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Lib and let die
Aug 26, 2004

How are u posted:

It's a big tent party. Anti abortion dems are few and far between these days, but they still exist.

Except when socialists want in, if recent events in New York are any indication of who's allowed in the tent.

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FlamingLiberal
Jan 18, 2009

Would you like to play a game?



Manchin doing the ‘we’re all trying to find the guy who did this’ meme

Darkrenown
Jul 18, 2012
please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

VitalSigns posted:

But even if you give him a pass on that how do you explain toasting to Trump in 2017 when everyone was already calling him Cheeto Benito lol. I guess you can't because you just pretended not to notice that inconvenient detail.

I noticed it, but I was replying to the idea he was "on Trump's payroll" for taking a donation in 2009 or that this was a reasonable thing invalidate an anti-Trump stance. I don't actually need to reply to every part of your post just because I disagree with one part/tweet. If you say "It's Thursday and gravity doesn't exist" I'm going to focus on the gravity part and not the Thursday part. Or if you say "The Earth is round because apples are round" I could point out that apples being round doesn't prove the Earth is round while still agreeing that the Earth is round. I'd hoped that saying:

quote:

And no, I don't think McAuliffe did a good job and I don't want to kiss and cuddle him, I just don't think a 2009 donation matters at all.
would make it clear I was disagreeing with one specific part of your post, but I guess it wasn't enough. Sorry for the confusion!

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Immigrants' rights group RAICES and others are pointing out the the parliamentarian who is using her power to block immigration reform was an INS prosecutor

https://twitter.com/tomaskenn/status/1456242399043325952

quote:

As someone who has worked to deport people, [MacDonough] cannot be trusted to rule objectively on immigration issues,” the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) said last Thursday in a statement.

“I am concerned that Ms. MacDonough let her personal or political views on immigration improperly affect her assessment of the budget impact of these proposals,” said Amy Maldonado, a veteran immigration attorney in Michigan with decades of experience in pro-bono deportation defense. (Maldonado is also a Latino Rebels contributor.)

...

“INS trial attorneys were tasked with deportation cases, arguing against bond, and ultimately separating mixed-status families,” Maldonado said.

Immigration law professor Michael Kagan at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, spoke to Latino Rebels about what INS trial attorneys did back in the 1990s.

“Generally speaking, INS trial attorneys were similar to the ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] trial attorneys of today,” Kagan said. “If [MacDonough] was an INS trial attorney at the Elizabeth detention facility, it’s hard to imagine what role she would have performed besides arguing for the detention of immigrants or the deportation of immigrants.”

How are u
May 19, 2005

by Azathoth

Lib and let die posted:

Except when socialists want in, if recent events in New York are any indication of who's allowed in the tent.

It's always evolving.

Nucleic Acids
Apr 10, 2007

VitalSigns posted:

Immigrants' rights group RAICES and others are pointing out the the parliamentarian who is using her power to block immigration reform was an INS prosecutor

https://twitter.com/tomaskenn/status/1456242399043325952

It is totally appropriate that she has effective veto power over the congressional agenda.

punishedkissinger
Sep 20, 2017

Nucleic Acids posted:

It is totally appropriate that she has effective veto power over the congressional agenda.

this lady went to a $50k/yr elementary, middle, and high school lmao

Lib and let die
Aug 26, 2004

How are u posted:

It's always evolving.

Could you elaborate on this a bit?

Are you expecting at some point in the future that the democrats' party will welcome socialists with the same open arms it welcomes anti-abortion and pro-austerity conservatives like the Representative from RI I've had the unfortunate displeasure of sharing a holiday dinner table with for years?

Do you have some sort of frame of reference on when this, "causality" in which socialists become welcome into the democrats' party we can look to?

