US Politics Mega-thread - Page 565

On August 01 2018 05:51 Plansix wrote:

I’m going to bet he is joking and doesn’t believe that is a viable plan. Its kinda funny to think about, however.

On August 01 2018 06:10 crms wrote:
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/police-man-killed-in-home-by-aurora-pd-monday-morning-had-fatally-shot-intruder-minutes-earlier

Man breaks into house and assaults a child.
Homeowner and Grandfather to the child shoots the intruder.
Police are called to the scene to help.
Police shoot and kill the homeowner.

So fucking ridiculous. I imagine nothing will be done to curtail these problems in the future. I can't imagine either party can run on a platform of 'police reform' (to put it mildly) without being crushed by an onslaught of 'unamerican', 'unpatriotic' 'america haters' propaganda.

On August 01 2018 06:10 crms wrote:
https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/crime/police-man-killed-in-home-by-aurora-pd-monday-morning-had-fatally-shot-intruder-minutes-earlier

Man breaks into house and assaults a child.
Homeowner and Grandfather to the child shoots the intruder.
Police are called to the scene to help.
Police shoot and kill the homeowner.

So fucking ridiculous. I imagine nothing will be done to curtail these problems in the future. I can't imagine either party can run on a platform of 'police reform' (to put it mildly) without being crushed by an onslaught of 'unamerican', 'unpatriotic' 'america haters' propaganda.

When historians try to appraise Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, which historical artifacts will they use? Then-candidate Donald Trump’s speech imploring Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s emails, perhaps. The soccer ball Vladimir Putin gave President Trump at their summit in Helsinki probably merits inclusion. And then there are the tweets — millions of them.

Earlier this year, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the Justice Department charged 13 Russian nationals with interfering in American electoral and political processes. The defendants worked for a well-funded “troll factory” called the Internet Research Agency, which had 400 employees, according to one Russian news report. From a bland office building in St. Petersburg, the agency ran a sophisticated and coordinated campaign to sow disinformation and discord into American politics via social media. This often involved Trump’s favorite medium: Twitter.

Millions of the trolls’ tweets have since been removed from the service, and while other outlets, most prominently NBC News, have published samplings of them, it has been difficult to get a complete sense of the trolls’ strategy and the scale of their efforts. Until now.

FiveThirtyEight has obtained nearly 3 million tweets from accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency. To our knowledge, it’s the fullest empirical record to date of Russian trolls’ actions on social media, showing a relentless and systematic onslaught. In concert with the researchers who first pulled the tweets, FiveThirtyEight is uploading them to GitHub so that others can explore the data for themselves.

But the researchers emphasized that the Russian disinformation and discord campaign on Twitter extends well beyond even that.

“There were more tweets in the year after the election than there were in the year before the election,” Warren said. “I want to shout this from the rooftops. This is not just an election thing. It’s a continuing intervention in the political conversation in America.”

“They are trying to divide our country,” Linvill added.

On August 01 2018 07:49 Velr wrote:
If a country gets dumb enough to get most of its news and political discourse from Twitter, Facebook & Co. it deserves every little bit of this.

On August 01 2018 06:05 ticklishmusic wrote:


it's a bit of a weird hypothetical which i wouldn't spend too much time thinking about. money is necessary for races, and it's a bit of an arms race. if david koch shows up and offers me a million bucks because his alternative is some tarriff-loving loony, then sure i'll take his money. sure he wants strings to be attached, but i'll grab my metaphorical scissors and go snip snip.

while i'm not incorruptible and many would call me a neoliberal corporate shill or whatever regardless, i'm comfortable enough with my own values and political positions that i could take money from a conservative donor and politely tell him that we agree that tariffs are bad, thanks for his money, and that's the extent of our relationship. no special favors, no special access. if he doesn't want that, he can put his million somewhere else and that's fine. i'm not going to go out of my way to court him.

On August 01 2018 07:49 Velr wrote:
If a country gets dumb enough to get most of its news and political discourse from Twitter, Facebook & Co. it deserves every little bit of this.

On August 01 2018 08:03 IgnE wrote:


yes i agree that the koch money in this case is essentially a "fuck you" to Trump more than it is standard political bribery and I would also accept it

On August 01 2018 08:38 kollin wrote:

Some high level #resistance tactical thinking

On August 01 2018 10:21 Nebuchad wrote:
I don't think we're supposed to move on from a discussion about how the Koch brothers dishonestly tried to influence the public discourse about healthcare away from medicare for all, almost explicitly because they'd rather you die or go bankrupt than they have a smaller mountain of money to swin into, to a discussion about whether we should let the Koch brothers have an influence in the politics of the party that represents the left.

