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PoliGAF 2017 |OT2| Well, maybe McMaster isn't a traitor.

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M

Mac_Lane

Member
Don't know whether it was already posted, but the Economist next issue's cover is bloody brillant :

C8QUS3UXcAEG4Cj.jpg:large
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
This simultaneous attempt by Spicer to make Farkas super relevant while also saying he has no idea how she's relevant.
 
S

Soroc

Member
Dan said:
This simultaneous attempt by Spicer to make Farkas super relevant while also saying he has no idea how she's relevant.
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I think I missed a story in the flurry of bullshit that is released daily. What is this story with Farkas that Spicey was referring to?
 
A

Arkeband

Banned
Spicer conveniently forgetting the entire headline that the investigation involves both Russia and the Trump camp.

"Was it? I don't know lol!"
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
S

Soroc

Member
J

JP_

Banned
Not sure if you guys saw, someone is challenging Cruz's seat. Beto O'Rourke, congressman from El Paso. I might show up to his meet and greet in Dallas tonight.
 
M

Maxim726X

Member
JP_ said:
Not sure if you guys saw, someone is challenging Cruz's seat. Beto O'Rourke, congressman from El Paso. I might show up to his meet and greet in Dallas tonight.
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Yeah, there's a Politico article about it...

I mean, that's a real long-shot. Like, almost impossible as it stands now. But hopefully his campaign can make some noise.
 
O

Ogodei

Member
Maxim726X said:
Yeah, there's a Politico article about it...

I mean, that's a real long-shot. Like, almost impossible as it stands now. But hopefully his campaign can make some noise.
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Nobody likes Ted Cruz except his own base, is the problem and the opportunity. Texas evangelicals praise him (literally, since they think he was chosen by God to be President one day), but he has no allies who would help bail him out of a real pickle, and Trump could very well try to primary him.

It's possible in a wave election with 2 more years of Texas demographic change from 2016. I agree it's a longshot overall.
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
pigeon said:
I mean, I think you're the one who doesn't want to have a real conversation. I actually didn't say that Manchin was a white nationalist, specifically to avoid the fight over definitions that immediately results when people want to defend their moral choice. I specified that he voted for Sessions, which is just factual. Maybe the problem is just that you're not reading my posts and attributing stuff to me I'm not saying.
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No, I was even having a real conversation with Box of Kittens! You just aren't making actual points like he is though; he's talking about voting records and actual legislation, you're talking about comparing him to Hitler.

On that note, yes, you are calling him a white nationalist. If someone asked me whether I should hire you for a job (and in fact, this is what voting is), and I respond with "Would you give Hitler a job?" then I'm calling you a Nazi, albeit indirectly.

The comparison to Steve King was an intentionally absurd comparison to make a specific point, which indeed came up later: if your argument is that Manchin is fine because you think he can be whipped on a few key votes (not related to race) and will vote for Schumer to run the chamber...that applies to absolutely anybody willing to call themselves a Democrat. By that argument, yes, Steve King should be fine.
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I actually don't even think Manchin would be voting entirely against us socially anyway. So if a hypothetical crime reform bill comes up, I think we could get his vote (maybe not as easily as Harris's vote, but I think we could get it). As opposed to gay marriage as he says he is, he doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. Same for abortion, where his record seems to put him on our side with Planned Parenthood. These are the stances you take to win in these states; if you want to win the governor's mansion in MS, you don't say "I think gay marriage is beautiful and abortions are a woman's choice" you say "gay marriage is the law of the land and so is Roe v. Wade, so I'm going to focus on things I can do legally to help Mississippians." and then you just pass the same shit the rest of us would.

I think I have more exposure to double-talking Democrats in red states so maybe I'm giving Manchin a benefit of the doubt that he shouldn't get, but I know tons of Democrats who over a beer talk about how happy they are to see gay people get married, and then go sober to political events where they talk about how it's sad that our country isn't following God (some of them don't even believe in God!) but it's done and we should move on.

Now I agree that nobody actually thinks King would be fine as a Dem. The comparison is absurd. But the reason people don't think King is fine as a Dem is that the argument they keep putting forward -- all that matters about Manchin is that he's a vote in the chamber -- is not really what they think. It matters to them that King has a repulsive ideology. And it should!