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Darkrenown posted:

I noticed it, but I was replying to the idea he was "on Trump's payroll" for taking a donation in 2009 or that this was a reasonable thing invalidate an anti-Trump stance. I don't actually need to reply to every part of your post just because I disagree with one part/tweet. If you say "It's Thursday and gravity doesn't exist" I'm going to focus on the gravity part and not the Thursday part. Or if you say "The Earth is round because apples are round" I could point out that apples being round doesn't prove the Earth is round while still agreeing that the Earth is round. I'd hoped that saying:

would make it clear I was disagreeing with one specific part of your post, but I guess it wasn't enough. Sorry for the confusion!

Even if we're going to pretend to believe absurdities like Trump wasn't bad in 2009 before the fascism fairy sprinkled fascism dust on him right after McAuliffe took the check, and therefore taking his money wasn't cynical and doesn't make McAuliffe an insincere hypocrite to denounce Trump later when he needs to win an election, McAuliffe was still toasting Trump in 2017 so obviously ignorance of how bad Trump really is couldn't possibly be McAuliffe's excuse for cozying up to him back then because he was still opportunistically doing it when Trump was actually president.

Can you give the debate club game a rest, this isn't high school, there are no judges, we don't have to pretend to be incapable of making observations that span time and space in order to isolate one moment in a context-free vacuum and drag the discussion into quibbling over piddly nonsense.

selec
Sep 6, 2003

Lib and let die posted:

Could you elaborate on this a bit?

Are you expecting at some point in the future that the democrats' party will welcome socialists with the same open arms it welcomes anti-abortion and pro-austerity conservatives like the Representative from RI I've had the unfortunate displeasure of sharing a holiday dinner table with for years?

Do you have some sort of frame of reference on when this, "causality" in which socialists become welcome into the democrats' party we can look to?

HAU is, like Fancy, another troll indistinguishable from actual posters. The gimmick is there is nothing the Dems can do they won’t defend, and it’s always a rosy future for them, despite what they do. It’s a toxic optimism thing, and it’s less funny for being indistinguishable from Twitter dems who tell you they want the party of Reagan back, because he was much nicer than Trump.

It’s weird but whatever

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

StratGoatCom
Aug 6, 2019

Our security is guaranteed by being able to melt the eyeballs of any other forum's denizens at 15 minutes notice



LBJ is laughing from his grave at him.

BRJurgis
Aug 15, 2007

Well I hear the thunder roll, I feel the cold winds blowing...
But you won't find me there, 'cause I won't go back again...
While you're on smoky roads, I'll be out in the sun...
Where the trees still grow, where they count by one...
There was an excellent post in here within the past day or two about America's cultural and political dispositions, and how it keeps us locked in the status quo. Unfortunately I think it's exactly correct. The defining features of our citizenry (from my experience) are ignorance and entitlement. People's long held, little supported ideas about what being a republican/democrat/american actually means seem to trump any facts or reasoning, every time. I know otherwise intelligent and compassionate peers who consider themselves republicans, it's just "they (politicians) are the ones who forget what being a republican means". I've had the same reaction from well off Democrat family, who accused me of supporting trump for attacking biden in the goddamn primary.

Even with passionate, patient, near daily discussion to shift perceptions, these people all fall back into whatever they already believed before the next step begins. Nobody has any faith or trust, yet the only people who seem willing to admit we're hosed are trumpers and a few despondent leftist news junkies. Most of the few people I know who are compassionate and intelligent enough* to immerse themselves in these issues turn to drugs, music, and a general absurdism in the face of what seems a hopelessly unsolvable problem, in an unjust unsustainable system that enriches the wicked at the expense of the future.

These issues are so vast and interconnected, with so much deliberate misinformation, it seems only a complete radical collapse of the status quo will change anything (though not necessarily for the better). In order for that change to happen in a constructive way, we would need that monumental shift in our citizenry to have already happened. A sort of catch 22 we really don't have time to sort out.

What's more, my friends building their careers or families only become more compromised, as the purposeful disassembly or eventual total failure of our system seems increasingly unpalatable to anybody who has sacrificed to build within this structure. They sure don't want to hear me say that any participation not in service of reform is selfish and unethical.

