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PoliGAF 2017 |OT1| From Russia with Love

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Blader

Member
WHY SAY YOU HAVEN'T CALLED RUSSIA IN 10 YEARS.

So obviously he was trying to say, I have nothing to do with Russia, but because he's A Stupid, he put some ridiculous date on it which he came up with on the top of his head that can be easily fact checked.

BECAUSE YOU HOSTED MISS UNIVERSE THERE IN RUSSIA IN 2013. THEREFORE YOU CALLED RUSSIA, I WOULD HOPE.

Also, he called Putin like 3-4 weeks ago.
 
http://www.startribune.com/new-dnc-...n-the-face-of-the-democratic-party/414821354/

ATLANTA – Rep. Keith Ellison was willing to give up his U.S. House seat to become the Democratic Party's national leader — a political gamble that the six-term congressman lost over the weekend.

Ellison fell short of the votes needed to run the Democratic National Committee in a contest here Saturday. The job went to former Obama Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who immediately appointed Ellison as his deputy.

In an interview Sunday, Perez said he had big plans for Ellison as his deputy, including letting him run point on the party's grass-roots organizing efforts.

Perez also noted he wanted to make Ellison the "face of the Democratic Party."

Perez underscored Ellison's importance to the party's future. "We have to make sure we turn these moments into a movement. We have to make sure Democrats are conspicuously helping in all of these emerging activities, and I'm hard-pressed to think of someone better suited to help lead that effort," he said.

"He's such an eloquent spokesperson," Perez added. "We need many faces of the Democratic Party and so I think we're incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to create the synergies that together allows us to do what we need to do."
 
For a press secretary who just boxed out news organizations and asked officials with clear conflicts to downplay media stories, this is way too civil of a press briefing.
 

Slacker

Member
For a press secretary who just boxed out news organizations and asked officials with clear conflicts to downplay media stories, this is way too civil of a press briefing.

I want someone to ask him if he checked his staffers' phones.

Edit: Well, kinda just happened. MSNBC asks "Is there an internal leak inquiry going on now?" Spicer said "Not that I'm aware of."
 
Interesting article on how Ellison blew a 3-1 lead

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...he-dnc-race/?tid=sm_tw&utm_term=.c0923b771e26

DNC members were not ready to reject the Obama legacy. The basic critique of Bruenig et al is right: The leadership of the Democratic Party, nationally and in most states, has resisted acknowledging the failures of the Obama years. Brazile opened the first of the party's four “future forums” by telling Democrats that the DNC “failed you” in 2016 and “got cocky about our invincible blue wall.”

Perez closed the ideological gap in the party, and Ellison let him. In late 2004, when Howard Dean entered the race to run the DNC, some Democratic leaders put forward a candidate of their own — former congressman Tim Roemer of Indiana, a centrist who had served on the 9/11 Commission. It was a debacle, with progressives picking over Roemer's spotty record on abortion rights and Social Security. The candidate quit within weeks.

As this year's “establishment” candidate, Perez posed almost no ideological challenge to Ellison or Sanders voters, or the party platform they had helped to write. (Ellison served on the 2016 platform committee.) He broke with them on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, as a member of the Obama administration, he supported. But when he did so, he always posited TPP as an improvement on deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he'd opposed.

A persistent smear campaign cost Ellison votes. In November and December, when it seemed that Ellison was on a glide path to victory, conservative websites and some Jewish groups went after him for his criticism of Israel's policy toward Palestinians and his defense of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. By Dec. 15, when Perez actually entered the race, Ellison had already apologized.

The Berniecrats haven't taken over yet. Perez saw an opening to run in December because, after a month as a declared candidate, Ellison was seen to have just one-sixth of the DNC behind him. But as state parties elected new members this year, Ellison's numbers ticked up. It happened most dramatically in Kansas, where, on the day of the DNC vote, two new pro-Ellison members were winning office and trying to get proxy votes for him back in Atlanta.
 
I trust Perez to do at the very least a much better job than anyone since Dean

At the very least the old Clinton guard is pretty much gone and now it's the Obama coalition and Bernie wing
 

Wilsongt

Member
National Review chiming in on healthcare.

I won't link, but here's the article title "
No, Obamacare Has Not Saved American Lives"

Ah well. That bubble conservatives live in is made of kryptonite.
 
National Review chiming in on healthcare.

I won't link, but here's the article title "
No, Obamacare Has Not Saved American Lives"

Ah well. That bubble conservatives live in is made of kryptonite.
It's quite rare for headlines that are deliberately exaggerating to try to push home an ideological point to also be factually inaccurate.
 

