This is the third Netroots Nation that I’ve attended. The first two (2007 and 2008) were happy and hopeful, this one seems sad. There is a palpable sense that the middle-class is being destroyed in no small part by unelected judges and central bankers, and that it isn’t clear what we can do about it, at least in the short term.
So I can’t bring myself to get angry at the fire-baggers, not even those who write things like “Thanks to Obama, American Left Lies in Smoldering Wreckage“, or to sneer too much at the wonky young bucks, even if they hang out with pink himalayan salt-eaters. The former pour their hearts into the cause, and the latter make solid, substantive arguments in favor of pro-middle-class economic policies. We all agree — liberals of every stripe — that the 99% is getting screwed by the 1%, and that’s what matters.
Demographic changes will likely shift things in our favor over the next 10-20 years, so much so that we can probably eventually get not only better legislation, but also a non-winger SCOTUS and a Fed that cares about unemployment. We can’t wait for the calvary, it won’t be coming directly. Until then, we have to wage what will mostly be a losing battle, and I have some respect for anyone who is willing to fight it.
Clime Acts
The weirdest thing about this post is the underlying codependent assumption that Mr. Obama and the Dem party are powerless to do anything about the current state of affairs.
rlrr
From a previous thread:
Does anyone else find it odd that Romneyâs speech about the virtues of free enterprise and capitalism was given at a company which relies entirely on government contracts?
Also:
Not only relies entirely on government contracts but is also a minority owned business which has some benefits when it comes to getting government contracts — not exactly the invisible hand at work…
Ben Franklin
Everyone has to mitigate their goals in politics. You never get everything you want, so there.
Rand Paul is taking a ration of shit for lacking any of his reputed integrity and endorsing Mitt, following his Father. Principles are expendable, and politicians can expend better than anyone.
Patricia Kayden
If President Obama is re-elected, that would go a long way in showing the Righties that big money doesn’t always win out. Until Citizens United can be overruled, that would be the best outcome for those of us on the left.
Napoleon
Wake up Doug, the demographic changes are rapidly becoming irrelevant. Mitt wins and the senate flips and it will be 20 years before you have a SCOTUS that finds ANYTHING a Dem President does constitutional.
Maude
You need to leave there now. You have caught the dismals.
Stuck in the Funhouse
We all have the option of crying in our cereal, at the sad state of affairs this country is in. I guess I’m old school, or just figured out from trial and error, that self pity and the marshaling of emo anger toward destroying your only real chance for change, is no more than a fools errand.
They are young, most of them. And can be forgiven for that. And they can have their good cry, but then it’s time to saddle up and sign up for the team sport of getting your side elected, ever how imperfect that side is, operating in an imperfect political system.
Maybe they could use some Obot “Steely Eyed Realism”. I am always happy to deliver it, for a small fee.
MikeJ
After years of yelling that the president isn’t a king, firebaggers are disappointed to learn the president isn’t a king.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
So, we’re General Kutuzov fighting Napoleon in Russia in 1812?
I remain far more pessimistic about the longer term prospects for us mainly because a minority can hold onto power many different ways that don’t involve actual free and fair elections. See all the voter suppression efforts. And the fact that the Repups continue to dominate state and local gubmints where most of this disenfranchisement occurs should give everyone pause.
They’re great at playing the long game, have been for 30 years now (45 if you want to go back to Goldwater). They realize the potential demographic tidal wave that’ll hit them and are acting accordingly to minimize its damage down the line. It’s soo hard to undo damage done over the course of a generation which is exactly what the Repups have done.
Valdivia
@Maude:
what you said.
Or maybe you guys are just not drinking enough.
4tehlulz
>Demographic changes will likely shift things in our favor over the next 10-20 years
lol wishful thinking – assuming that the new America will vote like you want them to.
Clime Acts
This would be an awe inspiring, kick ass slogan for Obama’s Fall campaign!
So moving. So realistic. So sensible.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Elected judges are worth even less than unelected judges: Forget middle-finger-in-the-wind judging, try finger-on-the-polls judging.
Brachiator
If you can work up outrage at bonehead conservatives, you should be able to work up outrage at bonehead lefties, especially those who whine more about what Obama has supposedly done to the American Left than about what conservatives have done to the country.
I was listening to Stephanie Miller this morning, who was understandably exasperated at morans who were talking about how they might not contribute to Obama or vote for him this time around. What the hell are these people thinking?
I keep hearing this. I see the GOP pursuing a scorched earth strategy at the state and federal level. And what’s that line from The Hunger Games, as remnants of the population are forced to fight to the death for crumbs? Oh, yeah,
May the odds be ever in your favor.
Cold comfort.
Apart from this, serious thanks for all the commentary from the field. Look forward for more about this event, but I seriously hope that either the mood changes and people get real about the need to stay mobilized against the Mittmonster.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@rlrr: No. I work at a government contractor where probably 80% of the employees will vote for Romney’s free market ideas, and will bitch about Democratic spending causing Romney to have to cut their jobs.
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@Brachiator:
I don’t agree with you, but nice touch with the Hunger Games quote. Well put.
Poopyman
We are the cavalry. This is both the good and the bad news.
rlrr
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Meanwhile, I work at a company which gets 0% of its business from government and less than 50% of my co-workers are wingnuts…
Jon Rockoford
You should be very depressed. Every liberal should be depressed. We have lost the ideological battle and no demographic change will revive our chances. Sure, we won gay marriage but on every other front, especially in terms of economics and economic justice, we have lost.
Blame whatever you want on the loss in WI, but what came loud and clear from all the exit polls is that a large majority of people now accept the totally debunked conservative economic equation: austerity + budget cutting + low taxes on the rich – regulations – public services – unions = jobs, jobs, jobs.
There’s been a slow-burning conservative coup over the last 20 years or so that took over the judiciary and defanged mainstream media. So, go ahead and blame it on money in politics, unelected wingnut judges and our feckless media. But the bottom line is this: voters vote for these clowns, over and over, despite irrefutable evidence that many are certifiably insane, ignorant of science and history and crooks to boot.
