year. Diane Black has actually introduced one of those blatantly paranoid anti-Sharia bills you normally see idiots trying to pass at the state level back in Tennessee in 2010, and now that she's in Congress, she tried to get it banned at the federal level. Perhaps Diane Black's worst comment on Muslims, however, is when she said, "Until the American Muslim community find it in their hearts to separate themselves from their evil, radical counterparts, to condemn those who want to destroy our civilization and will fight against them, we are not obligated to open our society to any of them." Great. We’ll just expect an entire religion to condemn those who represent it most poorly before we can allow them to be in the country. Maybe we should ask Rep. Black to properly condemn the KKK before she can be a citizen, too, just so everything’s equal across the board.

Rep. Black's current political capitol these days, though, is mostly being spent on her mad quest against Planned Parenthood. Back in March of 2016, Black was sitting on the "Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives", and was asking important, totally non-biased questions like, “In our society, have we reached a point where there is an Amazon.com for baby parts, including entire babies?

That's a pretty easy answer: "No, Goddamn it." "Baby Body Parts" was the sort of rhetoric that inspired Roland James Dear to shoot up a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, through the apparatus of stochastic terror. So great job there, Rep. Black. Maybe after you’re done criticizing the Klan so we can trust that you’re not a Christian terrrorist is also condemn people who attack abortion clinics and the people who work at them, eh?

By June 9th, 2016, Black was hanging out with the Family Research Council (the always delightful anti-gay hate group), and she tried justifying the witch hunts being launched against Planned Parenthod after the "sting" videos (the fraudulent ones) produced by the Center for Medical Progress were released. Diane Black did not need much justification to get the torches and pitchforks, because the organization was worthy of suspicion "just because they provide abortions": Meanwhile, when actual children were slaughtered, en masse, by Adam Lanza, and there was a call for universal background checks and preventing the mentally ill from getting military-grade weapons, Diane Black was not thinking about dead children quite the same way. Because she knew guns weren't the real problem... she blamed it on “Unprecedented levels of violent games, music and so on.” After a more recent mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in May of 2018, Diane Black revisited the topic of mass shootings yet again, saying that “pornography is the root cause” of the problem.

”Pornography. It's available. It's available on the shelf when you walk in the grocery store. Yeah, you have to reach up to get it, but there's pornography there. All of this is available without parental guidance. And I think that's a big part of the root cause, that we see so many young people that have mental illness get caught in these places."

Now, there’s a lot of stupid to unpack there. First off… what the hell grocery store is Rep. Black shopping at that has nudie mags? Second… if you’re going to blame this on easy access to porn, have your head out of your *** enough to know how readily available it is to find some ON THE INTERNET. Third… WHAT? The problem isn’t that mentally ill people can wank to porn, it’s usually more of a problem that they have issues of violence or abuse towards women in their background, and there’s no reason to think seeing images of bewbs is going to trigger a violent outrage. Maybe, and stop me if this sounds silly, Diane, but maybe the problem is that these mentally ill men can go buy an assault rifle and have an easier time finding it than they would a porn mag in a goddamned grocery store?

Black’s legislative record is full of attempts at repealing the Affordable Care Act, defunding Planned Parenthood, and she even voted for the 2013 Government Shutdown, only to vote against re-opening the government when the time came, sixteen days later. But alas, in 2018, Diane Black chose to leave her seat in Congress, taking her Islamophobic, anti-abortion, and gun crazy philosophy back home to run to be the next Governor of Tennessee to replace the term-limited Bill Haslam. Black finished third in the GOP Primary, only getting 23% of the vote after spending millions of dollars of her own money trying to win. At this point, we’re not sure if she skulks back into a race for her old Congressional seat in 2020, or calls it a career, but we’re hoping for the latter.

[SquirrelMan]

Meanwhile, the Fed finally caved to Trump's pressure and lowered interest rates for the first time in 10 years.

Which had the opposite effect of what Trump had hoped for: The DJI now had two days of sharp losses.

Same for Trump's approval ratings, even at Rasmussen. But also at 3 real pollsters.

[Kirby101]

Economics is one of many things Trump doesn't understand. The Fed lowering the Prime Rate signals a weakening Economy. And they specifically said Trumps tariffs are one of the reasons.

So Today he announces new tariffs on China. Moron.

[aja_christopher]

Maybe 2020 is a whole different ballgame.....but I doubt that.

There's a fair argument to be made that more liberal policies might potentially draw in more (or newer) Democratic voters in a general election, but both data and history are on the side of the more moderate Democrats.

With the stakes being what they are, while everyone has the right to support their chosen candidate, it doesn't make sense to also try to sabotage what has proven to be the most effective (Democratic) political strategy in the process.

[wjowski]

There's a fair argument to be made that more liberal policies might potentially draw in more (or newer) Democratic voters in a general election, but both data and history are on the side of the more moderate Democrats.

With the stakes being what they are, while everyone has the right to support their chosen candidate, it doesn't make sense to also try to sabotage what has proven to be the most effective (Democratic) political strategy in the process.

Citation needed, given how the Democratic party spent the last decade or so ceding power to Republicans at all levels of government.

[Wakeneuron]

The Fed. I don't understand how one group has so much control on the flow of money in the United States and everybody is okay with it.

[aja_christopher]

Citation needed, given how the Democratic party spent the last decade or so ceding power to Republicans at all levels of government.

I also know we had corporate regulations, police oversight and reform, statewide marijuana legalization, equal pay for women legislation, LGBT marriage, the reversal of a record recession into record economy growth and deficit reduction, and an affordable care act passed under Obama, along with a lot of other "progressive" environmental and education legislation.

Even more could have been done, especially on healthcare, if "moderate" Obama had the "progressive" votes in Congress.

The problem isn't the "moderates" -- its the regressive and obstructionist Republicans.

No one gets everything they want in politics -- not the "left" nor the "right" and definitely not a minority of "progressives" in Congress.

It's fine to want a tougher candidate than Obama (and in his defense he had good, if misplaced, intentions with regards to his trust in the Republicans to work with him across the aisle in good faith) but acting as if no real progress has been made under "moderates" is an unfair position to take, especially when many modern-day progressives have yet to pass any serious legislation on a federal level.

[Tami]

Breaking: Congressman Elijah Cummings home broken into. Baltimore police investigating @wjz