Tall4Life

Member
The DNC chair/deputy position may not be that important now, but I feel like these two COULD. Getting more outreach by actually using your position could be really good for the party
 
Like 80% of the Republican platform is screaming about abortion and guns. There's an enormous number of single issue gun voters. Take that away and suddenly they can maybe start hearing the rest of our message.

Despite me thinking gun control is a good idea, I've been thinking this for a while. There aren't a lot of people who vote with control control as their number one issue on the pro side, but plenty on the con side.
 
I trust Perez to do at the very least a much better job than anyone since Dean

At the very least the old Clinton guard is pretty much gone and now it's the Obama coalition and Bernie wing
I trust that the Bernie wing won't turn to hating Obama's coalition because... Oh who am I kidding, there's going to be that part who will continue to yell at a perceived enemy of "the establishment" despite Perez literally going out of his way to build a bridge(making Ellison the face, giving Ellison Deputy Chair role, etc)
Kids these days siding with a youtuber over the woman who created Harry Potter? The youth... ugh
One has created an enduring legacy for millions of Children/Adults to enjoy, while the other made rape jokes non-stop because "teh edge"
 
I trust that the Bernie wing won't turn to hating Obama's coalition because... Oh who am I kidding, there's going to be that part who will continue to yell at a perceived enemy of "the establishment" despite Perez literally going out of his way to build a bridge(making Ellison the face, giving Ellison Deputy Chair role, etc)

The same Obama "establishment" that pushed Tom Perriello to primary the Lt.Gov in the VA race!
 
Despite me thinking gun control is a good idea, I've been thinking this for a while. There aren't a lot of people who vote with control control as their number one issue on the pro side, but plenty on the con side.
Even absent conservatives, there's a good number of the WWC Democrats who aren't one-issue on it but diverge from the party mainstream on it.

Of course, I've heard they're a cancer we must cut off, but I think it would just be better if Democrats focused on more productive policies. All of the gun control stuff we run on anyways are just milquetoast measures that won't really affect anything, we'd have to actually try and take their guns to achieve anything meaningful here.
 

kirblar

Member
This is what I mean when I say this thread is much more like Corbyn than they want to admit. You both bat for different ideologies, yes. But at the end of the day, neither you nor he is interested in understanding why your parties are losing voters that were once enormously important components of the party's support. The fact you're dogmatists for the liberal technocracy doesn't stop you being dogmatists.
Fuck "Labour." Fuck being a "worker's party." These things no longer fucking apply in 2017. They are relics of a past that (white) far-leftys cling to. Those people betrayed us here in the US in 1980 and they haven't stopped twisting the knife.

Evolve. Move forward. Embrace change. The left is now becoming the party of cities and suburbs. And that's ok.
 
Even absent conservatives, there's a good number of the WWC Democrats who aren't one-issue on it but diverge from the party mainstream on it.

Of course, I've heard they're a cancer we must cut off, but I think it would just be better if Democrats focused on more productive policies. All of the gun control stuff we run on anyways are just milquetoast measures that won't really affect anything, we'd have to actually try and take their guns to achieve anything meaningful here.

I agree with you on this and think beyond background checks, things like assault rifle bans arent particularly useful (most gun deaths are from handguns, if I'm not wrong).

But just like blue color union workers in rural areas love their guns, people in urban and suburban areas don't particularly like them. The question is of course: who do you abandon in this circumstance? Because you will have to choose one (unless you're like Heitkamp or Manchin).
 

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
I agree with you on this and think beyond background checks, things like assault rifle bans arent particularly useful (most gun deaths are from handguns, if I'm not wrong).

But just like blue color union workers in rural areas love their guns, people in urban and suburban areas don't particularly like them. The question is of course: who do you abandon in this circumstance? Because you will have to choose one (unless you're like Heitkamp or Manchin).

Part of the problem is that many of the proposals put forward by the Democrats would have been patently useless for actual gun control (see: assault weapons ban, etc). If we could talk about guns intelligently, I suspect we would be able to convert a lot of those voters. (See Kander in MO). When it comes to guns - I always like to point to this post.

https://www.popehat.com/2015/12/07/talking-productively-about-guns/
 
I agree with you on this and think beyond background checks, things like assault rifle bans arent particularly useful (most gun deaths are from handguns, if I'm not wrong).

