US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7380

On April 23 2017 00:02 zlefin wrote:
gh -> ok, I watched the interview. I don't think I'm seeing what you're seeing. I don't see anyone other than the sanders, perez, and the interviewer, so I'm not sure what hillary supporters you're talking about.
what am I supposed to be seeing or not seeing here?

On April 23 2017 03:14 GreenHorizons wrote:


It would seem that you shouldn't have opined then. Seeing as how you still don't understand what I was talking about.

On April 23 2017 03:19 zlefin wrote:

no, my opining was fine and fully valid and sound. if you want to explain you can, otherwise i'll just go with the evidence i've been provided and the conclusions it supports.

On April 22 2017 11:27 zlefin wrote:
complaining about dems being oblivious when you act as you do is rather off GH. can't think of the exact right word to describe it though.
the not realizing you're describing yourself thing.

I don't know what you're talking about, but I think you're wrong.

On April 23 2017 03:25 zlefin wrote:
I know what you're talking about, and your conclusions are not supported by the facts and information; they're supported by your ever-present bias, which has been amply shown in the thread.
I was trying to engage in reasonable discussion for a bit, but it seems we've moved past that back to the usual sniping.
I rightly pointed out that you were being as oblivious to reality as those you object to.

On April 23 2017 03:26 GreenHorizons wrote:


Dude, you were are literally oblivious to the response I was calling oblivious. You are so wrong on this I can't help but laugh.

On April 23 2017 03:33 zlefin wrote:

It is indeed funny how wrong you are. also sad.

On April 23 2017 03:53 zlefin wrote:
I didn't say I didn't open with snark. I know I did; but you have a very long history of unsound and biased posting, and it looked ot be more of the same, and since you haven't come up with ayn actual backing for it; I'm gonna stick with it being more of the same. That's what the evidence supportrs; i'm far less partial than you, and most people in the thread that speak, which is enough ofr me. You can imagine whatever you like.
I said for a bit because you then started to try to have an actual discussion, so I stopped the snark and actually engaged; then you resume the snark so I did as well. So it's clear you don't want an actual discussion, as you started one, I continued it, then you discontinued it.
I don't know why you chose to start actual discussion only to suspend it when I was still engaging it. but, whatevs.
soy ou're just making factual mistakes and misreading as usual. I'll make a note that you don't want to engage in actual discussion, and try to avoid it with you.

now le'ts get our insults out and let the thread move on, k?

On April 23 2017 04:07 zlefin wrote:
I think taking from the interview that Bernie is not a Democrat is an entirely reasonable and correct thing to take away from it. Are you claiming otherwise?
respecting people's Self-identification is important, and if Bernie says he's not a Democrat, why not take him at his word?
What I saw is Bernie being charismatic and doing his usual routine (which sells well to the public but isn't sound policy) and whassisname the Democrat spouting the usual bland boring Democratic/politician pablum in an uninteresting way which I can barely remember.
And they weren't fighting each other.

On April 23 2017 04:27 LegalLord wrote:
Bernie doesn't schmooze with the right donors at the right parties - of course he isn't a Democrat. His long history of supporting their policies and being endorsed by the state party means squat in the grand scheme of things, he just isn't embedded enough into the party apparatus to deserve any trust.

On April 23 2017 04:25 GreenHorizons wrote:


Bernie not being a Democrat isn't news.

This is what I'm talking about by saying Democrats are (seem for the sake of conversation) oblivious.

It appears Democrats think Tom Perez's disingenuous platitudes are in some way unifying or productive in a situation like that (or at least they don't seem to find them obviously problematic).

Perhaps they don't view them as robotic talking points, but that's not the point. It is a "unity tour" for Perez to convince Bernie supporters that they are on the same page. If Bernie supporters overwhelmingly perceive that he's just ticking off vacuous talking points and paying lip service, then it's not having the desired impact, in fact, it's making things worse.

The part I highlighted for you displayed how in some cases, Perez was unable to even pay lip service. When confronted with the idea that we have to call out the billionaire class for trying to get ever larger shares of our increased productivity, Tom Perez responded with some platitude about "running on hope", which Chris audibly laughed at. Chris Hayes isn't some Bernie sycophant, even he laughed at how full of shit that line was.

