June 18, 2016

When Trump, Fox News and McCaul start referring to Robert Dear as a radical Christian who is part of

a movement that promotes violence because it opposes the freedoms which America represents, I will stop suspecting bigotry of those who want to disparage Islam based on the acts of terrorists and who criticize President Obama for disfavoring the scapegoaters preferred term "radical Islam."

ISIS is Islamic in the exact same was the IRA was Catholic. It is true that the members of the IRA were Catholic, and it is true many members of the IRA justified their terroristic acts on religious grounds, but to call the IRA "a radical branch of Catholicism" is only something a complete fucking moron would do. This same reasoning applies to ISIS. Donald Trump and Republican House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mike McCaul are fucking morons. We should be smarter than that.

June 14, 2016

Wasserman Schultz May Be Dems' Odd Woman Out

Wasserman Schultz May Be Dems' Odd Woman Out:

When RealClearPolitics talked to current and former lawmakers and Capitol Hill staffers about the leadership styles of Clinton, Pelosi, and Wasserman Schultz, the response often heard was: Just concentrate on Clinton and Pelosi. ... That Wasserman Schultz is controversial isn’t new but the complaints have reached a new level, leading to questions about her future. ... Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer ... volunteered: “I don’t know what Debbie is going to do. You have to ask her.” ... But the chatter is growing as to whether she will make it to the end of her term.

 
“She has no friends in the White House, she has no friends on the Hill. Her own staff at the DNC overwhelming despises her,” said a Democratic strategist who knows Wasserman Schultz. “And she’s oblivious to it all.”

June 6, 2016

Scott Adams (Dilbert): "Her new scare tactics are solid-gold persuasion"

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, My Endorsement for President of the United States:

I’ll start by reminding readers that my politics don’t align with any of the candidates. ...This past week we saw Clinton pair the idea of President Trump with nuclear disaster, racism, Hitler, the Holocaust, and whatever else makes you tremble in fear.

That is good persuasion if you can pull it off because fear is a strong motivator. ... Her new scare tactics are solid-gold persuasion. ... The only downside I can see to the new approach is that it is likely to trigger a race war in the United States. And I would be a top-ten assassination target in that scenario because once you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms. (I’m called an “apologist” on Twitter, or sometimes just Joseph Goebbels).

If Clinton successfully pairs Trump with Hitler in your mind – as she is doing – and loses anyway, about a quarter of the country will think it is morally justified to assassinate their own leader. I too would feel that way if an actual Hitler came to power in this country. I would join the resistance and try to take out the Hitler-like leader. You should do the same. No one wants an actual President Hitler..... Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. ... As I have often said, I have no psychic powers and I don’t know which candidate would be the best president. But I do know which outcome is most likely to get me killed by my fellow citizens. ...My prediction remains that Trump will win in a landslide based on his superior persuasion skills. But don’t blame me for anything President Trump does in office because I endorse Clinton.

June 4, 2016

Hillary's been late to the party on LGBTQ equality, late to the party on regrets about her Iraq War

vote, late to the party on $15 minimum wage, late to the party on TPP and NAFTA, late to the party on a humanistic view of immigration, etc.

Supporters of someone who's been late to the party so often shouldn't be the ones to issue threats about party unity.

June 3, 2016

Reid Exploring Election Law In Case Warren Tapped To Be VP

Source: KNPR (Nevada Public Radio)


The Boston Globe reports Reid, who previously stated his opposition to having vice presidential candidates coming from states with Republican governors lest they be replaced by a Republican appointee, has looked specifically at ways for Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker – a Republican – to not be able to appoint a successor to Warren should she be selected.

The newspaper notes Reid has not explored election law in other states where such a scenario could play out, like New Jersey or Ohio.

Read more: http://knpr.org/headline/2016-06/reid-exploring-election-law-case-warren-tapped-be-vp

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I'd hate to lose Warren in the Senate, but Warren might literally be the only VP who could unite and excite the party at this point. I want to remain a full-ballot Democrat so I hope this is true. Without someone to unite and excite, we're gonna lose a lot more than one seat in the Senate.