But just like blue color union workers in rural areas love their guns, people in urban and suburban areas don't particularly like them. The question is of course: who do you abandon in this circumstance? Because you will have to choose one (unless you're like Heitkamp or Manchin).
I mean just stop talking about them probably. I know it's just a stupid GOP talking point that they don't take seriously because they're snakes but investing in mental healthcare and investing in impoverished communities would probably do more to end gun violence than the milquetoast measures that we're supporting. Plus, with more minorities (I think black voters care more about this than any other Dem constituency?) owning guns in the wake of Trump it might not even have the same level of demand.
 

kirblar

Member
The party of losing electoral coalitions? I'm all for evolving, but that looks like extinction.
Yes, how horrible it is to get the majority of votes in the Presidential election and in House races across the country.

The margins of loss this time were tiny, and 2018 will show US politics doing its reactionary thing yet again.
 
Part of the problem is that many of the proposals put forward by the Democrats would have been patently useless for actual gun control (see: assault weapons ban, etc). If we could talk about guns intelligently, I suspect we would be able to convert a lot of those voters. (See Kander in MO). When it comes to guns - I always like to point to this post.

https://www.popehat.com/2015/12/07/talking-productively-about-guns/

Kander had credibility about guns, which is easily the most important thing. But he still got an F from the NRA, which is a big deal to a lot of people! They're one of the most powerful interest groups in the country.

But not everyone can put together an assault rifle blindfolded. If every Democrat could do that, we would have strong majorities.

I mean just stop talking about them probably. I know it's just a stupid GOP talking point that they don't take seriously because they're snakes but investing in mental healthcare and investing in impoverished communities would probably do more to end gun violence than the milquetoast measures that we're supporting. Plus, with more minorities (I think black voters care more about this than any other Dem constituency?) owning guns in the wake of Trump it might not even have the same level of demand.

But there are substantial parts of the base - arguably the core of the base - that WANT the Democratic Party to talk about guns (especially after mass shootings!). That is the problem. You are assuming you can stop talking about them in order to appeal to the WWC without getting any kind of backlash from other demographics. That's not going to happen.
 
This is what I mean when I say this thread is much more like Corbyn than they want to admit. You both bat for different ideologies, yes. But at the end of the day, neither you nor he is interested in understanding why your parties are losing voters that were once enormously important components of the party's support. The fact you're dogmatists for the liberal technocracy doesn't stop you being dogmatists.

LMAO, no.

Many of know what we did wrong. And have noched actual victories since trump won (labor secretary, DE special election, ACA repeal queasiness).
 

kirblar

Member
I was 16 when Gore/Bush happened. This election is a dark twisted mirror of it. These things are cyclical. Dems will surge in '18/'20. And hopefully be able to actually unfuck the gerrymandering.
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto
Breaking: Pres. Trump signed off on surprise check of WH staffers' phones in effort to plug leaks - reports @jeffzeleny
 
Kander had credibility about guns, which is easily the most important thing. But he still got an F from the NRA, which is a big deal to a lot of people! They're one of the most powerful interest groups in the country.

But not everyone can put together an assault rifle blindfolded. If every Democrat could do that, we would have strong majorities.



But there are substantial parts of the base - arguably the core of the base - that WANT the Democratic Party to talk about guns (especially after mass shootings!). That is the problem. You are assuming you can stop talking about them in order to appeal to the WWC without getting any kind of backlash from other demographics. That's not going to happen.
Maybe I'm wrong and it's impossible, but just try to talk about solving the causes of gun violence (often mental illness, as suicide is the biggest form of gun-related deaths by a large margin) and then actually act on it. The GOP does it to deflect, but the Democrats could actually work to do something they can point at as working to stop it.
 

Cybit

FGC Waterboy
Yes, how horrible it is to get the majority of votes in the Presidential election and in House races across the country.

The margins of loss this time were tiny, and 2018 will show US politics doing its reactionary thing yet again.

The larger issue with your plan is that it requires a Trump like figure always running for President on the GOP side. If...Nikki Haley runs in 2024; all those suburbanites who have been on the GOP side for decades will come back to the GOP, and you'll find yourself being a party of only cities. One of the fallacies that always happens after an election is assuming that every candidate that runs will be exactly like the previous candidates. A non-Trump candidate is also very likely to have a much smaller margin of victory for union households.

Trying to evolve the entire Democratic party towards just cities and suburbs (who generally have diametrically opposed policy goals and desires) is a dangerously short-sighted and overcompensating maneuver that will inevitably backfire. Just like the Obama coalition, assuming the Trump coalition is sustainable post-Trump is a bad, bad idea.