I don’t give a shit whether some WI voters took a principled stand over recall elections or whether Tom Barrett was an asshole. Voters voted for a guy that repeatedly lied, had an awful record on the economy and may end up getting indicted soon. They made a horrible decision based on myths and horseshit and they’re responsible for it. So, fuck you American voter. You get what you deserve.
Culture of Truth
Yes – it would be interesting if that respect were reciprocal. But god forbid a liberal actually win a fight.
owlbear1
Get into political advertising. It’s where the money will be for the next few years, at least.
beltane
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage: There have been other cases where a racial/ethnic minority has maintained a stranglehold on power. There is an abundance of long-term strategies the Left could be developing in order to defeat the forces of corporate fascism, but sitting around waiting for demographic changes should not one of them. 1) It assumes a free and fair electoral process; and 2) It assumes there will be any institutions remaining that are worthy of being reformed rather than replaced.
Culture of Truth
@owlbear1: Plastics
Xecky Gilchrist
We all agreeâliberals of every stripeâthat the 99% is getting screwed by the 1%, and thatâs what matters.
Necessary but not sufficient – if you curl up and die instead of doing anything about it, you’re part of the problem.
Violet
DougJ, how’s the attendance in comparison to those two years? Higher? Lower? Same demographics represented?
Seems like it boils down to “You’re either with us or against us.” Circular firing squad Dems and firebaggers would do well to remember that.
eric
@Jon Rockoford: I blame envy. I dont think that people have bought any “argument” about the way the world is or should be, but that they have come to resent their own plight and rather than work to improve their own standing in conjunction with others, they are willing to bring people down to their level because that is easier and faster. Far easier to cut public union pensions and salaries than it is to raise salaries in the private non-union sector, so cut away. same with medicare and medicaid and social security….why should others be better off? they shouldn’t especially when their better off is from your money and you are suffering. that is not an argument winning, it is a most venal emotion that has been cynically manipulated by the most powerful and wealthy to protect their stature and property. We are losing, but not because we are losing an argument (see python, monty).
kc
Sellout!
What did you get for your SOUL, DougJ?
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Jon Rockoford:
This is precisely where I am at these days. I’ve lost entirely all fucking hope at this point, and I feel utterly surrounded by people and a country that just wants to fucking hippie punch me and the like-minded to death because WE are all that’s wrong with this country, and there’s absolutely no dragging anyone leftward on anything anymore, save Gay Marriage. That seems like the only victory we can get anymore, and rest a-goddamned-ssured that the GOP will be on the fast road to outlawing homosexuality wholesale once they have power, and there’ll be nothing fucking left to do on it.
We’re fucked and there’s no way to fix it anymore. I give up.
fuckwit
It’s interesting that someone here mentioned Russia. I did some random Wikipedia surfing yesterday, which led me to some info on the Russian revolution– which started in the 1880’s!!!
There were SEVERAL Russian revolutions. One in 1905, and earlier ones, all mostly unsuccessful at getting rid of the Czars. There were the Decemberists too (not the band, the revolutionaries), somewhere in there too.
Alexander II was assasinated in the 1880s by leftist anarchists. 1880s! And the Czars finally came down in 1917? That’s a long-ass time.
Oppressive regimes take a LONG time to overcome.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@Brachiator:
If you can work up outrage at bonehead conservatives, you should be able to work up outrage at bonehead lefties, especially those who whine more about what Obama has supposedly done to the American Left than about what conservatives have done to the country.
I was listening to Stephanie Miller this morning, who was understandably exasperated at morans who were talking about how they might not contribute to Obama or vote for him this time around. What the hell are these people thinking?
The Queen of Bithynia
We need less Cicero and more Caesar and Clodius.
jl
Thanks. I will go with the hopeful note at the end of DougJ’s post.
And, to help encourage that happy outcome, I put in a special request for reports on workshops and panels on voting rights and voter mobilization, and outreach to our precious youth.
Just ask yourself, what would Kay want me to do, and run with it.
beltane
@Xecky Gilchrist: Maybe we need more vicious leftists who are willing to incite hatred against certain elements of our society, and fewer polite liberals who would let the wingnuts destroy our childrens’ future because “nothing could be done”.
Linnaeus
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
I understand why you feel the way you do. I feel that way sometimes myself. But, as I’ve said before, despair is counterrevolutionary.
jake the snake
I was thinking this morning, that the left is in a holding action. Trying to hold the line, or give up territory grudgingly. Making conservatives pay dearly for any gains they make, in treasure, if not in credibility.
I do think we are losing ground, and am just hoping for
something to break the momentum. I am just afraid that
it will be another economic collapse, possibly a full depression. As long as the ECB and the Germans are intent
on destroying the rest of the EU, anything can happpen.
Anoniminous
@Jon Rockoford:
Since you can predict the future, what will the DJIA be in 2016? I have some excess capital I’d like to invest.
ETA: @The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
Don’t have to have hope. Just have to keep carrying on.
Omnes Omnibus
Christ, this thread is full of sad people. Take a break from politics for a week or two. Clear your heads. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?
Jay B.
I love you losers. Eye rolling over the liberal malaise and the general sense of depression and saying if only they’d work instead of complaining.
They are, of course, at a conference dedicated to just that. So unrealistic! Ponies! Christ, you wouldn’t understand organizing if it gnawed on your balls.
This is precious: “We all have the option of crying in our cereal, at the sad state of affairs this country is in. I guess Iâm old school, or just figured out from trial and error, that self pity and the marshaling of emo anger toward destroying your only real chance for change, is no more than a fools errand.”
Again, they are at a conference dedicated to organizing and changing the dynamic. While you do nothing but pretend that all is well.
Dumb and smug. Don’t go changing.
gypsy howell
I suppose every generation thinks that, being more enlightened than the one that came before it, surely demographic changes will be on their side when it comes to electoral politics.
