US Politics Mega-Blog - Page 69

On November 05 2018 06:56 IgnE wrote:


Please connect the dots for me then between DoJ investigations of some irrelevant people and the accusations of Ford, with all that followed from those particular accusations.

If you would like to retract your statement entirely and admit that "four people" being referred to the DoJ has absolutely nothing to do with whether Peterson was right or not, but would instead like to pursue a separate line of argument, namely, that you still don't believe Ford and don't care about the perceived legitimacy of a supreme court justice, then be my guest.

Having said all that, I would like also like to point out that I am not claiming that the opinion I put forward—the alternative I offered—is or was correct. I am accustomed, as a research scientist, to generating hypotheses: “this is what everyone thinks the problem is, but maybe it’s this, or this, or this, or this” or “here is a potential solution, but here is another, and another, and another” and “let’s discuss these various possibilities and test them.” It is very easy for me to forget that in these heated and impulsive times thoughts and simulations are immediately regarded as canonical opinions, indelibly defining personality and character now and forever.

In the spirit of noting that I am not necessarily correct, here is a list of some reasonable objections to my suggestion (some of which I had considered prior to responding, some of which were brought to my attention afterward): Withdrawal on the part of Kavanaugh would be:

-read as an admission of guilt on his part;
-embolden those who would use reputation destruction as a political maneuver;
-weaken the general and vitally important idea of the presumption of innocence;
-indicate weakness on the part of the Republicans at a key moment prior to the November elections;
mean that an innocent man has been successfully pilloried by a mob;
-validate the use of allegations of past behavior well past any reasonable expiry date as a weapon;
-destroy the Republican opportunity to choose a Supreme Court Justice;
-hand the Democrats an unearned victory;
-embitter a large percentage of the conservative base, who would regard the withdrawal as a betrayal; -and, last and perhaps least, violate my own adage “don’t apologize if you haven’t done anything wrong.”

This is by no means a complete list of objections, but might be considered reasonable representative and somewhat in the steel man spirit.

These are all valid points, and one or more of them (or even all of them) may well constitute the proper basis for forward movement on the part of Kavanaugh and the Republicans. Time will tell.

On November 05 2018 07:47 xDaunt wrote:


Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main objections to Kavanaugh fall into two categories: 1) the accusations themselves, and 2) Kavanaugh's reactions to those accusations at the hearings and how his reactions reflected upon his temperament and fitness as a judge. Like I have detailed previously, every accusation made against Kavanaugh was unsubstantiated if not outright groundless. This includes Ford's. Now, if you are one of the people who accepts Ford's testimony and believes that Kavanaugh did something to her despite the numerous, obvious holes in her credibility, then I don't know what to tell you. As for the second set of objections regarding the reactions, the outrage expressed by Kavanaugh becomes much more understandable, acceptable, and even appropriate given the ridiculousness of the accusations made against him. Keep in mind that his reaction was not strictly a function of Ford's accusations. He was also responding to Ramirez, Swetnick, Avenatti, and the other two people who were referred to the DOJ. So when it comes to light that four of those people (3 sets of allegations) are being referred to the DOJ for criminal prosecution due to false statements made about Kavanaugh, and that two of those accusers have outright recanted their statements, then that further vindicates Kavanaugh's reaction.

As for Peterson, he isn't even sure that his proffered solution of having Kavanaugh step down was correct and even identifies the central problem with it:



Like I said, the less likely it is that any of the accusations have merit, the less appropriate it is to advocate that anything adverse happen to Kavanaugh.

On November 05 2018 07:53 Danglars wrote:
https://twitter.com/jessekellydc/status/1059159015077355525

I’ve been a bit harsh on CNN’s propensity to take political sides and spit out fake news before it’s researched and fact-checked. Jake Tapper regularly has good spots where he prods and drills down to the core argument. Here, he doesn’t get an actual answer, but the viewer knows it’s by intention and not since no follow-up questions were asked.

The candidate definitely wants play both the “common sense gun reform” side, and get votes from hardcore second-amendment voters, but can’t defend the legislative record or inform voters on what line is too far for her in gun control. If anybody wanted to know why conservatives of my stripe get so critical at the nice-sounding platitudes on gun rights, just listen to how this politician plays it.