Also, that Perez thread...holy crap they're still going?

EDIT: From the popehat link

If we had the "reasonable gun control" I keep hearing about, what guns would be limited? I'm arguably not a complete idiot, but I can't figure it out. I hear "nobody wants to take away all your guns" a lot — which seems demonstrably false — but what guns do gun-control advocates want to take away, or restrict? Most of the time I don't know and I suspect that the advocates don't know either.

That's because there's a terminology gap. Many people advocating for gun control mangle and misuse descriptive words about guns. No doubt some of them are being deliberately ambiguous, but I think most people just haven't educated themselves on the meaning of a relatively small array of terms. That's how you get a debate framed around gibberish like "multi-automatic round weapons" and the like. You get people using "semi-automatic" and "automatic" without knowing what they mean, and you get the term "assault weapon" thrown about as if it means more than whatever we choose to make it mean, which it does not.

If you don't understand these terms already, why should you care? You should care because when you misuse them, you signal substantially broader gun restrictions than you may actually be advocating. So, for instance, if you have no idea what semi-automatic means, but you've heard it and it sounds scary, and you assume that it means some kind of machine gun, so you argue semi-automatics should be restricted, you've just conveyed that most modern handguns (save for revolvers) should be restricted, even if that's not what you meant.

It's hard to grasp the reaction of someone who understands gun terminology to someone who doesn't. So imagine we're going through one of our periodic moral panics over dogs and I'm trying to persuade you that there should be restrictions on, say, Rottweilers.

Me: I don't want to take away dog owners' rights. But we need to do something about Rottweilers.
You: So what do you propose?
Me: I just think that there should be some sort of training or restrictions on owning an attack dog.
You: Wait. What's an "attack dog?"
Me: You know what I mean. Like military dogs.
You: Huh? Rottweilers aren't military dogs. In fact "military dogs" isn't a thing. You mean like German Shepherds?
Me: Don't be ridiculous. Nobody's trying to take away your German Shepherds. But civilians shouldn't own fighting dogs.
You: I have no idea what dogs you're talking about now.
Me: You're being both picky and obtuse. You know I mean hounds.
You: What the fuck.
Me: OK, maybe not actually ::air quotes:: hounds ::air quotes::. Maybe I have the terminology wrong. I'm not obsessed with vicious dogs like you. But we can identify kinds of dogs that civilians just don't need to own.
You: Can we?

Because I'm just talking out of my ass, the impression I convey is that I want to ban some arbitrary, uninformed category of dogs that I can't articulate. Are you comfortable that my rule is going to be drawn in a principled, informed, narrow way?

So. If you'd like to persuade people to accept some sort of restrictions on guns, consider educating yourself so you understand the terminology that you're using. And if you're reacting to someone suggesting gun restrictions, and they seem to suggest something nonsensical, consider a polite question of clarification about terminology.

Last night the President of the United States — the President of the United States — suggested that people should be deprived of Second Amendment rights if the government, using secret criteria, in a secret process using secret facts, puts them onto a list that is almost entirely free of due process or judicial review. Because we're afraid, because they could be dangerous was his only justification; he didn't engage the due process issue at all. But he was merely sauntering down a smooth, comfortable, well-lit road paved by most Republicans and Democrats before him since the rise of "tough on crime" rhetoric and especially since 9/11. The President — and other Democrats — may hope that Americans will trust progressives not to overreach in restricting rights. That hope is patently misplaced; Democrats and mainstream progressives haven't been worth a squirt of hot piss on due process or criminal justice rights for more than a generation. In the Great War on Terror and the Great War on Drugs, they're like Bill Murray in Stripes: mildly counter-cultural and occasionally a little mouthy but enthusiastically using the same weapons in the same fight against the same perceived enemy.

And Republicans! Don't get me started. You can't sneer at constitutional rights for a decade and a half and then expect them to be a credible shield when you abruptly decide they matter again. With few exceptions, Republicans arguing about Second Amendment rights resemble a kid becoming a sudden rules-lawyer halfway through a game of Calvinball.
 

kirblar

Member
The larger issue with your plan is that it requires a Trump like figure always running for President on the GOP side. If...Nikki Haley runs in 2024; all those suburbanites who have been on the GOP side for decades will come back to the GOP, and you'll find yourself being a party of only cities. One of the fallacies that always happens after an election is assuming that every candidate that runs will be exactly like the previous candidates. A non-Trump candidate is also very likely to have a much smaller margin of victory for union households.