That’s what we baby boomers thought too, back when we were young and optimistic hippies trying to change the world. Turns out, a huge percentage of baby boomers were (and remain) every bit as reactionary, uneducated, sheeplike, vicious, dumb-as-shit, can’t-see-two-dots-and-connect-them-together as their parents were. I’m sorry to break it to all the millennials out there, but there will probably be just as many assholes in your generation as there are in mine, and they will fight just as hard to destroy any decent standard of living for most of the population as Lloyd Blankfein, The Koch Brothers, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and all the other assorted villains and grifters in the baby boomer generation are doing now. Demographics are never really on your side.
Cacti
@Jon Rockoford:
Your second statement completely contradicts the premise of the first.
But don’t let me get in the way of your self-flagellation.
SatanicPanic
When did DougJ start getting all Kumbaya-style?
Maude
@Omnes Omnibus:
It was over when Japan invaded Poland.
Mnemosyne
@eric:
I think it’s partly envy, but I think it’s partly the fact that salaries have been flat since the 1970s, so people do have a genuine and understandable sense that they aren’t doing any better than they did 30 years ago and anything that takes a few more tax dollars out of their salary is going to hurt them.
Of course, it was all of the conservative economic policies that got us into this mess in the first place, but good luck convincing people that we need to change the policies that have been around their entire working lives for policies that might be a little better. Desperate people cling to what they already have and aren’t willing to take any chances.
Clime Acts
@SatanicPanic:
This is probably a temporary depression brought on by today’s hangover, which will end when he starts drinking again today, which is probably happening now.
Pennsylvanian
Until we get the Harry Reid types out of the Senate and get some scorched earther Dems in there, it will remain discouraging. Harry Reid is just too fucking nice and doesn’t want to upset anyone. Fuck that. More Pelosis, less Reids in Congress. She got shit DONE. The Senate truly is where good legislation goes to die, and it needs to end.
What to do about voter suppression is a completely different problem. DOJ can only do so much.
I’m not ready to surrender just yet, but when SCOTUS strikes down the health law, I may be one step closer. Which is exactly what they want, I suppose.
Outrage fatigue can become a chronic condition.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@jake the snake:
This is the time when you try to find a strategic way out of the tactical loss.
(Running with the loose metaphor): If this were a true (ie guns ‘n’ bullets) war, now is about the time you crack their codes and send out the submarines to disrupt their shipping lines, and/or send the bombers deep behind their lines to destroy their factories.
(Back to the real world): This would mean disrupting their funding sources, somehow. And destroying the credibility of their media outlets.
What legal means are available to do these things?
SteveM
Hey, what’d you do with the real DougJ? Bring him back! Or at least stop posting this hopeful shit under his name!
eric
@Mnemosyne: my bad for not making clear that I believe their sense of misfortune is based on real facts….no more pensions, just volatile 401(k)s…runaway college and private school and child care costs….lower job prospects for young people who are in huge debt. no more company loyalty….increased property taxes. etc
Brachiator
@The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
I am not sure what you mean here. Obama got elected in 2008. That’s power. Why would anyone want to surrender it?
Rob in CT
The assumption that demographics will fix things worries me. I don’t really expect that to be the case. There will still be haves and have nots, and the haves will want to keep (even if, or perhaps especially it, they don’t have much) and thus the Right will have its in. They’ll ditch some embarrassing things, pretend they never supported them (or insinuate that it was all really our fault) and move right on.
Their bullshit arguments must be beaten. Not that I know how. I argue, I bring facts and logic and stuff and it bounces right off people.
NR
“Just treat politics like a team sport!” has to be the dumbest fucking thing I’ve read in a long time. Free clue: If you’re even a little bit left of center, you don’t have a team in mainstream politics. You can go on all you want about how the Democrats deserve support because they aren’t quite as bad as the Republicans on most things, and meanwhile, shit like this is happening.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Democratic party has no interest in standing up to the corporations and changing this country for the better. It will take a new party to do that.
fuckwit
Oh yeah, a better example, closer to home:
Founding of the USA: 1783
Civil War ends: 1865
Civil Rights Act: 1964
Loooong-ass time, and we still have voter suppression in FL, NC, etc.
Change takes time. Oppression take a long time to overcome. It’s an endless battle. Truly, a war without end.
The sad thing is that you never really– finally and decisively– win. The good thing is that you never really lose either, as long as you keep fighting.
The fight against centralized money power and hereditary wealth is hundreds of years old, arguably back to the Rennaisance and Reformation. It’s not done yet.
Wee Bey
Get out of there.
Cacti
@Pennsylvanian:
.
I’d agree if the House and Senate were an apples to apples comparison.
Nancy Smash never head to worry about filibusters, and could afford a few defections due to larger total numbers. The Senate majority leader for the Dems has to worry about keeping the Liebermans, Landrieus, Nelsons, Bayhs, Lincolns, etc. from wandering off the reservation every time there’s a vote.
Liberty60
I see religion and culture as unexplored avenues to make the liberal argument to the middle class.
The same deep sense of righteousness that causes John Q Lunchbucket to see public employee unions’ benefits and shout “UNFAIR” can be applied to tap into the anger at Wall Street that still animate even many of the Tea Party.
Not saying its an easy pitch to make, but when I speak to middle class people at my (admittedly liberal) church, the fairness issue has resonance.
Making the argument about pitting the elite, foreign, international consortium of bankers and outsourcers is a better way to make middle clas speople see an activist government as being on their side.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Jay B.:
So let them conference on a plan to get what they want. I’m all for that. But I’ve been largely reading of whining about their disappointment that Obama didn’t give them everything they want. And are not going to vote for him, or are considering that option. Or not going to work for him, like they did the previous election. But then you are a rageaholic known in these parts, and mostly for white hot hatred of Barack Obama. With the emphasis on white
Davis X. Machina
@rlrr:
Adam Smith may never have thought of it, but the Invisible Hand can deliver a damn good reach-around…no t just a national prostate exam.
eric
Two major points: the Senate is a LARGE part of the problem with its lack of proportional representation and the filibuster, along with the major media being (i) anti-union and (i) beyond middle class. The people who select the news and how it is covered are not “democrats”
NR
@Pennsylvanian:
I’m at a loss as to why you think this will happen. The same court that gave us Citizens United will fall over themselves to uphold the mandate, because it brings about a massive transfer of wealth from American citizens to private corporations.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
Ah, yes, the NR “wishin’ and hopin'” platform — maybe if I sit here and hold my breath until I turn blue, a new party will magically form without me having to do any of the hard work that forming a new party requires!
slag
Awww…DougJ goes to NN and gets a soul. How very post-Oz FDR.