I mean those are just a couple of the obvious ones. I mean I get why the words "I'm not a Democrat" seem like a big deal(despite being reasonably well known), but when it comes to voting he's plenty Democrat. Hell Bernie votes D more than Hillary's Pro-Life VP did.

You stand as an example of someone who is nominally a Democrat who seemed to not pick up or find obviously significant what seemed to be glaring issues (for the target audience) in the interview.

On April 23 2017 04:38 zlefin wrote:

nothing anyone said in the interview was new or news. NOTHING. it was ALL the same old hat; bernie saying he's not a democrat directly on point is more news than the rest of it was. since the rest of it was completely old.
Unity requires agreement; and it looks like they went on a unity tour without actually agreeing on things. so it probably won't do much to actually help unity. There's no reason to hold that more against the Dems than against Bernie, by default i'd hold it against them equally. There is also a common problem of Bernie's; he gets a bunch of enthusiasm, but can't control it so it goes haywire.
calling out the billionaire class like that is unsound demagogic trash; sure it plays well politically, but it's still unsound. and I don't much like it. and i'm fine with people not supporting demagogic trash talk.

On April 23 2017 04:46 zlefin wrote:
it's easy to be popular when you're playing the outsider and not trying to get anything done and not being targetted. That's a far cry from actually doing positive production change.
demagogy sells; it doesn't mean I should approve of someone gaining popularity by using parts of it.
nor does your remark counter any of my points in any way.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has privately told Congress the Trump administration's Pentagon budget request isn't sufficient to cover the cost of rebuilding the military as President Donald Trump has vowed to do, four sources familiar with the conversations told CNN.

Trump has repeatedly said he would rebuild the military with a massive defense spending increase, but the funding planned for next year's budget is less than what the Pentagon sought, according to sources with knowledge of the deliberations.

Mattis is not publicly raising concerns about the $603 billion Pentagon budget plan, aligning himself with the White House's decision, though it's a stance that's sparking frustration from some Republican defense hawks in Congress. But the Pentagon's private assessment matches lawmakers' public criticisms of Trump's budget plan.

"Mattis continues to express to members of the Armed Services Committees that he's being thwarted getting his message out that $603 billion is insufficient to do what Trump has called for," said a Republican lawmaker, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about internal deliberations.

Trump has said he wants to boost the military by adding tens of thousands more Army soldiers, grow to a 350-ship Navy and add supply the Air Force with more fighter jets.

"Our military is building and is rapidly becoming stronger than ever before. Frankly, we have no choice!" Trump tweeted Sunday. The military, in fact, is still operating under spending levels approved by Congress while President Barack Obama was in office.

In a statement, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Eric Badger said, "We expect Congress will work with the administration to fund much of our additional (fiscal) 2017 budget request. The secretary and the service chiefs highlighted the readiness needs of the armed forces in their recent testimony. That has not changed."

While the White House has touted its $603 billion defense budget as a 10% increase of $54 billion, Republican defense hawks say the White House's math doesn't add up. They argue the defense budget is actually about 3% more than the $584 billion that the Obama administration was already planning for in 2018, and that it falls short of the $640 billion that Republicans like Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain of Arizona insist is needed for the military.

Archival research doesn’t get much more exciting than the 2004 heist movie “National Treasure.” Nicolas Cage, playing a historian named Benjamin Franklin Gates, discovers a coded map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Globe-spanning intrigue ensues — accompanied, offscreen, by a tsunami of eye-rolling by actual historians.

But now, in a bit of real-life archival drama, a pair of scholars are announcing a surprising discovery: a previously unknown early handwritten parchment of the Declaration, buried in a provincial archive in Britain.

The document is the only other 18th-century handwritten parchment Declaration known to exist besides the one from 1776 now displayed at the National Archives in Washington. It isn’t an official government document, like the 1776 parchment, but a display copy created in the mid-1780s, the researchers argue, by someone who wanted to influence debate over the Constitution.