Trying to evolve the entire Democratic party towards just cities and suburbs (who generally have diametrically opposed policy goals and desires) is a dangerously short-sighted and overcompensating maneuver that will inevitably backfire. Just like the Obama coalition, assuming the Trump coalition is sustainable post-Trump is a bad, bad idea.

Also, that Perez thread...holy crap they're still going?
That's just it- it's not my "plan", its reality. Voters are stupid and short-sighted and blame the President for everything. Young people who come of age in good times are coddled and spoiled and think "both times are the same."

It's not about having a plan, its about seeing the greater cycle, and in that vein, Hillary Clinton losing could turn out to be for the best, given how incompetent Trump is at actually passing legislation.

The problem is that white identity politics have taken over rural areas and there's no way of taking them back until those politics no longer do anything for them.
 
I was very disappointed when Obama cosigned Feinstein's idiotic "assault weapon"/ammo ban. It's hard to win an issue when you aren't being honest about the problem, and don't understand the issue. Until democrats figure that out they need to drop the issue, IMO.

One of the few democrats who I've heard discuss the issue intelligently is Cory Booker, ironically. Targeting straw purchases and gun trafficking would be far more effective than fear mongering over a specific type of gun.
 
LMAO, no.

Many of know what we did wrong. And have noched actual victories since trump won (labor secretary, DE special election, ACA repeal queasiness).
Stopping Pudzer wasn't really a victory of the left's own making, he got stopped because he was too friendly to immigration for some on the right.

We put all of our energy into stopping DeVos but I barely heard anything about Pudzer.
 

Wilsongt

Member
Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto
Breaking: Pres. Trump signed off on surprise check of WH staffers' phones in effort to plug leaks - reports @jeffzeleny

If Trump and his team were actually intelligent, they would have a scheme going where they made sure certain staffers get only certain bits of information. Depending in what info gets leak, they'd be able to pin point who is leaking.
 
Maybe I'm wrong and it's impossible, but just try to talk about solving the causes of gun violence (often mental illness, as suicide is the biggest form of gun-related deaths by a large margin) and then actually act on it. The GOP does it to deflect, but the Democrats could actually work to do something they can point at as working to stop it.

It's not impossible, but it's certainly harder than just stopping talking about guns. It is made extra hard by the fact that the NRA opposes literally anything aimed at curbing guns in this country. The Republicans just got rid of that law that stopped people with mental illnesses from buying guns, right? How do you fight something like that when one of the most powerful interest groups in the country is against you?

As long as people in rural, urban, and suburban Americans all live in their own bubble, the gun issue will continue to be divisive. Until rural Americans can see and understand why people in urban/suburban areas don't like/are worried about guns, they will continue to oppose gun control. And until urban/suburban Americans can see and understand why people in rural areas like guns, they will continue to want gun control.

Because let's be real - if you don't know anything about guns, seeing someone with an AR-15 is scary and you wonder why they even need it in the first place. And that's the case for many people in urban and suburban areas.
 

kirblar

Member
Stopping Pudzer wasn't really a victory of the left's own making, he got stopped because he was too friendly to immigration for some on the right.

We put all of our energy into stopping DeVos but I barely heard anything about Pudzer.
Please. He got stopped because enough dirt got dug up on him to torpedo the nom. It would have been a PR disaster that made Betsy look like smooth sailing.
If Trump and his team were actually intelligent, they would have a scheme going where they made sure certain staffers get only certain bits of information. Depending in what info gets leak, they'd be able to pin point who is leaking.
Like Trump could ever pay attention to Game of Thrones long enough to get to that episode.
 
This is what I mean when I say this thread is much more like Corbyn than they want to admit. You both bat for different ideologies, yes. But at the end of the day, neither you nor he is interested in understanding why your parties are losing voters that were once enormously important components of the party's support. The fact you're dogmatists for the liberal technocracy doesn't stop you being dogmatists.

This flawless drag. Damn, King.


I am hopefully about Tom trying to include Keith as much as he is intending to. With the Clinton ways gone, unity can be better achieved between the Obama and Bernie camp.

I doubt Clinton´s people will remain quiet, though.
 
If Trump and his team were actually intelligent, they would have a scheme going where they made sure certain staffers get only certain bits of information. Depending in what info gets leak, they'd be able to pin point who is leaking.

"Donald, you were the only person we told that Elmer Fudd was a person of interest in the Burlington, Vermont terrorist attack."
 
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