US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3475

On March 28 2016 10:52 farvacola wrote:

You should probably take a closer look at how Hillary's campaign has changed during the course of the past 6 months or so. To say that Sanders has not had a significant and personal impact on her speechmaking, policy emphasis, and debate performances is to rely on revisionist history. Furthermore, the idea that Hillary would have naturally changed to match up with "whatever other primary candidate" ignores her initial reluctance to address the issues Sanders so clearly cares about.

On March 28 2016 10:47 GreenHorizons wrote:
I honestly can't believe how lost you all are.

I'll just say before New York, it obvious there is going to be a high turnout. If they aren't prepared for it, they have no excuse.

The chaos of the 2016 US presidential election “is an embarrassment to our country”, secretary of state John Kerry said on Sunday, as he reflected on the candidates’ anti-Muslim sentiment and world leaders’ growing concern.

Asked about what he hears from leaders abroad regarding the US election, Kerry told CBS’s Face the Nation: “I think it’s fair to say that they’re shocked.

“It upsets people’s sense of equilibrium about our steadiness, about our reliability,” Kerry said. “And to some degree I must say to you, some of the questions, the way they’re posed to me, it’s clear to me that what’s happening is an embarrassment to our country.”

Kerry did not specify which candidates or remarks had embarrassed the US, but he was clearly alluding to controversial proposals from the Republican candidates.

Texas senator Ted Cruz has proposed sending police to surveil, “patrol and secure” Muslim neighborhoods, and surrounded himself with advisers whom experts call “terrifying” on issues of civil rights. The proposals were derided by a wide range of officials, including NYPD commissioner Bill Bratton, who said on Saturday: “It is clear from his comments that senator Cruz knows absolutely nothing about counter-terrorism in New York City.”

Donald Trump has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US, and said he would order the military to torture prisoners and to bomb the families of terror suspects, in contravention of international law. The Republican frontrunner has separately wavered on whether to denounce white supremacist groups that have rallied to his campaign.

On Sunday, Cruz defended his proposal, saying that police patrols would be “proactive law enforcement”.

“We can’t become Europe with its failed immigration policies. We can’t repeat their mistakes,” he told Fox News Sunday. “We can’t be forced to live under Sharia law. We need to engage and find this enemy. We have to fight Islamism at every level.”

He then repeated a stump speech line that top Pentagon generals have rejected as illegal, un-American and unreasonable. “If I become president, we will carpet-bomb Isis into the ground,” Cruz said.

Trump was not asked about his proposals on Sunday, but did rule out internment camps for Muslim Americans; the anchor’s reference to a concept not realized in the US since the second world war reflected how extreme the campaign has become.

On March 28 2016 11:50 farvacola wrote:
Again, this notion that you can baselessly equate political dynamics across both sides of the aisle needs a lot of unpacking that is not being done. I know it's fun to play the role of Wolf Blitzer and use phrases like "tea party of the left" without doing any work in actually substantiating the equivocation, but there is ample reason to regard the tea party phenomena as one inherently bound with fundamental values of conservatism turned political game of capital. Consequently, the act of glossing over these translation problems relative to Sanders' impact/influence on the Democratic party ends up being nothing more than candidate-specific demagoguery.

Everyone knows how Ted Cruz feels about Obamacare. He’s the guy who shut down the government in a bid to kill it — and should he reach the White House, he’d take a blowtorch to the law.

But Cruz isn’t very clear about what — if anything — he’d do to replace a law covering 20 million people. And some establishment Republicans suggest that he address this head-on before the pivotal April 5 primary in Wisconsin, where Republican leaders have been more aggressive in fleshing out alternative health plans.

Cruz raised his political profile by defying the Republican establishment to force the government shutdown over Obamacare more than two years ago. But as he approaches the winner-take-all Wisconsin primary — which may be the party’s best chance to prevent Donald Trump’s nomination — he needs to court voters who’ve elected politicians like House Speaker Paul Ryan, a policy wonk who’s called on his party to offer a replacement plan.

“I think it would benefit [Cruz] as a candidate, period, but especially in Wisconsin," said Brian Fraley, a Republican strategist who describes himself as a “Never Trump” voter who plans to back Cruz in the state’s primary. "The insurance industry is big in Wisconsin. The health care industry is big in Wisconsin. This is a race where every brick helps in the foundation.”

Cruz, who in 2013 spent roughly 21 hours straight on the Senate floor voicing his disdain for Obamacare, hasn’t detailed how he’d expand coverage or extend Obamacare’s insurance protections like covering people with pre-existing conditions — protections that remain popular even as the country is split on the health care law.

On March 28 2016 11:02 farvacola wrote:

You've clearly identified the locus of Sanders' influence; how important/productive said influence will end up being still remains to be seen, and an attempt to minimize it comes off as nothing more than stumping for one's preferred candidate.

This notion that the left and the right respond the same to the same electoral dynamics is some CNN-level generalizing bullshit lol. Oh nooooooo, poor Hillary fans are afraid of Sanders Romney-fying Hillary. What a fear to have.

To insist on there being some solid, quantifiable character to a primary candidate's platform with which to suggest that a shift in rhetoric does not equate to a shift in substance is tantamount to admitting that one has literally never followed an election before.

On March 28 2016 11:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
The Republican National Convention currently is not allowing open carry of guns. Let that sink in for a second (amendment).

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/26/20000-sign-petition-allow-guns-republican-national-convention/82289342/