So there's an ideological barrier as well as a voting one. When people say that Manchin is fine they just mean they don't think Manchin's ideology is too extreme for the Democratic Party. That's the topic we should actually be discussing about Manchin, not truisms about how votes are good and West Virginia is racist.
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Sure, but now we're just talking about a person's ideology based on a meaningless confirmation vote, which doesn't seem like a long enough list to even discuss. Point to the votes where his actions had an effect on people; if he got a bill passed that hurt minority groups, I'm all ears. If he cast the sole Dem vote for a bill that sucked but wasn't going to pass, I'm not swayed.

Eh, like I said, I think Manchin loses anyway. If there's any state where Dems are fucked in the age of Trump, it's WV. So no. Contrariwise, if Manchin doesn't lose his primary but still loses his seat, are you planning to admit that I was right all along and that compromising with racism was a dumb idea?
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Yeah, if he loses his seat, it was a waste of our time.

Now you've dodged my question; if he gets primaried and the person who replaces him blows it (especially if we've got polling for that race that says Manchin would've won), will you try to never complain about losing bills over a single vote? Because if that happens, you would certainly take some (in my opinion, fair) licks from me if I see you complaining when you supported losing the seat.
 
B

BlastProcessing

Member
Box of Kittens said:
Or that we'd lose Ted Kennedy's seat?

For the record, I'd be shocked if we took down Cruz.
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The most likely way I see Cruz going down is if GOP donors get tired enough of his shit to back a Primary challenger. Win or lose, that fight could cause enough division to maybe create a little daylight for a Democratic challenger.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Tom Price Intervened on Rule That Would Hurt Drug Profits, the Same Day He Acquired Drug Stock
On the same day the stockbroker for then-Georgia Congressman Tom Price bought him up to $90,000 of stock in six pharmaceutical companies last year, Price arranged to call a top U.S. health official, seeking to scuttle a controversial rule that could have hurt the firms’ profits and driven down their share prices, records obtained by ProPublica show.

...

On March 17, 2016, Price’s broker purchased shares worth between $1,000 and $15,000 each in Eli Lilly, Amgen, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, McKesson, Pfizer and Biogen. Previous reports have noted that, a month later, Price was among lawmakers from both parties who signed onto a bill that would have blocked a rule proposed by the Obama administration, which was intended to remove the incentive for doctors to prescribe expensive drugs that don’t necessarily improve patient outcomes.

What hasn’t been previously known is Price’s personal appeal to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services about the rule, called the Medicare Part B Drug Payment Model.

The same day as the stock trade, Price’s legislative aide, Carla DiBlasio, emailed health officials to follow up on a request she had made to set up a call with Patrick Conway, the agency’s chief medical officer. In her earlier emails, DiBlasio said the call would focus on payments for joint replacement procedures. But that day, she mentioned a new issue.

“Chairman Price may briefly bring up ... his concerns about the new Part B drug demo, as well,” she wrote. “Congressman Price really appreciates the opportunity to have an open conversation with Dr. Conway, so we really appreciate you keeping the lines of communication open.”

The call was scheduled for the following week, according to the emails.
Click to expand...
 
P

pigeon

Banned
AntraxSuicide said:
No, I was even having a real conversation with Box of Kittens! You just aren't making actual points like he is though; he's talking about voting records and actual legislation, you're talking about comparing him to Hitler.

On that note, yes, you are calling him a white nationalist. If someone asked me whether I should hire you for a job (and in fact, this is what voting is), and I respond with "Would you give Hitler a job?" then I'm calling you a Nazi, albeit indirectly.
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As I said explicitly in my response, that wasn't the point of my comparison. If you are not going to read my posts that will definitely make it hard for us to have a conversation.

AntraxSuicide said:
Sure, but now we're just talking about a person's ideology based on a meaningless confirmation vote, which doesn't seem like a long enough list to even discuss. Point to the votes where his actions had an effect on people; if he got a bill passed that hurt minority groups, I'm all ears. If he cast the sole Dem vote for a bill that sucked but wasn't going to pass, I'm not swayed.
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"Meaningless" and "meaningful" are just more ideological judgements. Nobody disagrees that meaningless votes are meaningless. We just disagree over which ones are meaningless. You don't think it mattered to cast a vote for a white supremacist because he was going to get confirmed anyway and you don't value the party showing a united front against white supremacy. I do, so I think the vote was meaningful.