Can we send Clime Acts next?
Jager
My little business belongs to the local Chamber of Commerce. We had an open meeting with the members of the board. 4 members of the board represent the largest companies in the area, 2 are reps from big banks (regional managers) and two are owners of small local businesses. The comments and answers to questions from the local members like me were A. qoutes from press releases or B. statements you’d hear from the US Chamber of Commerce delivered with more than a dollop of condensation. The 2 small business owners either agreed or said nothing at the meeeting. One of big board members went off on a rant about bloated government agencies. I stood up and said the agency that licenses my business has dropped from 14 employees in the regional office to 3. The board members ignored my statement and moved on. There was another rant about public employee pensions and pay. Then it moved into the educational system and one of the members from the big companies moaned about the lack of qualified candidates for jobs. A woman next to me replied “so the solution to your problem is to fire more teachers and lower the pay and benefits, right?”Five of us went out after the meeting to have drinks and decided we could either quit the Chamber or fight to take it over. Same decision the Dems are facing right now at every level.
gypsy howell
I was seriously thinking yesterday that maybe I should switch sides, and actively campaign for dismantling ALL benefits for government employees of any stripe. Why should my tax dollars pay for disability, vacations, pension plans or medical benefits for anyone receiving a government paycheck, when none of them pays a dime for mine?
I bet I could go pretty far on a platform of eliminating ALL benefits for any type of government employee. No tax dollars for any of it. No benefits for me? Fine. No benefits for you either.
That goes for the entire military, police, teachers, firemen, elected officials, the Park Service, the FDA, the secret service, the FBI, the CIA, judges, state and municipal employees, and most especially Supreme Court justices — the whole shootin’ match.
eric
@fuckwit: goes back to ancient egypt. so does worker exploitation. religion as justification for the social order, etc.
SatanicPanic
@fuckwit: Not to mention that after all that, they still had another hundred years of fighting with no end in sight.
daniel quinn
10 to 20 years? Fuck it! I’ll be dead by then.
Cacti
@gypsy howell:
Turning the proles against each other has always been a favorite tool of the ruling elite.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@Liberty60:
i used to believe that sports, and the built-in concepts of fairness that sports teach, was an avenue to influence the otherwise culturally committed right wing, but right now i am not so sure.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@NR:
Well gosh NR. Democrats not able yet to decide on a course of action over tax policy. Water is wet. And democrats debate shit before voting. Thank gawd, you’re an idiot, or we would have to invent a new word for you. Here is the deal in a democracy and its elections. The candidate with the biggest and loudest crowd wins. simple as that. Afterward, they can whip the pearls back out. Otherwise, the other side wins and is all hell let loose. Maybe some liberals like that sort of thing. No sane ones I know, do.
Glildwrith
@beltane: It also assumes there are enough folks in those demographics that aren’t traitors (ie Micheal Steele, Marco Rubio, Allen West and the women that are perfectly happy to shove all the other hussies into burkas, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, etc.) who will pretty much keep the same policies in place.
Pennsylvanian
@Cacti:
Reid did have an opportunity to do filibuster reform and folded like a cheap suit. The Senate COULD be more like the House, if we had different leadership that was willing to be loud and proud.
Even if it meant taking some losses, it would also mean taking a vote on a bill that meant something or advanced the Dem agenda occasionally. When is the last time that happened in the Senate?
Davis X. Machina
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick:
Not when “Just Win, Baby” could just as easily, and more accurately, grace our currency, instead of “E Pluribus Unum“.
All wealth and no common, is our commonwealth.
Barry
“Demographic changes will likely shift things in our favor over the next 10-20 years, so much so that we can probably eventually get not only better legislation, but also a non-winger SCOTUS and a Fed that cares about unemployment. We canât wait for the calvary, it wonât be coming directly. Until then, we have to wage what will mostly be a losing battle, and I have some respect for anyone who is willing to fight it.”
You really have no frikkin’ clue about the powers of the right and the elites for castrating democracy, do you?
Stuck in the Funhouse
@NR:
More stupid from the NR. That transfer of wealth you talk about, mostly moves right on through the fingers of those insurance corps, and on back to those insured. At the tune of 80 to 85 percent of premiums collected. With the corps getting what’s left. On paper, they are supposed to do as well as they are now, but nobody knows for sure if that pare-a-dime will even make them profitable, when all of the regulations kick in for who they must cover, that they don’t now.
NR
@Stuck in the Funhouse: “Democrats debate shit before voting.” Truly, that is some profound political insight. Nobody could possibly argue with such brilliance. Never mind, go on about your business, the thread is over.
NR
@Stuck in the Funhouse: Yeah, “nobody knows” if forcing everyone in America to give money to private corporations, which they get to keep a big chunk of for CEO bonuses and profit margins, will be good for them.
Good lord, you’re an idiot.
Dave
Demographic changes will likely shift things in our favor over the next 10-20 years
Come the fuck on. Remember Keynes? In the long run, we’re all dead.
