March 31, 2017

A simple solution for Trump to end the Russian scandal

Trump should ask Congress to pass legislation making Putin a US citizen retroactive to the election. Then under Citizen's United, Putin would be well within his rights to legally manipulate the election to his heart's content, as many right wing billionaires and PACs are wont to do.

February 17, 2017

Perez and Ellison are actually friends. Make them co-chairs of the DNC

The DNC should be smart about this and in the interests of unity name both Perez and Ellison ch-chairs of the Party. Perez seems to have the backing of the some key people of the last administration, like Biden while Ellison has the backing of key people like Sanders and Schumer. Both candidates are progressives and want to shake up the Democratic party. Both have made valid criticisms of the last election and have specific plans for what they would improve. Since they like each other, they can split up the job duties and work as a team. The best effects of this would be to help heal the rift created within the party by the last election campaign.

February 13, 2017

The Daily 202: DNC chair candidates say Clinton lost because she talked too much about Trump

Source: Washington Post

With Breanne Deppisch

THE BIG IDEA:
BALTIMORE Every leading contender to take over the Democratic National Committee believes Hillary Clinton focused too much on attacking Donald Trump at the expense of articulating an affirmative case for holding the White House. During their final showdown before the chairmans election in Atlanta on Feb. 25, there was consensus that the partys problems derive mainly from subpar organization and communication not anything fundamental.

We forgot to talk to people, said Tom Perez, who was secretary of labor until last month and a finalist to be Clintons running mate last summer. Im a big believer in data analytics, but data analytics cannot supplant good old fashioned door knocking. We didnt communicate our values to people. When Donald Trump says, Im going to bring the coal jobs back, we know thats a lie. But people understand that he feels their pain. And our response was: Vote for us because hes crazy. Ill stipulate to that, but thats not a message.
.....
Buttigiegs goal is to be the second choice for as many Perez and Ellison supporters as possible. But his diagnosis of what went wrong in 2016 sounds a lot like Perezs. We spent so much time talking about the politicians, like thats what really matters, he said. I was guilty of it. I had a button when we were campaigning for Hillary that said Im with her. It was all about her. Then when we realized who the opponent was going to be, it was all about him. We said, Im against him because he is terrible. He is terrible. But the people at home were saying, Who is talking to me? Who is talking about me? Everything we talk about has to be explained in terms of how it directly touches peoples actual lives.
..........
While many of you know that Im openly gay, many of you dont know that I come from the lowest of the white working class, he[Ray Buckley] added later. We ran hundreds of millions of dollars of commercials telling the voters that, Oh, our opponent if offensive. When youre worried about your damn paycheck, about your job, about where youre going to live and if your kids are going to go to school, you dont really give a crap if the president is insulting. The reality is we didnt have a positive message for anyone Im related to. We didnt offer a message to my neighbors. We didnt offer a message to the people in Indiana or Ohio or Pennsylvania or Kentucky.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/02/13/daily-202-dnc-chair-candidates-say-clinton-lost-because-she-talked-too-much-about-trump/58a1023ee9b69b1406c75cac/?utm_term=.37f0144bb3d4

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This is an expansion of the story in
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?comview_post&forum1014&pid1699043
which only discusses one DNC candidate, Buckley. They probably should be merged.

The author in this article discusses how all the DNC chair candidates have made the same point about the last election and how the Democrats need to take back power by promoting traditional Democratic values over everything else.

February 1, 2017

What "Draining the Swamp" really means courtesy of the Twilight Zone's "To Serve Man"

In the classic Twilight Zone, "To Serve Man," an eponymous book provided by generous aliens who had gifted mankind new technology to prevent illness, etc, when translated is actually a cookbook.

Similarly to most people "Draining the Swamp" meant removing corporate leaders, old style politicians, corruption, and bureaucrats from power. But in reality, Trump meant removing from government Democrats and non-partisan bureaucrats/experts/scientists, especially those with moral fiber as can be evidenced by the recent firings of the ICE director and Attorney General. Draining the Swamp is really a euphemism for removing Trump opponents from power.

January 29, 2017

Trump is showing signs of being an amazingly effective President

at transforming his agenda into reality. The thing is that many of his changes are destructive and will be irreversible. It's much more difficult to construct new legislation than it is to take it apart: the ACA comes to mind as well as Trump selling off public lands, or removing federal funding from PBS. Once they are gone, it will be difficult to recreate them, because legislation that creates something new usually requires 60 votes in the Senate-- the great wall of Trump being the exception that proves the rule.

January 2, 2017

In retrospect, the strongest argument that should have been made against electing Trump

beyond his obvious unpresidential qualities was the rubber stamping of the conservative agenda the GOP had planned-- especially against the safety net-- Medicare etc. The GOP had made very clear what they were planning. So few ads really emphasized this idea (some did), even though elected Democrats knew what could come if Trump won. Even Democratic Senate and House candidates probably did not publicize this enough as perhaps the key reason to reduce rather than add to GOP power. But the public, outside of politically active partisans, basically had very little idea what was coming-- and now they are in for a surprise.