Similarly, I totally disagree on your question of casting a single Dem vote. There's a big difference between a GOP-driven national voter ID bill that goes down and a "bipartisan" national voter ID bill that fails. Just ask Mitch McConnell how much bipartisanship matters. There are some votes I think are important and meaningful even if they don't necessarily make a bill pass.

AntraxSuicide said:
Yeah, if he loses his seat, it was a waste of our time.
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No. It wasn't a waste of time. It was a deliberate moral compromise with white supremacy, for electoral gain, that failed to produce that electoral gain. The two are meaningfully distinct!

AntraxSuicide said:
Now you've dodged my question; if he gets primaried and the person who replaces him blows it (especially if we've got polling for that race that says Manchin would've won), will you try to never complain about losing bills over a single vote? Because if that happens, you would certainly take some (in my opinion, fair) licks from me if I see you complaining when you supported losing the seat.
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I didn't dodge it. I explicitly answered it in the portion of my post you quoted. Since I don't believe Manchin is guaranteed to win, it would not make sense for me to make decisions that assume he was guaranteed to win. Frankly I think this specific situation is pretty unlikely in any case, but the prior on Manchin's chance of victory is still relevant.

If you think he's guaranteed to win you should convince me of that. If polling comes out that makes it look like Manchin is a shoo-in I'll certainly take that into account.
 
C

Carpe Libertatem

Member
pigeon said:
If you think he's guaranteed to win you should convince me of that. If polling comes out that makes it look like Manchin is a shoo-in I'll certainly take that into account.
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Polling from November had him above 50% against four different Republicans, above 55% against 3 (generic R beats generic D by 8% in same poll)

Need to wait for more polling for sure, but that's a pretty good sign.
 
B

Box of Kittens

Banned
Blader said:
Democrats losing seats in midterm elections is not that weird. A Democrat winning a Senate race in Texas is pretty fucking weird... right up until the moment it happens, of course!
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I would amend that to "Democrats losing seats in midterm elections with a Democratic president is not that weird," though of course that describes 2010. Still, Massachusetts hadn't elected a Republican Senator since 1972. Ted Kennedy easily survived the 1994 Republican Revolution (against a familiar face).
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
pigeon said:
As I said explicitly in my response, that wasn't the point of my comparison. If you are not going to read my posts that will definitely make it hard for us to have a conversation.
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I know what your intent was, but the intent doesn't change the action, only how much credit I give you for the gaffe. In my previous example, if I compare you to Hitler, my point doesn't really matter much (I guess outside of a joke or something). There's a wide range from Manchin to King that makes the point look silly.

As for your point, I also pointed out that if FDR rose from the grave next year and challenged a Republican for a Senate seat, I assume you'd be opposed to it. The guy was actually worse than Sessions in that as far as I know, Sessions hasn't thrown an entire ethnic group in camps (yet).

"Meaningless" and "meaningful" are just more ideological judgements. Nobody disagrees that meaningless votes are meaningless. We just disagree over which ones are meaningless. You don't think it mattered to cast a vote for a white supremacist because he was going to get confirmed anyway and you don't value the party showing a united front against white supremacy. I do, so I think the vote was meaningful.
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I don't find this compelling. The only upside apparently would be "showing a united front?" Why does Manchin's vote affect anyone other than his own constituents? You have to argue that it does. My current position is that "united front" is as valuable as sharing political memes on Facebook or retweeting something.

Similarly, I totally disagree on your question of casting a single Dem vote. There's a big difference between a GOP-driven national voter ID bill that goes down and a "bipartisan" national voter ID bill that fails. Just ask Mitch McConnell how much bipartisanship matters. There are some votes I think are important and meaningful even if they don't necessarily make a bill pass.
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Again, I find it hard to believe that anyone could even claim such a bill would be "bipartisan" with one red state Dem voting for it. And if a bill doesn't pass, as long as it's a bad bill, then I don't care. It's all just ammo to me, not a philosophic point. I'll think about the philosophy behind a person's pointless votes after I see the Medicaid expansion.

No. It wasn't a waste of time. It was a deliberate moral compromise with white supremacy, for electoral gain, that failed to produce that electoral gain. The two are meaningfully distinct!
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I thought Manchin wasn't a white supremacist? How is compromising on running Manchin a compromise with white supremacy?

