The General 'Murican Politics Thread

[Candescence]

Still, it's a small minority, especially considering Pelosi is actively shoring up leftist support. Hell, guess who else is supporting her speakership:

 

Say what you will about her, but none of Pelosi's supposed challengers have her proven competence as head of the house dems. Again, despite being in minority, she was able to milk the GOP dry when it came to forcing numerous concessions out of them when it came to the March spending bill, including the removal of the rule preventing the CDC from being able to conduct research on gun violence (albeit with no funding into such research as of yet, but baby steps).

[Tani Coyote]

That's the thing about all this, though - while there's no clear alternative, they do have the votes to deny her the Speakership outright if they so choose.

The assumption is the strategy is to force her to step aside when it's obvious she can't get the votes; this would level the playing field and allow numerous candidates to come in and try to drum up support.

Basically, they're trying to get rid of the House equivalent of Clinton. Once the monolithic candidate is out of the way, lots of alternatives would be possible.

While she is competent, I have no doubt there are other Dems who would be as well. Plus, in the spirit of democracy and turnover here, she has to go. 16 years in a serious position of power? No. Go away. I don't care who you are. Party leadership is something that should absolutely change hands.

If she is given power, any power, it should be on the condition she leaves no matter what in 2021. She has to go. The only other Democrat with her level of tenure was Sam Rayburn, and he served in a less polarized time where the committees held a lot more power, so it was more symbolic that he was party leader. Pelosi is overseeing a time of polarization and immense power in the Speakership, so she should not be allowed to stay in it for too long.

[Bowbowis]

Seriously dude? Wasn't your whole platform that you were going to protect us from evil brown people?

[Patticus]

12 hours ago, Coyote (Ogilvie) said:

Once the monolithic candidate is out of the way, lots of alternatives would be possible.

Who in the House has the experience necessary to lead? Schiff maybe, I've heard Fudge's name put forward (I think she'd be a great choice actually), but the field of truly viable candidates is sparse and nobody's moving - if anything, whatever momentum the anti-Pelosi crew did have is falling apart. Pelosi and her deputies have been in place so long that nobody else there has the kind of experience they would otherwise need.

Pelosi should stay on, but make it know she'll be retiring in 2021 regardless. Her leadership team should also be changed to some younger potential successors. They need to start getting the next generation trained in the art of leading and it starts in January.
 

And while she is the House equivalent of Clinton, that's kind of the job of the House Speaker/Majority Leader, just as McConnell in the Senate is Satan to Democrats, and Reid was the same to Republicans.

[Tani Coyote]

On 11/21/2018 at 3:10 PM, Patticus said:

Who in the House has the experience necessary to lead? Schiff maybe, I've heard Fudge's name put forward (I think she'd be a great choice actually), but the field of truly viable candidates is sparse and nobody's moving - if anything, whatever momentum the anti-Pelosi crew did have is falling apart. Pelosi and her deputies have been in place so long that nobody else there has the kind of experience they would otherwise need.

Pelosi should stay on, but make it know she'll be retiring in 2021 regardless. Her leadership team should also be changed to some younger potential successors. They need to start getting the next generation trained in the art of leading and it starts in January.

And while she is the House equivalent of Clinton, that's kind of the job of the House Speaker/Majority Leader, just as McConnell in the Senate is Satan to Democrats, and Reid was the same to Republicans.

In all honesty, considering the Dems won't be able to pass anything for two years anyway, this would be a fantastic time to can her so someone else could start learning the ropes.

I don't trust Pelosi to retire, honestly. Someone who has stayed on that long has no intent of leaving without a fight. She is no George Washington. Even Harry Reid was content to leave the Senate leadership (and Senate in general) after 12 years. Pelosi is pushing 16 years as leader and has been in office for over 30 years. If Dems get behind her, they need to emphasize she will get two more years, and that is it. If she's unhappy with that arrangement, well, she just exposed what she really cares about.

The good news is as a 78-year old she's probably not going to have much choice about how long she stays in. I just hope House Democrats start getting some young blood sooner rather than later because otherwise we're looking at a serious leadership crisis in a few years.

[Patticus]

38 minutes ago, Coyote (Ogilvie) said:

In all honesty, considering the Dems won't be able to pass anything for two years anyway, this would be a fantastic time to can her so someone else could start learning the ropes.

What of the bill I've seen you mention, which would permit bipartisan legislation to more easily pass?

[Patticus]

Haven't we seen this movie before? But the law changed after it screened, so Ivanka is presumably in considerably greater legal jeopardy than Clinton was.

[Bowbowis]

On 11/23/2018 at 1:30 PM, Patticus said:

Haven't we seen this movie before? But the law changed after it screened, so Ivanka is presumably in considerably greater legal jeopardy than Clinton was.

But her emails!

...

In other news:

This is just sad.

[Tornado]

On 11/19/2018 at 6:43 PM, Candescence said:

I don't think Nancy Pelosi is going anywhere anytime soon, folks.