Also in regards to an earlier post of mine about conservatives being changed to allies using labor issues and progressive pro labor policies, as necessary as that is it may be too ridiculous to hope for. People who support trump are just as willfully ignorant and cruel as, well, as you'd have to be to support him. Just the other day a coworker said "why does _____ keep asking me to defend trump, he knows I support him and I don't pay attention to the news bullshit." Another attacked the BBB bill (in a general, unspecified sense) as she and her family didn't seem to need help so it was just another handout.

If pleading reasoning from peers doesn't work, if actual good legislation and policy won't work, the world will really have to fall apart around our ears and even then Americans will retreat to some absurd inconsistent narrative. We are a selfish, ignorant country and I feel selfish myself for thinking maybe I can help, as if I too am simply bucking reality to feel hopeful and sleep well at night.

For the record, I'm a laborer in New England who never finished college as are many of the people I try to talk to.

*edit I should add strong, as I know fine people who are just too conflicted or otherwise distracted surviving to engage (or are too busy locally with education or union causes)

BRJurgis fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Nov 4, 2021

Eric Cantonese
Dec 21, 2004

You should hear my accent.
For me McAuliffe's failure again emphasizes a couple of basic principles that beltway "experts" tend to talk themselves out of:

1) A candidate has to stand for something on his or her own and not just as an "anti-________" choice. You otherwise give the other side free rein to define themselves and define you.
2) Outsiders are always more appealing than insiders. People who have seen any basic high school election should know that "I'm so experienced!!!" is not a great pitch, especially when there's anger at the status quo.
3) You can never go back in after taking time out. It makes you soft. Once you decide to get out of politics and active campaigning, you need to stay out. A lot changes and your experience means less and less the more time you're out of circulation.

I'm sure you guys can pick that all apart, but that's what bothered me during the primary and the campaign and it just makes the end result feel worse.

Starsfan
Sep 29, 2007

This is what happens when you disrespect Cam Neely
good news in the Rittenhouse trial: a chud juror has disqualified himself from continuing to serve in the trial

https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1456277091616362499

what a train wreck. Now the 3 other racists on the jury will know to keep their heads down.

Epinephrine
Nov 7, 2008

Eric Cantonese posted:

For me McAuliffe's failure again emphasizes a couple of basic principles that beltway "experts" tend to talk themselves out of:

1) A candidate has to stand for something on his or her own and not just as an "anti-________" choice. You otherwise give the other side free rein to define themselves and define you.
2) Outsiders are always more appealing than insiders. People who have seen any basic high school election should know that "I'm so experienced!!!" is not a great pitch, especially when there's anger at the status quo.
3) You can never go back in after taking time out. It makes you soft. Once you decide to get out of politics and active campaigning, you need to stay out. A lot changes and your experience means less and less the more time you're out of circulation.

I'm sure you guys can pick that all apart, but that's what bothered me during the primary and the campaign and it just makes the end result feel worse.
I agree on points (1) and (2), but not sure I agree on (3). It certainly depends on how long they've been out of politics. How long of a retirement is too long in your view?

punishedkissinger
Sep 20, 2017

Starsfan posted:

good news in the Rittenhouse trial: a chud juror has disqualified himself from continuing to serve in the trial

https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1456277091616362499

what a train wreck. Now the 3 other racists on the jury will know to keep their heads down.

cancel culture strikes again.

Meatball
Mar 2, 2003

That's a Spicy Meatball

Pillbug

eXXon posted:


I can't wait for this saga to finally end, only for 2022 to bring Manchin and Sinema holding the replacement of Breyer hostage.

I wouldn't be surprised if they straight up hold out until the Republicans take over.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Nucleic Acids posted:

It is totally appropriate that she has effective veto power over the congressional agenda.

