***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[dwalk31]

The concern for due process just oozes out of this post.

I guess Trump should do better about the cases he chooses to pursue in court.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ired-it/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c71fcdd4ed3f

Trump is losing so much in court that allies are getting tired of it



Or, what happens when policy positions are based on fairy tales.

It would be interesting to know the level of court rulings are being lost. The Ninth Circuit is notoriously liberal. And they are overturned. The vast majority of the rulings are not from the Supreme Court I suspect.

 

[noskey]

As honored as I am that you are willing to substitute my reasoning for that of the learned Court, I will defer to them.

You must have graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Patches O'Houlihan School of Law. Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge any questions that require you take a stance in a debate.

 

[dwalk31]

You must have graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Patches O'Houlihan School of Law. Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge any questions that require you take a stance in a debate.

I have taken a stance on many topics in here. Abortion, immigration, tax reform, reparations, and due process to name a few. I do appreciate the alliteration.

 

[lightweight champion]

 

[IATT]

 

[Based Jesus]

 

[noskey]

I have taken a stance on many topics in here. Abortion, immigration, tax reform, reparations, and due process to name a few. I do appreciate the alliteration.

Going to keep ducking questions? I just want to know your position on the court ruling it's okay to hold suspects without providing a trial. Doesn't sound very due process to me.

 

[dwalk31]

Going to keep ducking questions? I just want to know your position on the court ruling it's okay to hold suspects without providing a trial. Doesn't sound very due process to me.

I think the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution correctly. Not sure how much more directly I can respond.

 

[noskey]

I think the Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution correctly. Not sure how much more directly I can respond.

Cool, marking "Yes" on "Is Withholding Deportation Hearing Dates and Forcing Unpaid Labor from Immigrants Okay?" for the DWalk scorecard.

Due process doesn't matter though, right?

 

[IATT]

 

[Belgium]

Here's George Conway's May 31 2017 letter in which he declined Trump's job offer at the DOJ, which Trump lied about obviously.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/george-conway-s-letter-to-trump/?utm_term=.bcfef1ba631a

 

[deuce king]

It is nice reading through this thread without someone asking how old someone may be, and what they may do for a living.
Elsewhere in the world...
People are not abiding by this no contact rule while dealing with these idiots out here, and it is good to see.

Justice served. The ancestors are proud.

 

[dwalk31]

Cool, marking "Yes" on "Is Withholding Deportation Hearing Dates and Forcing Unpaid Labor from Immigrants Okay?" for the DWalk scorecard.

Due process doesn't matter though, right?

Your issue, as I see it, is with Congress. And I have stated, consistently, that the solution is comprehensive immigration reform by Congress.

The blame is improperly placed on the executive branch (that enforces the laws) and the judicial branch (that interprets the laws).

 

[Belgium]

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/03/20/us/politics/ap-us-pentagon-boeing.html
Pentagon to Probe if Shanahan Used Office to Help Boeing
The Pentagon's inspector general says it will investigate a watchdog group's allegations that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has used his office to promote his former employer, Boeing Co.

Dwrena K. Allen, spokeswoman for the inspector general, said Wednesday that Shanahan has been informed of the investigation.

A Washington, D.C., watchdog group filed an ethics complaint with the Pentagon's inspector general a week ago. The complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleges that Shanahan has appeared to make statements promoting Boeing and disparaging competitors, such as Lockheed Martin.

Shanahan told a Senate committee last week that he supports an investigation.

 

[-Red-]

Facts, upon Fax, upon facsimile B. The young Turks and their constant bashing of candidates not named Prime Time is dumb. Bernard got washed by Hills but this Bernie was ROBBED narrative deserves a verbal and literal left hook to the jaw. Bernard out here making excuses for racists. Him peddling that economic anxiety nonsense for Trump voters is ridiculous and he keeps doing it.

Racism is abhorrent. There is obviously no question about this. Some people who hold racist views are certainly beyond redemption. But we also must remember that racism is historical. It's not a force of nature, as Ta-Nehisi Coates paints it, nor is it an innate, unchanging and unchangeable trait. It is an ideology that arises within particular sociohistorical circumstances as a way for people to make sense of the world and their experiences in it. It is always a problematic and despicable ideology, but it's a historical one, and thus one that's amendable to change.