June 3, 2016

If you are disinclined to support Hillary, what are your reasons? Here are my Top Ten:

1. She is pushing establishment status quo when the people desperately want change.

2. Her domestic policy is wishy-washy Third Way compromise when people want a leader to push for more government action on minimum wage, single payer health care, free public education, family leave and child care.

3. Her foreign policy is hawkish neocon when people want a less interventionist foreign policy than Obama's and not more forced regime change followed by nation building where we interfered.

4. Her economic policy favors neoliberal trade agreements when the people see that these agreements have been unfairly detrimental to US labor and encourage job flight.

5. Her private email server may not be criminal but it is an unrepentant and deliberate disregard of the FOIA which is a key progressive guarantee of governmental transparency and accountability.

6. Her friendly attitude toward drilling, fracking, and pipelines values the fossil fuel industry over the environment when the people's values put the environment and climate change over industry.

7. She is mistrusted on Wall Street and banking regulation because of her history, her sponsorship, and her hiding of the speech transcripts where she blamed consumers for the financial collapse caused by financial sector greed.

8. People who love democracy don't like dynasties, regardless of whether they are Bush dynasties or Clinton dynasties.

9. She stands with private prisons, the death penalty, and marijuana criminalization when people want reform and decriminalization.

10. Her inability to unite the party, her history of flip flopping and being caught in lies, her FBI investigation and stonewalling, her weak-as-dishwater campaign, the widely held perception that the supposedly neutral DNC bent over backwards to crown her, and her extreme unpopularity with independents and young Democrats all come together to make her a historically weak candidate against Trump.

June 2, 2016

GMOs are bad for biodiversity, bad for non-corporate farming, bad for the public's right to natural

produce which is not owned by a monopolistic corporation.

Ignore the puff pieces posted by curiously pro-GMO apologists; here is some real research about the impact of GMOs on independent farms:

Liability for Damage Caused by GMOs: An Economic Perspective

Genetically Modified Organisms: Who Should Pay the Price for Pollen Drift Contamination?

Seeds of Dispute: Intellectual-Property Rights and Agricultural Biodiversity

Remembering the “Big Five”: Hawaii's Constitutional Obligation to Regulate the Genetic Engineering Industry

 

May 30, 2016

For the overwhelming majority of us who don't live in Ohio or Florida, how EXACTLY does voting our

conscious help Trump win?

How is voting our conscience ever throwing our vote away? Voting for a candidate who we don't trust and who disparages our values is more of a throw-away vote in a non-battleground state.

If you believe otherwise, feel free to persuade me. I'm not unpersuadeable.

May 30, 2016

I vote for values and not based on labels. My vote can still be earned.

The Democratic Party is fractured differently this cycle.

In 2008, the split between Hillary and Obama was a bit more personal (meaner) but less ideological (Obama held few political views that seemed anathema to Hillary supporters).

Likewise, in 2004, there were some ideological divisions early in the campaign (thanks to Dennis Kucinich and, on a few issues, Howard Dean), but by March there were no raging policy divisions separating the main contenders.

Neither Kerry nor Obama faced an ideological schism.

This time, there is an ideological split. This split is as wide as the Gore-Nader division, but Sanders isn't going to mount a third-party challenge and, while I anticipate Jill Stein will surprise with a perfomance that will shock many, she won't approach Naders' level of success.

So we have a fracture, but it is not beyond fixing.

Hillary needs to show leadership if she is going to fix this fracture, and Trump will beat a fractured Democratic Party if she fails.

Hillary should embrace populist rules and DNC leadership reform and a decidedly progressive platform at the convention rather than resisting them, she should pick a liberal running mate and actively solicit Sanders' input on the decision, and she should offer whatever compromises at the convention she must to get the Sanders-led movement behind the campaign to take the Senate back and reinvested in the Democratic Party which so many feel has left them.

It is not too late to fix this, but it will not be easy, and it will take leadership unlike any we have seen so far.

May 28, 2016

Hillary will be mentioned in the history books right after Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin and

right before the first woman president (Warren 2020!).