Whoever made the post about how we've brought back a modern version of the divine right of kings really hit the nail on the head.

The morality of what the king does is beyond question because God put him there so it doesn't matter whether you think the king is good or bad to oppose him means opposing God. Likewise it doesn't matter whether the parliamentarian is doing good or bad, right or wrong, because someone made a rule to give her veto power over democracy so criticizing it means opposing the concept of rules and order.

The bureaucratization of democracy. You can vote to change the names of individual politicians, but the real power is in the hands of unelected authoritarian bureaucrats who have been handed veto power over the elected government by tradition and who answer only to the 1%

Willa Rogers
Mar 11, 2005

Lib and let die posted:

A definite step backwards from Obama. It's a real shame those aid workers got war crimed by a white guy instead of someone that looks more like the victims. Trump must pay for this!

This reminded me of that weird Andrew Sullivan piece about the little brown boy in the mideast who would cry tears of joy if Obama were elected:

"Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can."

How are u posted:

It's a big tent party. Anti abortion dems are few and far between these days, but they still exist.

Thank the lord the party supported Dem William Casey Sr. or we wouldn't have the heinous state-level abortion restrictions we do today--not to mention the underlying rationale to further restrict abortion at the federal level, as is likely to happen over the next several years.

Pook Good Mook
Aug 6, 2013


ENFORCE THE UNITED STATES DRESS CODE AT ALL COSTS!

This message paid for by the Men's Wearhouse& Jos A Bank Lobbying Group

Meatball posted:

I wouldn't be surprised if they straight up hold out until the Republicans take over.

They keep nakedly trying to play chicken with the Progressives to pass the infrastructure bill, whereupon they will further gut the BBB bill, or just refuse to pass it.

House Progressives aren't the ones who have to worry about a close election, they're getting re-elected no matter what. The moderates have zero leverage and for once, the progressives are exercising their power.

I can't predict if the BBB bill ever actually gets passed. But in my personal opinion, I would rather neither bill gets passed and have the poo poo Dems get washed out in 2022. If things are going to suck anyway, better that these ghouls are out of office.

selec
Sep 6, 2003

VitalSigns posted:

Whoever made the post about how we've brought back a modern version of the divine right of kings really hit the nail on the head.

The morality of what the king does is beyond question because God put him there so it doesn't matter whether you think the king is good or bad to oppose him means opposing God. Likewise it doesn't matter whether the parliamentarian is doing good or bad, right or wrong, because someone made a rule to give her veto power over democracy so criticizing it means opposing the concept of rules and order.

The bureaucratization of democracy. You can vote to change the names of individual politicians, but the real power is in the hands of unelected authoritarian bureaucrats who have been handed veto power over the elected government by tradition and who answer only to the 1%

Matt Christman has been exploring this theme in his historical podcasts as well as his chat streams and it’s pretty impressive how well the aphorism
“If voting changed anything [substantive] they’d make it illegal” described the situation we’re in. Any avenue of improving the lives of ordinary people has endless roadblocks that cannot be resolved thrown up in front of it. You cannot vote in any way that will make a difference in our society at the level that would change the power relationships or oppression dynamics that underpin it.

Kraftwerk
Aug 13, 2011
i do not have 10,000 bircoins, please stop asking

VitalSigns posted:

Whoever made the post about how we've brought back a modern version of the divine right of kings really hit the nail on the head.

The morality of what the king does is beyond question because God put him there so it doesn't matter whether you think the king is good or bad to oppose him means opposing God. Likewise it doesn't matter whether the parliamentarian is doing good or bad, right or wrong, because someone made a rule to give her veto power over democracy so criticizing it means opposing the concept of rules and order.

The bureaucratization of democracy. You can vote to change the names of individual politicians, but the real power is in the hands of unelected authoritarian bureaucrats who have been handed veto power over the elected government by tradition and who answer only to the 1%

In terms of the senate that sounds about right but the reality is these bureaucrats are a smoke screen to distract you.

