General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)

glennmagusharvey

but...but...THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA HATES TRUMP!!! EVEN MAINSTREAM CONSERVATIVES DO!!!! YOU CAN"T TRUST ANY OF THEM TO BE FAIR!!!!!!!!1111111eleventyoneeleven

BassFishing

Media saying that Clinton won will push a segment only to vote harder for Trump, but I doubt that segment would still be voting for him even if he had walked on stage naked. 

Bee

I mean he literally just bragged about paying no taxes and hoping for a crash that rendered 9 million people homeless.  If you're still voting for this man at this point there's really no helping it.

glennmagusharvey

Bee wrote: »

I mean he literally just bragged about paying no taxes and hoping for a crash that rendered 9 million people homeless.  If you're still voting for this man at this point there's really no helping it.

B-BUT WE NEED A TOUGH GUY WHO WILL TELL MEXICO AND CHINA TO FUCK OFF



"what about Russia?"



*looks at donor list*

nah, they're okay

Serocco3

Holy shit. Public financing of elections has been approved by California.



http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57ee7d33e4b024a52d2e7fde

lrdgck

These programs already exist in states
like Arizona, Connecticut, Maine and New York City. Seattle enacted its
own version of public financing in its 2015 elections and Montgomery
County, Maryland, created a program in 2014.

This part seems worthy of quoting. I thought California would be the first, but it's still the biggest administrative unit of that lot. Looks like it might be an example to others.

Bee

So for those who haven't heard, the second debate is in sort of town hall style, and ABC and CNN moderators have agreed to consider the 30 most-voted questions on this site:

https://presidentialopenquestions.com

Serocco3

Hillary barred lobbyists from working on her campaign. http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/01/lobbyists-gave-hillary-clinton-money-barring-transition-team.html



Also called Bernie supporters "basement dwellers."



http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-supporters-audio-leak-228997

Bee

That second article is interesting from a psychological perspective.  It has a clickbait headline that encourages people who expect Clinton to have a ton of back-room derision of her opponents (which she's had in the past) to read it, and then springs a context that seems more sympathetic than anything and not as condescending as it sounded -- or at least not particularly wrong.

Because let's face it, economic realities have kind of made living with your parents lose momentum as a shaming device (<-- Exhibit A for a couple years before I honestly got very lucky finding the job I did).  And even speaking as someone who expects that kind of thing from her since that primary, it doesn't really feel like she's leveraging it that way here.

Serocco

Yeah, Clinton pretty much admitted that she's naturally more moderate (her phrase was "center left to center right") and willing to switch to either wing depending on how the wind blows. That isn't a surprise, because that's who she's been.

Her dislike of free college, free healthcare, and the Scandinavian model, and characterizing it as "they do not know what they're talking about," was also pretty much expected because that's how she campaigned in the primary.

What I don't like is how she characterized "children of the Great Recession" as people who live in their parent's basements. That was rather stereotypical and patronizing.

But the biggest takeaway was towards the end, when she's saying to her donors that "Hey, they're right to be angry, they're right to want a revolution, they're right to want change." She even indicated that she campaigned in the primary the way she did because she earnestly thought Bernie was too idealistic under the current political culture of Congress.

THAT lets me know it actually is MUCH easier to influence Clinton towards the left than I thought.

glennmagusharvey

> Yeah, Clinton pretty much admitted that she's naturally more moderate
(her phrase was "center left to center right") and willing to switch to
either wing depending on how the wind blows. That isn't a surprise,
because that's who she's been.

I still feel that it's a mistake to characterize people with ideological spectrum terms since they're always inaccurate abstractions of individual actual positions that may change at various points for various reasons.

Serocco3

Either way, it's the closest window we have to her mindset. Bernie recently came in and said she's right about her assessment of his supporters, while Trump just went the usual "She doesn't support you!" rhetoric.

glennmagusharvey

By the way, don't you wanna sign in with your regular account?

Meanwhile lately I've gotten kinda sick of following political news on DKE because it just gets so horribly buried with diary after diary about the presidential race.

That was a good thing about SSP -- that I didn't have to deal with these sorts of diaries cluttering up my view of downballot news.

Serocco

Downballot races are most likely to switch to Democrats because of the Trump factor.

You can see this most of all in North Carolina. McCrory, by all accounts, should lose his reelection race.

glennmagusharvey

Would the Republican Party be served better or worse if Ridley and Kraid were the presidential and VP picks, respectively?

#questionsonlyiwouldask

glennmagusharvey

Serious question: Do the WikiLeaks folks and Julian Assange actually have anything interesting?  Because all they've done is basically hold a press conference telling people that they have something interesting.

Either
1. They don't have anything interesting and are just saber-rattling to stay relevant, or
2. They do have something interesting but want to play politics with it, which goes against their whole whistleblowing role in the first place and undermines their own credibility.

I mean, if you actually did have something interesting and actually cared to get it out to the public, wouldn't you release it as soon as you can?  Or maybe if you're waiting to get all the pieces together, then wouldn't you keep mum about it until you've gotten all the pieces together then release it?  If you're waiting just for maximum impact, that strikes of being manipulative about it.

Bee

I'm wondering if Trump gaffing the hell out of the first debate scared him out of it.  There are only so many things you can say before people start to seriously consider you capable of apocalypse.

Serocco

Assange is known for his vendetta against the Clintons, since he thinks they were the ones responsible for his current legal predicament. But if he had anything against them that he knew would destroy their chances, he'd have shown it by now. He's got nothing really substantial on the Clintons that we don't already know by now.