I didn't dodge it. I explicitly answered it in the portion of my post you quoted. Since I don't believe Manchin is guaranteed to win, it would not make sense for me to make decisions that assume he was guaranteed to win. Frankly I think this specific situation is pretty unlikely in any case, but the prior on Manchin's chance of victory is still relevant.

If you think he's guaranteed to win you should convince me of that. If polling comes out that makes it look like Manchin is a shoo-in I'll certainly take that into account.
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Polling was posted already, and I'll point out that Manchin has won that Senate seat twice now, including one race during the Tea Party wave. The last race he ran there in 2012 he won by 24 points over his opponent. If Manchin can't win his seat, then I really don't think we even have a party outside of CA. The seat should be considered safe, outside of "fundamentals" where obviously WV is super red.
 
P

pigeon

Banned
AntraxSuicide said:
I know what your intent was, but the intent doesn't change the action, only how much credit I give you for the gaffe.
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Yes, I agree that the problem here is that many posters decided to extend very little credit or good faith to my posts, and that led to them misunderstanding me.

I have a theory as to why, but we might differ on that!

AntraxSuicide said:
As for your point, I also pointed out that if FDR rose from the grave next year and challenged a Republican for a Senate seat, I assume you'd be opposed to it.
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Sure? FDR's coalition was pretty racist. In general any politician that would've been successful in the 1930s I would oppose today. We passed the Civil Rights Act since then.

AntraxSuicide said:
I don't find this compelling. The only upside apparently would be "showing a united front?" Why does Manchin's vote affect anyone other than his own constituents? You have to argue that it does. My current position is that "united front" is as valuable as sharing political memes on Facebook or retweeting something.

Again, I find it hard to believe that anyone could even claim such a bill would be "bipartisan" with one red state Dem voting for it. And if a bill doesn't pass, as long as it's a bad bill, then I don't care. It's all just ammo to me, not a philosophic point. I'll think about the philosophy behind a person's pointless votes after I see the Medicaid expansion.
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The argument's been made in the thread multiple times, you just don't find it compelling. I think it would be good for the Democratic Party's platform to be "we oppose white supremacy in all its forms" rather then "we oppose white supremacy except for Dem senators in red states, they support it sometimes and we're fine with that."

I definitely understand the desire by many people to sacrifice the moral commitment to opposing white supremacy in order to get electoral success. I just can't condone it.

Frankly, I think if you really think people wouldn't say the bill is bipartisan if one red state Democrat voted for it, then maybe you should read a little bit about modern politics before continuing the discussion. Again, there's plenty of direct evidence about this. McConnell didn't come up with his strategy of unified opposition out of his hat. He knew it would increase national approval of Obama's policies if they were perceived as receiving bipartisan support.

AntraxSuicide said:
I thought Manchin wasn't a white supremacist? How is compromising on running Manchin a compromise with white supremacy?
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Manchin supports white supremacy. That's bad.

AntraxSuicide said:
Polling was posted already, and I'll point out that Manchin has won that Senate seat twice now, including one race during the Tea Party wave. The last race he ran there in 2012 he won by 24 points over his opponent. If Manchin can't win his seat, then I really don't think we even have a party outside of CA. The seat should be considered safe, outside of "fundamentals" where obviously WV is super red.
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Partisan sorting has become much more aggressive in the last few years, especially post-Trump. As I have noted previously, no senator won in 2016 where their top of ticket lost. West Virginia is a specific state that's full of the exact type of voter that migrated from Dems to Republicans this last year. Manchin is probably in the top three most vulnerable senators in 2018, alongside Heitkamp and McCaskill.

Manchin may have polled well in November, but there's two more years to go, and plenty of tough votes to take, which his Trump-supporting constituency is going to want him to back. As others have noted, he wouldn't even commit to voting for Schumer for majority leader. We'll see what things look like in 2018.
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
pigeon said:
Yes, I agree that the problem here is that many posters decided to extend very little credit or good faith to my posts, and that led to them misunderstanding me.

I have a theory as to why,
Click to expand...


Frankly, I think if you really think people wouldn't say the bill is bipartisan if one red state Democrat voted for it, then maybe you should read a little bit about modern politics before continuing the discussion.
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Yeah, I'm good.
 
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