The real modern version of the divine right of kings is the economic system where large amounts of self-replicating wealth decide the level of power, respect and prestige you carry in society... Not how smart you are, not how moral or good of a person you are... just wealth. The more money you have, the more infallible you are.

We're a society ruled by greedy dragons that hoard all the treasure and occasionally raid our cities and villages while indiscriminately killing people with their economic activities. The justification for them to treat the world as their personal playground, is the capitalist system as it currently exists and the de-facto divine right of kings.

A minority of us nerds question it and wonder about its morality, but the vast majority of people have accepted it as an unchangeable fact of life. Just as in the past people have never dared question their Kings, their father protector.

Eric Cantonese
Dec 21, 2004

You should hear my accent.

Epinephrine posted:

I agree on points (1) and (2), but not sure I agree on (3). It certainly depends on how long they've been out of politics. How long of a retirement is too long in your view?

That's a fair point.

McAuliffe was out of active campaign politics since 2018. As far as I know, other than being on the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, he was basically making a decent living for himself and chipping in with endorsements for local Virginia Democrats who pleased him or his allies.

I'm also thinking of Evan Bayh's last run for Indiana Senate. He retired in 2010 and proceeded to get into lobbying and investing, which is understandable (although not necessarily admirable). Then he tries to get back in for 2016 and crashes and burns in the general election even though a lot of the mainstream press and pundits thought he was unbeatable.

You can also look at Phil Bredesen in Tennessee. Successful governor from 2003-2011. Proceeds to flail around in 2018 and committing at least one needless own goal with a pre-emptive statement about supporting Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

Maybe the Dems have to make-do from an array of bad choices in places like Indiana and Tennessee, but I don't think the record has been too good for past people who have been out for 4+ years and want to hop back in. I'd love to know of times when it worked. (Biden, I suppose is a good example that my theory doesn't bear out under intense scrutiny...)

Sir John Falstaff
Apr 13, 2010

VitalSigns posted:

Even if we're going to pretend to believe absurdities like Trump wasn't bad in 2009 before the fascism fairy sprinkled fascism dust on him right after McAuliffe took the check, and therefore taking his money wasn't cynical and doesn't make McAuliffe an insincere hypocrite to denounce Trump later when he needs to win an election, McAuliffe was still toasting Trump in 2017 so obviously ignorance of how bad Trump really is couldn't possibly be McAuliffe's excuse for cozying up to him back then because he was still opportunistically doing it when Trump was actually president.

Can you give the debate club game a rest, this isn't high school, there are no judges, we don't have to pretend to be incapable of making observations that span time and space in order to isolate one moment in a context-free vacuum and drag the discussion into quibbling over piddly nonsense.

I'm not sure "five weeks into Trump's term, the Chairman of the National Governors Association suggests governors could work with Trump on some issues" is quite the smoking gun you're suggesting, but sure.

I'm also not sure the strategy of relying on Youngkin's links to Trump as a campaign strategy would have worked if it had been some other Democratic candidate, so I'm not sure how it matters.

VitalSigns
Sep 3, 2011

Willa Rogers posted:

This reminded me of that weird Andrew Sullivan piece about the little brown boy in the mideast who would cry tears of joy if Obama were elected:

"Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can."
Incredible

An 8 year old living in Pakistan's repressive military dictatorship should be swelling with hope around now because he instinctively knows on a deep spiritual level that no one with brown skin or a familiar name like Hussein or Musharraff could possibly be a bad guy!

Darkrenown
Jul 18, 2012
please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

VitalSigns posted:

Even if we're going to pretend to believe absurdities like Trump wasn't bad in 2009 before the fascism fairy sprinkled fascism dust on him right after McAuliffe took the check, and therefore taking his money wasn't cynical and doesn't make McAuliffe an insincere hypocrite to denounce Trump later when he needs to win an election, McAuliffe was still toasting Trump in 2017 so obviously ignorance of how bad Trump really is couldn't possibly be McAuliffe's excuse for cozying up to him back then because he was still opportunistically doing it when Trump was actually president.