Something like 8 million people voted for Obama in 2012 and then for Trump in 2016. That's roughly 10 percent of all Obama voters. How do we explain this? How can their voting for Trump be evidence of their racism yet their voting for Obama not be evidence of their non-racism? What other factors were at play here? Even if racist and xenophobic appeals ultimately won those voters over for Trump, that itself doesn't mean those folks couldn't be won over by appeals to other things—by alternative explanations for the world and their experiences.

Historian Barbara Jeanne Fields made this point during the 2016 primaries (from this podcast: https://beta.prx.org/stories/172948)

"We have a white working population that, by and large, expected to be taken care of—to be treated fairly—as long as they abided by the rules. And they have felt let down—with good reason. Not just over the years since the crash, but in general in the years, probably going back as far as the 1970s, but certainly from the '80s, they're watching their situation deteriorate. It's been true also for black working people, and if anything to a more intense degree. The difference is that black people never expected fairness. And so they don't react to unfairness in the same way. You know, you don't see them going after Donald Trump. It's not the lashing out or the looking for a scapegoat that is what you have when you have removed the possibility of a serious politics to address grievances coming out of inequality, such as we have where white people are concerned. They don't have a language for talking about why they are angry and why they feel aggrieved, except a language of racism or a language of 'Let's go after the Muslims,' or 'Immigrants have taken away our this, that, and the other.' And that's because they can't frame it in terms of a class grievance to do with inequality because we don't have that language available. And for me it's heartening that Bernie Sanders is speaking that language. And it does seem that there are white working people listening to it and responding to it, because they haven't heard anybody else taking seriously the deterioration that they notice in their own circumstances. To me, that is a favorable thing for black and white people."​

I would encourage everyone to read this seminal article from Fields. One of the most insightful pieces of scholarship I've ever read: "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America." http://t.studythepast.com/4333_spring12/materials/fields slavery race and ideology.pdf

 

[IATT]

 

[elpablo21]

Just saw that Mccain quote

Dog...wut

 

[IATT]

Just saw that Mccain quote

Dog...wut

dwalk31

 

[stuntman mike]

 

[AEA18]

The Onion in real life

 

[frink85]

Straight up the onion headline there

At first I thought it was like a funny interpretation or twist, but damn

 

[aepps20]

Well said. Da Maverick owes our President Elect an apology.

 

[-Red-]

Jill Stein voters are suckas. If someone tells be they can’t vote for Hillary out of principle then votes for Jill Stein, then I have every right to hold Stein to the same standards people hold Hillary too. Jill Stein is not some pure leftist empty vessel that people could just use to protest a crooked system, ole girl looked crooked herself. And to the fact she clearly didn’t know a damn thing about economics, and practically just jumping on whatever social movement she could find in place of thinking deeply about social policy. And to further prove she is a scammer, where is that recount money? People could have chosen to leave the presidential part blank on the ballot, but instead they chose to endorse a finesser, so it is fair game to point out the short comings of the person they proudly voted for.

-There is a difference between pulling the starters half way through the 4th because you are down by 20, and pulling them in 3 minutes into the 3rd because you were down by 50. Bernie had no clear path to victory in 2016 well before Hillary had not path in 2008. Hillary was stubborn, Bernie delusional. Hillary got more votes than Obama in 2008. She got over 3.7 million more than Bernie in 2016. Let us not try to act like 2016 was as close as 2008.

Hillary acted like a complete *** in 2008, imo Bernie acted like a bigger one in 2016. And even if you disagree, fine, and what to use 2008 Hillary to defend 2016 Bernie, fine. But I refuse to believe that 2016 was just like 2008.