On November 05 2018 08:00 GreenHorizons wrote:


I mean she's of the better ilk of Democrats but that's about as reasonable a position as you can have. What I heard her say was basically that she doesn't personally care what specifically the legislation to address gun violence is, just that Georgians can agree on it and that it works.

How can someone actually oppose that position?

On November 05 2018 11:03 Danglars wrote:

In the sense that Trump doesn’t necessarily oppose birthright citizenship, but might be using it to start a conversation on common sense citizenship reform. Catch my drift?

I happen to think the Dems are pretty detached from reality looney-bin political candidates on the whole, so I can’t say she’s less reasonable or of worse ilk than the majority. I have a pretty low opinion of the average one.

On November 05 2018 11:06 GreenHorizons wrote:


iirc that's exactly the type of argument that was made in support of Trump. That he says things to make them topics rather than because he's actually going to do them. So is that something you also detest in Trump or is it dependent on the topic/politician for you?

On November 05 2018 11:46 Danglars wrote:

Trump has to actually back or reconsider past legislation as such if he signs/vetoes. Abrams must approve of past legislative support (AS A SPONSOR OF THE BILL) or recant. She can’t take the position that she has no position on bills she helped introduce.

People generally have more sense than to say “common sense x reform” for x not equal to guns/gun control/gun laws. It’s like a meme with gun rights. Gun control, common sense, but no specifics, past positions, but no commitments, starting a conversation, but no lines, both in favor and opposed to confiscation. Rofl. Such an ass-backwards issue.

On November 05 2018 12:01 GreenHorizons wrote:


I'm not sure I understand what your problem is?

What's wrong with taking the position that something has to be done. She's focused on what will work and what they can agree on. She took the personal position that AR 15's needn't be in civilian hands. One can agree or disagree with that, but she didn't make it a ultimatum.

I'm not sure what more you can hope for from someone who thinks gun violence is a serious issue and refuses to do nothing about it?

Legislation is almost always a political point scoring game on introduction from the state to the federal level. Politicians exploit the process to say they are for or against as well as their opponent being for or against legislation usually each pointing out the poison pill or compromise legislation as if that's why they supported it. It's all a stupid political game imo.

What matters to me is what she wants to do as governor and it seems reasonable and better than the Republican she's up against. I'm not big on all of her positions but she's one of few politicians at least doing the work of convincing people to get involved whether they disagree with her or not.

She's guiding them toward her goals many of which I think aren't effective but going out there and talking to constituents instead of ramming your donors agenda down their throat puts her way ahead of most Democrats, that she's motivating them with a positive message rather than an anti message puts her above most of both parties imo.

On November 05 2018 12:37 Danglars wrote:

She’s focused on nothing.
She’s adopting zero responsibility for bills she sponsored (fuck, even you should know if you’re sponsoring legislation, you better have a damn good reason to abandon ship after the fact).
She sponsored a bill with “seize and destroy” provisions. That’s law if passed. It ain’t a “political point scoring game” if it has actual enforcement provisions.
She’s doing zero convincing. Well, unless you can agree that she’s convincing people she can’t be trusted to protect Georgians second amendment rights from intrusive provisions. I hope to God she crashes and burns for this issue.

On November 05 2018 12:39 GreenHorizons wrote:


Her focus certainly isn't gun reform.
What was the chance of this legislation passing?
She isn't trying to convince you.

The issues isn't going to make or break her campaign and it shouldn't. But the top reason it won't is because she's not feeding people's irrational fears (in this case coming to take your guns) instead she's going to where they are and listening to what matters to them. As or more importantly she's going to people she doesn't have to convince to agree with her, but to overcome the obstacles preventing them from voting.

Which is one place where her opponent looks absolutely terrible.

On November 06 2018 02:03 Nebuchad wrote:
If anything Peterson serves to me as an illustration for the shortcomings of far right intellectualism (it's what I counter when people talk about cultural marxism in universities, for example). If there was a strong intellectual basis behind the far right positions, people wouldn't latch to these people whose ideas are clearly flawed, in ways that are relatively easy to demonstrate when taking into account that we are talking about university level discourse, just because they can articulate their thoughts better than the average person.

On November 06 2018 02:14 iamthedave wrote:


I find it discouraging that Ben Shapiro and Peterson are the ones people turn to most reliably. But there'll be plenty out there; the real intellectuals usually don't get their names in the papers. They write scholarly articles that are generally only read by the ones who really follow the field.