Can you give the debate club game a rest, this isn't high school, there are no judges, we don't have to pretend to be incapable of making observations that span time and space in order to isolate one moment in a context-free vacuum and drag the discussion into quibbling over piddly nonsense.

You seem to have real trouble with the idea someone could disagree with one of the tweets you posted. I'm not "debate clubbing" you, I think pulling up a 2009 donation from a man who was a dem at the time and was not yet known to be a "Cheeto benito" as you put it is completely pointless and doesn't invalidate an anti-Trump stance.

You keep bringing up this 2017 toast thing - I don't give a gently caress. I have not mentioned it because I don't disagree. Toasting Trump in 2017 is a bad look, although he was toasting the president at a governors thing so maybe it's tradition or something? But saying one reasonable thing and one unreasonable thing doesn't give the latter a pass.

Gatts
Jan 2, 2001

Goodnight Moon

Nap Ghost

Willa Rogers posted:

This reminded me of that weird Andrew Sullivan piece about the little brown boy in the mideast who would cry tears of joy if Obama were elected:

"Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can."

As a brown man of Pakistani descent who was born in Saudi there is stuff I want to say about this but maybe better for some other thread some other time.

Lib and let die
Aug 26, 2004

Darkrenown posted:

You seem to have real trouble with the idea someone could disagree with one of the tweets you posted. I'm not "debate clubbing" you, I think pulling up a 2009 donation from a man who was a dem at the time and was not yet known to be a "Cheeto benito" as you put it is completely pointless and doesn't invalidate an anti-Trump stance.

You keep bringing up this 2017 toast thing - I don't give a gently caress. I have not mentioned it because I don't disagree. Toasting Trump in 2017 is a bad look, although he was toasting the president at a governors thing so maybe it's tradition or something? But saying one reasonable thing and one unreasonable thing doesn't give the latter a pass.

Wow. Trump was a dem in 2009?

drat, if I didn't know any better, I'd think that both parties were mostly ideologically consistent and their actors largely interchangeable and put on some sort of public facing kayfabe to hide their mutual service to the gods of capital. Thank God we have a functioning democracy in America and something like that could never happen!

Darkrenown
Jul 18, 2012
please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

Lib and let die posted:

Wow. Trump was a dem in 2009?

drat, if I didn't know any better, I'd think that both parties were mostly ideologically consistent and their actors largely interchangeable and put on some sort of public facing kayfabe to hide their mutual service to the gods of capital. Thank God we have a functioning democracy in America and something like that could never happen!

I don't agree that the actors are interchangeable, but it's pretty funny how much Trump flip-flopped:

quote:

Trump registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987; since that time, he has changed his party affiliation five times. In 1999, Trump changed his party affiliation to the Independence Party of New York. In August 2001, Trump changed his party affiliation to Democratic. In September 2009, Trump changed his party affiliation back to the Republican Party. In December 2011, Trump changed to "no party affiliation" (independent). In April 2012, Trump again returned to the Republican Party.

Kavros
May 18, 2011

sleep sleep sleep
fly fly post post
sleep sleep sleep

Willa Rogers posted:

This reminded me of that weird Andrew Sullivan piece about the little brown boy in the mideast who would cry tears of joy if Obama were elected:

"Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can."

a tear of reverence for America falls down their cheek moments before they are flash-obliterated by US-supplied munitions

Putting aside how stupendously wrong Sullivan was about this, the central conceit of it reminds me of meeting him and how he was always kind of distastefully like this. At least he's drifted out of the sort of relevance that had him hailed as a "free thinking provocateur" and spends most of his days grouching at those drat drag queers for being so loud on commercial street at night in Ptown

skylined!
Apr 6, 2012

THE DEM DEFENDER HAS LOGGED ON

Herstory Begins Now posted:

they approved 500 grams my dude, not 5 grams

lol oops!

selec
Sep 6, 2003

Darkrenown posted:

I don't agree that the actors are interchangeable, but it's pretty funny how much Trump flip-flopped:

It’s the ruling class, party affiliation is mostly aesthetic. The Clintons were at his wedding, that tells you all you need to know.