And unfortunately unless she does, I don't think Democrats will be able to hold on to the gains they made in this election cycle for terribly long (particularly since they were primarily in the House). The Democrat party as a whole can't be so tone deaf after the ass whupping in 2016 that they can just sit back and let the same people run the table again as long as they want the job. As much credit as people like to give the GOP for voter suppression and gerrymandering and blah blah blah, if whatever portion of the Persecution Olympics the Democrat party in general is pretending to stand behind in any given election cycle doesn't believe that their interests are actually aligned, they don't need to be suppressed by GOP voters.

 

 

They just won't vote.

[KHCast]

3 hours ago, Tornado said:

As much credit as people like to give the GOP for voter suppression and gerrymandering and blah blah blah, if whatever portion of the Persecution Olympics the Democrat party in general is pretending to stand behind in any given election cycle doesn't believe that their interests are actually aligned, they don't need to be suppressed by GOP voters.

 

 

They just won't vote.

Are the statistics regarding voter suppression and gerrymandering not that high then as much as the Democratic Party seems to claim then I take it? Sounds like you’re not of the idea it’s a big hurdle for people

[Tornado]

I'm not of the idea that if there was no voter suppression all of those people would automatically go out to pull the handle Democrat just because it's the first Tuesday in November, the candidate is Democrat and the voter is black/gay/transgender/female. They probably wouldn't vote Republican, but if the Democrat party keeps celebrating all of these fresh faces with fresh perspectives and fresh ideas just long enough to hand all of the power back to the same rich white people who have been in government longer than a lot of those disenfranchised voters have been alive then the GOP wouldn't have to be too worried for long.

 

 

Nancy Pelosi doesn't have anywhere near as mixed a record as Hilary Clinton did when she bizarrely tried to frame her campaign around identity politics in the final weeks, but sooner rather than later all these actively targeted demographics are going to wonder why the party leadership has to be the same politicians who don't have their experiences and (seemingly) didn't seem terribly concerned about their plight in the past.

[Patticus]

A lot's been going on this week:

Quote

President Donald Trump’s company planned to give a $50 million penthouse at Trump Tower Moscow to Russian President Vladimir Putin as the company negotiated the luxury real estate development during the 2016 campaign, according to four people, one of them the originator of the plan.

Two US law enforcement officials told BuzzFeed News that Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, discussed the idea with a representative of Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary.

The Trump Tower Moscow plan is at the heart of a new plea agreement by Cohen, who led the negotiations to bring a gleaming, 100-story building to the Russian capital. Cohen acknowledged in court that he had lied to Congress about the plan in order to protect Trump and his presidential campaign.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/anthonycormier/the-trump-organization-planned-to-give-vladimir-putin-the

It's hard to come up with a coherent response to all of this in as short a space of time as I have before I have to leave for work, but I will say this: Trump's "no Russian deals" argument is officially torn to shreds (but you just know he'll still wheel it out for his base), and he is now directly implicated in the collusion case. The importance of the "what did the President know, and when did he know it?" question cannot be overstated, and the answer appears now to be everything, from the beginning.

[KHCast]

So the SCOTUS all took a official photo of them all together today...man like more than half of them look either annoyed, uncomfortable, or just bitter lol. The fake smiles are the best. And I can almost bet Brett kavy being there isn’t helping the uncomfortableness, if he isn’t already the source of the tension 

[Candescence]

Even if Trump can't be impeached without GOP support for impeachment, a lot of people around him are very likely to go to jail, including Jr. and Kushner, maybe even Ivanka. He strikes me as the sort of man who won't be able to cope if most of his associates are removed from the board or they decide to spill the beans.

[Patticus]

I think you're overestimating how many of Trump's inner circle are heading to prison, but boy would it be glorious just for Trump's shit fits. Pardons would be dispensed freely, I imagine - no more caution for his precious little girl.

Meanwhile...

Check the link Rudy posted (and didn't remove).

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Please tell me that was an accident or something?

That looks too blatant to be intentional.

[Patticus]

2 hours ago, Conquering Storm’s Servant said:

Please tell me that was an accident or something?

That looks too blatant to be intentional.

The fact that the tweet wasn't immediately removed and replaced, and indeed is still up four days (and countless screenshots) later, implies a certain level of intent, doesn't it?

It's probably just incompetence, or Giuliani has a rogue social media manager. Both equally plausible scenarios.

Speaking of incompetence, though:

 

[Bowbowis]

CNN had another bomb scare Thursday and yes, the MAGA crowd is crying "false flag" again.

[KHCast]

Question. I see this crop up in discussion a lot lately and even see official politicians bring it up, but do you think civil rights policy is outdated and needs to be removed in our current society? I see many arguments that say it does more harm to freedom of speech and people’s rights, than it does help, as it “forces” people into doing things they might not personally want to do, as well as have seen some call it a slippery slope considering what the left deam okay (like not wanting to serve or hire a Nazi, trump supporter, open bigot, etc.) kinda comes off to them as hypocrital when they want to be protected from prejudice, and civil rights law only protects a handful of groups.