Allan
@Cacti: Nancy Smash also never had to run in a state-wide election.
goblue72
Stop being such a fucking pussy. Man up and fight.
gypsy howell
@Cacti:
It’s working. My disgust yesterday was precipitated by an email from one of thurston’s ‘friends’ from high school, a right-wing Rush-quoting DC fire captain who was ranting about the evils of soshalizt Obamacare. I really really really want to eliminate the taxpayer-paid comfy retirement that douchebag took at age 50, and his lifetime medical benefits.
sharl
@Jager: That was an informative comment – thanks. And served as further confirmation – as if more evidence is needed at this point – of the general plan of attack of big corporate interests to seize as much as they can, while trying to hide behind the cloak of small businessperson/farmer/etc.etc…
Stuck in the Funhouse
@NR:
You were the one linking to an article describing dems can’t decide on the Bush tax cuts. Or, where to draw the line on an upper limit. I guessed as some kind of statement of dems in disarray you heard on CNN. or somewhere. The thread was over when you did that there, bumpkin.
eric
@gypsy howell: yes, but he EARNED them, unlike the teachers that get summers off and the welfare moms with make believe kids …
Pennsylvanian
@NR: I am just preparing. Just because it helps corporations doesn’t mean SCOTUS will keep it if it is even more advantageous for them to hurt Obama/Dems by striking it down.
The question is which will hurt Obama more politically, not what the Constitution says. Obviously. I’m sure the choice between striking it down for political gain and doing the bidding of the corporate overlords is weighing heavily on the “court”.
I think it could go either way.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@NR:
You sound like every republican I know, with talking points right out of tea tard central command. Or, maybe you think this is North Korea, and dear leader and the communist party will do your health care. Commerce in a capitalist country, isn’t exactly strange and different. And if you think single payer is the way to go, as I do, then think about how well that should fare at this point in time, with the current SCOTUS, as well as overall support from the public. That would also be mandated insurance for all, with a premium payed monthly to Uncle Sam, just like with medicare.
You hate corps, that is ok. But most folks don’t, and would rather send their money to them than to government coffers. You must think you live in the old Soviet Union, instead of a country that was its bitter enemy for 4 decades.
gypsy howell
@eric:
You forgot also too “white male.”
Keith G
Demographics may be our plxie dust, but we still are going to need a set of central ideas that energize citizens to get involved with the process. Demographic change alone will not get us there.
Chris
@Cacti:
This.
Read the intro to “Master of the Senate” for a good overview of how thoroughly corrupt and antidemocratic an institution the Senate has been throughout history. Decades and decades and decades of good bills have gone there to die, on welfare, civil rights, labor rights and much more. The only two presidents who’ve really gotten past it in the last hundred years were FDR and LBJ, the former because the country was on the verge of revolution and the latter because of some extraordinary circumstances and a lifelong insider’s insights into the Senate.
It’s incredibly hard to get anything past Senatorial obstruction no matter who’s in charge of in the party and no matter how much public opinion is with you.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@gypsy howell:
Horrible, but this is how part of me has been feeling about the older people lately.
You really wanna end Social Security? Then LET’S FUCKING DO IT. Tomorrow. If I don’t get any, you shouldn’t either. I’ve tried this tack in person a few times, and it simultaneously pisses them off and flabbergasts them. “But… but… but I worked for my Money!”
(And we didn’t? C’mon gramps, say it to my face, I dare you).
A wall of bluehairs, driving their free Medicare scooters to the polls to make sure that no one browner or younger than them get any goodies. That’s the heart and soul of the Tea Party.
It would be nice for them to be on the defensive for once.
Does the Left have the stones for this battle, though?
Schlemizel
@eric:
To which you reply (to fire fighters) But you only worked every other day and got every third week off, why are you complaining about teachers who get 3 out of 12 months off?
I’m also in a valley at the moment & it started long before the WI fail. I believe we are going to see a shit storm of ads over the next 6 months & the end results will be as they were for the Koch whore. He went from 41/5x fav/unfav to 56/42 and all it took was a shit ton of money running ads at a 5 to 1 ratio. While I am going to bust my ass (again) to get Obama elected I fully expect President Rmoney will finish the ass-rape St Ronnie started & Boy Blunder brought to full flower.
Forum Transmitted Disease
What’s the liberal 100 year plan?
Rest assured the Conservatives have had one since the 1970s.
AxelFoley
@MikeJ:
BAM! Right there!
eemom
Maybe NN is depressed because no one is listening to their ratfuckery this time. Just a thought.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor: Nonsense. The left won’t even punch back when getting shivved in the alley.
My uncle was a lifelong union organizer, the old-school kind, who wasn’t afraid to throw a punch, or a steel pipe, for that matter, if warranted.
He’d be drummed out of the left within a day, nowadays. So sad. Glad he didn’t live to see what a failure “progressive” politics has become.
NR
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Do you seriously not understand the difference? Medicare operates with 1.5% overhead. Private insurance will be taking 20% of premium dollars for profit.
But coming from someone with such insightful analysis as “Democrats debate shit before voting,” I guess it’s not surprising that you lack a basic understanding of the merits of government vs. private health insurance.
NR
@Chris:
Bullshit. The filibuster can be done away with at any time by a simple majority vote.
The Democrats kept it because the party leadership wanted an excuse not to pass progressive legislation.
Steve in DC
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
In “theory” insurance companies could use their massive bargaining power to force medical providers to lower their rates so the insurance giants could extract their pound of flesh and stay fat and healthy.
Insurance companies aren’t the only boogeyman out there in the medical industry, doctors, hospitals, pharma, pretty much every part of it is all trying to make out like bandits.
If the insurance companies are capped at keeping 15% I fully expect them to do everything in their power to make sure they get 15%. Now that might be telling hospitals, doctors, and phrama just where to shove their over priced goods and services, or it might be sacking a bunch of staff and lowering salaries.
Cassidy
The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here â it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide out from under with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous, marks the difference â the only difference in their eyes â between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life, and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal.
Things I Should Have Learnt by Now, Volume II
Fuck the emo shit. Stay mad.
taylormattd
The reason you provide as to why you have “respect” for such deeply fucking stupid people is itself deeply stupid.
Shorter DougJ: “Because David Broder is a terribly evil piece of shit, it’s perfectly fine for Glenn Greenwald-types to call Obama a treasonous genocidal monster worse than Bush, and to imply Obama’s supporters love nun-rape”
AxelFoley
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Damn, did someone get told?
gypsy howell
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
You and I are on the same wavelength. No more bullshit about “don’t worry oldsters, this plan will only affect people under age 54” (even though I’m older than 54). If we’re heading for the Thunderdome, we should ALL be on that bus. Oh, and that goes for our heroes in the military too. No more cushy retirements, no more TRI-CARE, no more subsidized housing. Got yerself injured in one of our overseas adventures? Sorry pal, you shouldn’t have signed up. Come to think of it, ending benefits for the military could be the one way to make all of our wars come to a crashing halt.