How are u
May 19, 2005

by Azathoth

selec posted:

HAU is, like Fancy, another troll indistinguishable from actual posters. The gimmick is there is nothing the Dems can do they won’t defend, and it’s always a rosy future for them, despite what they do. It’s a toxic optimism thing, and it’s less funny for being indistinguishable from Twitter dems who tell you they want the party of Reagan back, because he was much nicer than Trump.

It’s weird but whatever

There's plenty "the dems" do that I don't defend. The terrible shitshow at the border / refugees / asylum seekers, the imminent respooling of student loan payments, state machine politics, etc etc.

What I don't do and what really irks me is painting "the dems" as a monolith, with a single brushstroke, ignoring anything good that does happen, and pretending like there's One Weird Trick to getting Everything You Want Now rather than what I see as the only real path forward which is continuing to change the party from within and pushing ever further towards the generational change that's needed to shake up our socio-political system. The Democratic party has changed a lot in the last 20 years, and it looks like its going to change a lot more in the next 20. Not fast enough? Yep, agreed. But, that's the world we live in.

You believe I'm a "toxic optimist" and ok sure, whatever. Choosing to hold on to some hope that we can make positive changes in the world is toxic in your book, no worries. I don't think there's anything toxic about choosing to leave room for hope. I don't think everything is sunshine and roses, I don't think the future is guaranteed to be great or a paradise or better than it is now. I think we *can* get there, and I'm working to try to help get us there. Blackpilling and accelerationism I reject outright. gently caress that noise.

Main Paineframe
Oct 27, 2010

Nucleic Acids posted:

It is totally appropriate that she has effective veto power over the congressional agenda.

That's because reconciliation is supposed to be a rare and limited track only available in certain special cases, not the only way for any bill of consequence to pass. The power of the parliamentarian is a side effect of the Dems trying to one-weird-trick their way out of the constraints of our broken legislative system while pretending the system is basically healthy. The parliamentarian wouldn't have veto power on anything if the Dems could either round up enough votes to pass bills through normal order, or change the rules to reduce the number of votes needed to pass things normally (or, more accurately, reduce the number of votes needed to circumvent obstacles like the filibuster).

Lib and let die
Aug 26, 2004

How are u posted:

There's plenty "the dems" do that I don't defend. The terrible shitshow at the border / refugees / asylum seekers, the imminent respooling of student loan payments, state machine politics, etc etc.

What I don't do and what really irks me is painting "the dems" as a monolith, with a single brushstroke, ignoring anything good that does happen, and pretending like there's One Weird Trick to getting Everything You Want Now rather than what I see as the only real path forward which is continuing to change the party from within and pushing ever further towards the generational change that's needed to shake up our socio-political system. The Democratic party has changed a lot in the last 20 years, and it looks like its going to change a lot more in the next 20. Not fast enough? Yep, agreed. But, that's the world we live in.

You believe I'm a "toxic optimist" and ok sure, whatever. Choosing to hold on to some hope that we can make positive changes in the world is toxic in your book, no worries. I don't think there's anything toxic about choosing to leave room for hope. I don't think everything is sunshine and roses, I don't think the future is guaranteed to be great or a paradise or better than it is now. I think we *can* get there, and I'm working to try to help get us there. Blackpilling and accelerationism I reject outright. gently caress that noise.

HAU I didn't reply to that poster because I believe in hearing things straight from the source. I'd like to restate my ask of you, since it seems it got lost in the derail.


Lib and let die posted:

Could you elaborate on this a bit?