[Patticus]

If the last few years have taught me anything, it's that civil rights legislation is as far from irrelevant or outdated as can be, and that the Voting Rights Act must be fully restored, as certain states still cannot be trusted to do right by their minority populations.

[Tani Coyote]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/12/politics/nancy-pelosi-votes-deal-democrats/index.html

Pelosi has agreed to serve only one or two more terms. To win the second term, she has agreed she would need the support of two-thirds of the Democratic caucus.

This is part of a deal to get her critics to back her; the party rules will be changed for party leaders can only serve 3 terms, with every term afterward requiring a two-thirds vote.

When Pelosi last had her serious challenge, she just barely clinched two-thirds.

Also note prominent Dem Hoyer's opinion on the matter; he says term limits are awful and has supported repealing term limits on the Presidency. You know, the institution that has the most potential to become autocratic.

On 12/10/2018 at 5:36 PM, KHCast said:

Question. I see this crop up in discussion a lot lately and even see official politicians bring it up, but do you think civil rights policy is outdated and needs to be removed in our current society? I see many arguments that say it does more harm to freedom of speech and people’s rights, than it does help, as it “forces” people into doing things they might not personally want to do, as well as have seen some call it a slippery slope considering what the left deam okay (like not wanting to serve or hire a Nazi, trump supporter, open bigot, etc.) kinda comes off to them as hypocrital when they want to be protected from prejudice, and civil rights law only protects a handful of groups.

Cognitive biases are part of life. You cannot help but form them.

Having civil rights legislation compels us to try and overcome those biases. Without it, a lot of people will fall back on them. Civil rights laws overcome the huge collective action problem of people supporting equity in the abstract but being wishy washy about it in person.

Never mind the fact civil rights laws provide for a healthier economy. They furnish every company with a larger customer and employee base, which makes everyone better off in the long run. There's a reason most businesses have embraced civil rights despite their reputation of being hopelessly conservative.

Plus, some people are downright malicious with their prejudices. Civil rights laws protect against those people too.

Some coercion is necessary to have a healthy society. Imagine how many projects would never have been built if the state did not force people to cough up taxes to pay for it. In the abstract, everyone shouts "I would pay for that road!" but, surprise surprise, just about every social scientist worth their salt says no, most people would not do this.

With regards to personal choice, any public transaction quite likely no longer qualifies as personal. When your store bans black people from shopping there, you are forcing them into other stores that may have goods of lesser quality or be more expensive. You can't claim "muh property rights" when exercising those rights clearly has a negative effect on other people.

We settled the separate but equal debate in Brown. In absence of civil rights laws, bad things will crop up again.

[8ther]

What this about a government shutdown happening tonight over Trump’s border wall?

[Tani Coyote]

10 hours ago, Jiren (Metro) said:

What this about a government shutdown happening tonight over Trump’s border wall?

From my understanding, Trump refusing to sign any spending bill that doesn't include the money for the wall. While the House has put the funding in, the Senate could not get enough votes in favor of it. So both Houses had to adjourn without passing a spending bill, thus shutting down the government.

Unless Trump caves or a lot of Republicans flip in the House, this shutdown could very well last until the Dems take the House in January. Any bill without a wall will need two-thirds in both chambers to override his veto.

There's also the usual solution to this problem: a more or less unanimous resolution to stay the course and keep spending as is until another spending bill is approved.

[Bowbowis]

People are arguing over whether Trump or Pelosi and Schumer are to blame for the shutdown. Although it is, objectively speaking, Trump's fault the shutdown started (as he himself admitted last month) I'd argue the person most responsible for perpetuating it is actually Mitch McConnell, who refuses to allow the Senate to vote on the spending bills Congress had previously passed near unanimously, on the grounds that the president won't sign it. This despite the Constitution explicitly saying a presidential veto can be overridden if 2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate agree to it. Here he is arguing the point earlier today:

Short Version:

 

[Tani Coyote]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/10/politics/democrats-dont-want-a-businessman/index.html

Democrats have soundly rejected a businessman candidate in a round of polling, however, the caveat here is that they were introduced just as businessmen in the poll, with no details on their policies.

While you have a former Republican like Bloomberg enjoying lots of name recognition and getting soundly rejected, the worst performing candidate is Andrew Yang.

Yang is an Asian-American in his mid-40s. His campaign pitch is focused on establishing a universal basic income. While he claims no ideology, his policies fall firmly on the left. He wants universal healthcare, $1,000/month given to every American, limits on tuition charges, more funding for public schools, cameras on every police officer, and the IRS to stop auditing poorer Americans. Regarding the economic issues of Trump country, Yang would also direct the IRS to expand tax deductions for Americans who relocate for work, while also going after opioid manufacturers and prescribers to limit their destruction.

He has not held any formal political office, but... he shows a lot more promise than a lot of Democrats. He also doesn't have the age problem progressive leaders like Sanders do.