No more taxpayer-paid heart implants for Darth Cheney either.
eemom
Yeah, I can see why it’d be hard to get angry at people who “pour their hearts” into the cause of self-pity and an agenda that would fuck the rest of us over 90 ways to the next century.
I’m with the others: GTFO before you end up in some Providence Guyana. It’s plain to see they’ve spiked the booze with koolaid already.
Just Some Fuckhead
lolz.
Fucking emo bastards making sure everyone knows how concerned they are!
RobinDC
There is no demographic rescue on the horizon. The people will not calmly snap out of their propaganda induced haze that has led them to buy every conservative con hook line and sinker. Even if Republicans get full control in November and in four years blow this country to the ground nothing is going to change, most voters are too imbecilic to know what is going on in the world, let alone what is good for them.
There is only one solution, its still on the distant horizon for now but here it is:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
taylormattd
@eemom:
I find this amusing. It’s like he keeps running into firebaggers at NN, and has to make some quick reparations. Otherwise, drinks at the cocktail parties might be, you know, uncomfortable.
NobodySpecial
Ah, Balloon Juice, that wonderful blog where the commenters decry divisions within the Democratic Party and demand that everyone play together nicely, even those horrid cocksuckers on the Left whose hatred of Obama has made them worser than any Tea Party person in existence.
mclaren
The claim that “thanks to president Obama, the American left lies in smoldering wreckage” is certainly ludicrous. You might attribute a few of liberals’ problems to people like, oh, I dunno, Chief Injustice Roberts, his nefarious minions Antonin “Tony Bent-nose” Scalia and Clarence “The Mute” Thomas, the House of Pain (formerly known as the house of representatives, now filled with beast-men chanting “Are we not men? Do we not stand on two legs instead of four?”) and the 60% of the electorate that believes evolution is a lie and global warming is a hoax.
Just a few, mind you.
LAC
Christ sake, wny does anyone with a brain and working limbs go to this “I gots the sobs ’cause my birkenstocks are on too tight” whinefest? I agree with the others that you need to get out of there and stop allowing a bunch of sideline sitters with the runs ruin your day. I have said this time and time again about this group – if we relied on their “help” in getting civil rights passed in the 60’s, we would still be drinking out of separate fountains.
Run! :)
ornery_curmudgeon
I’ll admit it is funny to see the eemom’s etc. STILL BASHING THEIR OWN SIDE.
lol. Of course this is Ralph Nader’s fault, amirite?
Stuck in the Funhouse
@NR:
LOL, another famous goal post moving by chief bottlewasher and trooll. NR. you don’t disappoint
ornery_curmudgeon
@LAC: âI gots the sobs âcause my birkenstocks are on too tightâ whinefest?
I think you are paid to say this kind of crap simply to make sure that liberals are divided and demoralized. MikeJ is another one that constantly attacks others here, but there are many.
It seems a safe thing for those of your variety to do this. I’m not sure why.
Lawnguylander
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
It’s way more ridiculous than that. He willingly transfers his wealth to a private health insurance company. Just like nearly every kill-the-biller not old enough to be on Medicare. I think this makes him a corporatist sellout but he says it’s because he needs it and doesn’t need to explain how that makes him different than all the other people who need insurance but haven’t able to buy it. We’re just too stupid to understand what makes him so special.
Wood
Maybe if you guys want to stop the circular firing squad you could try to lead by example. Ironically DougJ did that with this post and pretty much got nothing but a load of horseshit for it from the peanut gallery.
NR
@Lawnguylander:
No I don’t. Got any more lies you want to throw out there?
NR
@taylormattd: If only everyone on the left would uncritically and unthinkingly support everything Obama does the way you do, everything would be sunshine and puppies and roses, right? It must make you so angry that some people on the left prefer to think for themselves.
Tough luck. Some of us aren’t going to fall in line behind a corporate whore. Deal with it.
NR
@Stuck in the Funhouse: And now you’re just incoherent.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@NR: \
More lolz. You gotta be a spoof, no one is that obtuse by nature. The point I made was in reference to the bellowing you were making about being forced to buy insurance, not anything else, like the more spendthrift administrative costs for single payer, which I support as the eventual model we need.
And the further point that most people in this particular country, if they had to choose between mandated insurance premiums, would be more comfortable handing their cash to private corps, rather than the government. I think this sentiment by them is very misguided, but it exists in a country with a natural mistrust for government. That began with the British government over two centuries ago. I know this observation will be wasted on your mendacious neural net, but I got nothing better to do right now.
NR
@Stuck in the Funhouse:
Are you seriously this stupid?
The reason that forcing everyone in America to give money to private corporations is such a bad thing is because they keep a bunch of the money for profits. The government doesn’t do this.
You want to force me and everyone else in the country to pay for the CEO of Aetna’s third mansion in the Caymans. Fuck that.
David Koch
â«â«â«
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer
FlipYrWhig
@NR:
Yeah, about that. Why didn’t progressive icon Russ Feingold want to reform the filibuster? (Filibuster reform is short of needed votes, The Hill, 7/28/2010)
Stuck in the Funhouse
@NR:
Thank you for making this so easy. Newsflash to NR, you live in a capitalist society lousy with corps and CEOs, it’s what capitalist country’s have. And every cent you spend, or nearly so, eventually winds up in payment to this or that company, corp, or the self employed. All the dollars go to this grave, until they rise again to make the journey, all over again.
Some of them end up in foreign countries, but they have the same path in a world economy. Round and round the world the dollars go, and some of them even end up back in your bank account, to get spent again. And that goes for government treasuries as well.
