A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
PAGE 448 of 725
They still need Bernie because they still need the black mask wearing terrorist millennials he represents. Maybe now more than ever. They're not going to go around burning down the streets if they don't still think that Biden* is their guy. Well... They're always burning shit down, but it won't be in the name of Democrats if Trump ends up winning this thing if they preemptively shut down Bernie and AOC before the inauguration.
They'll throw Bernie completely under the bus once Biden* is safely in the President's chair.
There's no room for them in the Establishment either.
What have you done today to earn your place in this crowded world? :)
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250 million on strike in India. Police violence in France and Germany.
And this. People are rising up.
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The libertarian vs. populist trade-off in the 2020 election and beyond
The Democratic ‘brand’ is ‘socially liberal, economically moderate,’ while the US electorate as a whole is socially moderate and economically progressive.
While Biden and Democratic congressional candidates did relatively well with the “libertarian” vote (socially liberal but economically conservative), they did poorly with the “populist” vote (economically progressive but socially conservative).
Biden got about 93% of the economically and culturally progressive vote. (Democratic congressional candidates got 91%.)
The problem for Democrats is that the “populist” vote is more than 3x as large as the “libertarian” vote.
The upside is that Democrats could enact a thoroughly progressive economic agenda and then receive more “populist” votes. But it’s certainly fair to ask, what the downside would be of having more “populists” voting Democrat.
Start with the idea that “social issues” of the “populist” vote in most cases really are seen as “moral issues” by most people, and that’s why it is so difficult to find a compromise on them.
For example, 38 States allow 17 year olds to get married; of those 27 allow 16 year olds to be married. In 9 of those States a person over 21 years old can marry a person age 17 or even 16.
Suppose one of those married couples – say a man aged 64 and a teenage girl age 16 – moved into your State. Into your neighborhood.
Under the “full faith and credit” clause of the US Constitution, your State would have to recognize that marriage. It is a very open question to say the least whether your State’s laws criminalizing sex between those two persons could be enforced.
How does that “social issue” look to you?
Suppose you are the proverbial baker, who is a proprietor of your own business. If that couple wanted you to bake a cake for their first anniversary, do you think you should be able to lawfully refuse?
How does that “social issue” look to you?
The point I am trying to make in the above hypothetical situation is that the situation looks very different when it is *your* moral code that is being infringed upon.
More at https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-libertarian-vs-populist-trade
-off.html
https://navigatorresearch.org/navigating-coronavirus-test/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:It's abundantly clear that you have no idea what college is like. All you know is what your anti-intellectual cult leaders tell you on reichwing media.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I could sign up for a a welding course right now, if I wanted to throw $12,000 plus gear and materials at it.
Will I get to do that for free too? Or it's not free unless I have to subject myself to 4 years of "professors" telling me why I'm a terrible person because of my skin color and genitalia?
Yanno.... REAL education?
You know less than nothing.
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A Guy Named Adolf Hitler Just Won An Election In Namibia—And People Are Understandably Weirded Out
https://www.comicsands.com/namibia-adolf-hitler-uunona-elected-2649235
098.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=GTAK&utm_source=George+Takei+Newsletters&utm_campaign=b4e910ea14-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_06_29_05_08_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2e6b4c049b-b4e910ea14-304174341
"As a child I saw it as a totally normal name. It wasn't until I was growing up that I realized this man wanted to subjugate the whole world. I have nothing to do with any of these things."
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Anything that helps anyone is communism, unless it's tax breaks for the rich.
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The case for Congress bringing back Earmarks.
Americans have a terrible habit of finding ways to feel better about the problems we face without actually fixing the issues — often causing entirely new problems.
We still remove our shoes as we go through airport security almost two decades after the Shoe Bomber failed to take down an airplane, which remains part of the security theater that has been playacted since 9/11. Despite the science now saying Covid-19 is transmitted more often through contact with someone not wearing a mask than contact with surfaces, businesses are still making a huge deal about how often they're wiping down every surface.
Congress has been performing a kind of anti-corruption theater for the last decade. The stereotype of legislators living fat and large in Washington helped inspire lawmakers to curtail their spending habits. But the result has been a breakdown in the legislative branch, putting partisan politics first and hindering effective laws from being passed.
Part of the fix has to be to bring back the much-derided earmarks process. Since the early days of the republic, members of Congress have added targeted provisions to appropriations bills to bring money back to their districts. That has included setting aside federal funds for basic infrastructure projects like highway repair and ensuring that defense projects are spun up in their states, and it was briefly exemplified by Congress' nearly spending $400 million on the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska before public outcry got the funds stripped.
Republicans ended earmarks as a practice in 2011 as part of their tea party-fueled takeover of the House. Senate Democrats followed suit about a month later, over Majority Leader Harry Reid's objections. Even President Barack Obama was against them, threatening during his State of the Union that year to veto any bill with earmarks.
It's easy to see why this was considered good politics at the time. Republicans had spent the previous 30 years railing against big government, and the antiestablishment sentiments of the day made so-called pork barrel spending a prime target. But ending earmarks has had second-order effects beyond the arguments made by anti-corruption and waste reduction crusaders.