Besides the whole argument about the mechanics of corruption, which should be enough in the first place tbh, the optics on this are impressively bad.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — If Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading a leftist political revolt, then a summit here of moderate Democrats might be the start of a counterrevolution.

While the energy and momentum is with progressives these days — the victory of rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, buzz about Democratic Socialism and the spread of the "Abolish ICE!" movement are a few recent examples — moderates are warning that ignoring them will lead the party to disaster in the midterm elections and the 2020 presidential contest.

That anxiety has largely been kept to a whisper among the party's moderates and big donors, with some of the major fundraisers pressing operatives on what can be done to stop Sanders, I-Vt., if he runs for the White House again.

But the first-ever "Opportunity 2020" convention, organized here last week by Third Way, a moderate Democratic think tank, gave middle-of-the-road party members a safe space to come together and voice their concerns.

"The only narrative that has been articulated in the Democratic Party over the past two years is the one from the left," former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell told NBC News.

"I think we need a debate within the party," he added. "Frankly, it would have been better to start the conversation earlier."

Pragmatism may be a tougher sell in the Donald Trump era, but with the 2020 presidential race just around the corner, moderate Democrats know they are running out of time to reassert themselves.

The gathering here was just that — an effort to offer an attractive alternative to the rising Sanders-style populist left in the upcoming presidential race. Where progressives see a rare opportunity to capitalize on an energized Democratic base, moderates see a better chance to win over Republicans turned off by Trump.

The fact that a billionaire real estate developer, Winston Fisher, co-cohosted the event and addressed attendees twice underscored that this group is not interested in the class warfare vilifying the "millionaires and billionaires" found in Sanders' stump speech.

"You're not going to make me hate somebody just because they're rich. I want to be rich!" Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, a potential presidential candidate, said Friday to laughs.

And they worry the angry left will cost Democrats a rare chance to win over those kind of voters, including Republicans who no longer want to be part of Trump's GOP.

"Republicans have chosen the far right, which means that they have ceded a good portion of the middle of the road," said former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who is considering a presidential run. "The Democrats, in my opinion, would make a big mistake if they decide to run a base election and just say, ‘Our base is bigger than your base.'"

With much of the recent policy innovation on the Democratic side happening on the left, the "Opportunity Agenda" unveiled here tries to equip moderates with their own big ideas.

Some of the key initiatives are a massive apprenticeship program to train workers, a privatized employer-funded universal pension that would supplement Social Security and an overhaul of unemployment insurance to include skills training. Other proposals included a "small business bill of rights" and the creation of a "BoomerCorps" — like the volunteer AmericaCorps for seniors.

Meanwhile, they say the progressive agenda is out of date. They dismiss, for instance, a federal jobs guarantee as a rehash of the New Deal.

"Our ideas must be bold, but they must also fit the age we are in," Cowan said. "Big isn't enough. If it's bold and old — it’s simply old."

Matt Bennett, Third Way's senior vice president for public affairs, acknowledges that Sanders "had a big head start."

Many of the party's biggest stars, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey, have already signed on to Sanders-backed policies like single-payer health care. But Bennett said he thinks they'll reconsider when they examine the details. "I think they were a little hasty," he said.

Notably, the proposed moderate agenda does not take issue with the party's broad consensus in favor of abortion rights, LGBT equality, stricter gun control and support for immigrants and a path to citizenship for the undocumented.

In a twist, the agenda is based largely on geography, rather than class or race, which are more popular on the left. It focuses on trying to address the fact that cities are thriving as rural areas fall behind.

Clinton was pilloried earlier this year for bragging that she "won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward," but Democratic losses in the rest of America have been politically disastrous for the party.

The difficulty will be selling this approach in the Democratic presidential primary to a base that has seemed to move in the opposite direction.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the chair of the New Democrat Coalition, said members of his side are not "naturally arbiters of emotion and anger."

"How we tell our story and put forward our polices in a way that makes people want to mount the barricades is one of the biggest challenges we have," said Himes, a former Goldman Sachs banker who represents Fairfield, Connecticut.

He pointed to calls to "Abolish ICE," for instance, which he characterized as emotionally understandable but politically illogical.

"It hurts us in areas where we need to win," Himes warned of "Abolish ICE" in the midterms. "You have now made life harder for the 60 or 70 Democrats fighting in districts where we need to win if we ever want to be in the majority."

"We're going to figure it out, though," he added, looking down at his tie printed with little blue waves. "We're going to figure it out."

On August 01 2018 10:47 Plansix wrote:
This just in, the revolution will not be easy and will be opposed by the establishment. Just beat them.

And FDR died in office because of WW2, not the new deal.