Stare Decisis
Stare Decisis's JournalWhy I Am Hopeful
It comes down to this: "Pelosi: Making Asses Fear Her Feet Since 1940."
Watching Trump go up against Nancy will be like watching John Kruk against Randy Johnson in the 1993 All-Star game.
You Play Like a Girl
I remember back in high school playing basketball the other coach yelling that his point guard was playing like a girl. I had played with a distinct hitch in my shot for years before someone worked with me and straightened it out. That game we were licking our fingers of rib sauce-just dominating them. I walked over to the coach and said, "I am eating your team's lunch and it was a girl who taught me to shoot better. He just stared cluelessly.
Candria was her name. A very good player. Not "for a girl" just a very good player. She noticed I had good lift but misaligned elbows. She taught me the shoulder tuck to keep straight on my release. It made me a 40 percent shooter from behind the arc. I am reminded of it because at the gym recently some dad was saying the same garbage to his boy, emasculating him, and I stepped in and said that if he were playing like girls I know, he might actually be making his shots.
Even as a kid that term just hit wrong. My own dad was out of the picture, so whenever I heard "playing like a girl" what I really heard was "girls get to be secretaries, boys get to be CEO's." I was am still am resentful of how much harder it was for my Mom to advance in the workplace, and my wife, with a triple masters degree being treated as if she were common, while watching unqualified men run companies and nations into the ground.
Why am I writing this? In my heart of hearts, there are so many Democrats I love. Joe, Liz, Beto, Amy, the list goes on. But it is time America. It is time to send a woman to the White House. It is time to finish the destruction of the glass ceiling. I am proud to have "played like a girl" with the help of a young woman, and would be proud to vote for a woman so that this country can wrest free of the shackles of misogyny and ignorance.
If the primary proves the best person is a male, fine. But my preference for many reasons is a powerful woman. I think I am also tired of Beltway wisdom pushing the "Midwestern white male" theme. Look Senator Klobuchar is Midwestern. Educated. Completely qualified and capable. And there is no but, there is no "not bad for a girl," no equivocation. I think she would be a fantastic President and I have my eyes seriously focused on her potential candidacy.
I can still shoot. I was smart enough to listen to someone talented and self-improve. I use that same trait to vote.
And boy oh boy do we need to self improve. For the first time in years I want to hear the success of this nation personified by one sound:
Swish. And I think it will take a woman to straighten out our jumpshot.
How In The Blankety Blank Is This Possible?
Before a movie, (Holmes and Watson for the love of the good Lord or the spiritual guide of your choosing please, no) my Wife said an Ipsos poll showed that 47 percent of Americans blamed Trump for the shutdown, 33 percent Democrats, and 7 percent congressional Republicans. Overall the numbers continue to suggest a 55 Democratic percent majority in 2020, but how in the world, when Trump explicitly takes responsibility for it, on national TV, does less than 50 percent blame him for it? WHEN HE TOLD THEM TO BLAME HIM FOR IT?
How can a people this obtuse continue functioning as productive citizens? How do they tie their shoe laces?
BTW, H&W has me wondering if people who make wretched cinema should face some kind of suspension for offenses against mankind. This movie was beyond bad. It was something more transcendent than that. It was the kind of things that upon seeing, might make aliens get back on the ship and leave.
Anyways, (close rant.)
Who is Better Than Hill?
We have discussed Amy Klobuchar, who has more of a VP vibe to me in terms of charisma but could be a great administrator.
We have discussed Joe.
We have discussed Beto, Kamala, Hick, etc. .
We have discussed ad nauseum, Gillibrand and the anger towards her for Al. She does play better than most realize on TV. Although Al could run himself. Maybe he should. Why not? Why are we always apologizing over spilt milk when the other side lets a dairy spoil?
But the best person for this job is still a woman and her name is Hillary. I am not talking about electoral viability, or popularity. I am talking about down to business mess cleaning. The only other person close is Joe, but I am concerned about his role in the Bankruptcy reforms of the past.
I am not saying she is the most progressive, although she far exceeded even Barack in that vote category. I am not saying she is the best person to drink beer with. I am saying she can go in and fix a mess. A huge, ugly, embarrassing mess. We as Democrats have every right to pick and choose deliberately and intelligently, but she has every right to make her case. And if the biggest problem with re-nominating her is "selling her" to the electorate, that is an us problem, not a her problem. We run from anyone attacked by Faux News. (SEE AOC, for example.) Something to think about as we approach an election requiring a President who can do the job, not just look good while being in the job. I am not decided. I don't have to be. Let the process play out. I am just asking why Hillary shouldn't be able to play too?
On Senator Warren
1. She is an excellent an tireless asset to our party.
2. Not sure why it is so hard to believe a native Oklahoman has native American blood.
3. Not sure why it matters.
4. Do not like the trend of genetic testing. This whole Ancestry obsession dovetails troublingly with a larger rise in nativism.
5. I am a lot of things. Lost track in fact. Not sure why I should actually care beyond how to treat a disease or something.
6. If this keeps her from being able to run for President we suck as people.
7. If something this trivial causes someone to remove support, their never was support.
8. We need to defend each other against this garbage. I don't care what Republicans find themselves caught in, they defend each other. This benefits them. This is a strong woman being undermined by a stupid story and a complicit media. (Sound familiar)
9. If we want strong women we should do more than talk. We should act. We should go watch Ms. Claire Foy in her heroine film, we should applaud when Mila Kunis stands up to define herself and we need to stop a wingnut in their rhetorical tracks when one of our own are slandered.