Somewhere, all the time, some piper is being paid. It’s bidness, and the only thing that really matters in the end, is the quality and quantity of the products bought and sold, and the affordability on a macro scale. It makes not much difference to a hospital, or doctor that treats you, where the money comes from. We depend on them because they are pros at what they do, and extend our trust they will do their best, and because we have to, for staying above ground another day.
If they don’t meet our med needs, we can sue them, or more likely find another doctor that does meet our needs.
And please, if all you can do is come up with another Stuck is stupid, just cut and paste the other ten times that that is all you can think to say.
Chris
@RobinDC:
I think the point of demographic rescue isn’t that conservative parts of society are somehow going to wake up at last; it’s that these elements are going to find themselves outnumbered as the elements in society that vote liberal (e.g. nonwhite people, to be blunt) grows. I don’t think anyone’s under any illusions that the Archie Bunker vote’s ever going to come back – nor, frankly, do I want them to.
But I agree that it’s way too easy to simply count on demographics to do the trick, because it assumes a free and fair electoral process which, as we’ve seen, they’re working overtime to subvert (redistricting, voter suppression and unlimited corporate cash). In other words, they keep finding new ways to bring back the Gilded Age. Took a hell of a lot to break out of the first one, will take at least that much to break out of another.
Lawnguylander
@NR:
Yeah, you do you lying fuck. You admitted that you did just after saying this:
You’re not just a liar, you’re a fucking stupid liar with pat lines provided to you that you can’t even remember you’ve already used here. Get your stories straight, asshole.
ETA: Check out the rest of that thread for NR’s feeble attempt to pretend he already explained why he helps pay for that third mansion in the Caymans. Somewhere in his dim little brain the thought must have become lodged that he should start pretending he doesn’t have health insurance.
ruemara
I’m sorry, DougJ. I’m glad you’re having that Youth Alive Teen Christian Conference Conversion, but, that’s pretty much bullshit. You have a group of people who make their money off of being progressive message machines who can’t craft a message to save their lives. Waiting for a 20 year demographic shift while the GOP are working hard to ensure that this upsurging population will not have the right to vote and probably won’t even have basic citizenship? Fuck that noise. The point of Netroots Nation is to teach and reach. Connect progressive people together, share effective strategies and teach each other, brainstorm on what to do for broadbased problems. If this is what you’re getting out of it, then it’s a failure. I’m sorry I keep donating auction items to keep it up. The biggest issue progressives and liberals have is they don’t fucking listen. Walker and co were all over the airwaves with ads attacking the recall itself. You mean no one could come up with something countering that? Fuck Barret, politicians rarely craft a message by themselves. You had many groups operating in WI and none could do anything by themselves? But it’s Barrett/Obama’s fault? What. The. Fuck. The Middle Class is dying you say, and no one can figure out what to do? Seriously? This is a goddamn election year, the Senate and the House are at stake and no one can figure out what to organize around besides Obama good Obama bad? fucking retarded bullshit. I am so glad they don’t have to live with being namby pamby morons, but since they are the movers and progressive shakers, fucking get off the goddamn pot with your drones and Goldman Sachs and RAAAAAHM and corporatist DLC bullshit and focus your emo selves on what is needed right now to win as many races as possible. Writing articles about how Obama totally slapped True Progressivesâą in the Face, AGAIN, is not it. THAT IS NOT FIGHTING THE ENEMY. fucking get united around one damned thing. We need to win. Period. And if it’s not being said just right by Team Obama, then fuck all, get off your asses and say it just right by Team Progressive. And stop with the fucking bitching in the fucking newspaper with the fucking I won’t vote for Obama. It does have an impact.
NR
@Lawnguylander: Oh, I see I have a stalker. Pity it’s such a stupid one.
As anyone with basic reading comprehension skills can see, nowhere did I say that I willingly pay for insurance.
Protip: If you’re going to stalk me, try at least reading and comprehending what I say. Otherwise you just make yourself look like an idiot. Like you just did here. And, looking back at that thread you linked, you did it there, too. Not only are you an idiot, but you apparently enjoy flaunting that fact.
Seriously, did you flunk first grade?
Stuck in the Funhouse
@NR:
Sorry, NR. Bringing forth evidence you are lying out your ass is not stalking. IT is exposing a piece of shit to the light of day. Punked again. Now dust yourself off and get back in there, and if you gotta lie, don’t get caught at it. Internet tradition demands this.
Thymezone
@Clime Acts:
To me the weirdest thing about this post is that Doug is there, number one, and two, that he fails to mention the abject, miserable failure of Netroots as a concept, and its creator, Markos and his epic fail website, as the progenitors of that failure. Watching DKos go from being a happy-faced warrior get-together to being the home of whining, self-interested loudmouths, and a blogowner who shouted “kill the bill” at the climactic moments of the healthcare reform battle in congress …
I personally see Kos and all that falls from it as a betrayal of the left by whiny shitheads who have no respect for grassroots politics at all and were willing to trade its real value away for narcissistic book-pimping and other useless activities. We saw it coming as early as 2005 and …. here we are.
The folks are sad there at the Netroots thing? Gee, really? Well I think that’s because the folks who are mad, like me, aren’t going to go there, so only the sad ones are left to hang around and be sad together.
Meanwhile, BJ is now the stomping grounds of assholes like NR and other fools who sit around and bitch that Obama is not the perfect president … even though he is and has been for four years the only thing standing between you and a 7-2 conservative Supreme Court, among other things. You think that doesn’t matter? Well, then there is still time for you to get to Netroots Nation for the big bash.
MikeBoyScout
Thanks for that Doug.
I guess that Do-Re-Mi I chipped in went to a good cause.
Hey, since our librul brethren and sistrens are bummed, why don’t you do what we talked about a while back and get a party together to hang Mr. Curt I got mine, and now I got yours too! Schilling in effigy?
Just think of the joy that will bring the children.
Won’t you please think of the children Doug?