-Furthermore, I am not buying he moved Hillary left by saying in. On what issue did he do that? Can’t be foreign policy because Bernie had none beyond saying he will do exactly what Obama is doing but magically get better results than Obama; Hillary remained relatively hawkish. Can’t be social policy because again, Bernie had little of that beyond playing catch up to Hillary. Hillary never moved on her healthcare stance, and she attacked Bernie from the left because he didn’t even know what caused the financial crisis beyond “banks are bad, break them up”. Bernie changed the rhetoric of the primary when at the beginning on the primary because there was no solid centrist in the race, Hillary always had to watch her left flank. So, the rhetoric of the primary made it seem Bernie was somehow turning Hillary into a progressive, when she was going to suggest the same policy proposals all along in the areas Bernie harped on the most.

-Furthermore, beyond Clinton, the entire party was drifting left it was not some phenomena driven just by Bernie. If the plan was of keep the Obama coalition, the only way forward was keeping move left just like Obama did from 2008 to 2012. So on aggregate, I am not thankful to Sanders for when it comes to 2015-2016. The only thing that a Clinton win would have saved me from is the asinine and hypocritical identity politics debate Bernie inflamed after the election.

-And seriously, I have no issue with the Bernie Bros categorization because these people exist, and I have seen it firsthand. I live in Nevada, I went to the caucus and Hillary won it, I voted for Bernie but whatever, those are the breaks. Bernie supporters in return chose to mob the Clark County convention to steal delegates for Bernie when some Hillary people didn’t show up, they succeeded. Then they tried their buffoonery at the Nevada Convention and got shut down. In response Bernie, his supporters in the media, his supporters online, and supporters on NT saw the real issues was how rudely they were treated by the “establishment”. Bernie supporters are not being held to a higher standard, they are being held to the same standard as everyone else, but they get upset when they things don’t go their way and people push back on their nonsense.

-It kind of undercuts your argument of wanting a serious policy debate by saying you are cool with the Bernie supporting media. The same cult personality they accuse Beto of being, they are doing it with Bernie. CNN is ****, so somehow it excuses their ****iness. They are not making the case for Bernie on policy or principle. They are just making reaches and hypocritical arguments. You think that it balances the scales, cool, but it doesn’t move forward a healthy policy debate. Let any other major candidate bring up the obvious about Bernie’s plans that @osh kosh bosh did, and none of responding articles will be addressing those real economic concerns. It will be more blah, blah, blah centrist, blah, blah, blah, neoliberal, blah, blah, blah, bought by corporations.

I think our views on Stein, her voters, and the Hillary/Obama and Bernie/Hillary issues are a matter of degree. We can agree to disagree on the matter of degree (no dwalk).

I disagree that Bernie had no effect on the trajectory of the policy conversation in the 2016 election (or since then, for that matter). To suggest otherwise defies all logic and observable reality to me. I don't mean by any stretch to give Bernie sole credit for what you call the leftward "drift" of the Democratic Party, but to act as if hasn't played an integral part in that seems

My point about the Bernie Bros narrative isn't that some of these people don't exist and that some of their behavior/positions aren't problematic. It's that it's a relatively very small (if vocal) cadre of his supporters. My problem is that people often paint all Sanders supporters in that light, or at least act like the Bernie Bros contingent constitutes the majority of his supporters. These are serious mischaracterizations. That's what I'm taking issue with.

I don't know what "Bernie supporting media" you're referring to. I'm not for a cult of personality for anyone. Wherever that exists for Bernie, I'm against it, just as I am for every other candidate. But I don't agree with the characterization that articles or pundits advocating Medicare for All or whatever other policy that would represent a substantive shift in the current social order/political economy represent a cult of personality, reaches, or hypocritical arguments. Of course some watered down *** version of whatever left-wing policy is more "realistic," because it's more incremental and compatible with our current highly stratified and inequitable status quo. That obviously doesn't make it "better" or "preferable." These arguments just expose the conditions that make the more humane policies less realistic and less possible that need to be dealt with. Another element of this is moving the policy discussion in a direction that makes the shifts required to make those policies more possible. If we're not talking about big ideas to transform society, how are we ever going to do it? How are we ever going to get people to even imagine it, much less organize and mobilize around it?

 

[IATT]

Well said. Da Maverick owes our President Elect an apology.

 

[elpablo21]