Also, Roy Blunt (R) is losing ground to Jason Kander (D) in Missouri and Deborah Ross (D) is either tied or leading Richard Burr (R) in North Carolina. If Feingold (Wisconsin) and Duckworth (Illinois) win, they need Evan Bayh (ugh) to win Indiana to offset Cortex-Masto's potential loss in Nevada. Take Kander and Ross in Missouri and North Carolina, and you get a deadlocked Senate with Tim Kaine as the tie breaker.

If McGuinty, Hassan, and/or Murphy win Pennsylvania or Florida, you'll get the 51 votes needed for a majority.

Serocco

Cenk Uygur, of The Young Turks, thoroughly dismantling MSNBC's Morning Joe over their adulation of Mike Pence. Specifically, he spends most of the video detailing just how fucking awful Mike Pence is as a person, let alone as a lawmaker and governor.



A highlight comes towards the end. Ryan White Care is an organization that helps people who are dealing with AIDS and HIV. Pence, as a lawmaker, proposed a bill that would have defunded Ryan White Care, and transferred that money over to groups that promote gay conversion therapy.

Serocco3

The most pathetic thing ever. Ted Cruz phone banking for Donald Trump



http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57f74656e4b0b6a430315e45

glennmagusharvey

Ted Cruz did a lot of soul-searching after he lost the nomination to Donald Trump...and eventually discovered that he had no soul to begin with.

Serocco

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/wikileaks-appears-to-release-hillary-clintons-paid-speech-tr?utm_term=.udl0lX8dB#.fy3w9dVN8

Looks like Assange released parts of Hillary's Goldman Sachs speeches. :OOO

Zennistrad

Funny how he did that right after Trump's "grab by the pussy" comments.

Bee

That honestly looks a lot more moderate than I expected those speeches to be.  She's reluctant to call them out outright, but is still saying they need a certain amount of transparency and more accountability.

I mean shit like this

*CLINTON SUGGESTS WALL STREET INSIDERS ARE WHAT IS NEEDED TO FIX WALL STREET*

*Clinton Said Financial Reform “Really Has To Come From The Industry Itself.” *

“Remember what Teddy Roosevelt did. Yes, he took on what he saw as the excesses in the economy, but he also stood against the excesses in politics. He didn’t want to unleash a lot of nationalist, populistic reaction. He wanted to try to figure out how to get back into that balance that has served America so well over our entire nationhood. Today, there’s more that can and should be done that really has to come from the industry itself, and how we can strengthen our economy, create more jobs at a time where that’s increasingly challenging, to get back to Teddy Roosevelt’s square deal. And I really believe that our country and all of you are up to that job.” [Clinton Remarks to Deutsche Bank, 10/7/14]

That doesn't look like "appoint Wall Street insiders".  That looks like "clean your house ya jackanapes".  Which carries zero weight and isn't going to happen, of course, but that's a pretty benign thing to be caught saying behind closed doors.  I mean shit, even she stuff she says about campaign financing isn't particularly turncoat.

Like, I might actually feel less worried about voting for her in a month.

Serocco

Two things that Hillary said as well that were actually fairly moderate.

First was that she acknowledged she doesn't relate to the working class because of how wealthy she is, and she understands that her problems are not the problems of the rest of the nation.

Second is that she actually, honestly, said single payer is simply better than what we have here in America. She said single payer may have "long waiting lines/times," but it cuts cost dramatically, and it has "as good or better" care.

In an earlier reporting of her "basement dwellers" comments, what wasn't talked about often was that the reason Hillary is an incrementalist is because of Congress. Meaning, the Republicans. "You need 60 votes" and "redistrict House seats" (AKA stop gerrymandering) to even have a chance at getting shit done in the current political environment.

Serocco

Here are all of the transcripts so far. The most fascinating part is her take on healthcare. She, again, said she supported single payer, but initially tried to have "a universal system based on the employer option" because, after WW2, employer based insurance was how businesses tried to get more employees. She tried to work within that system.

She said "we were very much constricted by the political realities that if you had your insurance from your employer, you were reluctant to try anything else." Ultimately, her goal in the 90s was, and quote, "to build a universal system around the employer based system."

Towards the end, she mentioned how the ACA was a step in the right direction, but "people are still struggling," and that "we also have a lot of political and financial resistance to expanding that [Medicare] system to more people."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-wall-street-speeches-wikileaks_us_57f81ff8e4b068ecb5de8b08?section=&

BassFishing

Love the GOP response that women should be revered and respected as our precious wives and daughters. Who cares about crudeness, the nominee is bragging about assault. 

Serocco3

Also that Mike Pence is deeply misogynist himself.

glennmagusharvey

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15MudzswjU45efqvus21goEqtknbsfy9w2CLaWvOa_z0/htmlview?sle=true#gid=448790843

Courtesy of Klinotaxis via HH.

Serocco

Trump declares war on GOP. This is the decision of a dictator, not a president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/trump-debate-hypocrites-republicans-229408

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-declares-war-on-gop_us_57fa55e2e4b0e655eab528ef?8l6fktwcujhpk3xr

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/us/politics/presidential-debate.html

He's instructed loyalists to attack party leaders who criticize him. Starting with Paul Ryan getting booed by Storm Trumpers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-donald-trump-video_us_57f94b9be4b068ecb5df0099