Lawnguylander
Having a better memory for what you wrote than you do doesn’t make me a stalker. It just makes me someone who is smarter than you. Smart enough to recognize that you’re full of shit even before I caught you lying. Nice try there, though, acting like you were pretending up there that “willingly” is going to get you off on a technicality.
mclaren
@LAC:
Duh! To get drunk, eat great food, snack on canapes, bang hot liberal babes, and party hearty. And on your money. Hahahahahaha! DougJ is like Charlie Sheen right now, shouting “I already got your money, dude!” on his Violent Torpedo of Truth Tour.
Suck it, whiners. DOUGJ ALREADY HAS YOUR MONEY!
Hahahahahaha!
NR
@Lawnguylander:
Okay, let’s sum up. You claimed I said something I never said, posted a link to something I said that wasn’t what you claimed I said, and now are referring to the fact that you were 100% wrong as a “technicality.”
As stalkers go, you’re pretty pathetic.
NR
@Stuck in the Funhouse: I suggest you go look up what the word “lie” means.
Or just try not to be such a complete idiot.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@ruemara:
I was going to say something but you have said it all better than I could.
Get out DougJ, they’re in the building with you! ;)
@NR:
Stalker? No, you’re just a well-known idiot here, no stalking needed.
Susan in Colorado
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wow. Checked in before going out for the evening. Bummer. Sounds like the momentum and energy has spiraled downward into a black hole, and I would advise you to leave immediately so you don’t get your very life spirit sucked away.
I have been listening to General Ulysses S. Grant’s autobiography, and those folks living during the Civil War era had every reason to throw in the towel, give up, hide, crawl under a rock, die. Puts our situation in perspective, makes me turn off the cable, get off the computer, and stop basing my mood on the hideous news. Much happier in my bubble.
I check in daily, read the paper, and when I watch news, it is Colbert or John Stewart, and so I can usually laugh and not cry.
Lawnguylander
Here’s what you said then, douchebag:
It’s right in the first link I provided. Up there you tried to pretend you don’t have health insurance. Then you pretended you never said that. You’re an obvious, incompetent liar. And believe this, plenty of people would buy health insurance if they could and wouldn’t be the kind of irresponsible fools who would cancel it once they didn’t have the immediate need for its benefits. Plenty others would because they’re fools like you.
Nobody here knows whether you have health insurance so nobody knows whether you were lying then or now. Even though you’re a lying asshole, I hope for your sake that you do because you’re eventually going to be fucked without it. If you don’t have it, lucky for you the mandate is not far away.
Another Halocene Human
@MikeJ: Agree. Totally.
Another Halocene Human
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Ya. Like term limits, a democratic “reform” that backfires.
I’ve never see any upside to elected judges. Perhaps there are historical reasons that escape me.
Another Halocene Human
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Are you kidding? It was a contracting gangster’s paradise during the Bush II administration. These clowns and greedheads know which side their bread is buttered on.
What I don’t understand are the rabid republicans in local government. … Really? …. REALLY?
NASA is full of RWNJs. Who knows, there might be money for more nifty mars robots if we didn’t waste it all on petroleum wars, inchoate “adventures”, and snarfing up the seed corn to create a fake housing/construction boom. Somehow, clowns like Bush and Newtie throw them enough red meat at regular intervals to keep their tails wagging on cue.
Another Halocene Human
@NR: Why are you waiting for some body else to do your standing up for you?
Another Halocene Human
@gypsy howell: It won’t help. He’s just a racist. Same old shit, just a different face.
mclaren
@Susan in Colorado:
Boy, is that ever a great book. And yeah, things have been a lot tougher for progressives than in 2012. Just imagine living in the 1890s, after federal troops gunned down Pullman strikers like dogs.
Another Halocene Human
@ruemara: word.
Paula
So ok, just because I feel like venting …
I entertained ideas of Barack Obama as a transformative president or whatever when I was trying to decided who to vote for. But I weighed that in my head with the actual history of the Democratic party over the last few decades. I went in hoping for the best but expecting the worst, particularly in terms of defense policy and an almost willful disregard for the older progressive Democrat traditions like being pro-Union.
What I think I’m getting: better than I expected. Barack Obama managed to extend health care to millions of people and has managed to draw down from Afghanistan and Iraq. I expected NOTHING to happen in regards to any of these.
So if you [a rhetorical “you”, not Dougj] feel sad, it’s not because Barack Obama did something out of the ordinary for a Democrat. It’s because you had some fantasy in your head about what Mr. First Black President was gonna do. Don’t tar me with your own credulity or disregard for actual Democrat history.
I feel like the left should be doing a lot better to influence the national debate, but that’s down to people’s lack of actually putting their care into serious public education and organizing, not because Barack Obama (or whatever elected official) is somehow actively looking to put segments of the left down (likely, because the “left” as represented by NN types constitutes so little actual voting power, he doesn’t spare too much thought on them). A lot of people on the nets talk about politics, but getting together to talk about this or that doesn’t mean you’ve formed a meaningful constituency. It just means you’re all educated and have an internet connection (and money enough to attend conferences, I guess). It isn’t organizing. If people haven’t figured that out by now after how many of these Netroot Nation thingies, I don’t think they’re as valuable to the political discourse as they think they are.
Omnes Omnibus
@Susan in Colorado: Dear, I am not the one who is teetering on the edge of despair.
taylormattd
@NR: Shorter NR: “calling Obama a murderous, genocidal child killer, and calling people who don’t hate Obama nun-rape-supporters is simply constructive criticism”
taylormattd
@ruemara: A. Fucking. Men.
David Koch
@Paula:
exactly. this is the 7th netroot conference and what do they have to show for it?
LAC
@ornery_curmudgeon: No, sorry not paid , Einstein. And trust me, there are plenty of folks like me fed up with the PL’s version of activism, which is sit and whine. Oh, and get pissy when called out.
LAC
@ruemara: Amen!!!
LAC
@Thymezone: I am high fiving you right now. It’s fuck or walk time, folks.
LAC
@NR: Oh, god, fuck off already, you douchebag. You are soooo full of yourself with your rope belt wearing, Tom’s of Maine deodorant, locally sourced, purer than thou persona. We need hardworking progressive soldiers for this election and you got club feet and are tits on a boar useless.