US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7387

On April 24 2017 11:01 LegalLord wrote:
It should, by all means, be a rather difficult process to get an abortion. Such a procedure should not be done lightly. This differs from, say, voting, where difficulty to prevent votes is not justified and is more akin to voter suppression.

On April 24 2017 11:23 LegalLord wrote:


Doubt it's at "we would like to inform you that this procedure you probably don't care about exists."

And what argument are the people who are throwing a fit about this making? Is it a slippery slope one or a "this guy is just a pro-lifer traitor" one?

On April 24 2017 11:23 LegalLord wrote:


Doubt it's at "we would like to inform you that this procedure you probably don't care about exists."

And what argument are the people who are throwing a fit about this making? Is it a slippery slope one or a "this guy is just a pro-lifer traitor" one?

Prior to Wednesday, Daily Kos was unaware that Heath Mello, a Democrat who is running against the incumbent Republican mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, had supported legislation in the Nebraska state Senate eight years ago that would require women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound. We were particularly surprised to learn this because Mello had earned a 100 percent approval rating from Planned Parenthood Voters of Nebraska in 2015. (Update: Planned Parenthood says that Vote Smart’s characterization is “an inaccurate representation of Planned Parenthood Voters of Nebraska's scorecard.” See statement below.)

However, as soon as we learned this information, we withdrew our endorsement, because this legislation clearly runs contrary to Daily Kos’ deepest values, including our support for women’s reproductive rights and our staunch opposition to laws that in any way impede women’s access to reproductive health care.

“The actions today by the DNC to embrace and support a candidate for office who will strip women – one of the most critical constituencies for the party – of our basic rights and freedom is not only disappointing, it is politically stupid. Today’s action make this so-called ‘fight back tour’ look more like a throw back tour for women and our rights.

“If Democrats think the path forward following the 2016 election is to support candidates who substitute their own judgement and ideology for that of their female constituents, they have learned all the wrong lessons and are bound to lose. It’s not possible to have an authentic conversation about economic security for women that does not include our ability to decide when and how we have children.

“The Democratic Party, and its leaders, would be ill-advised to ignore data that blocking access to legal abortion does not win you a single vote, and robs women of dignity and autonomy. Abortion access is not a ‘single issue’ or a ‘social issue.’ It is a proxy for women to have control over our lives, our family’s lives, our economic well-being, our dignity, and human rights.

“If we have learned anything from the first 100 days of the Trump Administration it is that women are leading the resistance. Engaging and turning out women voters will be key in 2018. Look no further than the special election in Georgia this week. Democrats erased a 20 plus point Republican advantage in a deep red state with a reproductive freedom candidate who said his campaign was fueled by women. This makes the DNC’s actions even more puzzling and troubling.

“The path the DNC ‘fight back tour’ takes the party down will not help the party or our country if it turns its back on reproductive freedom. It will only set back women’s fundamental rights and freedoms.”
-NARAL Pro-Choice President Ilyse Hogue

On April 24 2017 11:55 Grumbels wrote:
You could also argue that by sacrificing Mello progressives can ritually affirm their dedication to women's rights and that this can galvanize the movement. Sometimes it is important to draw a line in the sand and reject anyone who crosses it, to make it clear you are principled in your support of something and to make it into a taboo to question it.

I don't know enough about this case to judge, but it is not necessarily tactically dumb, and it is not necessarily a good thing to find common cause with just about everyone.

On April 24 2017 11:01 LegalLord wrote:
It should, by all means, be a rather difficult process to get an abortion. Such a procedure should not be done lightly. This differs from, say, voting, where difficulty to prevent votes is not justified and is more akin to voter suppression.

On April 24 2017 12:02 Sermokala wrote:

All of success in politics is compromise. All of success in representative republics are about margins. Sacrificing your margins for ideological purity is the path to defeat.

On April 24 2017 12:05 KwarK wrote:

No, it shouldn't. Women have the right to get an abortion. Throwing obstacles in the way and then saying "yes, but technically it's still possible and anyway it should be hard" is just a bullshit attempt to strip that right away.

On April 24 2017 08:35 ChristianS wrote:

If they're similar you can criticize the Dems for them and HRC doesn't need to come into it. And how are they similar if Hillary was such a uniquely unpopular candidate anyway?