In practice, the ban on earmarks took away a key tool to get lawmakers to vote for bills.
No longer would wavering lawmakers be offered something the people of their districts would be able to see — for example, new funding for firefighters or hospitals built in areas where most have closed. Instead, committee chairs and party leaders have to rely on personal relationships and party loyalty — two currencies that speak less loudly than cold, hard cash.
John Boehner, the newly minted speaker of the House in 2011, learned as much during the debt limit fight that his recently arrived Tea Party Caucus members had sparked. Boehner soon realized that without earmarks, he had few carrots to dangle before his rebellious caucus. "It's not like the old days," Boehner said that year. "Without earmarks to offer, it's hard to herd the cats." Boehner's successor as speaker, Paul Ryan, had similarly little success in dragging his party into agreement on new measures.
More at www.msnbc.com/opinion/congress-has-forgotten-how-spend-money-earmarks-
can-help-n1250179
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:Quote:It's abundantly clear that you have no idea what college is like. All you know is what your anti-intellectual cult leaders tell you on reichwing media.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I could sign up for a a welding course right now, if I wanted to throw $12,000 plus gear and materials at it.
Will I get to do that for free too? Or it's not free unless I have to subject myself to 4 years of "professors" telling me why I'm a terrible person because of my skin color and genitalia?
Yanno.... REAL education?
You know less than nothing.
Wrong, once again.
I did go to college. Even at the community college the "professor" in our American Government class spent half the time he "taught" telling us that Republicans were evil and why we should always vote Democrat.
They weren't doing the Gender/Race bullshit back in the late 90's, but there's zero doubt that they're doing it now.
What have you done today to earn your place in this crowded world? :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
250 million on strike in India. Police violence in France and Germany.
And this. People are rising up.
Yup. People have just about had it with the lockdowns.
What have you done today to earn your place in this crowded world? :)
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With a pandemic and economic crisis waiting for the president-elect, some observers have wondered whether Joe Biden could be a modern-day Franklin D. Roosevelt. The more apt comparison may be to Abraham Lincoln.
Ray Dalio, manager of the world’s largest hedge fund, believes that we are at a dangerous crossroads, bringing to mind some of the challenges Lincoln confronted—most centrally, an opposition party that refused to accept the results of a free and fair election.
I don’t expect Biden to face, as Lincoln did, an armed attempt to dissolve the Union. But there are troubling similarities—a nation that has been bitterly divided for decades and a national party that refuses to accept the legitimacy of presidential election results with its leaders encouraging violence as a response.
Trump claims the election was rigged and has asked state legislators to overturn the result. Trump ally Michael Flynn, recently pardoned by the president, has called for martial law and a new election supervised by the military. Trump lawyer Joe DiGenova called for the execution of former cybersecurity official Chris Krebs, and Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz declared that “nothing is off the table” when it comes to Republicans in Congress considering an attempt to refuse to accept certified election results from the states. The Arizona state Republican Party suggested supporters should consider putting their lives on the line to keep Trump in power.
These extraordinary circumstances have profound implications for Americans. The United States is at a tipping point in which it could go from manageable internal tension to revolution and/or civil war.
As Lincoln recognized nearly 160 years ago, the nation’s path forward once again depends on the party that lost a presidential election playing by the rules of American democracy and rejecting extralegal efforts to upend the system. That means finding a way to work with Republicans—to extend an invitation (to those who are willing to reciprocate) that they have a place in the constitutional system, not as bitter enemies but as fellow Americans.
The challenge for Biden is stark and it is clear: can he help lead the United States back from the brink? He cannot do this alone: from the outset of his presidency, he will almost certainly need at least some support from Republicans in Congress, and ultimately, if the Republican Party doesn’t pull away from the abyss, the danger will persist.
What does this mean, in tangible terms? Biden must reach out to congressional Republicans—not the majority who will be largely unreachable, but the few who have already made clear they recognize the grave danger the country faces. Mitt Romney is the obvious best option—he recently described Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results as the most undemocratic thing a sitting president could do.
Biden and Democrats must make a pitch to Romney aimed at persuading him to put country over party in refusing to vote in lockstep with the Republican caucus.
What would the pitch be? It depends, to an extent, on the results of the two U.S. Senate elections in Georgia early next month. If Republicans win one or both races and retain their majority in the Senate, Biden will have to ask Romney and perhaps one other Republican to provide the votes needed to ensure Biden’s presidency can get off the ground by confirming cabinet secretaries and other nominees while appropriating money to keep the government running and avoid a shutdown (an issue that will come to a head well before Jan. 20).
If Democrats win both of the Georgia runoff elections (hardly a sure thing) then, in theory, Biden could move ahead without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate. But, unless the Republican Party changes direction and recommits to U.S. democracy, the dangers will not recede. Biden would still need to reach out to Romney and any other like-minded Republicans who are receptive to talking about specific ways to shore up liberal democracy.
Offer something in return
Of course, Biden would have to
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