Are you expecting at some point in the future that the democrats' party will welcome socialists with the same open arms it welcomes anti-abortion and pro-austerity conservatives like the Representative from RI I've had the unfortunate displeasure of sharing a holiday dinner table with for years?

Do you have some sort of frame of reference on when this, "causality" in which socialists become welcome into the democrats' party we can look to?

Main Paineframe posted:

That's because reconciliation is supposed to be a rare and limited track only available in certain special cases, not the only way for any bill of consequence to pass. The power of the parliamentarian is a side effect of the Dems trying to one-weird-trick their way out of the constraints of our broken legislative system while pretending the system is basically healthy. The parliamentarian wouldn't have veto power on anything if the Dems could either round up enough votes to pass bills through normal order, or change the rules to reduce the number of votes needed to pass things normally (or, more accurately, reduce the number of votes needed to circumvent obstacles like the filibuster).

Did the lunch-time talking points just drop or something?

A GIANT PARSNIP
Apr 13, 2010

Too much fuckin' eggnog


Starsfan posted:

good news in the Rittenhouse trial: a chud juror has disqualified himself from continuing to serve in the trial

https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1456277091616362499

what a train wreck. Now the 3 other racists on the jury will know to keep their heads down.

Couldn’t even pretend to be a normal person for a handful of days. Amazing.

BonoMan
Feb 20, 2002

Jade Ear Joe

A GIANT PARSNIP posted:

Couldn’t even pretend to be a normal person for a handful of days. Amazing.

Probably just trying to intentionally get himself dismissed

whiggles
Dec 19, 2003

TEAM EDWARD

Sarcastr0 posted:

As I recall, it was in service of the point that the Roman Empire was not a democracy, but still managed to have healthcare.

Which doesn't seem responsive to the original question about the utility of rule of law to me, but I'm always down for some classical history.

Weren't most of the medical interventions from that time relatively less resource intensive than what we have access to currently? Back then if you had cancer they'd slap a couple salves on you and call it a day. Now we have a huuuuuge array of ways to approach the problem and even the least intensive ones would still bankrupt most individuals and require several more manhours of real labor to prepare and deliver the treatment.

This is not any sort of argument against providing universal healthcare, just pointing that these sort of comparisons are the political equivalent of trying to assess the 60s Celtics against the 2010s Golden State Warriors.

How are u
May 19, 2005

by Azathoth

Lib and let die posted:

HAU I didn't reply to that poster because I believe in hearing things straight from the source. I'd like to restate my ask of you, since it seems it got lost in the derail.

Democratic Socialists / socialists / left progressives have been getting elected to various offices as Democrats for years now. I don't expect to see that trend reversing. India Walton in Buffalo losing to a write-in campaign doesn't suddenly reverse the whole trend of younger voters being more progressive and wanting more progressive candidates.

These are trends that can take decades to bear fruit. I understand it is frustrating, I feel it too. This is generational work, which is pretty unsatisfying for some folks but that's just the way things are. I don't see a glorious socialist revolution happening anytime soon, though that would be pretty neat.

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Willa Rogers
Mar 11, 2005

Kavros posted:

a tear of reverence for America falls down their cheek moments before they are flash-obliterated by US-supplied munitions

Putting aside how stupendously wrong Sullivan was about this, the central conceit of it reminds me of meeting him and how he was always kind of distastefully like this. At least he's drifted out of the sort of relevance that had him hailed as a "free thinking provocateur" and spends most of his days grouching at those drat drag queers for being so loud on commercial street at night in Ptown

It should've been a tipoff when all of the ickiest Bush apologists like Sullivan fell in love with Obama in 2007-08.

In fact, one could say the same now about the current Dem Party media cheerleaders who were grown in rightwing lab vats, from Jennifer Rubin to Bill Kristol to Nicolle Wallace to Sally Yates.

"A Party Only a Conservative Can Love" is one hell of motto for the Dems; let's see how that works out for them in the coming years.

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