A really good understanding of why people feel the way they do about Dems would be useful for winning elections. But if we got a really detailed analysis of how Hillary's mannerisms made her less popular, or if we learned a lot about specific CEOs she took a lot of money from and how that forced her to take specific positions, or even more detail about her email server and how she fucked it up and why - all of these would be absolutely useless for winning future elections unless we ran Hillary again for some reason. Otherwise, we might as well talk about the political dynamics surrounding politicians that still matter.

On April 24 2017 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:


Here's the problem with that.

A lot of the Democrats still don't think a lot of these things are problems or significantly contributed to her loss.

Just think back to how folks like Kwiz and plansix defended (I think Kwiz still will) Hillary's fundraising. Saying things like "we can't unilaterally disarm, or else Republicans will win", then Hillary raises and spends much more than Trump and still loses.

So we get all the negatives of being just as bad or worse than Republicans on campaign finance, except they won anyway. That's not even getting into how much of the money was dumped into Hillary's campaign instead of helping the local candidates her supporters suggested needed someone like Hillary over Bernie.

Basically you can go back over some of the glaringly obvious problems with Hillary and see that Democrats defended her or dismissed them as insignificant. Until Democrats realize they aren't insignificant and were a major contributing factor to why she lost (MORE IMPORTANT than Comey, Russia, etc), they won't have any interest in correcting it.

Another example would be how Chelsea and Hillary went after Bernie for his healthcare plan. You can see the lingering rhetoric among some democrats still.

On April 24 2017 12:53 biology]major wrote:


Comey and Russia are double positives for republicans, not only did they help, but they also prevent the dems from clearly seeing why they lost! Hillary 2020

On April 24 2017 12:50 GreenHorizons wrote:


Here's the problem with that.

A lot of the Democrats still don't think a lot of these things are problems or significantly contributed to her loss.

Just think back to how folks like Kwiz and plansix defended (I think Kwiz still will) Hillary's fundraising. Saying things like "we can't unilaterally disarm, or else Republicans will win", then Hillary raises and spends much more than Trump and still loses.

So we get all the negatives of being just as bad or worse than Republicans on campaign finance, except they won anyway. That's not even getting into how much of the money was dumped into Hillary's campaign instead of helping the local candidates her supporters suggested needed someone like Hillary over Bernie.

Basically you can go back over some of the glaringly obvious problems with Hillary and see that Democrats defended her or dismissed them as insignificant. Until Democrats realize they aren't insignificant and were a major contributing factor to why she lost (MORE IMPORTANT than Comey, Russia, etc), they won't have any interest in correcting it.

Another example would be how Chelsea and Hillary went after Bernie for his healthcare plan. You can see the lingering rhetoric among some democrats still.

On April 24 2017 13:14 ChristianS wrote:

I'm not sure that I agree with you about the fundraising, and I'm not sure what Chelsea and Hillary's commentary about healthcare was, but it doesn't matter for the point anyway. If the Democrats are doing shitty thing X, by all means point that out and point out why it's shitty. If shitty thing X was also something that helped kill Hillary's campaign, that certainly could be reasonable supporting evidence. But just like talking about Nixon or Harding or Dukakis, it's only useful to talk about insomuch as it also applies to current affairs. When we throw up the LL bat signal and the thread derails into a discussion about the degree of Hillary's shittiness, that isn't the case. We wind up in a long discussion of whether the democratic primary results were legitimate, or whether the emails were as damning as some people say, or whatever other part of the election people want to relitigate. Maybe next time we'll talk about how Hillary really should have come forward saying she had pneumonia before fainting on 9/11.

It's all useless. It alienates Clinton supporters the same way Bernie supporters felt alienated in the election, and it does nothing to help figure out how to beat back Trump in 2018 or 2020 because they're peoblems peculiar to Hillary. If Democrats make a mental note to train their employees better about phishing and not to store classified documents on private servers, then no repeat analysis is useful going forward.

On April 24 2017 12:45 Monochromatic wrote:


Just curious, do you support gun control?

On April 24 2017 07:12 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:


So his plan is to threaten a shutdown if he doesn't get he wants then blame Democrats?

Do you hear yourself?