10. Without exception.
11. I would be proud to have her as our President.
12. We should be so lucky.
Why I Turned On The Hate U Give
Spoilers-stop reading now if seeing this film is important. It wasn't the performances. It wasn't the rawness of subject. I am white, and what I saw was a sell out ending. I saw the bad guy in the neighborhood "get his" in the end because of "heroic" white cops.
So the cop gets off. That is real life. But wouldn't a much happier result be bad guy seeing some light? Or at least the viewer being given a shade of gray as to HIS desperation? A large point is that there IS NO economy to speak of in inner city black communities. This guy probably didn't want that kind of life-and the idea that the Father reformed is noble, but ultimately, trite. An all too black and white situation in a world filled with grays.
I think if you take that ending as anything other than seasoned for white taste buds you are deluding yourself, and that makes the conclusion a sell-out moment.
The fact is white people will walk out of the theatre thinking, "Bad black thug gets his, extraordinary black Dad prevails, order restored. This is garbage. The biggest problem in the black community is not any one criminal, it is so much more complicated than that, and my brain can't possibly speak cogently on it without at a minimum, years of continued study. Even still, a system designed to perpetuate and exploit poverty is to me, a bigger problem than a desperate kid turned kingpin for lack of better ideas.
My takeaway-"This white cop had his reasons." "He isn't a bad guy, anyways, he isn't like these good white cops who had the good sense to ONLY POINT a gun at a child." Writing this I am getting angrier. But I am in one of my moods. I am open to enlightenment as to what I am missing.
Where Are 10 Million Votes?
According to the U.S. Elections Project, http://www.electproject.org/2018g almost 117 million people voted in the midterm. The most up to date two-party total shows 105. Where are these votes?
Can someone update the most accurate two party totals?
On Congresswoman-Elect AOC
I do not know this woman, so I will not speak about her personally. The public image she is portraying in my view is one of large ego and self-importance, and my concern is that she will become the poster-child for the millennial stereotype, which like any stereotype is unfair and short-sighted.
My larger problem with her is that I believe she needs to at least see how this Congress handles business before she squawks about who needs to be primaried. Competition is fine, and many times, there is great benefit to a healthy exchange of viewpoints, but it seems she is the type to enjoy gratuitous confrontation and this worries me.
It is fine to take a breather and look around, learn, evolve, evaluate, and then opine. It is not a rejection of her willingness to lead. It is not a sexist thing, it is not a youth thing. It is a know the score before you call a play thing. It is a remain unified as much as possible thing. It is a family thing. Such strong pre-conceived notions make me worry she has antipathy towards Democrats and lacks perspective for me to trust her as one. It is a Tulsi thing. Which was a Bernie thing, which is a HE IS NOT a Democrat thing, and you get the picture..
The politics of ready, fire, aim at YOUR OWN party is not a platform, it is a political calamity in wait.
Leadership is not constantly talking.
It is constantly learning.
Anecdote-Voter Suppression and Why Party ID In Polling Means Doodley Squat
So my Wife and I move to AZ, in Tempe, and get our licenses and register and so forth. No problem. They ask me, REP, DEM, or IND. I pick DEM. Of course. Why wouldn't I? My Wife picks IND. Whaa? No worry, she is true blue, she tells me. She just doesn't want to get hassled voting. Pfft I say. Won't happen. Boy was my ass wrong.
Fast forward to Election Day, we go to vote. Wife hands over her Voter ID, poll worker looks at it, happily hands her a ballot. I show MY voter ID, granted, different worker, but he examines it, holds it to the light, asks to see further my DL, but not verbally, he just holds his hand out, turns out it has to be scanned. Then I am given a page. The page asks me to verify my address. i do. Then he asks me about past addresses, makes me redo the screen again, argues, and is generally harassing me in a way Wife is not.
Because my voter ID shows Dem. Brass tax of it is liberal moderate conservative is far more indicative of result than DEM, REP IND.
My Wife is a Democrat. However, due to her preference to not be harassed while voting, she doesn't tell anyone.
Note to self-want to neutralize innate white privilege? Tell an aged white man that you are a Democrat.
And then I think-what if I were a POC? And then I wonder how much we really should be winning by..
Here Is The Bottom Line On Nancy Pelosi
1. Were I a leader in a political party that was just catapulted into power on the strength of women, I would not advise to depose the most accomplished female political figure in our nation's history.
2. My Wife and I have healthcare right now because of Nancy Pelosi.
3. I don't care about the inside baseball of internal rank endorsements, and I wish Marcia Fudge would-
4. Leave race out of it.
5. This is why people like Cortez worry me-not because the right wing can propagandize them, but because radicalized rhetoric can split a party.
6. As an aside I am no Cortez fan. There is something Tulsi-ish about her.
7. Nancy has fought the wars, Nancy has won battles, (see above) she has what it takes to take down the GOP, to lead our party, and if need be by order of succession, our nation.
8. New leadership for talking point's sake is how you end up in the minority again.
9. Nancy is like the Beatles-while she gets older her "music" never dates.
10. The right wing will use their propaganda outlets to weaponize any speaker. Jesus Christ, D, TX-23 would become evil to a shrinking, gullible, rapidly irrelevant base of deplorable people so don't cater to them.
11. If the other side says it is a good idea, don't do it.
12. Like Senator Harris she has a brilliant way of making asses afraid of her foot. I like that. We have healthcare because of that. She can be our Speaker as long as she wants as far as I am concerned.
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Member since: Fri Sep 28, 2018, 05:01 AMNumber of posts: 229
